THE WISDOM OF W:

Unprecedented public ferment among once-silent Saudis: Islamic extremism, education, and women's rights are under scrutiny in Saudi Arabia. (Faye Bowers, 12/17/03, CS Monitor)

There is a dialogue in society," says Khaled al-Maeena, editor in chief of Arab News, an English-language daily in Saudi Arabia. "Newspapers are flourishing. Papers are talking about accountability, corruption, leaders not being up to the mark, women, children, and empowerment."

A leading indicator, says Mr. Maeena, was a Nov. 28 commentary by Mansour al-Nogaidan, a reformed militant Muslim and Saudi columnist, published in The New York Times. The article bluntly questioned the Saudi government-sanctioned extremist religious culture - and was widely reproduced here. "I think the whole of Saudi Arabia read it and is talking about it," Maeena says.

The kingdom has been steadily - albeit slowly - evolving for the past 60 years, Saudi and Western officials say. But the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the US, along with the May and November suicide bombings this year in Riyadh, have galvanized Saudis and enabled the press to discuss reforms and societal problems more than ever before. Prior to the May bombing, says a Western diplomat, the government denied that Islamic extremism was a problem. The attack was a major turning point.

"The ironic thing is that at 11 p.m. on the evening of the May 12 bombing, television featured a scholar - a professor of Islam at Imam Muhammed Bin Saud Islamic University here. He spoke about extremism within society. That opened a lively debate here," the diplomat says. "To my surprise and astonishment, there is [now] a very lively debate within a fairly free press here."

Remember all the petulance about how we weren't being mean enough to the Saudis? Here's a reminder that solutions in the war on Islamicism are not one size fits all.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 16, 2003 7:07 PM