The West is "racist and arrogant"?
We've got nothing on muslims, particularly the Saudis!

Posted by: ImNoDhimmi at July 24, 2008 6:49 AM

Hannaford patronizingly assumes the Saudis are just such hayseeds that they "need time" to become "enlightened" like him. No, the Saudis are never clever and mendacious, pulling the wool over the likes of Hannaford and Western governments. Hannaford treats them like a retarded child, celebrating every miniscule advancement like it was a new dawn.
Hannaford's writing display such a 90's naivety on Islam it makes me wonder if he was not handed a thick envelope by the Saudis to write this article. What was wishful thinking in 1999 is unforgiveable in 2008.
http://www.bravenewsworld.com

Posted by: Max Publius at July 24, 2008 7:16 AM

Mozart Meets the Mullahs
Fourteen hundred or so years ago, an Arab pirate and tyrant claimed to have heard the voice of God. Now the Arabian royal family of pirates and tyrants (and friends and guests) gathered to hear the music of Mozart, which rival composer Salieri declared -- at least in "Amadeus" -- to be the voice of God.
I don't expect much to come of this. But who knows? Look what happened after the first time God spoke to an Arab crook.

Posted by: ebonystone at July 24, 2008 7:42 AM

Another A-sole on the Sowdi payroll, (or hoping to get onto it) by the looks of it. Unfortunately for him, that Mozart concert was hardly attended by any Sowdi's at all, but by Western expats and their wives.

Pathetic!

Posted by: sheik yer'mami at July 24, 2008 7:56 AM

Maybe the Saudi's now play Mozart when they send their jackbooted OOPs. Turbin and robed thugs out to chop off the heads of sharia violater's in front of gathering crowds.

Posted by: Spot on at July 24, 2008 8:27 AM

The Mozart concert that Hannaford makes so much of was put on not by the Saudis but by the German Embassy as part of "German Cultural Awareness Week." It was a quartet. They played for exactly one-half hour, in the King Fahd Cultural Centre. The "concert" was not advertised anywhere in the press or on radio or television, but only on the website of the German Embassy.

The ecstatic reports -- comically ecstatic reports -- about A New Day Dawning in Saudi Arabia, one more of so many false dawns that it would be tedious to list them all, but perhaps we should all remember, a year or two ago, the same breathless reports about how the calling, for municipal councils, of an "election" (no women voters, and no actual electioneering, of course), which "election" resulted in the most fanatical Muslims sweeping the board, but nonetheless Westerners eager for something, anything, to prove that Democracy Is On The March In Saudi Arabia (some of these may be the same people who want to salvage something from the Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations Project in Iraq).

Oh, one other thing about that "Mozart concert_" -- that unadvertised, four-person, half-hour event whose attendees were demurely described in reports as "chiefly expatriates" -- that "concert" was held on a Friday night. Now what does that tell you? How many Saudis, how many Muslims, are likely to attend, or would dare to attend, on a Friday night, a concert for Infidels?

But don't worry. All of the breathless accounts made sure to interview the same two Saudis - or at least we were given to believe that they were Saudis -- a certain Mr. Al-Ajami, who described himself as a fan of classical music, and his 11-year-old son, who described himself as more of a "hard rock" enthusiast.

Go ahead. Google away. See if the same two people keep coming up, as the "representative" Saudis at this -- save for them -- entirely non-Saudi concert, held on a Friday night, in Saudi Arabia, in the accounts you read.

Posted by: Hugh at July 24, 2008 8:35 AM

As usual with Muslims, All smoke and mirrors.

Posted by: exsgtbrown at July 24, 2008 8:36 AM

Peter Hannaford Just another strolling violinist playing that 'old sweet song'. Ah! It brings back memories of an innocent time when 'history was over'. And he plays so well!

Posted by: poetcomic1 at July 24, 2008 8:39 AM

Robert -- you begin your piece by describing Peter Hannaford as a member of the resurrected "Committee on the Present Danger." Is he? According to what I find, he was only very briefly connected with that, for it turned out that, as the PR man he is, he had some very unseemly associations -- and one of his clients turned out to have been Saudi Arabia.

Here's what Wikipedia has -- others may wish to do further research and find out if Peter Hannaford is still in the PR business, and if any of his clients are from the vicinity of what they like to call the Arab Gulf, and we still call the Persian Gulf. I suspect he is merely one more Western hireling of the Saudis, but then, why single him out? There are, after all, so many.

Here's that entry:

"Peter Hannaford was briefly the chair of the 2004 incarnation of the Committee on the Present Danger, a Cold War-era group first founded in 1950 and re-formed in 1976 to push for larger defense budgets and arms buildups, to counter the Soviet Union.

Explaining his reasons for resurrecting the CPD, Hannaford said, "we saw a parallel" between the Soviet threat and the threat from terrorism. The message the group will convey through lobbying, media work and conferences is that "the war on terror needs to be won," he said.

But one day after the launch of the 2004 CPD, Hannaford resigned. Several CPD members called for Hannaford's resignation, after Laura Rozen reported that he lobbied for the Austrian Freedom Party, which is headed by nationalist Joerg Haider. Haider once commended the "orderly employment policy" of the Third Reich and paid a "solidarity visit" to Saddam Hussein in 2002. Rozen further reported that Hannaford also lobbied for China, Saudi Arabia and Algeria while working at the PR firm the Carmen Group.

Hannaford is a public relations and advertising professional, who most famously worked with Ronald Reagan in many capacities, from director of public affairs in Reagan's California governor's office, to director of issues and research for Reagan's 1976 presidential nomination campaign, to senior communications adviser for Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign. Hannaford also unsuccessfully ran for office himself once, in 1972 as the Republican nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives in California's 7th Congressional District.

Hannaford is currently a senior consultant to the "global communication consultancy" firm APCO Worldwide and the president of Hannaford Enterprises, a public relations firm founded in 1996 by the merger of Hannaford Company and The Carmen Group. He has also served on the U.S. Information Agency's Public Relations Advisory Committee (1981-92); the board of trustees of the White House Preservation Fund (1981-89); the Commonwealth Fund's Commission on Elderly People Living Alone (1986-91); and the advisory committee of Mount Vernon, George Washington's home (1990-96).

Posted by: Hugh at July 24, 2008 8:44 AM

Errata Sheet for the Article in The American Spectator:

For "Peter Hannaford is a member of the Commiittee on the Present Danger"

Read "Peter Hannaford is a PR man among whose well-paying clients has been Saudi Arabia."

Posted by: Hugh at July 24, 2008 8:45 AM

Accuracy in reporting, thanks Hugh!

Posted by: sheik yer'mami at July 24, 2008 8:48 AM

Errata Sheet To The Errata Sheet:

For "Peter Hannaford is a PR man among whose well-paying clients has been Saudi Arabia"

Read "Peter Hannaford is a PR man among whose well-paying clients has been, and quite possibly still is, Saudi Arabia."

Posted by: Hugh at July 24, 2008 8:51 AM

Hugh, thanks for your clarification of just who sponsored this concert, who attended it, and where it was held. I guess not many mullahs met Mozart after all.

