The Saudi regime has made efforts over the past seven years to change the stereotyped image of the Kingdom abroad, using academic halls and cultural edifices. The regime's efforts are focused on the West in particular, despite the Kingdom's endeavor to strengthen its Asian alliances, by establishing intimate relations with China, India and Russia. The West remains the main dilemma of this regime, because the West, represented by the United States of America, Britain, France and Germany, constitutes the guarantee of its security and its main throne.
The Russian-Ukrainian war was able to prove that the attempts of these countries to create a distance between themselves and the Saudi regime are doomed to failure, as long as they are subject to the energy file, in which Saudi Arabia is still a major play.
Under the leadership of the Crown Prince, the Saudi government launched a high-level campaign to change the cultural discourse, due to the role that this discourse plays, as many Western governments and their decision-makers depend on it to build their future policies towards the state.
Under the leadership of the Crown Prince, the Saudi government launched a high-level campaign to change the cultural discourse, due to the role that this discourse plays, as many Western governments and their decision-makers depend on it to build their future policies towards the state.
Western decision-makers follow what is issued and published about Saudi Arabia by academics in Western universities to follow developments in the Kingdom and to define a position that draws the basis for a strategic alliance with it.
Despite Saudi Arabia's attempts to influence pressure groups in Washington, London, and other capitals that have been playing a major role in the international arena for some time, these attempts increased and became more organized in this era with Muhammad bin Salman. Focusing on pressure groups is due to their direct impact on decision makers.
Business communities, oil and energy companies, and all companies that have an interest in investing in Saudi Arabia adopt and are influenced by pressure group rhetoric, through which they try to study the stability of the political and economic system and the feasibility of investment in the country.
Many of these centres are directly supported by the Saudi regime, and some of them have begun to produce a new discourse that reassures Western governments and their decision-makers.
Campaigns led by centers run by pressure groups work to market this system as a reformist liberal system, oriented towards openness and working to eliminate everything that affects personal rights and freedoms, and allowing society to express itself in all aspects of life such as parties, singing, entertainment and dancing in the streets.
The visits of researchers working in such centers to the Kingdom and interviews with its men, to describe the changes and improvements, have become a frequent routine after which they return to their work centers to write congratulatory reports on the qualitative leap in the country. These centers also work to distance Saudi Arabia from the reality in which it was stigmatized in the past and linked it to terrorism, religious extremism, and Wahhabi preaching.
The desire to change this reality and remove all those events from the historical societal memory is very urgent, and through these centers an image of a society that turned on itself and became a new society is drawn. The funding of these research centers was able to influence the academic discourse as well, and led to the publication of many articles and books promoting the Kingdom and its viewpoints.
Universities are the second forum through which cultural discourse is changed, and they are the first reservoirs to which the momentum of oil money has reached since the beginning of the oil boom. Although the reality of universities differs from one country to another, the ability of Gulf governments to support higher education centers, in sometimes twisted ways, still exists.
The funding system for universities in the United States of America and the United Kingdom, for example, is characterized by flexibility. In the United States, universities are private institutions independent of governments, which facilitates the process of funding and material support. In the United Kingdom, despite the fact that the university education system is exceptional, fluctuating between official and private, it accepts foreign funds for centers or research projects are welcome.
As for other European countries, such as Germany, France, and Italy, universities are free public centers that are managed and funded directly by the state. There is an emphasis on their independence as institutions and on not accepting foreign funds. However, as we mentioned earlier, states can bring their own money in crooked ways.
The London School of Economics, for example, highlights the ability of governments to influence ancient edifices, as it includes a hall called the Bin Zayed Hall funded by the Emirates. In a funny irony, this hall was used during the period of what was called the Arab Spring to hold seminars, conferences and meetings that discuss democracy in the Arab world.
An “academic chair” is the goal that any donor aspires to, to have his name associated with the university. In Cambridge, for example, there is a special academic chair for Arab-Islamic studies funded for this purpose.
Saudi Arabia, for example, and in order to confront the campaign it wages against it and its system that does not adopt civil rights or consecrate them, is trying to influence a new generation of students who receive knowledge through professors who have a relationship with Saudi Arabia, or through their writings and articles that seek to change public opinion there.
In light of the emergence of influencing these edifices as a clear and explicit goal of their funding, universities always seek to reassure their visitors and audiences that funding cannot affect the objectivity, impartiality, and impartiality of research. Despite all attempts to maintain independence, the question always remains, how can the recipient of the money avoid succumbing to the financier's moods in one way or another, at a time when funding remains threatened with stopping in the event of issuance of positions that contradict the directions of the latter?
