Bridging the cultural gap

Lubna Hidayat Hussain is the Bureau Chief of NBC News in Saudi Arabia, writes political columns for two Saudi newspapers and for the last three months has hosted Saudi Arabia’s Channel 2 socio-political chat show, Bridges.

Screened three-times-a-week, the face of Ms Hussain is beamed into sitting rooms throughout Bahrain and the rest of the Middle East.
Petite and beautiful, she is the outspoken face of the new Saudi woman. In a country that rejects celebrity culture, Ms Hussain tops the A-list.
Fiercely nationalistic, devotedly religious and “very open-minded” Ms Hussain is a self-confessed paradox.
Educated at a London private school, the only Muslim among a majority of Jews, and later at the University of London, Ms Hussein’s life has straddled cultures.
“I see myself as someone who sits on the fence between East and West. Because I lived in the West I understand how westerners work. On the other side because I’m from the East, I understand why it is that we feel narked about what the West does to us, how they stereotype and criticise us.”
Her background makes her the ideal host of Bridges, a show which aims to bridge the gap between the two cultures.
“What we’re trying to do with the show is to break down stereotypes, build bridges and to more accurately portray Saudis. Everyone thinks that when they enter Riyadh they are entering Baghdad, a war zone. But its not like that at all, it has more in common with Los Angeles than Iraq,” she says.
Saudi women now make up more than half of all graduates from Saudi universities, but they comprise only five per cent of the kingdom’s workforce, making Ms Hussain’s status unique.
“It’s a huge thing for a woman to have a live chat show in Saudi Arabia, especially because it avoids censorship,” she explains.
But Ms Hussain is a very singular woman. The offer to host Bridges followed a controversial article she wrote after a live discussion on Saudi National Day.
Her article described the discussion as “Stalinist propaganda,” where the participants were forced to make positive comments about Saudi Arabia “as if they had guns held to their heads.”
Surprisingly, Ms Hussain explains, “Channel 2’s attitude was if you think you’re so great, come and show us how to make it better, don’t just criticise us.”
She has not looked back.
One of the first guests she had on the show was Robert Lacy, author of The Kingdom, an irreverent account of the ruling Al Saud family. The book has been banned by the Saudi Ministry of Information.
But Ms Hussain simply says, “I just did it, I always push the limits.”
Asked if she ever fears that she may go too far, she says, “the only thing to fear is fear itself, if I had to go to jail for my beliefs I would.”
The fact that Ms Hussain is able to criticise her country may be testimony to changes that the kingdom has undergone in recent years. Before 9/11 she claims that a show like Bridges would never have been possible.
She says: “Before 9/11 we were living in la-la-land, it was a very big wake up call to Saudis. We immediately had to start questioning ourselves … which we weren’t very good at doing. We had to look at the number of hijackers that came from our society and ask what it was that created this frustrated populace.”
Despite her criticisms of a country that is notoriously restricted, it seems that Ms Hussein is able to stay well within the favour of the Saudi government (her show is run in conjunction with the Ministry of Information) primarily because she is balanced as well as stridently nationalistic.
“I criticise the country and things that the government has done; I criticise what I believe deserves to be criticised. But we also try and find a feasible solution and work our way forward.”
While she may criticise aspects of Saudi society, she points out that if Saudi was “so regressive” she would not have been invited recently to accompany the King on a trip to India to represent Saudi civil life. 
She says: “I asked the ministry what our boundaries were, if there were any things we weren’t allowed to speak about but they said you have a carte blanche to say whatever you like.”
Similarly she explains that during a recent episode of Bridges about the freedom of the press, she praised Saudi’s media.
“If you compare Saudi Arabia’s press to other countries, ours is good in comparison. We’re always taught about the American First Amendment, freedom of speech, and yet we see in practice – especially with Iraq – a very different story.”
However, Ms Hussian’s most vehement comments, both on her show and in her columns are reserved for American foreign policy. As a result the bulk of her hate mail comes from the Americans.
“I’ve faced a lot of criticism, I receive thousands of emails, but the bulk of my hate mail comes from America. Americans are very ignorant because they rely on what the TV and 24-hour news channels tell them.
“I don’t agree with a lot of things that come out of American which criticise my religion, my country and my people. I hate their government. I don’t agree at all with their foreign policy measures but on a personal level I don’t have any problem.”
But despite her blunt opposition to US government policy, Ms Hussain beat more than 500 applicants (the majority male) to obtain the job of Bureau Chief with American news channel NBC.
“Americans are very good to work for because they don’t insist that you have a political bias towards America. I’ve been very clear with my bosses that my loyalty is first to my religion and second to my country.”
While Ms Hussain claims that Saudi Arabia has come a long way in a very short space of time, she still says there is a very long way to go, and that change will be incremental.
“Women themselves are quite against change, there is a huge element in Saudi society which is nervous about change. Some regions of Saudi had been untouched for a thousand years, and then they were parachuted into the middle of the 20th century. Then we had monopoly money galore from oil. So even though you see this huge modernisation, intellectually there hasn’t been the ability to catch up. We’re still very traditional and conservative.”
But she is adamant that the way to move forward is to modernise, but not to Westernise.
“We are not Westerners and never will be,” she says. “We are Muslims, we have our own culture and traditions. But there doesn’t have to be conflict. I don’t believe in this clash of civilisations.
“We have the same fears, dreams and aspirations. It’s important to get back to our commonalities.”
And this, she says, is where Bridges is important. It promotes tolerance on both sides, she says.
“We must have a long way to go, she says “but there is no question of direction we’re heading in.”
l Bridges is screened live on Saudi Arabia Channel 2 on Saturdays at 10pm, and repeated on Sundays at 10am and Tuesdays at 1pm.

On being criticised for wearing jeans and being told to wear dresses instead:
“Well. The day men here stop wearing dresses, I will start!”
 – Friday, 11, March, 2005 (30, Muharram, 1426) Arab News
qqq
To an American on Iraq’s so-called ‘weapons of mass destruction’
“Saddam must have hidden them so damn well that you have yet to find them! And then you were back after the commercial break with an entirely new excuse. Let’s bring democracy to the Middle East. Hallelujah! What a wonderfully lofty ideal that was supplemented by the displacement of a dictator who had become too big for his own US-made boots - the fact that your very own Rumsfeld had shared a Kodak moment and a cup of tea with him while Kurds were being gassed to death in northern Iraq, notwithstanding!
– 2/9/2007 Arab View
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On a couple divorced in absentia by a Saudi court – a case brought by the wife’s brother.
“You would be forgiven if you thought that such a ruling had been administered in the Stone Age. When I read through the case, images of men dressed in Fred and Barnie-like attire and brandishing clubs came to mind. The word “yabbadabbadoo” being pronounced prior to the announcement of the verdict would not have appeared out of place.
2/2/2007 Arab View