Guest im actually teaching a course out here in the school of Public Policy on saudi arabia, a subject about which i wrote the book, and they invited me to teach, and i have never actually taught. But it was great fun. The semester is coming to a close here pretty soon, but it was a lot of fun. Host what did you learn as a teacher there your students . Be from your students . Guest they ask things, they clearly have a, you know, a perspective i dont have since im three times their age. [laughter] so, you know, thats probably the most interesting thing, just seeing what young people are interested in and the way they look at something. Host whens the first time you went to saudi arabia . Guest 1978. When i became Diplomatic Correspondent for the wall street journal. I had never been to the middle east, and sadat had just been to jerusalem, so that was, the middle east was kind of the hottest, even more than the soviet Union Foreign policy issue. So i bought myself an excursion ticket for five weeks and went to not realizing the wall street journal would actually pay for [laughter] went to israel, egypt, syria, jordan and saudi arabia. And my boss, the Foreign Editor i actually worked in the washington bureau, but the Foreign Editor advised me dont go to saudi arabia, nobody will talk to you. And i said, im going anyway and, you know, the country intrigued me from the first time i set foot in it. I actually did get to see three ministers on that visit in three days which is a higher ratio of top interviews than one normally gets. So ive, you know, really became captivated by the country and kept going back for the last 30plus years. Host as a female reporter, how were you treated . Guest i believe its an advantage to be a western woman in saudi arabia because you can talk to women and men, and its, you know, there are clearly some westernized saudi women that would be happy to meet with a man like you, but there are a lot of women who, obviously, would not meet a man like you. Host why . Guest because men and women dont mix, and certainly not women, conservative women meeting with men for whom, i mean, theyre not supposed to be meeting with men that are not immediate relatives, and they certainly wouldnt meet with a foreign man with whom they had, you know, were not related. Host karen elliot house, one of the impressions that some people have of saudi arabia is that everybody is vastly wealthy. Guest thats we have a lot of impressions of saudi arabia that are not true, and thats definitely one of them. There is a lot of poverty there. 40 of people live on less than 1,000 a month. A lot of things are provided for you; education, health care. But there are very poor people. It took me quite a while to find them because they, you dont just walk up to somebodys door and knock. And people who would volunteer to take me would then come back and say they dont want to see you. But i finally did, you know, get into the homes of some people who, you know, live very poorly. Host were they saudis or were they guest no, theyre saudis. No, theyre clearly poor people who there are a lot of foreigners working in saudi arabia because saudis basically want to work for the government. And so 90 of all the employees in the private sector are are foreigners. So there is a huge, about a third of the population is well, not a third. Yeah, nine million, nine million foreigners and about 17, 18 million saudis. So its a very large foreign population, and they work, many of them, in have poor conditions for in very poor conditions for low wages. But if youre from bangladesh, the Largest Groups of employees are from bangladesh, india, pakistan. So theyre muslim but not arab. And those people are clearly eager to have the jobs and send money back to their country because their countries are even poorer than the life they live in saudi arabia. Host second class citizens . Guest they are second class citizens because you dont, you have a paper that gets you in and gets me a job working for you, and then you can pretty much do whatever you want with me. I have no independent ability to get another job. So they have had a lot of, a lot of people floating illegally in the system, and this past year the government has spent a lot of time trying to get, eject some of these people that are there illegally from the country and push harder for getting saudis to take jobs because theres also a very high Unemployment Rate among young saudis. Host comparable to the illegal immigration issue here in the states . Guest theirs . Host yes. Guest in size terms its much bigger. I mean, a third of our population is not i mean, a third of theirs is not illegal. Theyre supposedly about there are supposedly about 12 Million People in the country illegally. So out of a total population of 27 million, you know, 12 million is but thats still a larger portion than 11 million among our, what, 300 Million People. Host Karen Elliott house, when did the modern saudi arabia come into being and the modern ruling family . Guest the modern saudi arabia came into being in 1932 when the kingdom of saudi arabia was declared, but the people who ruled that kingdom have been ruling arabia off and on for more than 250 years. The alsaud family. They began in 1774, then lost control, came back, lost control again in, like, 1880, and then the founder of this saudi state returned from exile in 1902 and spent 30 years in a civil war in saudi