The press is the third field that governments try to influence, and with its ability to shape the cultural space, it remains the most important field through which the regime's propaganda can be disseminated. In the year 2017, for example, when the star of Mohammed bin Salman rose, journalists from all Western countries flocked to the Kingdom, and prestigious American magazines and newspapers interested in following up on Middle Eastern affairs, such as the Washington Post and the New York Times, were the most shining.
The journalists of these institutions wrote shocking articles, promoted the subtle changes taking place in Saudi Arabia, and tried to show the Kingdom as a normal country with no human rights violations. This coincided with the time when Saudi Arabia was working to polish its image and show its desire for reform in all fields, using all means.
Today, social networks have entered the arena as a major influence. We now notice the involvement of academics in polishing the image of the regime through their tweets and their presence on social media platforms.
For example, in the tourism sector, the system exploits a new group of people who are called “influencers.” These are a new image of celebrities created by social media, closely followed by millions of people around the world, and their relationship with the public is characterized by intimacy and continuity.
In the “Society of the Spectacle,” as the French thinker J. Debord calls it, where the image has the supreme word, the regime sends these influencers, most of whom are women, who come from Asia, Australia, and Europe, in exchange for huge sums of money to undertake tourist trips, visit cultural landmarks, and visualize them to attract tourism. By monitoring social media, especially Twitter, we notice that the system also uses academics to carry out this task, as they appear to distance themselves from their academic writings, in exchange for photo trips in the country, in a clear attempt by the system to attract the attention and tickle the feelings of investors in the West and decision-makers.
The current regime promotes itself as the sponsor of the bright future in Saudi Arabia, in relentless efforts to change its image, which was greatly distorted after the horrific assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
Soft power is the Saudi regime’s means of infiltrating Western civil society, whether through relationship companies or academic spaces, which are usually classified outside what are called image-improving companies, in light of the upheaval of Western public opinion against it during the past eight years, especially after the arbitrary methods it has pursued. In dealing with feminist activists, this is a very current topic for international civil society, the United Nations, human rights organizations, and Western parliaments as well.
The regime’s attempts are continuing to wash its image in all fields, and we cannot assess the extent of its success or monitor how these actions affect the decisions of governments and the decisions of businessmen, but we have noticed during the past four years the hesitation that prevailed in the areas of the business field, which affected the flow of capital to Saudi Arabia Many people, banks and companies withdrew from the investment conferences that took place after 2018 at the last moment.
The humanization of the regime is the biggest concern for Saudi Arabia today, as the reign under the leadership of his crown prince is trying to implant the image of the kingdom as a natural country with tourist attractions and people who live in keeping pace with the latest trends in technology, fashion and cultural development, in return for reducing the lights directed towards the suffering of detainees and prisoners of conscience and harassing political opponents or executions because it is the black point in the new image that the system wants to show.
Many see that the Saudi academics present in Europe and other countries participate in the regime’s normalization campaign, and work to consolidate its narrative despite the hopes placed on them to convey the voice of society as an elite, but we must not forget the pressure that the regime exerts on these scholarship students, as the regime, for example, carried out a wave arrestations of them and dismissed many in 2011 due to tweets or statements encouraging liberation movements in the Arab world, and after being summoned to the consulates, they were dismissed from the missions, without any ability for them to continue their studies or provide housing.
Also, during the past ten years, those who wrote about topics deemed sensitive by the regime were prevented from entering Saudi Arabia later, which directly affected their academic abilities, because much of the research depends on the researcher’s presence inside the country.
Today, for example, because of my political leanings, I cannot enter Saudi Arabia, and despite the regime’s inability to prevent me from doing my research and writing my books because I rely heavily on historical archives that are not subject to the Saudi regime, it is trying to restrict my communication with academics and others inside the Kingdom. Whoever communicates with me from the country becomes suspicious, but more than that, communicating with me or downloading my books was among the accusations leveled against the ACPRA detainees.
In my latest book, The King's Son, I could not communicate with the inside, but its main topic was about the Saudis in the Diaspora, so the book was based on their experiences.
On the other hand, the Western academic’s ability to be present in Saudi Arabia is linked to the regime’s opinion of him, as his presence in the Kingdom is essential for the sake of research and the integrity of documentation, but he is always exposed to not obtaining an entry visa when he defames the regime. On the other hand, many Western researchers try to avoid exposing citizens and residents in Saudi Arabia to danger because of statements they express their dislike for the regime, which would harm them.
Finally, despite all the obstacles, we must not lose hope, and keep our voices high, because the work that human rights organizations are doing has a great impact on creating a balance in global public opinion, because of its ability to reduce submission to Saudi propaganda in all Western capitals.
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Madawi Al-Rasheed's speech at the 3rd annual conference for victims of violations in Saudi Arabia, which was held on December 9 and 10, 2022.