Hala Al-Qahtani
EVERYTHING in our life happens for a reason and we will be affected by it negatively or positively. Some of us see the signs and are prepared to deal with what happens while most of us turn our backs on it and pretend to be deaf and oblivious to the alarm bells. To explain further, let us take fanaticism and racism as an example. If someone grows up in an environment where these two negative values are present, the person will be influenced and will definitely grow up to be a fanatic and a racist. On the other hand, if one were to grow up in an environment that holds moderate values in high esteem, then that person would be a moderate.
Recently, several crimes took place and we failed to see that they were likely to occur. There were many signs but we remained blind. When a schoolteacher shot dead some of his colleagues, there were signs that he would do this a week before the crime took place. The teacher had been acting strangely a few days before killing his colleagues. Two people noticed this change in behavior but did nothing because it did not occur to them that he would kill anyone.
Similarly, when a son killed his mother in Riyadh, there were signs before the crime actually took place. He was a drug addict and was caught by police for disobeying his mother and mistreating her. In addition to that, he had attacked his father three days before killing his mother. He even threatened to kill a mosque imam before committing the crime. This means that some people knew he was going to do something terrible and did nothing about it.
As for the child who was slaughtered by his father in Jazan, many of his family members should be held accountable because they knew that the father was a drug addict and had been imprisoned for killing his uncle. Were these signs not enough? Were they not indicators that something horrific was going to happen? The father wanted to kill his daughter as well, but her school deputy principal refused to let him take her out of school. This deputy principal was a brave woman compared to the teachers who let the man take his son from school. They knew the father was a dangerous man yet they did nothing about it.
Freed prisoners often commit similar crimes within two years after being released from prison. However, this cruel father slit his son’s throat just one year after being released from prison. This proves that the reform programs in prisons are no longer effective and need to be developed in order to socially and psychologically rehabilitate prisoners. Freed prisoners should be kept under constant monitoring and surveillance for a year and maybe longer, until they prove themselves to be good citizens. The above three crimes took place in the same week and showed that some members of the public failed to prevent them although there were some signs that these crimes were going to take place. We need to raise public awareness about the indicators of crimes to prevent future occurrences. We must no longer pretend that we are deaf or blind otherwise many innocent people will be needlessly murdered.
