Honestly, what are the Swedish ministers up to?

When I was a small child, I was fascinated with the Swedish Volvo. The car was very popular among Saudis and was the choice of Saudi cab drivers.
It was fast, uniquely shaped and met the highest safety standards at the time. And in the early 1970s, it was a Swedish company that not only built the state-of-the-art highway connecting my home town, Al-Ahsa, with Qatar but it was a Swedish company that provided the Kingdom with the best communications network.
I had my first exposure to Swedish nationals at an early age. The Swedish people working for their companies lived in the same neighborhood with Saudis.
At that time there were no special compounds for foreigners except for Saudi Aramco employees. People in the Kingdom had, and still have, the highest respect and admiration for Swedish nationals and their work ethics.
But most important was that Sweden was known to be a neutral country. Saudi Arabia and Sweden enjoyed relations based on mutual respect for each other’s way of life, politics, culture and religion.
Saudi-Swedish relations have been strengthened over the past few years because of the visits by the leaders of the two countries in 2001, 2008 and 2011. It was clear that Saudi-Swedish relations were on solid ground.
Then, just two years ago, former Swedish Defense Minister Karin Enstrom, for no reason whatsoever, made some statements about human rights in the Kingdom. Simply out of the blue she talked about human rights in Saudi Arabia.
A few days later, I wrote an article in this paper entitled, “Human rights in the Kingdom: A rejoinder to the Swedish minister.” It was published on Aug. 20, 2012, and to be honest,
I never expected to write such an article about a Swedish Cabinet minister again. But here we go again.
This time, I am writing in response to Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom. Honestly, what are the Swedish ministers up to? This time, the minister was prevented from making a scheduled speech to the Arab League in Cairo. If her hosts were not comfortable with her expected speech or previous comments, then why was she upset? If she really believes in democracy, then she must realize that many things don’t mix with it. Long wars don’t mix with democracy nor does being upset because of a speech’s being prevented.
And why is Wallstrom taking up women’s rights and the law in Saudi Arabia? The job of a foreign minister is to foster good relations with other countries and enhance and develop them with other countries regardless of the cultural or political differences.
There are many things that should have been a priority for the Swedish foreign minister if she really cared about human rights.
There are many countries around the world which are in dire need of health care, social equality and protection. And for sure Saudi Arabia is not one of them. There are countries which are worthy of her attention and which are dealing with diseases, a lack of life’s basic needs and forced labor by women and children. The Swedish minister has no business talking about the internal affairs of Saudi Arabia.
People here are happy and enjoy their lives and if there are reforms, then the Saudis themselves must decide what they will be. There have been many reforms in the Kingdom and we Saudis have never seen our government as dictators.
There are many open doors between the ruler and the ruled and Saudi Arabia has been, since its establishment, very prosperous, stable, secure and more transparent than many people outside the Kingdom are aware of.
And as for the human rights issue in Saudi Arabia, we have heard it before. Lengthy talks that lack any solid evidence. And individual cases are no measure of any country’s status.
Just a few weeks ago, the world watched a naked homeless man being shot by police in the US. Does this make the US a human rights violator? But, at the end of the day, the Kingdom will not tolerate interference in its internal affairs.