Quotes from Thomas W. Lippman

Several prominent Saudis have told me that King Fahd at the time was nearing a decision to permit women to drive but was forced to back off by the furious public reaction

There exists in this country a serious personal motivational problem related to undesirable attitudes toward care of public and private property, quality of work, integrity, accepting responsibility, serving the public, working in private industry, accepting change, etc.," one memorandum said. "The foremost problem facing the Kingdom may well be to modify the value system as it relates to achieving appropriate personal enlightenment.

The very word "bank" caused heartburn among the Saudis, who associated it with the collection of interest. For that reason, when the king accepted Young's draft charter and created the central bank by royal decree in 1952, the institution was called the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, or SAMA, the name it still bears.

Many Saudis are deal-making opportunists who will invest anything to make large, quick profits with minimal effort, and get rid of their business at the first sign of a declining market.

In your country," a young Saudi doctor told him "you protect the rights of the individual at the expense of society." In Saudi Arabia, Seymour Gray concluded, it is the other way around.

ever since the 1979 Iranian crisis, civilized life in Saudi Arabia that was gradually attained up to that point has been regressing. Human rights and conventional civilized practices are now taking a back seat to a snow-balling, over-zealous Muslim religious and national movement that affects everyone's daily life. Hit broadest by this movement are (1) Christian church gatherings; (2) women; (3) Westernized Muslims; and (4) Westerners and