arabia suppressing and organizing the country into what is now the kingdom of saudi arabia. Host how large is that ruling family . Guest theyre he had 44 sons by 22 wives and 36 of those lived to adulthood. There are still some of those boys, and they have men, old men, and they have ruled the kingdom from brother to brother since he died. But the extended family, there are at least 7,000 princes. And this is part of the problem for the country, that there are so many. They cant, obviously, just be in government, so theyre now like kuzzu in temperature, theyre in everything. In tennessee, theyre in everything. And the favoritism corruption is a problem for the country. Host have the alsauds ever met with you . Guest ive met with almost all of the senior members of the royal family and many of the younger people, but ive met with King Abdullah at the time he was not king. He was the deputy crown prince, so he was third in line. Ive met the current crown prince. I met the two that abdullah had who have predeceased him. But, you know, there are a lot of princes and a lot of divergents in the family. And one of the things i tried to do in the book is just profile four of these grandsons of the founder, you know, people in their 50s and 40s, 60s who are just very different; a businessman, a religious prince, a man who runs their Tourism Industry that the americans sent up in space in 1984 and prince turkey fasil who was the saudi ambassador to the u. S. And to Great Britain and went to school in lawrenceville and princeton and georgetown and, you know, very knows this country very well. Theyre all quite different so the family can cover a wide spectrum. There are people in the country who are very conservative, there are princes who are very conservative. There are people in the country who are more liberal, there are princes who are more liberal. So kind of whatever the spectrum and divisions in the country, it exists in the family as well. Host how firm is their control . Guest well, i write in the book it is very hard to see how they lose control because the, they have they do not, unlike the Old Soviet Union, they dont rule by brutality. They prefer to buy and bribe and cajole people. But they are facing far more difficult problems internally and externally in the neighborhood; iran, syria, egypt, turkey. Theyre becoming its a nasty neighborhood they live in. And internally, the kingdom is more guided and, to me more divided and, to me, what makes this moment in time most vulnerable is that the old band of brothers is dying off. The king is 90 or 91, the crown prince is 78. This new crown prince in waiting is the youngest of the, that set of brothers, and hes 69. So they are going to have to make a generational change, and that means youve got all of the brothers children who think they should be king. So how you handle that, how the family handles that, i think, will be very complicated at a time when externally and internally theres a lot of pressure on them. Host Karen Elliott house, whats the Saudi Arabian role in the neighborhood . Guest well, they like to think its a big one, but the saudis tend to, i like to say they have one policy, and its an insurance policy, and they take it out with everyone. They prefer to try to use money to solve problems. They are, aside from iran, kind of the only other major power on the gulf, and the u. S. , obviously, has had a longtime relationship with them, and saudi arabia is now the fourth largest, fourth biggest defense spender in the world after the u. S. , china and russia. It doesnt mean they are the fourth Largest Military power, but they are the fourth biggest spender. So they seek to have influence, but its more a quiet influence, in my view. They do not they did send troop into bahrain this year to try to, or two years ago to try to keep a sunni minority government in power over a shia majority, but they, they seek to have more influence than i think they have, is in a word. Host the ruling family sunni . Guest they are sunni, uhhuh. Host why is that significant . Guest well, the sunnis are the Largest Group of muslims in the world, and the shia are the minority, but the shia control iran, and the sunni control saudi arabia, and so that is the main thing, the saudi ruling family wishes to be seen as the spokesman for sunni islam because they control the two holy places in, two holiest places in islam. But the sunni shia sectarian battle is growing in the middle east thanks in part to syria where iran is funding the syrians, and the saudis and others are funding the sunni fighters there. So you have a growing sectarian clash across the whole region. Host how many times have you been there . Guest i dont even know, scores of times. Host do you think youre watched when youre there . Are you followed . Guest im sure one is watched. If they want to know. I mean, i never assumed i was doing anything. I mean, its like going to the Old Soviet Union or to israel. I never assumed that if people want to know what youre doing, theyll know. So i never tried to hide anything. I mean, i you obviously, because women are not allowed to drive in sabia, you know, i am saudi arabia, you know, i am either taking a taxi or hiring a hotel car. But you can now take taxis, you can just walk out on the street and get yourself a taxi, so there is a level of freedom again for a western woman. A saudi woman could do that, too, but they rarely, they