King Abdullah’s help made US expo possible

SCTA chief Prince Sultan bin Salman delivered a speech at the opening of the Marvelous Masterpieces Exhibition in Washington on Thursday. Here is the full text of his speech:
“This event would not have been possible without the support and sponsorship of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah. He believes in culture, he believes in preserving our antiquities; he is a man of vision, part of this vision is driven from the depth of the culture and history of Saudi Arabia. He saw many years ago what probably we all see tonight - through these traveling exhibitions. We have seen many, many years ago a lot of these beautiful artifacts that were visible to the human eye, and he has been really the driving force behind what we are doing today.
This is probably an event that is not so unusual in a country like the United States and many other advanced countries and advanced cultures, but for Saudi Arabia it is really a unique event. It was almost like a dream many years ago for my colleagues who sit here ,who are specialists in the field of antiquities and culture and heritage and have not even dreamed of what I hear from them - that they will see these artifact displayed in such elegant settings in a place like the Smithsonian. So tonight I want to give this credit to the people of the Smithsonian, to Secretary Claugh and of course Julian who came to see us in St. Petersburg and spoke with great imagination about what he dreams to see about Saudi Arabia and came to the exhibition.
He came to me and said 'we need to bring this to the United States; we need people to see what Saudi Arabia is all about, it is not just about oil,' and I do apologize to the CEO from our oil company Saudi Aramco, which has been a driving force especially under the leadership of my friend here Khaled Al-Faleh who has sponsored many great events including this one. Last week, he was our main sponsor for the Space Conference in Saudi Arabia, which was a great week celebrated in the country. Today we celebrate another event not totally unrelated; when you look at Saudi Arabia you must look at it in a holistic way.
Understanding Saudi Arabia would be incomplete if it wasn't for a chance to look at it from the window of its culture and history and the different civilizations which inhabited that part of the world.
You can never really understand how Saudi Arabia and its people and leadership would tackle hardships, especially when we are surrounded not necessarily by the most peaceful neighbors in the universe and therefore we think of ourselves in Saudi Arabia as genetically conditioned to deal with any adverse condition. This is because we are living in a very sensitive, critical and central part of the world with the geographic position that we call the Arabian Peninsula. Saudi Arabia occupies the greater part of the Arabian Peninsula today. It has seen events throughout history, no less of course the title of this exhibition "The Roads of Arabia."
I can almost tell you for sure that in this room the only person in Saudi Arabia who may have traveled more than me is Ambassador Smith and this man truly has been through all the roads leading to everywhere in Arabia. He has been a true friend, also in my mind are some wonderful ambassadors who have served in Saudi Arabia.
Ambassador Smith has been a hands-on envoy; he has not only been traveling in Saudi Arabia but also looking at the cultural aspects of its different parts. He really represented a multitude of cultures that make up a great country, a beautiful country like Saudi Arabia. Generosity that he spoke of Saudi people, we believe, is genetically implanted in every Saudi, Saudis who lived in the desert and on the mountains in the past had to be generous because they wanted a reciprocal treatment as they went across the desert looking for water and shelter, so we think of generosity as a natural thing for the people of Saudi Arabia.
You can never understand a country with such a great future as of Saudi Arabia, a country that is embarking on the future, the next level of the future with these fantastic generations of young Saudi men and women who are taking on the responsibility to transform this country and to take it to the next millennium with spirit and optimism. Being optimistic as a government official is a rarity, but for me I find it, as the ambassador said, from the people that I work with.
Dr. Ali Ghabban is one such person. He is our home grown Indiana Jones who has been with me on this trip for the last thirteen years, and the men and women who are now in the field excavating, exploring, and discovering. More than twenty five international teams, numbers unheard of in the past, we are now embarking on the next development of our heritage of Saudi Arabia through a national project named after King Abdullah - well deserved to revive the heritage of Saudi Arabia to open up historic villages, to preserve what we consider national treasures and to build massive amounts of museums. We are now, as we speak, building eleven major museums and we are doing twenty more and maybe four national museums and also we are teaching. We are bringing our culture and history to the schools in a deliberate way so a complete transformation is happening that has never been seen. We think of this as the fourth dimension of what Saudi Arabia is all about. Islam is the foremost that unites us and brings us together, that drives us to become a stable and prosperous country, the economy driven by oil but hopefully eventually will be driven by many other economic drivers.
Job creator as we go forward, so I think of my job not really as a tourism chief but almost as an employment officer - HR in Saudi Arabia. We also look at Saudi Arabia's role that is very well known in the international arena in the dialogue of civilization and religions. Now we have a reflection to the depth of this nation at the wealth of this nation, one of those dimensions that really make up the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia today.
I would like to extend deep appreciation to the Saudi Embassy. Adel my former running mate and his colleagues, including Dr. Naila Al-Sowayel, and Saudi students on the education mission, and the people of the Smithsonian, the men and women that I met in July, never believed that this could ever happen in such a short time.
Julian came and said I want to choreograph this myself. I want to give special thanks to Julian for the work he is doing to take this exhibition across America and very much look forward to seeing how we can top this. We thought we can never top some of the destinations we went to and there was tough competition like the Louvre and some of the other museums, but this is really such a special event, a wonderful dinner, a wonderful setting. I also want to thank our sponsors who have been with us through this trip. I extend greetings from Saudi Arabia and hope you enjoy this. And please invite your friends and ask your kids to send notes to their groups and circulate the information because we want as many people as possible to come and see it. Thank you very much.”

(Prince Sultan bin Salman is president of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities)