Orson Scott Card on Saudi Subversion

A few days ago, Freedom House reported that Saudi hate material had been scattered liberally in mosques throughout the United States. The Saudi-based material espouses an ideology of hatred ("it is a religious obligation for Muslims to hate Christians and Jews"), denunciations of democracy ("democracy [is] un-Islamic") and an appeal to treat their residence in countries as "a mission behind enemy lines".



I am sure that the vast majority of Muslims in the U.S. are neither aware of this material nor sympathetic to its endorsements.



Orson Scott Card has ruminated on this topic for a few days:

...The only difference between the Saudi government and Al Qaeda is that Al Qaeda rejects cooperation with the West, while the Saudis think the more effective path is to cooperate with the West on the surface while proselytizing for Wahhabism, preaching hate for and murder of all opponents of Wahhabist ideology... ...It's that [media's] laziness [in translating Arabic material] that Yasser Arafat always counted on, when he said one thing in English and the opposite in Arabic, and expected not to be caught by the western media. He was rarely disappointed. ...Saudi Arabia is actively supporting murder, espionage, and sabotage in America. Remember that these publications weren't intercepted at the border. They were found in American mosques, where they were being distributed or at least made available, presumably to young Muslim men who are the ones most likely to embrace the romance of a holy war. In short, [the Saudis] are recruiting terrorists in America. ...I suspect most American Muslims regard these publications with contempt or embarrassment. But the point is, they are there. They are available. ...[Ironically, claims are made that the] subversive, anti-American activities [are] under the protection of the First Amendment. But as Abraham Lincoln pointed out during the Civil War: The Constitution is not a suicide pact. When our nation is under dire threat, and our enemies are using our very freedoms as a protection for their subversive activities, then we have to make temporary exceptions to those freedoms. ...a foreign government does not have a right to distribute subversive literature in America that is designed to recruit people for anti-American activities in time of war... Saudi Arabia is a foreign country. It does not have any freedom of the press within its own borders, and, not being a citizen of the United States, it does not have the right to distribute subversive, seditious, and criminal instructions to potential agents in our country. ...It's time for anyone -- a church or a group or an individual -- receiving funding from the Saudi government or from Wahhabist sources to be registered as agents of a foreign nation ... and publically listed... After all, American Christians wishing to operate as missionaries in other countries outside the West are invariably registered and must have the permission of the government to operate inside their borders. And those American missionaries are not advocating murder of apostates and subversion of the local government! ...It should be required that any publication imported into the United States in Arabic should have an accurate side-by-side English translation in the same publication. Publications in Arabic alone should be turned back at the border. ...Requiring openness will make it easier for moderate Muslims to act in large numbers to oppose these subversive publications. If they are not just individuals, but the large mass of American Muslims acting together, they can far more easily show that they have embraced the American Constitution and all its liberties by rejecting all such anti-American and criminal propaganda and ceasing to tolerate it within their mosques. ...There is nothing in the Constitution that should require us to allow foreign nations to recruit young American Muslims to "behave as if on a mission behind enemy lines" without at least demanding that they be open about what they're doing. ...Shouldn't we at least make it potentially embarrassing for our enemies to recruit Americans to join in their war against freedom?

Orson Scott Card: Saudi Subversion