WE all remember the day as if it was yesterday. It was the 11th of March of 2011 when enemies of the Kingdom called for an internal revolution against the government and they called that day ‘Hunain revolution’. The level of propaganda that was carried out before the specified date was so strong that it looked like something would happen. The propaganda was controlled and financed by outside powers that wanted to see the Kingdom destabilized. Haters were so certain that people in Saudi Arabia would follow in the footsteps of those in Tunisia, Syria, Egypt and Libya.

The powers of hate were almost sure that their plans would succeed until the day came. No one ventured out. Not only did the call for revolution fail, it failed miserably. I remember the sense and level of pride we had in foiling that sinister plot. There was a sense of satisfaction on how people had come together and stymied that attempt to separate the people from their leaders.

The more they tried to hit at the unity, the stronger the bond between the government and people became. It also showed that not only were the people patriotic, but their keenness to discern the false from truth was sharp. The level of awareness among people is very high such that they were aware of the tactics these powers of hate use to instigate people. The more money was spent on aggressive propaganda against the Kingdom, the more people became angry at these attempts and most importantly getting immune to it. The late prince Naif at that time said that Saudi people had foiled these attempts by evildoers. They wanted Saudi Arabia as a place of chaos and meaningless demonstrations.

We had all thought that these people had failed and would not revert to these silly tactics. But they came again calling for another assembly against the government in what they called, ‘the 15th of September movement’. Using the same tactics, they used social media intensively to instigate people to form demonstrations against the government in order to cause chaos.

I have been monitoring their accounts on social media closely and most of those, who are calling for such demonstrations, are people living outside the Kingdom and were making the rallying cry from their sweet hotel suites or from their lives of luxury.

We all know that the powers of hate do not like to see the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia stable and people living in peace and security. They get angry immediately when they see the people united behind their government. They then immediately plot ways to break this unity. Our enemies are using all means necessary to hit us strongly from the inside — either by making the Kingdom awash with drugs, as seen in the many attempts that are discovered and foiled on an almost daily basis to smuggle large quantities of drugs with the target being our youth, or by supporting terror cells inside the Kingdom to carry out attacks.

The recent Internet campaign has proven to be a strong tool and we see hundreds of thousands of fake Twitter accounts using Saudi tribal names when the people themselves are living abroad or in neighboring countries and many of them are not even Saudis.

Like the Hunan revolution, the September 15th demonstration was an aggressive campaign and funded properly. The proponents of the campaign had already assumed that they would succeed in their evil designs this time round. But the people of the Kingdom once again poured cold water over their sinister schemes. The people of the Kingdom once again had their united say and never went out, foiling yet another attempt by the powers of hate.

The powers of hate should know that their efforts would founder at the united front of the Kingdom’s people. Such calls did not succeed in the past and will never succeed in the future because our society is aware of these devious tactics. It is like a giant wave crashing on a solid rock, it never breaks as it stands its ground leaving the waves receding with cowardly quickness. Instead we have seen people rallying against these calls calling for unity to crush this evil. Some people have even called for a different type of revolution — a revolution of love and unity with our government.

It is now important more than ever for our government and the related authorities to shift their attention on how to increase their watch on social media attacks and to increase the level of awareness, especially among our youth, against such devil calls. We have to understand one thing that Internet can be a deadly force against governments and society if used in a negative way to instigate public hatred and divide people among themselves and from their governments.

It can do greater damage than heavy weapons and missiles. With each failure, the power of hate, driven by frustration, will come up with new ways to hit the nation hard by pursuing soft targets and instigating chaos. We, the people, need to be three steps ahead of them and foil their attempts even before they begin. And this can be done with a regular eye on people who seek to spread dissension, and raising our awareness levels and our families. This positivity, spread by small rings of people, will be ever ready to counter the negativity spread by the powers of hate. In the end, all should realize that we do not deserve to live in a country that we cannot defend.

The writer can be reached at mahmad@saudigazette.com.sa Twitter: @anajeddawi_eng