Posted by: ebonystone at July 24, 2008 8:54 AM

Hugh, you're right. It's a PR BS. It's like someone, who called himself an "intellectual writer" (how modest of him), tried to convince me once that Iran is more democratic that I think because, accordingly to its Constitution, minorities have official representation in the Iranian Parliament and even(even!) Jews have their voice in lawmaking! Isn't that touching?

Posted by: Else at July 24, 2008 9:28 AM

American Spectator = American Spectacle

A farce, enveloped in a charade, entombed in intellectual dishonesty.
WHAT A JOKE. NO, A SEDITIOUS JOKE.

Posted by: Max Publius at July 24, 2008 9:37 AM

Do these aholes actually believe that these half measures will actually make them acceptable ?

Pigs will fly and elephants perform ballet.

If toxic Saudi idiocy were kept within its borders, these mini steps could be welcomed. But these bastards fund wordwide extreme mosques and imams - their poison spills over their national borders.

If freedom for islam in the West means our defeat, our having to bow down, our having to bend our knee, then islam must not have any welcome here. Screw the Saudis.

The smile on the face of the tiger.

Posted by: dgene at July 24, 2008 9:46 AM

The case of hireling Hannaford raises a larger question. There has been a lot of attention paid, a lot of forehead-clutching nieman-foundation attention paid, to the question of those doctors who write about new drug therapies and who, it turns out, are paid by the very pharmaceutical companies that manufacture those drugs.

The New England Journal of Medicine, for example, has devoted time to this, and has decided, as have others following its lead, that doctors must disclose all of their financial interests.

The self-consciously ethical editors of The Times or The Post would be mightily embarrassed, be noisily, publicly, abjectly, horrified in fact, were they to have published articles by doctors extolling a drug made by a company that had them on the payroll as "consultants" -- would they not?

Why then, should the situation be any different for those who presume to instruct us on matters of foreign policy? Why should Brent Scowcroft not be identified, in every article that bears his name, to disclose the countries which have paid him, for which he may serve as a foreign agent -- e.g., Turkey? Why should James Akins, or Raymond Close, or a host of hirelings of Arab interests, not be asked to identify themselves correctly, in their ostentatiously "national-interest-only-unlike-the-Jewish-lobby-pro-Israel-stuff" articles, not be identified as having received this amount, or that, from this or that Saudi, U.A.E., Kuwaiti, source?

Occasionally there are signs of such an awareness breaking out. During Hillary Clinton's run, for example, some noted that Bill Clinton still has not disclosed, for example, the fabulous Arab donations to his Presidential library. Even in the case of ostentatiously holier-than-thou Jimmy Carter, the Arab money that has poured into all of his self-glorifying enterprises, has started to be noticed, possibly because others are afraid to describe him, accurately, as sweetly vicious, and prefer to place him under the big tent of venality (Loot Division).

But should not the editors of The American Spectator, and all other editors, everywhere, ask those who subnmit articles having to do with Islam, or the Middle East, to disclose any and all financial interests and then to list those interests, just as a doctor who consults for Pfizer and sings the praises in print of honeymoon visits to Viagra Falls,shall have that financial interest disclosed?

But, you will say, wouldn't Peter Hannaford, if told, before publication, by the American Spectator editors that they deemed it necessary to identify him as having done PR work for Saudi Arabia, and impliedly angling for a new PR contract from them if Saudi Arabia were not still his client, simply withdraw the article, and then, with it having been written, give it to someone else to publish under his name? The answer is: No. In the first place, because Hannaford's self-identification as a member of the Committee on the Present Danger is very useful, both to him and to the Saudis in their own PR efforts. And in the second place, if the Saudis are no longer his clients, but he wishes to have them become his clients again, then such an article as this, when published, becomes for Peter Hannaford, and for all the similar hannafors with their influence-peddling in Washington, a useful come-on: here, Saudi Embassy, just look at the article I got published that pushes exactly the line you want. And just look at the way I am identified only as a member of the "Committee on the Present Danger." So how about it? A little reward for now, a little retainer for the future? Something most modest? What about half-a-million a year to start with?

Yes, if this article was not part of a current arrangement, but possibly part of angling for a future contract, what better way for Hannaford to show his would-be Saudi maecenases just how useful he could be in their Charm Offensive (Reform Is Breaking Out All Over Department), one designed to dampen the spreading understanding of Saudi Arabia, its daggers-and-dishdasha ruling family of a "nation" named after them, the Al-Saud, a "nation" that is all bribes-and-tribes, used to getting its own way, spreading its subversive wealth throughout the Western world, not only to pay for mosques and madrasas, but also to make the lives of so many people so much more comfortable than they would otherwise be. And those people include former diplomats (see James Akins), former intelligence agents (see Raymond Close), college and university teachers (oh, just look at all the money lavished on those well-endowed chairs, or used to set up those special "centers" for the "study" of Islam and topics related to Islam (see the Saudi-funded Centers at Exeter and Durham in England, or in Washington itself, the fiefdom of lean, mean, jogging John Esposito, now renamed, in honor of its latest generous Arab benefactor, the Prince Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown, and don't overlook all those businessmen who have had dealings in the past, or would like dealings in the future, with the Saudis, and are prepared to promote whatever line the Saudis wish to have promoted, despite the damage this might do to the formulation of policies that will further the security of the Infidel Western world. Think not only of foreign policy, but of energy policy, and the failure, in part because of the powerful Saudi Lobby, to construct an intelligent policy that would focus on making oil, and gasoline, more expensive through taxation, and then on applying the revenues derived from taxes on their use (which would help recapture oligopolistic rents from OPEC) to subsidizing nascent solar and wind power projects, and on rebuilding the train network, and subsidizing urban mass transit. The terrible situation with energy today, and the fantastic outflow of money to the Arab and Muslim oil states, and the likelihood or certainty of various environmental catastrophes, is a direct result of the failure of successive American governments to understand rightly the energy situation, and to stop relying on "our friends the Saudis" to "keep prices down" and instead, to cease to rely on the kindness of (deeply hostile) strangers, and to come up with the kinds of things that, just now, all of a sudden, are being talked about, as if they could never have happened or been planned for until now. But of course they could, and would have been, had there been in place a policy to encourage diminished use of fossil fuels. For this you can blame the members of the most powerful and sinister lobby, not only in Washington, but elsewhere in the capitals of the West, of all – the Saudi Lobby.

And Peter Hannaford? Perhaps he will now wish to disclose, or the editors of The American Spectator will wish to disclose for him, whatever financial links he has had to Saudi and other Arab interests, in the past, and in the present. The readers of his article in The American Spectator need to know. It should be just as it is with contributors to The New England Journal of Medicine, or other medical journals, now required to disclose any financial links to pharmaceutical companies.

Not one whit different. Except that the consequences, in the case of the Western hirelings of the Saudis, are much greater than in the case of doctors who serve as paid consultants, and sometimes apparently as pushers, of certain new medicines. In the case of the doctors, the effect has been on a few thousand or hundred thousand or even a million patients. In the case of those who are Western hirelings of the rich Arabs, especially of the Saudis, what is effected is the well-being, and possibly survival, of the Infidel West,

And that does not exhaust the effects of the Saudi Lobby. For the Saudi Lobby's ability to prevent an energy policy based on diminished use of oil, which would mean diminished revenues for Saudi Arabia and other Muslim oil states, has prevented the kind of action necessary to mitigate, by slowing down the causes, of anthropogenic climate change. Of course, if you think the latter is all some enormous hoax, dreamed up by “left-wing” scientists, supposedly inventing the whole thing out of their eagerness to get more grant money, then perhaps that aspect of the Saudi Lobby, so often overlooked, won't disturb you.

