"There is a fundamental distrust about everything in the world. We live in an age of distrust. It affects everyone who is trying to communicate because basically, nobody believes anything."
Jim Cox, a global account manager for Hill Knowlton, one of the world’s largest public relations businesses and the largest in the Gulf, is as forthright and straight talking a man as you are likely to find in the field of public relations. His shrewd and sometimes tough analysis of the public perception of the Kingdom in the United States and his ideas on the most effective strategies for improving it are informed by frequent visits to the Kingdom and intimate experience with the vicissitudes of American corporate and governmental life.
Saudi Arabia has always been something of a mystery in the Western world. The public imagination, fueled by stereotyped images of Arabs as untrustworthy, romantically warlike or dishonest, has had to come to terms with a very different reality. Both economic power flowing from oil and the negative publicity from the events of Sept. 11 have changed the public perception of the Muslim and Arab world.
"A lie will go round the world while the truth is pulling its boots on" runs an English proverb. This has never been more relevant than it is when applied to the public relations machine that sustains the image of the Kingdom in the Western media.
The essence of the eponymous practice of public relations is that it relates to the public. Jim Cox sees this as an area that has yet to be exploited by the Kingdom. Whilst the Kingdom is well known and respected in the corporate world, the public is surprisingly uninformed.
"Saudi Arabia has a cadre of friends," he said, "who know, respect and value it in terms of business relationships and the culture of the Kingdom. The trouble is that cadre is very small. It’s a real industry-based group, limited to those who have had business contacts with the Kingdom."
The result is that the Kingdom has remained isolated from the public knowledge. Traditionally a very private society, Saudi Arabia felt no pressure to change the status quo.
This suited it very well over the last half century or so; international business relations developed and the Kingdom addressed itself to building its infrastructure financed by enormous oil revenue. Outside the concerns of commerce, the public image of the Kingdom as perceived by the rest of the world was not a high priority. The question of the difference between privacy and isolation never arose.
All that changed in a couple of fireballs in September last year.
With the revelation that the majority of the hijackers involved in those catastrophic moments were Saudi, the carefully preserved cloak of privacy became a wall of isolation, supported by fear.
The reaction in the United States, said Cox, "was a huge patriotic outpouring. It was a ‘Pearl Harbor’ type of blowback for Al-Qaeda and the terrorists but unfortunately it tended to capture some of the Arab people as a general group, and blame attached to the whole group." Suddenly, everyone in the United States public identified with New York. America felt vulnerable and confused. The question from a stunned nation was ‘Why should anyone do this to us?’
People fear what they don’t know or understand and the privacy that the Kingdom sought and valued suddenly became a huge disadvantage. The privacy that had protected negative influences affecting the Kingdom had also hindered the outflow of communication. Few outside the business community knew the Kingdom or its people at all. Coupled with the general distrust abroad in the public, everything that the Kingdom communicated began to sound like an apology or denial after the event.
America had recently become aware of greed, avarice and even criminal behavior they had found in the once respected business community. Mistrust was fast becoming the norm. "So you start with this huge hurdle of disbelief to overcome," said Cox. "It’s not the Saudis, it’s not the government and it’s not anybody else in particular. It’s simply the world we live in."
Perhaps now in the position of "more sinned against than sinning," Saudi Arabia has had a major public relations challenge thrust on it. It has to present and even explain itself to a supremely skeptical world. It’s an entirely new challenge to the Kingdom. Just exactly where should it begin?
Cox sees the campaign as having several parallel approaches, individually productive and effective but none short term or necessarily publicly visible. One alone is not enough, in concert they will work.
"Start with your friends," said Cox decisively. "Start building alliances with them that give you support in broader ways. Start connecting with congressmen — make the experience personal for him or her." Behind the scenes contact and one to one contact is very effective, but often yields a result that has little public profile. "The meeting of Crown Prince Abdullah with George W. Bush on his ranch is a case in point. The proof of the effectiveness of this approach is that the policies of the US are not blatantly antagonistic; that in itself is a result."
A second and related approach is to have influencers and high-profile members of the US establishment endorse the Kingdom. "The Kingdom always has the delicate problem of balancing its own domestic constituency with the international one. Some things are better done in private." Cox thought that if the Kingdom wants to convince the public that it is cooperating with the anti-terrorism campaign, then a trusted high-profile establishment figure in the US would be a very effective communicator. "Colin Powell and George Tenet (CIA) who have each spent plenty of time in the Kingdom are very credible. The Kingdom has a tremendous record of reliability and dependability as an energy supplier to the world. The world needs that kind of reassurance — there are plenty of people who could speak up." Reciprocal endorsements and explanations could be mounted together with keynote addresses and seminars held at media institutions like the Washington Press Club or the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco.
The third track Cox identified is to create more friends. Cultural, student, scientific and technological exchanges demystify the Kingdom and make it a personal experience. The returnees would be effective speakers and bring a personal, more believable view of their experience.
This approach addresses the business community and a small section of the public, but leaves the vast bulk of the American public untouched. How should the Kingdom go about influencing them?
"There’s a need to explain some things," said Cox. "One of the problems for the Kingdom is that there are enemies who have a different political agenda. They will take advantage, create misinformation and distort things." This, he thought, needed a vigorous and even aggressive campaign to correct it.
The media coverage of the aftermath of Sept. 11 and the fire-fighter hero-image building is an example that might serve the Kingdom well. Make it "up close and personal," show the Saudi and Arab people as human and as sharing a common humanity with those killed on Sept. 11. "It’s problematic though," Cox thought, "the Kingdom is not used to having to defend itself and tell its story."
Finally, Cox described the long-term approach using a time scale of decades rather than months. Advertising and media contact is essential, but it’s not enough on its own. A sustained people-to-people effort is needed. Cultural exchanges, student internships and tourism over years will gradually demystify the Kingdom to the general public. Cox saw student exchanges as enormously valuable, especially US students living and working in the Kingdom for extended periods, perhaps learning Arabic and teaching English.
"It’s relationships that make sense," said Cox. "It’s an enormous challenge. The Kingdom is perfectly entitled to be the Kingdom. If it feels more comfortable in a private world, that’s OK. In practical terms, however, in this age of distrust you have to reach out." Using the image of the global village, Cox said, "The Kingdom has a great story to tell. It’s a matter of being open, accessible and willing to ‘go over and meet the neighbor,’ or indeed invite the neighbor over."
The central challenges in the building of a better understanding between Saudi Arabia and the Western world, particularly America as Cox sees it are to establish the feelings in their respective publics of honesty, openness and trustworthiness. It applies as much to America as it does to the Kingdom. "Time is a factor, there are places to build on — we must begin."
The Twin Towers were full of people, real, ordinary fathers and mothers, sons and daughters. America and Saudi Arabia are both only the sum of people just like that. Rather than be tempted to adopt political or cultural postures and indulge in megaphone diplomacy, isn’t it time they spoke to each other as neighbors and friends?