The study interviewed 3,150 people face-to-face in 13 Saudi cities in March and April 2002.
The data does not lead to any firm conclusions; there are inconsistencies, but this is true in all societies. The study found several market clusters: conservatives (20%); well-balanced (25%), family-oriented (30%) and disaffected/impressionable youth (25%). In a hypothetical election today, 20% of this population would vote conservative, 50% moderate and 25% wouldn’t vote at all – they just wouldn’t care. People are concerned about the loss of Saudi culture, such as manners and dress. Nevertheless, they are watching satellite television, particularly MBC (a popular all-around network run by Saudis outside Saudi Arabia). Al-Jazeerah has fewer viewers than thought and it doesn’t help that the Saudi Chamber of Commerce is specifically telling Saudis not to watch the channel because it emanates from Qatar, a country that is at odds with the Saudi establishment on several fronts. About 65% of those that watch MBC also watch the domestic Saudi channel (except among the conservatives who watch Saudi 1 more than MBC). Just over 30% of them say they have internet access, although internet access is restricted for content and people are concerned about being monitored (and possibly having their service shut off or being put on some kind of watchlist).

76% say that adhering to religious values is central to their beliefs and ways of living. Yet when asked to list values that were personally important, 29% listed Family, 20% listed religion and over 50% chose other items such as “Sharing my life with someone who understands me”, “accomplishing as much as I can,” and “being accepted as an individual.” 60% of the surveyed population said they did not identify with Western values and morality, the other 40% said they were sympathetic to Western values. 80% of the population said they would take elements of Western values and fuse them with their own values. The disaffected youth in particular want to imitate things from the West. 

Over 40% of men said they prefer to spend their leisure time with friends rather than family (that number drops to 13% among conservatives) and there has been an increase in recreational activities involving men hanging out with other men (no sexual innuendo intended here).

Among the disaffected youth, half of them just want to be trendy but they want to live with their parents and have no major issues. The other half are seriously in doubt about many things, including even the validity of their father’s opinion (which is usually taken as gospel). 

There is evidence that the preponderance of domestic servants inside Saudi Arabia who are not Muslims or Arabs has helped to create a generation gap between parents who see their kids fixated on imitating westerners at the expense of a more conservative moral code, and children who felt they were raised by nannies instead of parents.

Increasing numbers of women want to work (only 39% of them agreed with the statement that a woman’s place is in the home with her family -- 74% of the total survey agreed with this statement (among conservatives it was 92% and among disaffected it was 56%)) and not just as teachers and nurses, but also as lawyers, architects and private enterprise. About 10% identified themselves as feminists and 29% of women claimed to know how to drive, even though they are officially forbidden to do so.

38% say they have changed their purchasing patterns away from American products due to the international political climate and the anti-US boycott in the country.

Turning to the political realm, there is an emotional bond among Moslems that makes people feel sympathetic for a fellow Moslem in need or in trouble. This explains the mass appeal of the Palestinian issue to the Arab Street.  The shooting of the 12 year old boy in Gaza with his father shielding him from the Israeli troops was a very emotional incident on video tape that focused feelings of anger and impotence (ie: the father’s inability to save his child resonating against an entire Arab World that feels it can’t make Israel go away, get rid of foreign influences or solve its own problems).

There is a feeling that the royal family should be trusted more to deal with the issue of terrorism; the Americans should worry more about changing America and becoming more even-handed in Israel/Palestine. There will always be terrorists; the issue is the traction of public support they hold because of American policies in the region. Whenever there is a report that Israel does something with its military, the report always says “Israel, using American-made XYZ (helicopters, jet fighters, etc.)...”

Here are a few more sophisticated reasons why Saudis are suspicious about American claims of Al-Qaeda involvement in 9/11: (1) How did the FBI find a car filled with Arabic language flight manuals by the Boston airport just an hour after the hijacking? Even in a jewelry heist, it takes a few days to come up with that kind of evidence. Who ever heard of an Arabic-language flight manual? These manuals are all written in English and the hijackers, who went to American flight schools, were in a position to be able to read English manuals. There are no known Arabic flight manuals in existence in the general marketplace. (2) The video of Osama, released by the American government last year with subtitles, has an inaudible audio and you have to trust the subtitles. Bin Laden was about 50-60 pounds heavier than he used to be. As far as many Arabs are concerned, they aren’t sure the man in the video is Bin Laden. (3) How could it be that these airplanes were crashed, burned to thousands of degrees with contents utterly destroyed, and then these letters from hijackers turn up entirely whole in the wreckage? (4) One of the suicide bomber’s girlfriends was waiting for him to return; he was in love. Not an ideal candidate for suicide. 

[A note from Ivan: The fourth point is answerable in that Bin Laden’s video said that not all of the 19 people knew until they were in the air that it would be a suicide mission. But the other 3 points are interesting. I personally have kept an open mind as to who was responsible for 9/11, but I do not believe that either America or Israel caused it or tolerated it – we live in an open society where secrets eventually come out and the ramifications for any kind of nonsense in this regard would be fatal.]

The Saudis are aware of the torrent of bad press they are getting lately in the U.S., especially the focus on Saudi money going to various charities and the actions of the Saudi ambassador’s wife. They feel they are being misunderstood by the U.S. and that people right now are more interested in twisting news for the sake of propaganda for American purposes than in being truthful or logical. They think the Americans have gone nuts with an irrational hatred toward anything coming out of the Moslem world. There is a sense that Americans don't understand people and their mentalities here and, more than trying to understand them, are bent on convincing them. They found the thought of having a Madison Avenue guru create American commercials directed to the Arab World to be an insult to their intelligence. Then too, there are defense mechanisms at play from Saudis. 

Ultimately, there are interests at play too. The Americans need the Saudis to produce several barrels of oil a day in the event the Iraqis burn the oil fields when the war starts. The Saudi royals need American protection. No doubt in my mind Saudis are playing both sides of the fence both wittingly and unwittingly in a world in which people who make trouble are in very incestuous relationships, but they do not see the reason to abandon Palestinians in the fight against the Israelis just because the Americans are on the side of the Israelis. 

In my opinion, unless we are prepared to leave the Saudis to the elements, the most important thing to focus on is increased communications and better coordination; to me the most important reason the Saudis are in the jam they are in right now is the failure to communicate and the withholding of information to the point that trust on the governmental level became lacking. 

The importance of the above information is that Saudi attitudes are not as monolithic as the conventional wisdom dictates, and that the conversations in Bahrain with Marwan are backed up by this fellow’s numbers. There are real cleavages/splits in Saudi society, meaning there are large groups of people who have very different ideas about where they want to go from here. There is a lot of emotional baggage being carried both by Americans and Saudis, but there are moderate open minds in Saudi that are receptive to messages from the West, particularly if unpopular policies change. There are reasons to think Saudi is not a lost cause, but it is also up to the Saudis to recognize and manage the trends taking place in their own society.