Posted by: Hugh at July 24, 2008 10:18 AM

"But, you will say, wouldn't Peter Hannaford simply have written the article, and if asked to disclose that he has been (and very likely still is) a recipient of Saudi money, or perhaps someone who is simply angling for a new PR contradct, and thought he would show his would-be Saudi maecenases just how useful he could be in their Charm Offensive (Reform Is Breaking Out All Over Department), designed to dampen the spreading understanding of Saudi Arabia, its daggers-and-dishdasha ruling family, each practically indistinguishable from the next, with that "nation" named after the Al-Saud, all bribes-and-tribes, used to getting its own way, especially with its subventions to so many former diplomats (see James Akins), former intelligence agents (see Raymond Close), academics (oh, just look at all the money lavished on various colleges and universities, count up the well-endowed chairs, and the special "centers" set up for the express though undeclared purpose of confusing Infidels about the meaning, and menace, of Islam (see the Saudi-funded Centers at Exeter and Durham in England, or in Washington itself, the fiefdom of lean, mean, jogging John Esposito, now renamed in honor of its latest generous Arab benefactor (Esposito got started with money from a rich, apparently islamocrhstian, Lebanese contractor, to one of whose two sons he dedicates, I recall, one of his syrupy books), the Prince Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown, and of course all those businessmen who want to do favors for the Saudis, whatever that may mean for our foreign or our energy policy (the Saudi Lobby prevented, for several decades, any intelligent attempt to construct such a policy, one that would naturally focus on making oil, and gasoline, more expensive, and on applying the revenues derived from taxes on their use – which would help recapture oligopolistic rents from OPEC – to subsidizing nascent solar and wind power projects, and on rebuilding our trains, and subsidizing urban mass transit systems."

Posted by Hugh, whom I admire for his knowledge, and sharing it, of Islam, but find sometimes, to be too enamored of his own writings to notice his, often overuse, of the punctuation mark, the lowly, yet conveniently placed, comma. Oh, and by the way, in the above sentence, which may be a record for length, the initial subject appeared not to have been finished.

"But, you will say, wouldn't Peter Hannaford simply have written the article, and if asked to disclose that he has been (and very likely still is) a recipient of Saudi money,...".

I read and re-read the statement and could not find the conclusion.

Having said this, I reiterate, I admire you Hugh but please, shorten the sentences a bit. Would make it easier to understand.

Posted by: Coeurmaeghan at July 24, 2008 11:23 AM

"Mozart in Arabia", huh? Yes, and classical music performed, at another short, unadvertised concert in Iran, again by Germans who want to share their rich cultural heritage with the "Muslim world"--but sensitively, with all female members in hijab.

This puts one in mind of the Louvre in Dubai, set to open in 2012, which will be, according to a press release, “a world-class destination bridging global cultures.”

Still, some narrow-minded French people find this idea a bit upsetting. I suppose they are not sufficiently committed to "bridging global cultures".

from the NYT article:

"Still, it was inevitable that the focus of attention would be the renting of the Louvre’s name. It was this that upset many French traditionalists, including 4,700 signers of an online petition objecting to the accord. But it was also the Louvre brand that Abu Dhabi most coveted to add prestige to its ambitious Saadiyat Island plan."

So, what convinced France to lend the Louvre name? A desire to uplift the benighted masses, deprived as they are of Western Art? Uh, not so much.

more from the NYT article:

"For France the agreement signals a new willingness to exploit its culture for political and economic ends. In this case, it also represents something of a payback: the United Arab Emirates has ordered 40 Airbus 380 aircraft and has bought about $10.4 billion worth of armaments from France during the last decade."

Talk about selling your birthright for a mess of potage! And selling armaments to the Arab world--always a good idea.

more:

"France is profiting handsomely from this deal: in exchange for $247 million, it will rotate between 200 and 300 artworks through the Louvre Abu Dhabi during a 10-year period; it will be paid $214.5 million over 20 years for the management expertise provided by its new museums agency; and it will provide four temporary exhibitions a year for 15 years in exchange for $253.5 million.

"In a telephone interview from Abu Dhabi, Mubarak Al-Muhairi, the deputy chairman of the emirate’s tourism authority, dismissed rumors that the new museum would reject loans or exhibitions from France including Christian religious art or depicting, say, nudity. “In principle, there are no restrictions,” he said, “but both sides will agree on what is shown.”

And what will be the result of exibiting all this Jahillya? It might give jihadists a closer target. Why travel all the way to Paris to deface art when you can do it so much closer to home?

Lest you think that this is all a one-way deal, though, don't fret--France gets more than just an infusion of Euros in this deal. They lend the revered name of "Louvre" to Abu Dhabi, and they get the--uh--revered name of Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan in return.

from the article:

"Abu Dhabi will also finance a new Abu Dhabi art research center in France and pay for restoration of the Château de Fontainebleau’s theater, which will be named after Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan, the current president."

Oh, goody. So France will have a theatre named for the man presiding over Abu Dhabi--a Shari'ah state that has no democratic elections, restricts freedom of speech and freedom of the press (among other things, it is illegal to criticise Islam or the ruling family), exploits foreign workers, practices the trafficking of children as camel jockeys, criminalizes homosexuality, and discriminates against women.

Oh, its human rights record is hardly the worst--compared to, say, Taliban-era Afghanistan--hardly a ringing endorsement, though, or a place the land of "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité" should endorse.

Here's a link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/07/arts/design/07louv.html

Posted by: gravenimage at July 24, 2008 11:43 AM

Fourteen hundred or so years ago, an Arab pirate and tyrant claimed to have heard the voice of God. Now the Arabian royal family of pirates and tyrants (and friends and guests) gathered to hear the music of Mozart, which rival composer Salieri declared -- at least in "Amadeus" -- to be the voice of God.
Posted by: ebonystone

Had Mozart been born in a Sharia country founded by an Arab pirate and tyrant (caravan raiding pedophile), he would have been beheaded for his merriment music, especially his Turkish symphony. Nice try Hannaford, but I remain cautiously unimpressed, and dubious. The "voice of God" remains illusive in Sharia Arabia, auspiciously silent.

Posted by: Battle_of_Tours at July 24, 2008 11:53 AM

I guess it all depends on how you look at it,is the glass 99.9% full or is it .01% empty.

JLP

Posted by: John Lee Pedimore at July 24, 2008 1:03 PM

As long as churches and synagogues are not allowed to rise in Saudi Arabia, playing a little Mozart here or there in SA will mean zilch. Until Islam fully respects the right of other religions to safely preach their doctrines and build their houses of worship in majority Islamic states, I will continue to look upon Muslims as hypocrites when they talk about any kind of interfaith dialogue, irrespective of Western music being played, though I'd like to convey to Peter Hannaford that we'd all be a little more impressed if it had been Gregorian Chant the Saudis permitted instead of Mozart. That would really represent a step in the right direction.

