I recently came across an article in the Arabic daily, Al-Hayat, which I found interesting. Entitled “Saudi Children Get Their Cultural Knowledge from Cartoons,” the article focused on a survey conducted by the regional office of the Islamic Literature League based in Riyadh. The survey found that 69 percent of Saudi children’s cultural knowledge or information came from TV. The article went on to enumerate the values children absorb from children’s programs on TV and especially cartoons.

What the report aimed to discover — to determine what Saudi children learn and their sources — is something that is of real value. On the other hand, we are unsure of exactly how the survey was carried out. The number — 69 percent — is certainly alarming but in the context of Saudi Arabia, unfortunately not surprising. There is after all hardly any place where children can seek information; few of them read anything but schoolbooks — almost no reading for pleasure. Nor are there museums or exhibitions that might stimulate children’s interests in a wide variety of subjects. The sad truth is that we seldom see Saudi children who are interested in anything except TV programs, music, films and football. Many of them spend their waking hours in front of a TV screen or play station until they develop the symptoms and behavior of zombies — and that is considered normal.

But before I go on, let us look more closely at the report. It says that 70 percent of the cartoons and animated films watched by children come from “outside” — that means outside the Kingdom. Can everybody guess what comes next? It is certainly well known that “outside” — and following is a quote — “does not conform to our way of life or values.” In other words, the cartoons are condemned not because some of them use violence to solve problems or because they lead children to stop thinking.

They are condemned for the simple reason that they come from outside Saudi Arabia. And as good Saudi people who do not produce our own entertainment, we are also asked not to import it. If what we see on our TV screens were only what is produced in Saudi Arabia, the screens would be empty for much of the day.

The second and a very debatable point the report makes is that “those cartoons and dubbed animations have the gravest influences on our children which starts with destabilizing the Islamic faith in the children and defaming the image of religious people.”

Now I have my own opinion of cartoons — mostly that a great number of them are trivial — but I have to admit that there are others that provide fun and information in a simple and pleasant way.

I myself have never seen a cartoon that featured religious people, either bad or good, and the report evidently stressed the point by going on to say that religious people are always portrayed as “thieves and bad guys who run after women.” All jokes aside, I do not know what kind of cartoons the people who made the report saw or where they found those cartoons.

And to continue with the criticism of these so-called “unsuitable” cartoons — “they arouse sexual thoughts in children by showing scenes of flirting and kissing and they encourage girls to beautify themselves in an indecent way” — I know some families who are not comfortable about the way cartoons present the relations between young boys and girls. At the same time I must also say that many generations have loved the tales of Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and The Little Mermaid without major damage to their moral characters. Nonetheless, for the sake of argument, if the family feels that certain cartoons are not suitable for their children, they should simply exercise parental control on what their children watch. Isn’t that part of the job of being a parent anyway? By the same token, it is naive to expect ideals in everything; there is always good and bad and intelligent people are expected to make a choice.

The report a