Dear Saudi Friends

A few months ago, last time I was in Riyadh, I had this experience. It wasn’t meant to be an experience but sometimes findings are where you don’t expect them. I was in Riyadh and I saw on the map that the ministry of investment was not too far from my hotel. I thought I should take the chance to go and drop my resume.   I remember standing there looking at this big building, gathering my courage, telling myself I can do this. Once I was inside, I told a gentleman who was just walking by what I wanted and he told me where to go. I got lost a bit, but eventually found this young man at this desk. He was chatting with another young man, but they interrupted themselves to see what I wanted. I told them I was French, living in Dubai. I told them I wanted to drop my resume in case they needed someone. He said OK but he looked unconvinced. I got a copy of my generic resume out and I started highlighting a few parts here and there, the parts that were most interesting to them. ...

A few months ago, I had this meeting with this lady at the Louvre in Abu Dhabi. It was an informal meeting. I had traveled all the way from Dubai, this road I don’t like to drive. I was sitting in her office, the lady was really nice. We were chatting. I was telling her where I was coming from professionally speaking. And she was telling me, showing me actually, what she was working on. And I remember thinking “This ain’t right.” We had a brief chat about it, she didn’t seem that open to feedback, I was not in the mood to insist. Oddly though, throughout the conversation, the thing I mentally kept going back to was the dress she was wearing. We were a regular week day meeting in her office and I remember she was wearing the kind of dress that I would have felt comfortable going to a wedding with. Yet there didn’t seem to be plans for a reception that day. I have kept thinking about that dress, about what it said about the times we live in. When I was a child, there was this...

There quite obviously is a battle going on, battle of the Titans, Saudi Arabia and UAE vs. Qatar and Turkey. As an observer, I see how this is now taking shape. People in Saudi Arabia and the UAE are now organizing a response. Fighting back on the Turkish talking points, fighting back on Al Jazeera. If that is the strategy, let me tell you, as a communication professional, I think that this is a battle nobody will win. It will turn into something like a “he said, she said” thing, it will become messy, or boring, and in the end, nobody will win. Not the right approach. Allow me to tell you what I think would be the right approach. Let’s go back in time. You remember the debate between Kennedy and Nixon? Was that debate about ideas, about talking points? It certainly wasn’t. There was a young bright suntanned president with a bright smile, a pretty wife and cute kids. John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The sun. And then, there was the moon, Richard Nixon. Electors we...