Posted by: Wellington at July 24, 2008 1:10 PM

Yes, you, "coeurmaeghan," are right to complain about my at-times ungrammatical, maddeningly meandering posts, which are the result of a sheer obstinate and idiotic refusal to change my philosophy of composition, which is as follows: once I start typing, I don't stop for a second, or almost never do, and don’t look back, and then I click on “Post” without reading what I have so hastily typed out, and more than once this results in what I have frequently in the past referred to as analocutha being found coiled round my tree, or possibly lying on the train-tracks, of my thought, and as I simply run on, as I am right now, without stopping, I no doubt may remind some of breathless one-sentence-fits-all Molly Bloom who would in her own youth have missed much had she, herself a flower of the mountain, not stopped to smell the roses, in sunny Gibraltar, before she met Bloom, and then came to dear dirty Dublin, and met Dedalus, and even before she met her true onlie begetter, Mr. James Joyce, of Clongowes Wood, Trieste, and Zurich, the only real man in her life because, after all, he was the one who arrived on the scene to endow her with life.

So I'll go back, and dam the flow of the fleuve, here and there, with some more commas, and some periods, and I’ll certainly finish that first point about hireling Hannaford that I forget to conclude.

And this may satisfy you, oh curmudgeonly -- but incorrigibly correct -- coeurmaeghan. And it may un-embarrass me.

Posted by: Hugh at July 24, 2008 1:14 PM

coeurmaeghan

Get in line - this has been raised before, and is a recognized quirk of Hugh's - like the total non-existence of any portraits of his - much like Mohammed.

His other quirk, of course, is conveniently using Wikipedia as a source, after correctly denouncing it in the past: while it may be good for topics like beedis, it might be worth explaining why it's a good source on someone like Hannaford ;-)

Posted by: Infidel Pride at July 24, 2008 3:07 PM

Take a look at the Wikipedia entry on Hannaford. It has all the necessary documentation, in the footnotes which, since I wasn't going to include them, I simply omitted from the posting above.

Posted by: Hugh at July 24, 2008 3:41 PM

Speaking of snake oil salesmen;

OT

Obama threw the USA under the bus in Berlin today. I have not seen any video just heard parts of his speech. Did he have a glowing plate over his head? Was he wearing white robs? Did he have his arms raised as he spoke? Was there a dove flying near him?

The USA is responsible for all of the worlds,
unrest
torture
wars
racism
poverty
health care
gas prices
religion bigotry
Katrina
global warming
hang nails

OK, I added hang nails. As far as I know he never mentioned he was running for the President of the country under the bus and address himself as 'my fellow people of the world'. Oh, he loves America and can make it 'perfect' his words.

I am getting EVEN MADDER THAN HELL!

Posted by: Im.mad.as.HELL! at July 24, 2008 4:14 PM

For a sample of Peter Hannaford's disinterested toiling in the non-alcoholic vineyards of Saudi Arabia, do see the ecstatic article in the November/December 1989 issue of Saudi Aramco World.

Here, I'll save you the trouble of googling:

Presenting... Saudi Arabia

Written by Piney Kesting
Photographed by Robert Azzi
Additional photographs by Mehmet Biber and Karl Schumacher

Visitors expecting to see merely an exhibit at the Washington, D.C., Convention Center this summer found themselves plunged instead into an experience. Dunes beckoned them into the desert where, in the distance, the sandstone formations of Madain Salih loomed over a 24-meter (80-foot) Bedouin tent. A quiet courtyard and a fountain welcomed visitors to the world of Islam, and a busy Jiddah street, full of Saudi artisans, transported them to the very heart of a Saudi Arabian city. The scent of jasmine lingered in the air as the pulsating rhythm of the music accompanying the multi-media laser show filled the halls.

"It's awesome!" one woman commented as she wandered around the exhibition's seven sections, which conscientiously detailed the story of a country dedicated to its traditional culture and religion, yet destined to become the most successfully modernized nation in the Middle East.

The exhibition, "Saudi Arabia: Yesterday and Today," is indeed a celebration of Saudi Arabia's accomplishments over the past 50 years, and of the unique Saudi-American friendship that has facilitated the nation's growth. From the signing of the first productive oil concession in 1933 to the present era of joint ventures, hundreds of thousands of Americans have contributed to the development of Saudi Arabia - and a few have played important roles. Today, over 35,000 Americans work in Saudi Arabia and thousands of Saudi students are enrolled in universities across the United States.

The roots of the exhibit, which attracted an over-capacity crowd of more than 20,000 visitors a day during its stay in Washington, were planted years ago and thousands of miles away in the heart of Riyadh (See box, page 16). The path of "Saudi Arabia: Yesterday and Today" can be traced from the Saudi capital through major European cities, back to the Middle East, and finally to warehouses in Brooklyn and Manhattan, where the American exhibit was built and assembled.

Preparations for the American tour began in 1986. Saudi Arabian and American consultants were called in to redesign the exhibit for an American audience, to find a way to illustrate Saudi Arabia's rock-solid religious foundations and its delicate and determined balance between tradition and technology. Special emphasis was also placed on the development of the Saudi-American relationship.

An initial corps of three consultants traveled to the exhibit's earlier runs in London and Paris in 1986 before visiting Saudi Arabia to determine just how the exhibit should be developed for the United States. Concept papers were drawn up, revised and finally approved in November, 1988.

Peter Hannaford, chief executive officer of The Hannaford Company, the public-relations firm called in to organize the project, recalled that "one of the principal reasons for having the exhibition was to change stereotypes people might have about the kingdom. It's not just sand and oil wells. It's a highly developed country with a very energetic, industrious people."

Energy and industry were also essential characteristics of the group of Saudis and Americans that managed to conceive, design, build, assemble and erect the American exhibit within seven feverish months. In January 1989, The Hannaford Company and Rathe Productions, a firm specializing in exhibition work, assembled a staff of designers and "concept people" to travel to the kingdom and meet with the exhibition's organizing committee.

Two trips later, the working team had crisscrossed Saudi Arabia, researching the history and architecture of areas that would later be recreated for the exhibit. From Riyadh to Dhahran, from Hofuf to Jubail and jiddah, the group searched for artifacts and images. Private and government sources around the country, such as the Department of Antiquities and Museums, the High Commission for the Development of Riyadh, the Aramco Exhibit in Dhahran and the Khalil Museum in Jiddah, were asked to lend objects to the exhibition.

During their travels, members of the team also met with individual, professional and official Saudis to discover just how they wanted their country to be portrayed. Ziyad Zaidan, a Saudi architect known for his detailed research in traditional Saudi Arabian architecture, was called in as a consultant. As project manager Mike Smith noted, "We wanted this to be the kingdom's own story."

By January 1989, the countdown began. One major task, the selection of five exhibition sites around the United States, had been taken care of by June 1988 - no minor accomplishment, since 9,000-square-meter (100,000 square-foot) exhibitions often require five years' advance booking. Now all - all! - that remained was to build an exhibit that could travel from site to site and fit into five buildings of different sizes and ceiling heights. It was like designing a three-dimensional puzzle.

Richard Rathe, executive vice-president of Rathe Productions, explained that "for one country to do this much square footage in a traveling exhibit is very rare. Even though we specialize in large exhibition work, to do the entire exhibit and plan it so that it can easily be removed creates a tremendous amount of complexity." It is a "difficult task," he added, to make large structures, such as the 7.3-meter (24-foot) Asir tower built for the exhibit look credible and still be moveable.