rarely do. Host and thats a change from the past . Guest yeah. In 1984 i arrived there and was not allowed out of the airport. I had to track down prince bandar, the ambassador in washington, who had given me the visa, and he had to get them to let me out of the airport because there was no one there to pick me up. And in the 80s the country went through a very conservative period be after the attack on the mosque in mecca in 1979 and the triumph of khomeini in iran. The saudi royal family, wanting to make sure they didnt go the way of the shah, turned the country over almost to the religious fanatics, and the kingdom went through a very conservative period. So, in 1984 they were more conscientious about these things. I mean, this king has liberalized things since he became king in 2005. He has talked about women should play a bigger role. He took women on his first foreign trip which was to china, by the way. And he has, hes the one who has started all the scholarships that have 100,000 saudis studying in the u. S. Now after that number went virtually to zero after 9 11. Women, saudi women are allowed to apply for and get those scholarships and come to the u. S. So there is, he has tried to foster what george bush might call a kinder, gentler version of islam. Host as an ally, how would you describe saudi arabia . Guest i think they are an ally despite the deep divisions that have come about since the president declined to get involved in syria militarily. The saudis are dependent, so if you limit me to one word, i would say, use that word, they are very dependent on the u. S. For their security. They know that not the russians, not the chinese could protect them, only we could in a real military risk to their security. I think they are more nervous about other kinds of risks to their security, internal. Iran fomenting trouble, shia population, saudi shias in the Eastern Province where the oil is, youth discontent, high unemployment. I think they worry much more, actually, about those kind of things where they fear that alliance with america is hazardous to their health. Because the very religious conservatives in saudi arabia do not approve of the u. S. As an ally for the country. But i think the alliance will, will remain certainly for the foreseeable future because its not an alliance of values, its an alliance of convenience. We need stability in that part of the world. We dont trust iran, they dont trust iran. So we need to retain them as an ally, and they need protection, and there is no alternative to us. So no matter how unhappy they are with president obama and the u. S. , i think they have decided to quiet the criticism because its like an unhappy marriage. If you dont have an alternative, you stick it out. [laughter] so we and they may not be the warmest of marriages right now, but we do, i believe, still need each other. Host why are they unhappy with president obama . Guest because they went into syria and, with the goal of giving iran a black eye because iran was supporting syria. So they wanted to knock off assad, and they thought the u. S. Would help them. And we were not doing enough in their mind. But then after the chemical weapons use in syria and the president saying im going to they crossed my red line, im going to do something and then not providing any military help, they are stuck now with their foot on assads neck, and we didnt help them chop his head off, and they cant find a way to chop his head off. So its not a happy situation for them, and they blame, they blame the, i think the u. S. , i think, to a great extent. Host how close is the saudi royal family with the bush family here in the states . Guest um, i dont know im not an expert on that. I mean, i know prince bandar was like a member of bush sr. s family. I mean, he was constantly in their house and, you know, they in his, and he told, he loved them, i think, he implied they loved him. Ive never actually asked george bush sr. Is bandar like a son to you, but, you know, there was clearly a very close relationship there. And bush sr. Was president when the u. S. Did send troops in 1990 to saudi arabia to protect them from Saddam Husseins troops in kuwait and to evict him from kuwait at a time when they were very worried Saddam Hussein might move on in. So, you know, that was the High Water Mark of u. S. saudi relations, clearly, 1990, when we defended them. And there have always been ups and downs in this relationship, and were clearly in a down now. And it will be interesting to see when King Abdullah dies, if his more moderate policies remain in effect in the kingdom. If theyre accelerated in any way or if there is an attempt by the conservatives to claw back the little bits of progress that have been made on openness, opportunity for women. I think given that the saudis are the highest per capita users of twitter and of youtube of any country in the world not the greatest number, but the highest per capita so 32 of saudis are tweeting. So there is a level of knowledge and information among saudis about whats going on in the world that never existed, you know, when i first started going in the 70s or in the 80s. In the 90s for that war with saddam, they got satellite tv, so there was a bit more. But now everyone has a good idea what goes on in the rest of the world. Not just in the u. S. , but in the rest of the arab world. So they, that has breld some compare that has bred some