21. •“How can we expect our children
to know and experience the joy
of giving unless we teach them
that the greater pleasure in life
lies in the art of giving rather
than receiving” J.C Penny
We have all seen makeover shows on television, haven’t you noticed that all of them focused on physical appearance? What if there was a show to change your mind set? Some teens from this generation need a mindset makeover or rehabilitation, because there are many intellectual threats that effected and are effecting our youth’s minds
Intellectual threats are all those campaigns that are trying to disturb the human mind and urge him to go out against understanding and moderation leading towards extremism in other words these threats cause an intellectual disorder which leads to disturb the national identity
)Mention them briefly (
Intellectual threats are all those campaigns that are trying to disturb the human mind and urge him to go out against understanding and moderation leading towards extremism in other words these threats cause an intellectual disorder which leads to disturb the national identity.
Security is a basic human need, and no society can live or practice their daily routine, so it is a crucial step to maintain the identity of Saudi Arabia in the following points:
Firstly, security leads to protect the identity of the Islamic nation and faith.
Secondly, intellectual security is one of the most important ways to prevent intellectual deviation resulting from the intellectual environment.
Thirdly, intellectual security can protect young people from the advocates of extremism.
So his royal highness Prince Naif Bin-Abulaziz, crown prince a minister of the Interior (may Allah rest his soul and bless him the mercy) said: “So it is important to work for preventing the spread of deviant ideas” thus drawing attention to the importance of intellectual security.
So there are so many threats that effecting out youth’s, the question is: what are they?
This is based on a survey which our team have conducted, as you can see, the biggest threat that effects teens that people chose was social media, and Extremism, of course these were not the only threats people chose from the survey but those were the top two
Firstly, the media, don’t you think that the new media has become so popular in just a small period of time? We all know that the media has a big impact on students, along with the environment, but still the media is the big beast that can brain wash and it did brain wash us in some way or another, it made the world a small connected village, giving people more power than ever with just a simple click.
Recently a popular influencer on Twitter called: Abdullah Al-subail jokingly tweeted: “I wouldn’t be surprised if Fitness time (a popular gym chain in Saudi Arabia) opened a branch in our back yard.” Unexpectedly many popular brands replied to his tweet such as: Fitness time themselves, Flynass, Mobily, Dunkin Doughnuts, and even more, this is an indication that social media has a huge impact on its users.
According to statistics conducted in Saudi Arabia about the most influential social media sites, the users of Facebook in Saudi Arabia were 7.8 million users
, and on Twitter Saudi Arabia ranked first globally in 2013,
and on YouTube there are 90 million views a day. So we can see that a lot of people are exposed to social media, so of course it has a big impact on people, especially teenagers.
Secondly, extremism and extremist groups. They are using really dangerous strategies to rule people and convince Muslims to follow them. The result of such actions was turning the rest of the world against Islam and every Muslim around the globe. The question that we need to think about is, why students from all ages are following their ideology?
Those despicable groups want us students to use the concept of “Them” and “Us”, Muslims and non-Muslims. On the contrary, Islam is a religion of peace with everyone, not a religion of war against everyone who is not identified as a Muslim. Our mistake was that we indirectly delivered the wrong message of “Them” and “Us” to our students, which has caused this hatred against people who do not believe in Islam.
Do you know how many hours’ students spend at school?
We spend 6 hours a day in school, or 30 hours a week, which makes it 1630 hours a year in total. So the educational community is the pillar of nations, therefor in order to build a good generation that works for the welfare of their society.
If the educational environment in our society is strong then it can contribute to maintain safety and security in their country. So they must work to build students abilities by offering well planned programs and workshops, but at the same time they must include student’s interactions plus they must not be forced into them, because that is against the human nature.
Workshops are a great way to achieve that goal, they are a great substitute for lectures, and they provide an interactive environment especially if they were conducted correctly.
Another way is: Volunteer work, it is such an amazing way to teach students compassion, and team work, especially if it was for a good cause
a quote that James Cash Penney,Founder Of J.C. Penney Corporation, has said: “How can we expect our children to know and experience the joy of giving unless we teach them that the greater pleasure in life lies in the art of giving rather than receiving”.
Also Fatten project is designed to raise awareness amongst the Saudi Arabia’s society members towards the invasion that resides among them and its major aim is to eliminate deviant ideas and give the general education how to guide youngsters to the right path.
So give youth the full opportunity. We have tremendous energy that we want to use for the benefit of our society, we just need a small push to guide us towards the right path