The actual building of the exhibit began in March 1989, four and a half months before the scheduled July 29 premiere in Washington. More than 400 people in 18,500 square meters (200,000 square feet) of warehouse space in Brooklyn and Manhattan began to recreate Saudi Arabia. Carpenters and welders, scenery and exhibit designers, model-makers, silk-screeners, laser technicians, painters, foam carvers and countless other specialists worked diligently behind the scenes.

Most of the models for the exhibit were built by Bruce and Bruce Scenery. But these were not models that could be placed on tables and displayed under Plexiglas: They were models that loomed more than seven meters (24 feet) above the floor, sand dunes that measured 12 meters wide and 24 meters long (40 by 80 feet), palm trees 120, 240 and 360 centimeters (four, 8 and 12 feet) tall.

Listening to Rob Oakley, project manager at Bruce and Bruce Scenery, describe the materials used to create the exhibit is like reading a shopping list for the construction of a miniature city: Eleven metric tons (24,000 pounds) of steel, used to build trusses; one freight-car load of foam rubber; eight 400-kilogram (900-pound) barrels of sand; 680 kilograms (1500 pounds) of real wheat, flame-proofed and then dyed back to green; four to five truckloads of lumber every week; 2500 lighting instruments - enough to light 10 Broadway shows - and kilometers of cable.

During the four and a half months, the various houses and structures that create the exhibit's environment were designed, built and then disassembled into parts that were loaded onto trailers. Seventy palm trees, made of real palm bark sleeved onto steel pipes, took six weeks to build. Sand dunes, constructed of plywood, metal mesh, foam and Caldecore, a sand finish sprayed on the base, were designed to break into 19 moveable sections.

Among the most imposing structures in the exhibition were the "sandstone" formations of Madain Salih, which took three weeks to build. "One of the biggest [exhibition] structures ever built," Oakley called them, adding that "people aren't used to walking into a building and seeing 24-foot-high [73-meter] rocks." Specialists were called in to duplicate the ancient writing found on the 2000-year-old tombs in northwestern Saudi Arabia.

Seventy-five tractor-trailers later, all the pieces of the exhibit were ready to be transported. On July 17, the trailers and a crew of 80 descended on Washington. For the next seven days, the crew, which will travel around the country with the exhibit, worked behind closed doors to assemble the illusion of Saudi Arabia within the cavernous halls of the Convention Center.

For the thousands of Americans who waited patiently on opening day, July 29, to visit "Saudi Arabia: Yesterday and Today," there was indeed a friendly welcome to a country that still mystifies the uninitiated.

"Ahlan wa sahlan!" - Welcome! - the young Saudi guide greeted the first visitor. Parents with children, students, tourists and businessmen all passed by the young men in traditional garb as they entered the exhibit through a cool, dark tunnel.

Vibrant strains of Saudi music filled the tunnel as pictures flashed out of the darkness. Dunes and camels, a veiled woman, modern supermarkets, old suqs, Saudi astronauts, pilgrims worshiping at the Ka'ba, modern cities and superhighways: All were scenes from a country with many faces and many moods, a country that most of the visitors were about to discover for the first time. As they left the tunnel, the piercing bright light of desert landscapes welcomed them to their journey through Saudi Arabia.

The night before the exhibit opened to the public, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar ibn Sultan ibn Abd al-'Aziz, hosted an inaugural preview for 450 of Washington's political and business leaders. Prince Salman ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz, governor of Riyadh and chairman of the exhibition committee, opened the exhibit with Vice President Dan Quayle, and after Quayle cut the ribbon, scores of American and Saudi Arabian officials and other black-tied guests toured the exhibit. They were the first of more than 427,000 visitors who would see it during its three-week stay in Washington.

Prince Salman commented during the preview that "Saudi Arabia: Yesterday and Today" was brought to the United States in the spirit of friendship and "to reaffirm that we are an advanced nation in terms of civilization... Though much is different about our two cultures, the values shared by our people are remarkably similar. Faith in God, love of family, freedom of work, moderation and stability in the field of international relations and the promotion of free enterprise - all of these have reinforced the special ties and sound friendship between our two countries."

Visitors to the exhibition are introduced first to Saudi Arabia's varied landscapes and then to its pre-Islamic culture. Scattered throughout the sections, videotapes and information panels explain the different regions and the histories and cultures of the areas.

It seemed, however, as if the favorite explanations came from the exhibition's Saudi student guides, all of whom wore green buttons saying "Ask Me!" Robert L. Norberg of Saudi Aramco's Washington office noted that "it was really the Saudi young people who were serving as guides and answering questions who brought the exhibit to the personal level that Americans enjoy and appreciate." Mohammed Zakariya, a Washington-area calligrapher who participated in the exhibit, said he "heard a lot of people whispering, 'Boy aren't they nice kids!'" as they walked through the exhibit.

Seventy Saudis studying in the United States were chosen as guides for the Washington exhibit, and 15 Americans were hired to work with them. They were dressed in traditional Saudi clothing -white thawb, white or red-and-white ghutra, and gold-brocaded black jackets for the men - which drew the attention and curiosity of visitors. Adnan Akbar, a young Saudi haute-couture designer whose fashions were brought to Washington in conjunction with the exhibition, designed the women's dresses.

Abdul Azeez Aalsaadan, a Saudi guide from the University of Southern California, was in charge of the exhibit's information booth in Washington. An exhibit like this, he said, "is the best way of communicating with people." He recalled an older visitor who came up to him and admitted he knew nothing about Saudi Arabia - not even where the country was. Aalsaadan gave him a package of information and two days later the man came back. "Ask me anything!" he said. "I can tell you about Islam, I can tell you about Bedouin life... anything!" Aalsaadan smiled and admitted, "He started to tell me things I didn't even know." And other visitors found that, whether they knew a lot or just a little about Saudi Arabia, they could still expect to learn something new.

The third section of the exhibit, "Islam," offers visitors an introduction to the religion practiced by over a billion people around the world. Islamic artifacts from the 18th and 19th centuries are on display, and short videotapes explain the Hajj, or pilgrimage to Makkah. Models of Makkah's and Medinah's holy sites astonish visitors with the sheer size of the mosques. "You could get lost in there!" one man remarked to his friend. Former Senator Charles Percy visited the exhibit twice and commented that the "religion section was laid out beautifully for people to better understand the Islamic faith."

" 'Scuse me, what is this door for?" a little boy asked as he ran up to a Saudi guide and tugged on his robe. The guide explained that the elaborately detailed gold and silver door is the one that closed the entrance of the Ka'ba itself until 1981. Made in Makkah in 1942, it is a unique artifact, and this was the first time it has been exhibited in the West. "I never expected to see anything like that on tour," said one impressed visitor.

Those who attended the Washington venue of "Saudi Arabia: Yesterday and Today" were also treated to a $9.1-million collection of rare Islamic illustrations, manuscripts, maps and astrolabes dating from the 12th to 18th centuries. An early form of analogue computer, astrolabes simulate the apparent rotation of stars around the celestial poles. These sophisticated tools, whose development began in the second century BC, were used primarily for navigation at sea, but could also measure direction and time by day or night, among other uses.

