In the international furore over the TV film Death of a Princess, based on the public execution in 1977 of a Saudi Arabian royal princess and her lover for adultery, it is hard to know which is the more sickening – the executions themselves or the prurient and hypocritical way in which the affair has been treated in some of the European media.
In this respect, the film itself was not the worst offender. It made some attempt to explain the pressures created in Arab society by the conflict between traditional religion and modernisation. But it gave a narrow and lopsided picture. It concentrated on the sexual adventures of bored princesses and virtually ignored the efforts of many Saudi women who are struggling, with skill, intelligence and increasing success, to equip themselves through higher education for a new role and to widen the area of their freedoms. Saudi Arabia is a fast-changing country with all the problems that spring from quick riches in a society that until a generation ago was a simple pastoral patriarchy. One of the aspects of modernisation the Saudis have to learn to deal with is to take foreign media criticism in their stride. And one of the temptations of the European media need to resist is the urge to headline whatever is wrong with Arab society while rarely reporting what is being done to put things right.
Key quote
“We have our own laws and our own morals which we keep to ourselves.”
Saudi Arabian embassy spokesman on princess execution.
Talking point
A hundred British sheep farmers will dump lamb carcasses at the French Embassy in London tomorrow as a protest against the continuing refusal of the French Government to allow free imports of lamb.
News in brief
