MY generation considers 1979 to be the year of destruction. On the first day of the Hijri year 1400, Juhaiman and his followers entered and attempted to seize control of the Grand Mosque compound and were killed. At the time, the ignorant messages of this group were spread everywhere especially by TV. As a result, people at the time began to believe that many things in life were prohibited. Things got so bad that society eventually became a place where many of the activities of life were prohibited. Before this event in 1979, life was easy and normal. Afterwards, our society became strict and rigid and started viewing entertainment, especially the use of musical instruments, as something forbidden. When music was played in public, extremists would often intervene and break any musical instruments they could get their hands on. Fast forward nearly 40 years and our society has changed and shed many of these extremist ideologies. It is for this reason that the General Entertainment Authority was formed; a social entity that seeks to guide society back to the normal path it was once on. However, as usual, people in the Kingdom are divided into two groups – one that is calling for change and the other that is exerting significant efforts to keep things the way they are. Obstructing a theatrical play at King Khaled University in Abha and preventing the actors from playing music is just one example of the "pushback" we are seeing and it reminds me of Newton's 3rd law: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction". The incident also makes me wonder how one government authority can obstruct another government authority from holding its artistic activities? What happened at the university is a reminder that extremism still exists and it is trying to maintain the status quo that was established by extremists. This form of extremism even opposes the government's efforts to establish theaters and give participants the right to perform in them. According to the extremists, an artist must be called a non-Muslim because of the fact that he or she is an artist. This is further evidence that extremism still attempts to prevent and obstruct progress as the government strives to move toward the future.