A wonderful illustration of the body of ancient knowledge preserved and elaborated in the Islamic world, the astrolabes shown in Washington represented the second-largest collection in the world, after those on display in the Museum of Science at Oxford University. Two of only three surviving astrolabes made in 1304 or 1305 by Husayn ibn Baso, a famous astronomer of Granada, were among those exhibited in Washington.

Assembled by the High Commission for the Development of Riyadh, the astrolabe collection will not accompany the exhibit as it tours the United States. In October, it returned to Riyadh for the inauguration of the new cultural center in the city's Diplomatic Quarter.

Ancient artifacts, modern technology and contemporary Saudi artisans - the exhibition offers a taste of all. "The juxtaposition of the old and the new is a very important feature of the exhibit," Richard Rathe explained. "People can see the development, the historic roots, the Islamic influence, but can then see how those roots are integrated into a very modern society and a modern culture which, I think, the American audience is not familiar with."

Leaving the world of Islam section behind, exhibition visitors walk through the next two sections, "Society" and "People." Here the models of city and village architecture so painstakingly built in Brooklyn come alive.

Along a busy Jiddah street, Saudi artisans brought from the kingdom for the exhibit practice their trades. Craftsmen sitting crosslegged on the floor weave colorful tent walls on a simple wooden loom. Another artisan bends for hours over a wooden frame, carefully embroidering gold calligraphy onto a panel of black cloth destined to become part of the kiswah, the covering of the Ka'ba (See Aramco World, September-October 1985).

Down the "street," a sandalmaker cuts and stitches leather while a tailor across the way embroiders the edge of a man's formal cloak, or bisht. Saudi guides sit in the rooms of a traditional Najdi house, writing visitors' names in Arabic calligraphy. And a gallery tucked away in one of the buildings displays the work of 35 contemporary Saudi artists.

At the very end of the street, laughter rose above the din of the crowd as children played on the carpeted rooftop of a Najran home designed as a play area. Female guides helped the children explore "discovery chests" full of traditional clothes and scarves, and little boys giggled as they tried on long white thawbs.

From displays of the Arab scholarly legacy and Saudi Arabia's revered traditions, visitors passed to the world of sophisticated technology. The last two sections of the exhibit - "Nation Building Building" and "Saudi Arabia and the World Community" - highlight the country's modernization over the last 50 years and its commitment to the international community.

A multi-media video and slide show enhanced with laser effects offers a quick overview of Saudi Arabia "yesterday and today." The theater then empties into exhibit sections describing the kingdom's elaborate infrastructure developed in communications, transportation, health care, education, urban development and, of course, the oil industry.

Aramco has been a part of Saudi Arabia's development from the first years after the country's unification, so it comes as no surprise that the Aramco exhibit, at 140 square meters (1,500 square feet), is the largest in the modern section. From the early days of oil to the development of today's petrochemical industry and current joint ventures, Saudis and Americans have worked side by side in Aramco.

Margaret Wright, one of the American women working as a guide, said she was astonished at the number of older people visiting the exhibit who had worked in Saudi Arabia during the 1930's and 1940's. Many of them walked up to tell her, "I remember when...!"

Six Aramco employees accompanied the exhibit from Dhahran. They were on hand to explain the two interactive computer games programmed in Arabic and English for the American exhibit. More often, they fielded questions from visitors who were unaware of the level of American involvement in Saudi Arabia, or they found themselves up-dating former Aramco employees who had left Saudi Arabia years ago. For many of the latter group, seeing the kingdom's thoroughly modernized face "was like a kind of culture shock."

Norberg of Saudi Aramco commented that "a lot of people just never pictured Saudi Arabia as being as developed as it is. I think [the exhibit] corrected a lot of stereotypes that still persist in people's minds that the country's just a trackless wasteland. You don't have to spend even 45 minutes in here to have that notion turned on its head."

There was a lot of head turning at the exhibit, and much staring and talking, tasting and touching. As its designers intended, visitors do not just tour this exhibit, they participate in it.

Nowhere was this clearer than at the last stop in the exhibit, and one of the favorites, the suq. Armed with information and often overwhelmed by everything they had seen and heard, weary visitors headed for the exhibit's marketplace, hoping to sample some Saudi dishes from the restaurant or admire the handicrafts displayed in the shops.

In one corner of the suq, a Saudi potter crafted traditional vases on a wooden kick-wheel. Across the way, a 65-year-old basket weaver from the Eastern Province oasis region of al-Hasa sat amid pieces of palm frond building bird cages and cradles from the stems and weaving baskets from the leaves. The sound of voices and the tantalizing smell of kabsah or sambousak filled the air as people strolled around, hoping to catch a performance by the Saudi Arabian Folkloric Dance Troupe.

Four times a day the troupe's male dancers stole the show with their colorful costumes, brightly painted drums and spirited regional dances. Whether performing the 'ardah or sword dance, the fisherman's dance or one of the 20 other dances in their repertoire, they kept the crowds captivated. Children sat mesmerized at the foot of the stage as the performers leapt and circled.

According to Abdullah al-Jarallah, director of the dance troupe, traditional dance is very important in the kingdom: "It reminds people of their roots." The 24 young men, who will travel with the exhibit, were selected as the best dancers from the five main regions of the kingdom. None is a professional dancer, but all have a deep interest in preserving one of Saudi Arabia's richest and oldest traditions.

When Saudi Arabian Ambassador Prince Bandar first announced the exhibit's tour, he noted that it was meant, among other things, as an expression of appreciation for growing American interest in Saudi Arabia.

Habib Shaheen, director of information at the embassy, knows from his own experience that "the interest of the American people toward Saudi Arabia has increased tremendously." In 1984, he explained, fewer than 800 people came to the embassy requesting information on his country. But in 1989 he had more than 3600 visitors during the first six months of the year. "This shows that such an exhibition as this is coming just in time to respond to this curiosity."

The Saudi architectural consultant to the exhibit, Ziyad Zaidan, also believes that the timing is propitious. "I think the American public is becoming more aware of the world. There seems to be an eagerness to learn. Probably, if we had done [the exhibit] 10 years ago, people would not have been interested. As it is, it is a privilege to me as a Saudi to see the American people take this great interest in our culture that we see here."

Dr. Abdullah H. Masry, director of Saudi Arabia's Department of Antiquities and Museums, was in Washington for the premiere. One night, as he was leaving the exhibit dressed in thawb and bisht, he passed an older American man who turned to him and said, "I really thank you." "For what?" Masry asked. "For having given us a chance," the man answered, "to get to know you people through your own eyes."

Following the Washington premiere, the exhibition headed to the Inforum in Atlanta, where it will be open from November 10 to 25, and to the Dallas Convention Center for its December 9 to 23 display dates. In 1990, it will travel to New York's Exposition Center in April and to the Los Angeles Convention Center in June - the last stop on the tour as presently scheduled. But the exhibition's Washington success may lead to the addition of other venues to the list.

As the exhibit travels around the United States, it will answer many questions, arouse more curiosity and, for most, it will present a fascinating voyage through an unknown land. But for a few lucky Americans who, like Robert Norberg, have lived and worked in Saudi Arabia for years or decades, a walk through "Saudi Arabia: Yesterday and Today" will be "just like going home."

