Terrorists are Strangers to Us
- Pipeline
- Opinions And Editorials
Author: Fuad A. Al-Zayer
Released 24 May 2004
On May 1, two of my close colleagues were in Yanbu on company business. As they were leaving the hotel, they were rushed back by security personnel and told to stay in their rooms. The hotel was being attacked. Is this how we want to be known by our global neighbors? Expatriate Americans are like honey bees who buzz around the world collecting rich nectars and pollens. They are a valuable source of understanding of the very countries we are culturally, economically and militarily invading -- if only we would use that resource. But we don't. When American expatriates return to the U.S., they usually run smack into a stone wall of ignorance and indifference among most Americans about the places they spent much of their lives.
Those killers might have been Saudi, they might have worn thobes and ghutras just like the rest of us, but the fact is they were strangers among us. Nothing in their behavior resembles anything of the behaviors and beliefs of millions of peace loving Saudis.
There is nothing in our heritage that gives anybody the right to kill another unless his own life is threatened or he is on the field of battle.
One of my colleagues carried an American passport. But what the terrorists would not have known is that both are dedicated employees of Saudi Aramco who are contributing greatly to the development of the Kingdom while supporting their families.
What the terrorists would have not known is that both are Muslims and one of them is an Arab. What the terrorists would not have known is that these expatriates living and working in our country are the best ambassadors for us, influencing their own countries for a better understanding of Arabs and the Muslim world.
These and thousands more expatriates who work here were asked to be guests in our country and to share their knowledge in order to help develop our nation.
They are here because we asked them. Our teaching and heritage tell us that guests are to be protected and treated with the utmost respect and dignity.
The behavior exhibited by those terrorists is as strange to this land as snow to the Rub‘ al-Khali. That makes them strangers among us.