Arab News
(MENAFN – Arab News) Recent research study on Arab opinion clearly debunks the false and fabricated allegations against Saudi Arabia
IN early March, the Doha-based Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS) published a report entitled “Measurement of Arab Public Opinion Project.” ACRPS is an independent research institute and think tank for the study of history and social sciences, with particular emphasis on applied social sciences. It also carries out studies about the region’s history, and geo-strategic issues, in addition to giving prominence to studies related to policies, together with their criticism and presentation of alternatives, whether they are Arab policies or international policies pertaining to the Arab world. These policies are either concerned with governments or those of organizations and political parties.
The report consists of major findings of the Arab Opinion Index for 2011, prepared by ACRPS. The center compiled the index through carrying out face-to-face interviews with 16,173 respondents. It was carried out via multistaged cluster samples of societies belonging to 12 Arab countries. They are Mauritania, Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia and Yemen. The survey represented 85 percent of the population of the Arab world.
The Arab Index is an ACRPS project carrying out surveys with the objective of drawing Arab public opinion vis-à-vis the political, economic and social topics that are of concern for the Arab nation. It also focused on how far the Arab citizens are satisfied with their living conditions and the level of services offered to them in addition to their approach toward democracy and participation in politics, as well as the impact of religion in their public and political life. The index also contained questions to measure their trust in government institutions, as well as their perspectives about sources of threat to their personal safety and security of their nation in addition to other Arabs in the region.
What prompted me to mention about this report and findings of the index was my observations about the attitude of Saudi media – whether they are official or private, electronic or print or social networking sites – which did not give any prominence to this report. Moreover, I would like to draw attention to the findings and impartial testimonies that reject false claims made by enemies against Saudi Arabia, and that the Kingdom cannot be made accountable on the basis of such baseless allegations.
Let me quote major excerpts from the report.
How far respondents are satisfied with their living conditions
“Replies of respondents who represent various Arab societies differ from each other with regard to their satisfaction with the living standards. Among the people who enjoy a higher level of satisfaction include those from Saudi Arabia, Mauritania and Sudan. Their degree of satisfaction is above 85 percent (more than half of the respondents are ‘satisfied well.’) The percentage of Iraqis who responded ‘satisfied well’ was only two. As for Palestinians, about 35 percent of them responded that they were not satisfied with their living conditions. Similar was the case with Yemenis (30 percent), and Morocco and Lebanon (29 percent).
With regard to the views of respondents about economic conditions of their families, there are clear variations from one country to another. Most of the respondents from a number of countries were content with the economic conditions of their families. These included Saudi Arabia (75 percent), Jordan (64 percent), Algeria (62 percent) and Sudan (60 percent). A majority of respondents from some other countries said that they were not content with the economic conditions of their families. These included Mauritania (51 percent), Palestine (58 percent), Yemen (64 percent) and Iraq (69 percent)
Levels of security
Regarding the feeling of security among Arab citizens in their places of residence, the survey showed that more than two-third of the respondents are satisfied with the level of security – 30 percent of them are completely satisfied while 37 percent of them are satisfied to a certain extent. On the other hand, 31 percent are not satisfied with the level of security -18 percent were not satisfied to a certain extent while 13 percent are not satisfied at all.
Regarding the level of feeling secured by Arab citizens at their places of residence, there are variations from one country to another. There is almost uniformity among the respondents from Saudi Arabia, Mauritania and Jordan with about 90 percent. However, this level ranges between 60 and 75 percent when coming to the citizens of Sudan, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia and Palestine. As for Yemenis, there are citizens who are satisfied with their level of security and there are those who are not. Majority of Iraqis (57 percent) are not satisfied with the level of security at their living places.
Political situations
The overall measurement of the political situation in the Arab region by its citizens is negative. Nearly 29 percent of the citizens (less than one-third) are satisfied with the political situation prevailing in their country whereas 60 percent of them have a feeling of discontent. An overwhelming majority of respondents (more than 90 percent) from Saudi Arabia and Jordan have expressed their satisfaction over the political situation in their respective countries. However, majority of respondents from other countries are not happy with the political situation in their country. These included Lebanon (91 percent), Iraq and Palestine (87 percent). Similar is the case with the people of Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen.
Trust in military and other state institutions
Regarding levels of trust in military institutions, there is almost uniformity among the citizens in countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunisia and Mauritania. The general perception in the Arab region is that the army is capable of winning trust of citizens and that their trust in army is higher than that they have in other state institutions. It was also revealed that the citizens’ trust in their governments and councils of deputies is at a lower level. As for trust of citizens in state institutions, it varies from one country to another.
The survey findings showed that majority of respondents from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Mauritania have higher level of trust (ranging between 60 and 80 percent) in their governments compared with citizens of other Arab countries. There has been a split in the citizens’ trust in government institutions. In countries such as Sudan, Algeria and Palestine, there were mixed responses on the issue, while majority of respondents from Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco and Yemen have expressed their lack of trust in their governments.
Despite the fact that the general perspective of the respondents about their representative bodies is something that showed lack of trust, the case is different in some of the countries including Saudi Arabia and Mauritania. These two countries topped other surveyed Arab states regarding trust in their consultative councils with a percentage higher than 50. It is worthy to note that Saudi Arabia ranked first with 73 percent of respondents expressed their trust in the Shoura Council.
Measuring performance of governments
More than half of respondents from Saudi Arabia (57 percent), Jordan (53 percent), and Egypt (51 percent) are of the view that foreign policies of their countries are in harmony with the opinions of their citizens. Most of the respondents in the survey observed that domestic economic policies of their countries do not reflect opinions of their citizens whereas only 31 percent of respondents expressed that these policies are in line with the opinions of the citizens.
However, Saudi Arabia is an exception in this respect. Majority of respondents from the Kingdom (52 percent) are of the view that domestic economic policies are in total harmony with the opinion of citizens.
Finally, I am eager to write down about the shining aspects about Saudi Arabia contained in the report after hurriedly going through it. I hope this would help the readers disprove the false and fabricated allegations against Saudi Arabia raised by some envious people, and make us feel proud of this country and its people, and push our endeavors to have more achievements with hearts full of faith and minds replete with optimism.
– Prince Khaled Al-Faisal is the governor of Makkah region.