[Piney Kesting, who earned a master's degree from Johns Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies, is a free-lance writer specializing in Middle Eastern affairs.]

And here is the three-paragraph excerpt that you can print out, or cut-and-paste under "Peter Hannaford, Saudi Hireling":

"Preparations for the American tour began in 1986. Saudi Arabian and American consultants were called in to redesign the exhibit for an American audience, to find a way to illustrate Saudi Arabia's rock-solid religious foundations and its delicate and determined balance between tradition and technology. Special emphasis was also placed on the development of the Saudi-American relationship.

An initial corps of three consultants traveled to the exhibit's earlier runs in London and Paris in 1986 before visiting Saudi Arabia to determine just how the exhibit should be developed for the United States. Concept papers were drawn up, revised and finally approved in November, 1988.

Peter Hannaford, chief executive officer of The Hannaford Company, the public-relations firm called in to organize the project, recalled that "one of the principal reasons for having the exhibition was to change stereotypes people might have about the kingdom. It's not just sand and oil wells. It's a highly developed country with a very energetic, industrious people."

Do go back and read the article by J. B. Kelly, the one put up at this website called "Of Valuable Oil and Worthless Policies," the one in which he describes the tale woven by American public-relations specialists that "the ghost of Scheherezade could not have bettered" and also about the effect of all that ARAMCO-generated propaganda on behalf of the Saudis, for so many years, at such great cost to the formulation of an American foreign policy, and an American energy policy, that would have made, could have made, sense.

Posted by: Hugh at July 24, 2008 4:43 PM

That exhibition, "Saudi Arabia: Yesterday and Today," should have been balanced out with dramatic recreations of the kinds of progressive laws and punishments of Saudi Arabia, like public floggings for fornication (or for even the suspicion of fornication) and beheadings for witchcraft. "Wow, that's gnarly!" said one white teenager visiting the presentation.

Posted by: DenverRodeo at July 24, 2008 5:15 PM

Coeurmaeghan

yes, Our Hugh does sometimes run on a bit. That's the Hugh we all know and love.

But sometimes, just sometimes, Mr Fitzgerald can be very brief indeed.

I submit, in evidence, the following item 'posted by Hugh', which was written in response to a news item

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/021916.php#comments

that appeared earlier this week, reporting on Iran's latest blatantly obvious attempt to buy time, and more time, to continue its pursuit of nuclear weapons to use against Israel and other Infidel targets.

"There is no time left. Time's almost up."

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at July 24, 2008 5:31 PM

I will add that in Hugh's postings today - the material he has unearthed on this 'Peter Hannaford' - he has shown us all 'how to do it'.

Namely: Never Take Things For Granted.

Whenever we read an article of that kind, it is always worth looking at the byline. Who wrote it? Did he or she write anything else? Where else does that person's name appear? Who do they work for? Google Is My Friend (probably worth trying other ways of trawling the internet, too).

And look at what Hugh found for us: that appalling Aramco propaganda piece from 1989, which among many other things told us - without intending to - all we needed to know about Peter Hannaford.

I read it all; given the nature of the items I have copied from jihadwatch/ dhimmiwatch and stuffed into a fat electronic dossier entitled "The House of Saud" (stories about ten year old brides and wife-beatings, examples of rabidly bizarre rantings of clerics, story after story about the de facto enslavement and abuse - sometimes even unto death - of vulnerable Sri Lankan and Filipina maids, stories about stonings and floggings and beheadings) I was hard put to it to keep from throwing up at the scale of the snow job that was being foisted on the American public.

The article was published in 1989. There was one sentence in it that is laden with unintended historic irony. "Today (1989)...thousands of Saudi students are enrolled in universities across the United States."

Yeah, right, how wonderful! On September 11 2001 the United States found out what fifteen of those Saudi Arabian students had *really* come to the United States to do.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at July 24, 2008 5:55 PM

On a less serious note - I draw attention, for everyone's enjoyment, to the multiple unintended ironies of another phrase from that Aramco piece:

"a way to illustrate Saudi Arabia's rock-solid religious foundations".

There are *so* many possible ways that could have been...illustrated, especially if one found a brave enough cartoonist with a blackly satirical bent.

Let's think about all those people marching widdershins round the Kaaba - before they go in to kiss...a lump of rock.

Or perhaps the Stoning of Satan ceremony, during which, in the frenzy, persons among those taking part have been known to get injured or even killed.

Or the stoning of some wretched girl who has been raped.

Or the stones that the Prophet's example has sanctified for toilet use.

The Religion of Rocks and Stones. Yup - they've got Rocks in their Heads...but *not* the Rock of Ages.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at July 24, 2008 6:08 PM

Now, back to the posted article.

I notice it doesn't mention which particular Mozart items were played in the King Fahd Cultural Centre.

But wouldn't the irony have been delicious, had the quartet had the chutzpah to play a confection of tunes from "The Abduction From The Seraglio"?

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at July 24, 2008 6:15 PM

Hugh, thanks so much for the posting the ludicrously gushing article about the 1989 exhibition, "Saudi Arabia: Yesterday and Today" Potempkin village--I don't remember seeing anything about it at the time.

from the article:

"It's awesome!" one woman commented as she wandered around the exhibition's seven sections, which conscientiously detailed the story of a country dedicated to its traditional culture and religion, yet destined to become the most successfully modernized nation in the Middle East."

The "most successfully modernized nation in the Middle East"? There are not a lot of nations in the running--might I suggest Israel? No, I thought not. The entire "Muslim world" is pretty retrogressive, but I suppose a nation such as Indonesia--with its large Chinese and Hindu populations--or perhaps Turkey, where Islam has been at least partially suppressed, come closest. Neither is, strictly speaking, in the "Middle East", though.

A few tall buildings and a large amount of unearned wealth do not make a place modern. Where do we start? Witchcraft is still on the books--and laws against it enforced--and punishments include stoning, beheading (a Saudi princess was publicly beheaded just a few years before this exhibit), and even *crucifixion*.

more:

"Peter Hannaford, chief executive officer of The Hannaford Company, the public-relations firm called in to organize the project, recalled that "one of the principal reasons for having the exhibition was to change stereotypes people might have about the kingdom. It's not just sand and oil wells. It's a highly developed country with a very energetic, industrious people."

Ah, yes. Those "stereotypes" were already a nagging problem by 1989. The line about "industrious people" is especially hilarious. Most menial work in Saudi Arabia is performed by despised foreign workers from places like Sri Lanka and the Philippines, who are regularly abused and even enslaved. As for the other end of the spectrum, highly skilled work, well, that's what those "35,000 Americans" are for, as well as the thousands of Europeans, and Canadians, and Australians who keep the oil wells flowing smoothly and the engineering projects going.

Many Saudis try their best to sidestep gainful employment altogether. Those who do work, often work at government make-work positions.

more:

"It seemed, however, as if the favorite explanations came from the exhibition's Saudi student guides, all of whom wore green buttons saying "Ask Me!"