comparative unhappiness among young, more liberal saudis and a great deal of comparative unhappiness among more conservative people of why are we tolerating these kinds of sinful infidel things in our country. The country is much more, in my judgment, divided than it was in the 70s and 80s. Host was it significant that King Abdullahs first foreign trip was to china . Guest i think it was deliberately done, yes, that they wanted to stress. I have had innumerable saudis say to me dont you understand, you know, were all here speaking english. But in 25 years time if the u. S. Doesnt behave better, were all going to be speaking chinese. T you know, we have options, and there, you know, china is now a major buyer of saudi oil. So there is a, there is a growing relationship with china. So i believe it was intended to send a deliberate signal. Be. Host whats saudi arabias relationship with israel . Guest well, right now they have a great deal of similarity in their views of iran and of u. S. Policy toward iran. Both the saudiss and the israelis believe that we are being led down the garden path by the iranians and that obama is naive and hes going to, you know, sell the agree to a deal that does not stop the nuclear weapons. So theres a lot of harmony in their view. There are rumors that they actually communicate, but theres no evidence i know of. I mean, the king in 2002 did endorse can the idea of endorse the idea of a jewish and a palestinian state. So they are on record as supporting a twostate solution to the palestinian issue. But they are not active at pushing it. Host Karen Elliott house, theres a couple of areas in the middle east that are modernizing and promoting tourism. Abu dhabi comes to mind immediately. Are the saudis keeping an eye on this, or is this insignificant . Guest young saudis, the conservative people, say we dont want to end up like qatar and dubai or abu dhabi. Some other saudis say look at what they can do. Why did they get so much more than we do . Those countries fundamentally are, theyre not countries, theyre barely citystates, you know . So a country hike dubai probably like dubai probably has 300,000 citizens, and the rest are foreigners. Saudi has 18 million, roughly 18 million saudi citizens. So despite the fact that they have a lot more money spread over 18 Million People, they cant provide the lifestyle to which people in the gulf are accustomed. And, you know, that gets, that gets noticed by saudis who look and say why cant we live as well as they do . And then for the more conservative ones, they say we dont want all of those polluting influences in our country that theyre allowing in theirs; western universities, alcohol, movie theaters, things like that. I mean, saudi arabia has a tourism directorate now, but they tourism does not mean what it would to you and me. They want saudis, they want muslims who come to the annual pilgrimage in mecca to then travel around the kingdom and spend money and see things. So muslim tourism. They are not looking to get you and me on a or anyone else on a, you know, camel trip through the empty quarter, you know . Its not, its not tourism like we would think of it because, obviously, the tourist place most foreigners would most like to visit is mecca, the holy city. Ask you cant visit mecca and you cant visit mecca if youre not a muslim. So a lot of the reason that would attract a foreigner to saudi arabia is not possible in their tourism definition. Host your growing up in texas similar to a saudi experience, in a sense . Guest yeah. Nothing i ever did, frankly, was as foreign as going from matador to the university of texas. But people always ask me, oh, isnt it strange going to saudi arabia . For me it was actually quite deja vu. [laughter] because in my hometown we had 900 people, four churches, no movie theater. So religion was what people in our town did too more for socialization. I dont want to call it entertainment, but people went to church. And in my particular family, we had no tv, no telephone, we were not allowed to wear shorts or pants because thats indecent, same view the saudis would have. There was no alcohol in the county, and certainly not in our household. So it was very, you know, very like saudi arabia. And i went to a church where there were no Musical Instruments which is another in saudi arabia you dont have Musical Instruments, you dont sing. Its, music is forbidden. So, you know, it was [laughter] i mean, we sang in our church. We could make a joyful noise unto the lord, but not with a musical instrument. So it was very, for me, it was really fascinating, you know, to i mean, there are no churches in saudi arabia, so i did not go to church in saudi arabia. Actually, i did the first time i went. The u. S. Business community used to have Church Services in the 70s, and they probably still do somewhere. But i was invited to, the American Ambassador took me to what was called a Welfare Service as opposed to church, but it was church. Host a Christian Service . Is. Guest yeah. They called it a Welfare Service. And most of the people in the church were either americans or koreans. At that time there were a lot of koreans there doing construction. And korea is a country with a lot of christians, so a lot of, there were a lot of koreans in that service. Host if youre jewishamerican, would you be allowed into saudi arabia . Guest yes. They did not allow the Jerusalem Post correspondent