In the NYT:
One day last month, a young man stood at the center of a stage with long ropes bound around each wrist. One pulled him to the left, the other to the right — one toward secularism, the other toward religious extremism. His father struggled to hold him in the middle, shouting “Enough! Enough!” Looking at the religious side, he said, “From here, there is destruction and zeal.” Then looking to the other side, he said, “There, is doom.”
The play, “A Moderate With No Moderation,” had been performed since last November at Al Yamamah College, one of a new group of private schools that are considered a concession to the reform agenda. During the opening performance, religious zealots attacked the audience and the performers and forced a cancellation of the show. But the next day the show went on. [The (Not So) Eagerly Modern Saudi. NYT. May 6 2007]
The tug of war continues.