I can think of a few things I'd have liked to ask them--about freedom of religion, and the status of women--who are not even allowed to drive, or to venture out of their homes without a male guardian--and the prevalence of torture, and amputations, and all the gory medieval punishments of that most "modern" nation. I'm sure they prefered questions, though, about colorful handicrafts or spicy cuisine.

more:

"He recalled an older visitor who came up to him and admitted he knew nothing about Saudi Arabia - not even where the country was. Aalsaadan gave him a package of information and two days later the man came back. "Ask me anything!" he said. "I can tell you about Islam, I can tell you about Bedouin life... anything!" Aalsaadan smiled and admitted, "He started to tell me things I didn't even know."

Hah! This sounds like most of our "experts" on Islam! It would be funny, if it wasn't so damn dangerous.

Posted by: gravenimage at July 24, 2008 7:50 PM

In June 1979 J. B. Kelly's article "Of Valuable Oil and Worthless Policies" was published in the English magazine (supported by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, which intelligently received funding from the C.I.A.) Encounter. It was recently put up at Jihad Watch, at my request, and with the aid of a tireless poster ("heroyalwhyness") who typed the whole thing into uploadable form.

Here is the part relevant to Peter Hannaford, and to all the others who constitute the cast of well-paid thousands, who have sold their services to Saudi clients over the years, and done great harm, as a natural consequence, to the formulation of sensible policies by the government of this country, the country of which they are citizens and to which they should owe their loyalty:

"Much of the same kind of creative licence [as with Iran], with appropriate adjustments, was used in depicting the strength and importance of Saudi Arabia. Here, instead of a contemporary Xerxes and the burgeoning “second industrial power in Asia”, we had the Badu Kingdom, ruled over by the stern yet benevolent House of Saud, supported by and themselves upholding the austere verities of the Wahhabi practice of Islam. Borrowing heavily from the propaganda circulated in the United States for many years by the Arabian-American Oil Company, the State Department in successive hearings before the Congressional committees spun a tale about the Saudi ruling house, its rise to power, its mode of government, and its' conduct towards its neighbors that the ghost of Scheherazade could not have bettered.

At the heart of the State Department's presentation lay the argument – first propounded and assiduously propagated for many years afterwards by ARAMCO for its own obvious purposes – that a natural affinity existed between Americans and Saudi Arabs, a sense of immediate camaraderie that made them logical allies. To give this notion of a mutuality of interests and outlook between the citizens of the world's most advanced democracy and the inhabitants of one of the world's most unenlightened states a little more credibility, ARAMCO in its publications had employed a terminology deliberately evocative of the American West in pioneer days, of Badu homesteaders, of grazing ranges (diyar in Arabic), of the Saudis as Unitarians (muwahiddun, “believers in the unity of God”) of manifest destiny – in short, of Arabia as America's last frontier.

The State Department adopted the same practice, while updating the imagery to that of Pittsburgh and Houston arising by the Red Sea, of a grand economic Saudi-American partnership, with the Saudis supplying the oil and finance and the Americans technology, arms and political guarantees.

To some extent the State Department was aided in its endeavours to portray Saudi Arabia as a rapidly evolving, modern kingdom by the gullibility of some Senators and Congressmen. “The notion that we are dealing in Saudi Arabia with primitive Bedouins is not only patronising but obviously mistaken”, George McGovern informed his colleagues in the Senate in May 1975 after a lightning visit to that country.

As one American Embassy official had put it to him, “What you are dealing with here is a government run by 3,000 American university graduates. . . . “ Further testimony to the efficiency of the Saudi government – its constructive use of its oil revenues, its benign outlook upon its smaller neighbours in the Gulf, its reliability as an ally of the United States, and its solicitude for the economic health of the West, as evidenced by its moderating influence in the counsels of OPEC – was liberally provided by the parade of witnesses from the universities, the oil companies and other outside bodies who appeared before the Congressional committees from 1971 onwards. It was a rare display of an even rarer unanimity of views, made all the more interesting by the fact that no Western scholar or casual inquirer was allowed to travel in Saudi Arabia to see conditions there for himself and form an independent judgment about the country."

Posted by: Hugh at July 24, 2008 9:07 PM

One only has to look at the demands of Muslims here in the west to know that what transpired in Saudi Arabia was not representative.

Because whereever Muslims go they start demanding that the locals conform to THEIR NEEDS as shown in this case by Muslims for Barack Obama

Here is their list of Demands:
Link:
http://muslimsforobama08.com/issues.html

ISSUES & SOLUTIONS

QUESTION: What are issues and recommendations for solutions that are unique to Muslim Americans?

1. A Law against harrassment of a Muslim women wearing Hijab at the Airport, DMV and other public arenas.

2. Institute a Law to allow Muslim Employees to take a hours off from work for Friday Jummah Prayer.

3. Make the 2 Eid's, recognized National Holidays on Calendars with days off from work.

4. Optional Halal meals in federal buildiings, public schools and colleges.

5. Provide prayer areas suitable for Salah and Jummah, in public and private facilities. (i.e. Malls, Airports, Universities and government buildings.)

6. Organize a Muslim American group to assist in recommendations for US foreign policy affecting majority Muslim countries.

Posted by: waltc at July 24, 2008 9:51 PM

If this was merely a private performance primarily for Germans and maybe a few guests, then this story appears to be much ado about very little.

Does anyone know which of Mozart's many fine pieces were played, e.g., any with an explicitly Christian theme?

Posted by: Eastview at July 25, 2008 4:27 AM

from an article above about Saudi Arabia:

"It was a rare display of an even rarer unanimity of views, made all the more interesting by the fact that no Western scholar or casual inquirer was allowed to travel in Saudi Arabia to see conditions there for himself and form an independent judgment about the country."
...................................

This could not have been more different from the situation with the United States in its early years. In the 18th and 19th centuries travelers in America moved freely and wrote copiously about the new country--everyone from Adam Smith to Charles Dickens offered their impressions.

Some opinions were glowing, some measured, some vicious satires. Every aspect was open for assessment--America's government, citizens, institutions--including slavery. All this, of course, was matched by a rowdy and contentious native free press.

I've always been a bit suspicious of the concept of "natural allies"--I have always thought that this should depend on mutual values and aims. That being said, it is possible to make a case, perhaps, for America allying with Britain, or the countries of Western Europe.

But *Saudi Arabia*? It is, in history, in philosophy (which is almost entirely religion, in their case), in aspirations, in the customs and experience of day-to-day life, almost diametrically opposed to the West in general, and the U.S. in particular. In fact, one would be hard pressed to envision a nation less a natural ally to America than Saudi Arabia.

Posted by: gravenimage at July 25, 2008 1:22 PM

Hear from someone who's been in the middle of Muslims all his life - THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS MODERATE ISLAM.

Every Muslim is like a ticking bomb. They just need the right trigger to explode.

Posted by: AtheistAfghan at July 26, 2008 4:00 AM

AtheistAfghan

a sobering comment you just made, there. We believe you.

However, it appears that *you* managed to work out how to 'defuse' yourself and remove the 'Islam bomb' from inside of your head. Congratulations!

How did you do it? It cannot have been an easy task. Do you feel like sharing a little of your story (with names and places changed for safety's sake, if necessary)?

You might enjoy checking out BoschFawstin's 'Pigman' anti-jihad comics - he's another former Muslim who sometimes visits here.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at July 28, 2008 3:40 AM