to accompany obama on this latest trip when he went, but, you know, yes, there are jewishamericans who get into saudi arabia without any particular difficulty. Because in the, you know, in the prophets time, you know, both jews and christians were seen as people of the book. So they did not have as much problem. And the saudis today, i would say the really conservative religious people still have a much greater problem with shia muslims than with christians or jews. I mean, we rank pretty low down but not nearly as low down as a shia because they are, in essence, heretics. There are they are prostituting and polluting islam. Were not. Were just not believers. And we are believers, but not in the right belief. Host and finally, Karen Elliott house, on saudi arabia you close with an analogy of a royal saudi 747. What is that analogy . Guest i said that the country is like a 747. The cockpit filled with geriatric pilots, meaning the three elderly rulers with first class full of princes who would be king, and the rest of the plane filled with, in some cases, malcontents who would like to turn the plane around and crash it. And that somewhere onboard there may be a pilot who can safely land the plane but may never get a chance. And its a the metaphor is to simply say that there are, i think, saudis who can lead the country, but both princes and others, but whether the right people get a chance or not remains to be seen. Host former wall street journal publisher Karen Elliott house, her book, on saudi arabia its people, past, religion, fault lines and future. Heres the cover. Booktv is on location at Pepperdine University. Guest thank you. Youre watching booktv. Starting now Craig Detweiler talks about his book, igods, in which he looks at the impact of technology and social media in our culture today. This interview is part of booktvs College Series from Pepperdine University. Host and youre watching booktv on cspan2. We are on location at Pepperdine University in malibu, california, as part of our university series. We like to visit universities and colleges and talk to professors who are also authors. Joining us now is Craig Detweiler. His book, igods how technology shapes our spiritual and social lives. Heres the book cover but, professor detweiler, before we get into that, what do you teach here at pepperdine . Guest i am a film maker first, and so i teach screen writing, i teach production, i help students navigate the entertainment industry. Host and youre also director of the center for entertainment. Is that part of your professorship here . Guest yes. Its a bit of a think tank looking at how media and culture impact each other, you know, sort of on both sides, you know . How film shapes our public conversation and how maybe, you know, students can figure out, you know, how to contribute to, hopefully, the greater good. Host well, your book, igods, is listed and class tied as christianity and culture. Why is that . Guest well, im also trained as a theologian. Im graduate of full be fuller theological seminary, and so ive always been interested in how religious feelings are transmitted across culture. Im a person whos been moved by moving pictures, and so this is a chance for me to consider how the small screen that we carry in our pocket is slowly overtaking that big screen of cinema. Host that big screen of cinema, but also of religion. Guest well, thats right. Well, what i do in the book is i look at these new companies that have essentially overtaken our lives whether its apple, google, facebook, amazon those are sort of the big four. At this point were spending so many hours in a given day either on their devices or in their platforms that i wanted to figure out how they built their software, how does that affect our relationship to each other and even our relationship to god. Host and you quote kevin kelly from nerd theology we tend to see god reflected in nature, but my bet is that technology is the better mirror of god. Next to that is a picture of jesus [laughter] with a laptop. Guest well, hes got the whole world in his hands, i think, is what were thinking there. [laughter] well, yeah, kevin kelly is such a fascinating character. He was one of the early editors of wired magazine, and yet he also comes from a position of faith. And so i think he has looked at technology and how we organize our lives, how engineers structure things as a way of maybe talking about the ways in which god might be the original technologist, you know . And when we look at our dna, you know, which that human genome project that fran be sis collins Francis Collins headed up, to what degree is the information that we have in our bodies sort of a reflection . Are we sort of wired or encoded in an organized fashion, and what role, again, does god maybe the technologist play in all of that . Host are you worried about how much time were spending with technology . Guest well, yeah host from a Christian Point of view . Guest well, as a parent of a 14yearold and a 12yearold, we deal with a lot of technology in our household. And the day that my kids said i want a cell phone, i had to sort of think, well, what does putting a smartphone with access to all the worlds information via the internet, what does that do, you know . And what kinds of filters might we need to help them understand how to deal with that onslaught . I think all of us are feeling the effects of too much information. And