Badria ‘bint Abdallah Al-Bishr

"One day after the events of September 11, my son, who was then in fifth grade, came in from school. He entered my office as I was reading, sat down and crossed his legs, and said to me: ‘Mother, did you know that Osama 'bin Laden is a hero who left the entire world behind him and went to the mountains to fight for the sake of Allah?’

"When he saw my astonishment, he cockily shifted position, confident that he hadn’t yet finished surprising me, and asked: ‘Mother, why don’t we stop exporting oil to America so it will surrender to our terms?’ [I replied]: What grave words you are saying! Watch your mouth!"

"The day after the events of September 11, my other son, then in third grade in elementary school, showed me his charming drawing, the subject of which was: ‘Draw the sight of the two airplanes blowing up the twin towers.’ The art teacher was not aware that some of the children had not seen this because their parents protect them from harmful sights. But the teacher had a different view, which he did not manage to repress even during art class."

"This happened four years ago, and during this time I was angered by instances such as these, which did not stop happening to my children…until the day that we could have anticipated arrived."

"After the December 2004 attack on the Interior Ministry, the photos and full names of the terrorists were published. During dinner, while I was eating, my son told me that one of the terrorists had been his teacher at school. At that moment, I choked. One of the attackers of the Interior Ministry and security forces building was his teacher!!!"

"Before the attack, this teacher used to go around my children’s classrooms and talk to them. Furthermore, before this incident they would say he was a good man…"

"How can a parent protect his children if he sends them to school certain that they are in good hands but, in fact, he doesn’t know that one of the terrorists will be his son’s teacher?"

"If children are surrounded like this by the terrorist ideology, whether on the computer screen or in the newspapers, where can fathers take their children to rescue them from those who act with hypocrisy, identify with the terrorist ideology, justify it, and think that we must first liberate Palestine before we can condemn terror?"

"The terrorist ideology was always present, and we did sense it. But we called it by different names, not its true name, out of fear that it would be exposed and destroy us. This ideology has taken control of us in full force, and has threatened all who disagree with it…to the point where we have become weak against it…"


End Notes: (1) The above are excerpts from an article written by a lecturer of social sciences of King Saud University, and originally published in the Saudi newspaper Al-Riyadh on February 24, 2005. She is also the concerned mother of two small boys. This article appeared on the web-site of memri.com of March 11, 2005. (2) Hopefully, this concerned Saudi mother has not been penalized for writing this expose of Saudi schools, but this will ultimately be determined by Saudi authorities. (3) A Muslim school in Georgetown, teaching hate towards infidels and funded by Saudi Arabia, is located a scant distance from our nation’s Capitol building.