Comment: Western media bias damages Saudi image

Saudi Arabia is getting a bad press, everyone here concedes. It is more of a perception problem than anything else, people argue. And indeed there is nothing denying this fact. But is it enough to say that the Kingdom is not like is perceived by many in the West or it deserves much more than that.

While in the Bush House London, I was introduced a few months back to a lady working for the World Service of the BBC. My good old pal Abbas Nasir, the Editor of the BBC Urdu Service took me to the lady, introducing as a friend from Saudi Arabia.

The lady gave me a pitied look, exclaiming, oh my God! To me it seemed she was saying that is the last place where I would like to be in. "What a dreadful place you are coming from," she put through to almost without saying. It was all in her eyes and her body language. I didn't have time enough then at my disposal to get into an argument with her. I had an immediate meeting scheduled at the Centre of Global Energy Studies, founded by Shaikh Zaki Yamani, the Saudi oil minister during the OPEC hey days. Hence despite the rush of blood to pick up argument with the lady, I had to rush.

Then just a few days back during one of the BBC news programmes, the presenter who called me to record my views on a certain issue, asked me where I was located in the Kingdom. When I told him in Al Khobar, he immediately quipped back, 'the same place where a bombing took place some six years back claiming the lives of 17 U.S. servicemen. "Yes," was the natural reply. "Oh! A dangerous place to live in indeed," George the presenter argued. That it took me several minutes to explain to the anchorperson, it is perhaps one of the most affable places that I have lived in my life, is another story. Mind it both the above episodes were from media people, who supposedly are aware of the things in their real perspective. A perception issue indeed!

On a return trip from Dubai, some years back, I was seated next to a person based there, who was travelling to the Kingdom on a business purpose. When he learned that I am permanently based in Saudi Arabia, he thanked his stars for basing him in Dubai and not in Saudi Arabia.

If you pick up the Western media these days, there are numerous similar stories on Saudi Arabia, highlighting perceptions and views, mostly negative, of Saudi Arabia.
Are these perceptions correct?

In all nooks and corners of the Kingdom, one would find expatriates – Western, South Asian, name it and they are there, who have lived in the Kingdom for decades of their own free will and have enjoyed their lives here.

A very senior Saudi Aramco official, a Texan by origin, has been living in the Kingdom for more than three decades now. A few years back when I met him at his cosy office in Dhahran, he told that his children, who were almost born and bred up here in the Dhahran, and have now left overseas for their studies, eagerly look forward to returning to this place every summer.

Another Saudi Aramco official that I know from my business exposures has been here for decades. His father was with the then Aramco and when this child grew up, instead of returning to his native United States, he preferred to find a job here. Luckily, he found a job with the Saudi Aramco and has been working for them for some 20 years, that my organisation knows him. Had it been all that bad, would these senior Americans continued to stay in the Kingdom, is any body's guess.

It is pretty common to come across expatriates, from the sub-continent, who came here almost a quarter of a century earlier. Anwar Hayat Khan is one such person working for the Civil Aviation Authority at the King Fahd International Airport in Dammam. A civil engineer by profession, he has been a witness to the development and the ups and downs of the place. Virtually all of his children were born and brought up here. Now that his children are grown, studying at various universities and colleges in Pakistan and he himself is at the threshold of the middle age, he thinks no place could have been better to him than this. "It is close to my culture and religion and I found the upbringing of my children very convenient here", he added. Not every one is grumbling for being here. In fact very few curse their stars for bringing them to Saudi Arabia.

Every one living here admits that whatever one has earned and accumulated over the years has been earned here and al the worldly possessions they lay claim today was because of being in the Kingdom. Many amongst these expatriates who have gone over to other destinations, on a look out for a more liberal society, are striving once again to stage a come back to this part of the world. The life they enjoyed here is difficult to be found anywhere else, not even in Canada where many South Asian expatriates have moved with all their accumulated dollars and Riyals, after their stint in this part of the world.

Not that there are no problems in Saudi Arabia, for expatriates or for that matter even the nationals. One could take it up separately and I intend to do that in my columns some day. Every society has its problems, of one sort or the other, and Saudi Arabia is no exception to those. But to pity on the life style in Saudi Arabia is a gross misrepresentation of facts, one has to admit and concede it.

The perception problem, Saudi Arabia is faced with today, is from people who have never stayed in the Kingdom for long. All their background information is from the data accumulated over the years, based on mere perceptions. In a large number of cases these perceptions are far from truth, to say the least.

People, including Western women live here a wonderful life. They enjoy every bit of it. One of our neighbours in the compound I live in Al Khobar, was a Belgian lady married to a person of Lebanese origin. After having lived in the Kingdom for almost two decades, when mid last year, they finally bid Au Revoir to the Kingdom; she was apprehensive of the situation in Brussels, her next abode. She was not very keen to get back but circumstances almost forced them to move back. Mind it she was a Western woman!

Before passing any comment, the world needs to learn more about facts, the real facts of Saudi Arabia. There is a lot fiction all around about the Kingdom. Beware of those!

Syed Rashid Husain is a Pakistani journalist based in Saudi Arabia.