My goodness, this man is brave. Mansour al Nogaidan, a reformist Muslim and Saudi journalist, writes in this piece in the New York Times that the alleged Saudi crackdown after the Riyadh bombing is merely cosmetic. The real harm is being done, he says, by the Wahhabi imams who continue to preach hatred against liberals, advocates of women's rights, secularists, Christians and Jews. Key passage:

'I cannot but wonder at our officials and pundits who continue to claim that Saudi society loves other nations and wishes them peace, when state-sponsored preachers in some of our largest mosques continue to curse and call for the destruction of all non-Muslims. As the recent attacks show, now more than ever we are in need of support and help from other countries to help us stand up against our extremist religious culture, which discriminates against its own religious minorities, including Shiites and Sufis'.

Absolutely. And he should know, since he himself once subscribed to this doctrine of hate -- and he describes movingly how he discovered to his astonishment that there were other ways of interpreting his religion. But what leaps from the page is that he has already been sentenced to 75 lashes because of his articles criticising Wahhabism and calling for freedom of speech.

What courage. We must surely give people like this our loud and world-wide support -- and that means messrs Bush and Blair must speak up in support of them, too.

Posted by melanie at November 30, 2003