Saudi Ambassador Includes Fletcher on his Tour to Elevate Saudi
Image
Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Ambassador of Saudi Arabia to the United
States, arrived at The Fletcher School last week amidst high security to
address 400-plus students and faculty. Bandar, on a speaking tour to
improve Saudi Arabia's image among the American public, said that he did
not want to just recite the party line, and instead immediately opened
the floor to questions. “What subjects do you want to talk about?” he
asked.
The first student approached the microphone: “When is your government
going to take accurate measures to address torture in Saudi Arabia?”
Many other questions, equally direct and hard-hitting, followed: “Why
doesn’t Saudi Arabia hold elections?” “How do you explain that the
majority of the 9/11 terrorists were Saudis?” “How would you
characterize the Jewish influence in the United States?” Over the next
hour, Prince Bandar addressed a wide range of topics, from Saudi
Arabia’s financial support of Hamas, to women's suffrage in his country,
to the U.S.’s “silly” presidential campaign season.
In response to the question about the terrorists involved in the 9/11
attacks, Bandar said he believes that Osama bin Laden selected Saudis in
order to derail U.S.-Saudi relations. He said that after 9/11, “I was
shaken to my roots. . . I had seen everything we've worked for between
our two nations collapsing.” Bandar then took the opportunity to
describe the Saudi government’s effort to root out terrorists and foil
other attacks.
With regards to the status of Saudi women, Bandar emphasized that
modernization is not necessarily westernization, and that his government
needs to be sensitive to majority opinion in his country. “Saudi women
are better off today than they were 30 years ago,” he said, and affirmed
that more change is underway, albeit at a slow pace. He said that there
were no schools for women in Saudi Arabia until 1964 (though royal women
went to Europe for schooling). Only after the government surveyed the
people and concluded there was enough public support did it open schools
for girls, and even then the army had to protect those who attended
against protesters. He said also that even if women could drive cars it
would not solve all their problems. They need economic independence, and
they first need education. The government has a choice between
revolution and evolution, he said, and it has seen what revolutions did
to other countries in the area—it destroyed them.
Saudi Arabia has announced that municipal elections will be taking
place, although it has not been specified when. In terms of whether
elections would be expanded to other areas of government , Bandar said:
“The leadership decision has been made to go that route. The process has
started, and won’t stop, but the speed you won’t like.”
The reaction to the Ambassador’s remarks was mixed. Marc Fowler, a
second-year MALD student, said: “I was impressed with the Ambassador’s
willingness to start answering questions right off the bat. While
walking a diplomatic line, he did address students’ question and shed
light on pertinent issues.”
Sarah Yamani, a Saudi Arabian Fletcher student, later remarked: “I was
happy to hear Prince Bandar Bin Sultan’s optimistic views on Saudi
Arabia’s elections. He believes that the half-municipal elections that
are taking place next year are only a beginning…Even though he did not
comment on political participation in Saudi Arabia, the announcement of
elections is itself is a step forward.”
However, Fletcher Professor of International Law, Michael Glennon, had a
more critical view of Bandar’s speech: “The value of his speech, to me,
was to underscore the weakness of the Saudi’s rationale for refusing to
hold national elections and continuing to permit a radical Islamic
minority to dictate their human rights policy.”
At the conclusion of the program, Prince Bandar, who used to be a
fighter pilot, told the audience that when people ask him why a fighter
pilot would become an ambassador, he replies that he was ordered to be
one. “And,” he added, “Being a fighter pilot beats being an ambassador.”
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