Common Western stereotypes about Arabs have not been changed. These stereotypes were a result of negative systematic propaganda against Arabs and were also created by their own mistakes.
In recent years, several organizations have spread across Europe, performing criminal acts against Muslims in general and Arabs in particular. It is a tendency based on political errors and extremist and terrorist practices committed by a minority allegedly belonging to the Muslim nation, a nation that accounts to 1.25 billion people.
Amidst this tumultuous campaign, a horrific tragedy took place in the US State of Massachusetts. Two college students from Saudi Arabia drowned while trying to rescue two American children in the Chicopee River in Wilbraham.
The two Saudis are Theeb Alyami, a 27-year-old who was studying at Hartford University in the fourth year of engineering, and his cousin Jaser Alrakah, 25 transferred into Western New England University last fall to study civil engineering. Their heroic sacrifice did not receive the focus of the Arab media and was unheard of by most of the social media users because everyone was busy with the news of the World Cup in Russia.
This sacrifice is a positive stereotype about people in the Gulf and the Arab world in general. The Western media knows that our environment has produced people like al-Qaeda’s leader Osama bin Laden. Now, it must also know that the same environment produced people like Theeb Alyami. The martyr sacrificed his life to save a child from death as he was struggling to stay afloat.
This is not about trading the martyrdom of the Saudi hero. But the dissemination of truth is required in such cases. Spreading abusive acts at lightning speed must be met with acknowledging that Arabs have symbols to be proud of, such as the two martyrs.
The two Saudi heroes were a true model of heroism, dignity and self-denial. Arab media must represent these models to the public opinion. Arabs must write about them and their courageous sacrifice so as to slam the theory of Islamophobia. The enemies of Islam must realize that these two young men represent true Islam. Terrorist organizations are hostile to this religion and have nothing to do with its true teachings.
Leaping in the river, the two martyrs did not think of what may happen to them. They were only worried about the cries of a mother looking at her children dying in front of her. They did not think about their religion or nationality. They knew that they were Americans. There was no room for these calculations in this humanitarian situation. The two Saudi students prioritized the human duty and the moral values of the Arab nation. The two heroes mirrored Arabs’ true moral and religious values.
The most of the Gulf and Arab youth will certainly act in the same way in such a situation. The magnanimous Arab values still exist. Hostile ethnic and religious slogans held by extremists and terrorists are basically threatening the Islamic and Arab world before targeting the West.
Tens of thousands of Arab and Gulf youth live in all countries of the world. Among them there are scientists and experts contributing to human progress in these countries. It is unfair to attach negative charges to Arab and Gulf people in the existence of such successful models and in light of the sacrifice of the two Saudi heroes.
