Unveil a new image to counter the West

I recently received an e-mail from a young Saudi girl who was upset about a TV programme hosted by the famous American TV star, Oprah Winfrey. The programme featured women from around the world who talked about their experiences. From India, there was the stunningly beautiful Aishwarya Rai whom God has also blessed with a first-rate mind. From Finland and the Philippines there were also women who had worthwhile and important things to say.

When it came to Saudi Arabia, however, it was the problem of domestic violence that was highlighted and inevitably Rania Al Baz was brought up. In all fairness to Rania and in order to stop idle minds from wagging their tongues, I would like to point out that Rania was interviewed about nine months ago and there was no indication the interview would appear on any such programme.

Images of women shrouded in black were splashed on the screen throughout the show and I was told Oprah proclaimed she was glad she was living in America which was an indirect way of saying she was happy she was not living in Saudi Arabia.

Well, since she lives in the land of free speech, it is her right to say what she wants to; she is free to criticise anything or make fun of anything from Jesus Christ to the president of the United States. What she is not free to do is to produce even one tiny whimper critical of anything Israel or its powerful lobby. We have had to accept that and have also had to learn to live with it.

I disagree with the girl who sent me the e-mail and wanted me to write to Oprah and express my displeasure. Sentences such as "I am Saudi and I am proud of it" are worn-out clichés. The damage has been done. I have received many e-mails from Muslims around the world who asked me whether the conditions of women in Saudi Arabia were really that bad. Instead of pumping ourselves up with self-righteous indignation about what has been written about us, we should act.

For over 10 years I have been pleading, begging and imploring for a project which would train young and I mean young Saudis who could meet and debate the Western media on its own terms.

No response

There has never been a response from anyone to my pleas. Comments such as "That is the job of the government" have been made over and over. It may be the government's job but who is going to train the Saudis to do the job?

In any case, my reply is always that it is ordinary people rather than officials and bureaucrats who can make a real impact on the Western media.

We spend millions on PR companies whose executives, as I have observed many times before, sit ostentatiously in hotel lobbies puffing fat expensive Cuban cigars and barking into their mobile phones. With a quarter of that budget, I am willing to bet we could reach 30 times more people. There are so many things we could do but alas, what do we do?

Then of course there are those who, when I ask them to appear on TV talk shows, invariably decline. "I might get into trouble," said a gentleman who is very eloquent in English and who could face any journalist, giving as good as he received.

An elderly gentleman said, "My daughter is worried; she fears she will be ostracised by her friends." Well, if these fears, this indifference and those apathy factors prevail, what can you expect? More Oprah shows, more Gerald Posners and plenty of others who want to expose Saudi Arabia.

Posner's latest book, just like his previous ones, is full of factual mistakes to the extent that he has become a laughing stock to even those who are critical of Saudi Arabia.

I laugh at these people who want to expose us. We have surely been, if not overexposed, written about far too often by those who know little of us and understand even less.

I hear a barber in Riyadh has written a book. Whose hair has he cut? Will he shear all of us yet again? Surely there must be a butcher in Jeddah who could tell us how much meat and what cuts are eaten at the tables of the mighty.

From the time Linda Blandford came here in the late 1970s and wrote a book entitled The Oil Shaikhs to Simon Henderson who is obsessed with the breakup of Saudi Arabia, we have been written about.

These people have nothing to do but deride us. Their dislike and contempt for us is revealed by their writings despite their attempts to cloak it with some kind of literary, scholarly or research cover.

Motives

We know their motives; it is others, however, who do not. That's why we should be ready to contain them. For years we have read about our opulence, corruption, the struggles in addition to the spectre of terrorism, our financing of terrorists, the madrasas. No one who knows us and certainly not we ourselves claims we are a perfect society.

And we have nothing to hide. Yes, we have a host of problems just as every other society and we are trying to solve them. We love our country and many of us are working for its progress and development. This is our land the land of the Haramain and of that we are proud. The attacks against us are also made because of the Kingdom's stand on a number of key issues affecting the Arab and Islamic world.

As one of the world's principal nations, we will not give up despite these silly verbal attacks. I do strongly believe, however, that we ourselves as citizens should be equally and actively involved in setting the record straight and projecting our viewpoints fearlessly and boldly. And we should be able to use every available media platform to do so.

Is anyone willing to join in producing the Saudis who can?

Khaled Al Maeena is the Editor-in-Chief of the Jeddah-based Arab News.