Saudi Arabia and the U.S. :
Deploying the Forces of Understanding

By Alan Llavore

Spring 2004

While many Americans have focused their attention on Saudi Arabia since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the kingdom’s relations with the United States go back several decades and far beyond oil. It seemed fitting, then, that a university campus was the site for a conference where the goal was to open a dialogue and foster understanding at a personal level between two countries.

“I think it’s important to recognize that we held this conference in an academic setting,” said John Conley, dean of CSUSB’s College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, which organized the conference in collaboration with King Saud University. “The reason is that it provides an opportunity for open and reasoned discussion, with a critical eye on these important international issues.”

Cal State welcomed a delegation of 19 educators and dignitaries from King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and the Ministry of Higher Education Jan. 21-23. Conference attendees also included educators, administrators and students from CSUSB and other educational institutions for a joint conference, “United States-Saudi Arabian Relations in Light of the Current International Crisis.”

CSUSB President Albert Karnig described relations between Saudi Arabia and the United States as being at “dangerous crossroads.” “On the one hand, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have had a close and strong relationship for 70 years – and we remain key allies to one another,” Karnig said. “Conversely, a crisis of confidence hangs over the Saudi-American relationship. In the West, there have been allegations of Saudi government complicity in the events of 9-11, of at least tacit indifference to how Saudi funds have financed terrorism. And there’s a clear American perception that the Saudi government, until perhaps recently, has been unwilling to identify terror cells in Saudi Arabia.” Other issues that play into Americans’ perceptions include women’s rights and extremist views offered in Saudi schools.

He also discussed Saudi perceptions of America. Karnig referenced a 2003 nationwide survey by U.S. polling firm Zogby, which showed that 90 percent of Saudis reject terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden’s operations and believe his tactics are inconsistent with the values of Islam. They also agree that the Sept. 11 attack was wrong, and say they have no quarrel with the American public. Yet the Zogby survey also showed that only “6 percent of Saudis have a favorable attitude toward U.S. policies and actions in Iraq, and a scant 1 percent approve of U.S. policy in Palestine,” Karnig said.

Though talk of terrorism, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, women’s rights, education reform and religious and cultural differences could have sparked serious contention, reasoned discussion and deeper understanding did take place during the panel presentations on Jan. 22, the centerpiece event of the Saudi delegations’ visit, as well as during other events. More than 900 students, faculty, staff and visitors to the university participated in the panels and discussions.

Panelists reminded the audience that Saudi Arabia is a relatively young country. The kingdom, as it is constituted now, was formed in 1932. It is also the birthplace of Islam and is home to Islam’s two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina. Its public education system was established in the early 1950s, and only boys were allowed to attend school. It wasn’t until 1960 that girls were allowed to attend formal classes.

Lost in the political debate portrayed in the American news media, and therefore the minds of most Americans, is that the bond between the two countries strengthened during the U.S. cold war with the now-dismantled Soviet Union. The relationship was such that Saudi Arabia and the U.S. had closer ties than the U.S. had with its European allies, said Professor Othman Al-Rawaf, a member of the Saudi delegation and a political scientist. It was a relationship that went beyond the concern over the Soviet threat to the Middle East, he said. Also, Saudi Arabia has been a strong moderate voice in the region, making it a leader in the Arab world, able to be a force in forging joint agreements with its neighboring states.

William Green, a political science professor at CSUSB, said tensions between the two countries have developed and increased in recent years as the U.S. military presence in the Arab region has grown, especially with the war against Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq in 2003. “We [Americans] have to understand that even if we intervene in another country with the best motives,” said Green, “that we are doing this for the best of everybody involved, people on the ground in that region are not going to like us being there. Even if they understand why we are there, they don’t like the fact that outsiders are coming in to resolve their affairs.”

Sounding a similar caution in a later panel presentation on culture, religion and society in Saudi Arabia was Dr. Selwa Al-Hazzaa, an eye surgeon who heads the most prestigious ophthalmology hospital in Riyadh and a fellow at Johns Hopkins Ophthalmology Center. If any change, if any true reforms are to take place, she said, they have to come from within Saudi society not from the outside.

Outside pressure, for example, should not be applied in regard to women’s rights. It is wrong, she said, for people to expect Saudi women to achieve the same level of independence in their home country in a rapid fashion when it took generations for American women to do the same. Cultural and religious matters must be considered. Outsiders either don’t know of these or don’t value them, and Al-Hazzaa and other Saudi panelists said their culture is very religious and very conservative compared to the west.

“People will make the change,” she said. “But it has to be our own change. It has to be within us that we have to make the change, not some external force. If you force reform, it isn’t reform anymore.”

The conference was a continuation of CSUSB’s activities in the region initiated by political science professor Ralph Salmi and fully supported by President Karnig, Dean Conley and Louis Fernandez, university provost and vice president. It was the result of a relationship developed and outlined in a memorandum of agreement signed June 2000 on the CSUSB campus between Karnig, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Higher Education, Dr. Khalid Al-Angary, and King Saud University President Dr. Abdullah Faisal.

Cal State San Bernardino has taken a leadership role within the 23-campus California State University system with regards to academic programs designed to increase understanding of the Middle East, including one of the few programs offering Arabic languages.

In addition to its partnerships with King Saud University and other universities in Saudi Arabia, CSUSB also has forged educational partnerships and exchanges with universities in Turkey, including the hosting of a symposium at Cal State San Bernardino in November 2003 with Gazi University. More programs are being developed as a result of those partnerships and the desire to forge better understanding between Americans and other countries, Conley said.

“The communication and understanding that we talked about all day long is a two-way street,” Conley said in closing the Jan. 22 panel presentations. Referring to Americans, he said, “It is as much our responsibility as it is the countries of the Middle East to expand our curriculum, to develop student and faculty exchange programs and to open our societies to cross-cultural communication.”