Suggestions that the Kingdom should use its economic clout against countries tolerating or encouraging hostile attitude toward this country came up for discussion on the second day of the international conference on "The image of Saudi Arabia in the world." | Subheading: "Why do the infidels hate us?" |
Some participants said it was time to reach out to expatriates working in the Kingdom, since they could play an important role in correcting negative perceptions about Saudi Arabia once they returned home. | That would be the expatriates fleeing your country to avoid being killed? Yeah, good plan. |
Representatives of Saudi Aramco and BAE Systems spoke on the role of their respective organizations in projecting the Kingdom in its proper perspective, while another line of thinking favored priming the mass media with the Arab point of view. The session was chaired by Dr. Fahd Al-Tayyash, associate professor of mass communications at King Saud University. Setting the tone of the discussions at King Faisal Hall, Professor Grigori Kosach of the Institute of Asian and African Studies at Moscow State University, said Saudi Arabia's image had been dented in the Russian media for its alleged support to the opposition in Chechnya. | Killing school children will do that. |
Speaking in fluent Arabic, Grigori said there have been frequent reports in the Russian media citing Saudi charitable organizations for their "support to the opposition parties in Russia's provincial republics, notably Chechnya and other Muslim-majority republics." It was also believed that the Muslim community remained isolated from the mainstream of sociopolitical life in those republics. The general impression was that such an isolationist tendency among the Muslims was the result of extremism that Islam preached. | Translation: "Doesn't play well with others" |
"It is also believed that Saudi Arabia is behind acts of terrorism in Chechnya." | Might be those phone calls the killers made from the school. |
Speaking on the role of the mass media in projecting a distorted image of Islam, Dr. Abdul Aziz Turkistani, consultant at the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, said such an image was created by the pro-Israeli lobby which has been very active in the US. Dr. Turkistani said it was imperative that the Kingdom should come up with a strategy for countering the hostile media campaign. In this context, he proposed an institutional arrangement whereby the Kingdom could get constant feedback on the public opinion through Saudi diplomatic missions abroad. | They might not like the kind of "feedback" I'd propose giving them. |
He stressed the importance of cultivating good relations with the mass media, particularly the BBC, whose support could be harnessed as part of an intensive PR campaign. | You mean it hasn't already? |
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