A Saudi woman writer has warned of the dangers of “hard-line and extremist” mothers at the “heart of society”. Bayyinah Al-Milhim, a writer and researcher on “intellectual and security affairs”, said the issue was of particular concern in Saudi society. “Mothers form the nucleus of the family and therefore exert considerable influence on the way their children think,” Al-Milhim said. “They have a significant role in the way children interact with society.” Al-Milhim said that a mother's extremism may manifest itself primarily in two ways. “The first is that she completely dominates her children and forces her way of thinking on them. Secondly, if she finds she is unable to control them to the extent she wishes, she becomes exasperated with them and with society at large, which leads to even greater extremism and deviation,” she said. “Islamic Shariah teaches balance and moderation and not becoming too overtly pious or strict in religious appearance and conduct. People with extremist views cannot properly interact or communicate with others,” she said. “The big problem for Saudi society at the moment is that people are not addressing the root of the problem.” Al-Milhim said that extremism “does not occur overnight”, but first takes root in a “people's hearts and minds” before “manifesting itself in conduct and practices”. “From an analytical viewpoint, the time it takes for the whole process can vary greatly depending on the circumstances,” she said. “A significant problem is posed by the fact that Saudi families have difficulty distinguishing between extremist or hard-line piety and moderate piety. Parents do not know how to spot the difference in their children,” she said. The extent of the issue, cannot, according to Al-Milhim, be judged with any degree of certainty in the absence of specific data, but she believes that extremism in Saudi society can be divided into two identifiable types, the first a “general naïve uncontrolled form in emotional reactions from personal positions regarding ideas that produce admiration or hate”. “That person loses control when expressing opinions that go beyond the bounds of moderacy, but this type of extremism doesn't go beyond self-adherence to what the individual believes,” she said. The second type of extremism, Al-Milhim says, comes from an “awareness and a profound intellectual suffering” and reveals “behavior and statements designed to achieve specific ends”. “In this form of extremism, the person lays down ways to achieve those goals and ends up imposing ideas on society,” she said. Al-Milhim added that the fact that most extremist women would come under the first category is not to say that they pose less of a threat, because, she says, that first category is the primary provider of “logistic support” to other types.
