I spoke with a Saudi friend the other day. Invited him to visit me in the US. He said, “I haven’t been to the US since the 9/11 incident. I spent all my college years there and had been a regular visitor to America with my family for many years. But I won’t go there now. I just won’t put up with the humiliation that we Saudis have to go through now to visit the United States. I still like Americans. I just don’t like what America does.”
As the conversation progressed, he mentioned his 11-year-old daughter. He said that she and her brothers and sisters know all the back alley entrances to every Disney and MGM ride. He told me that she had developed a standard piece of stationery to complete her school papers. She arbitrarily used white paper with blue headlines and red text.
Recently my friend came home and noticed that his daughter had changed the red text to green text. He asked her why and she said, “Daddy I don’t want to use red, white and blue any more. Those are the American colors and I don’t like America any more.”
Another Saudi friend tells me that when she came home one day, she noticed that her pre-teen son was throwing numerous things in the wastebasket. She asked him what he was doing. He said, “Mommy, these are all my American things and I don’t want them anymore. America is so mean to us that I don’t like them anymore.”
In late November, a story broke in the media citing a report done by the Defense Science Board for the Pentagon entitled “Strategic Communication”.
It stated that in the war of ideas and the struggle for the hearts of mankind, “American goals not only failed but they have achieved the opposite of what they intend.”
The Defense Science Board report is an official report done for the Pentagon and not just some blog opinion on the Internet. It was actually available before the Nov. 2 election, but it was held back until after the election. However, the concepts and conclusions contained in the report were already in the minds and hearts of many citizens of the world including the youth of Saudi Arabia.
In 2004, one of every two Saudis was less than 15 years old and 60 percent of the population under the age of 25. Seventy percent of the population of the Middle East is under the age of 25. Even though many of these young Saudis may have been imprinted with memories of Disney World and McDonald’s while spending summer vacations in America, they now are throwing out their Mickey Mouse sweatshirts and not eating Big Macs because those products are “American”.
Think about your first impressions of a “foreign country” or “foreign people”. If you are an American, what were your first impressions or thoughts, your imprinting thoughts, about Saudi Arabia and Saudis?
And if you are a Saudi or another non-American, what were your first thoughts about America or Americans? How much do those first impressions affect our perceptions today? What does it take to change those thoughts?
Many of my Saudi adult friends were also imprinted with memories of America.
They did their college degrees in the US. They bought second homes in America.
They spent every summer vacation with their families in the United States. Many of their children were born in the US. And they talked about how much they admired American values and our way of life. Most of those adult friends don’t go to the US any more. They tell me that they just won’t put up with the indignities that most Saudis experience when applying for visas and entering America.
They say that America is no longer what it was to them. They state that no amount of American PR can change the realities on the ground.
My friends say that they still like their American friends but dislike many of America’s policies in their region and the rest of the world. But most importantly to them, how can they go to the United States when their children express their disappointment with America by changing text print and throwing away anything American? American policy makers, please take note.
— Dr. Michael Saba is the author of “The Armageddon Network” and is an international relations consultant.
