The best way for Arab nations to develop and modernize is for them to do so for themselves at their own pace, said Prince of Saudi Arabia Turki bin Faisal Al Saud.

‘Nations, like men, have their infancy, and nations, like men, must grow to survive,’ said Al Saud, former Saudi ambassador to the United States, among many other roles in international and Saudi politics.

Al Saud spoke to more than 300 students, faculty and administrators in Maxwell Auditorium on Monday evening on Saudi Arabia’s development and struggles throughout the past 80 years. He said the state continues to fall behind in the realm of women’s rights, and he urged American leaders to put more pressure on Israel if the United States wants peace in the Middle East.

As an academic and a Muslim, Yusuf Abdul-Qadir, a 2008 Syracuse University alumnus, asked Al Saud what students, particularly Muslim students, can do to build the bridge between the West and the Islamic faith.

‘The best thing Muslims can do is just to be themselves,’ Al Saud said. Students and private Muslims living in the United States can show being Muslim is nothing to be ashamed of, he said.

There may be violent extremists who identify as fellow Muslims, but ‘rather than change, be yourself,’ he said. That will clear up misconceptions about Islam.

Al Saud drew examples from Saudi Arabia’s history to illustrate how his nation has modernized at its own pace, rather than changing quickly to appease others and risking its stability.

Saudi Arabia contains much of the world’s oil resources, and the discovery has made the Saudi state a very wealthy nation. The Saudi monarchy controls the government and rules the nation based on conservative Islamic law. The state is a close ally of the United States and a key player in politics among Middle Eastern nations.

Throughout the past 15 years, Saudi Arabia has launched open forums to discuss religion and reach out to some of its religious minorities, including the Shiite Muslims, Al Saud said. It has also begun participating in international interfaith dialogue, he said.

In response to the rise of religiously charged violence and extremist groups like al-Qaeda, the government also created a program to rehabilitate and re-educate men and women who commit crimes in the name of religion. The program reunites them with their family, from which extremists often become estranged, and introduces them to clerics who challenge their violent interpretation of Islam, Al Saud said.

The Saudi rehabilitation program was the state’s unique solution to an international problem that has resulted in horrific events such as Sept. 11.

Also in the past several years, the Saudi regime has become more welcoming to international news agencies. Today BBC, CNN and The Associated Press have fully staffed bureaus in the country, he said.

Members of the audience thanked Al Saud for showing how Middle Eastern nations can adopt modern ideals and solve clashes with traditionalism on their own, without American or Western intervention.

But both attendees and Al Saud agreed the state was far behind in terms of women’s rights.

‘The role of women is one of the most contentious and justifiably criticized’ issue, Al Saud said.

Although women’s access to education has broadened and morality police have become relatively more relaxed, the state employs strict gender segregation.

The Saudi prince met with a dozen or so women studying at SU from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf prior to his Monday talk. He called on Saudi women to play an active role in changing their situations and fighting for more rights.

Haifa Jedea, a graduate student studying international relations and 2010 graduate from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, was one of the young women with whom Al Saud met. Jedea studies at SU as part of a scholarship from the Saudi government.

Jedea said she agreed that women should be fighting to gain more rights. She said Westerners often want women to be loud and public with their protests. But ‘we want peaceful change at our own pace,’ she said. Jedea said changing laws such as the mandatory head covering is less important than laws that limit women’s independence, such as women must be accompanied by a man when they travel.

Al Saud said the prophet spoke about the importance of respecting and empowering women.

‘The prophet himself was employed by a businesswoman,’ he said. The prophet Muhammad is also ‘famously quoted, ‘Paradise lies at the feet of mothers.”

In a final question to Al Saud, Mehrzad Boroujerdi asked what he thought of President Barack Obama’s policies in the Middle East.

Obama, like administrations in the past, has spoken about the need for Israel to stop the settlements in Palestinian territories, abide by the United Nations’ resolutions and follow a two-state solution, Al Saud said. But like other administrations, there have been more talk and less pressure, he said.

He urged Obama and American leaders to actively put pressure on Israel.

‘We’ve had American push lead to Israeli response,’ he said. He said the implementation of American policies in regards to Israel has been lacking, ‘to put it mildly.’

rastrum@syr.edu

Published on November 8, 2010 at 12:00 pm