Saudi Arabia: Land of Milk and Honey

I love hearing new and unique perspectives. Today I discovered a whole new side of Saudi Arabia. Osama Bin Laden was elected in Saudi Arabia and Americans actually largely supported his election. However, "Americans are funny," some say. American leadership fluctuates so often, compared to the rest of the world, that one President's ally could be another President's enemy. There was once an oil trader whose first deal was in Saudi Arabia. He met with the King back in the 90's after meeting one of the Saudi Princes in London. The two of them wound up having a long conversation about religion, since this particular oil trader was in the ministry prior to his new profession. The king soon decided he liked the aspiring trader, picked up the phone, and told one of his ministers to give him 50,000 barrels of oil, for a start.

There are a lot of nuances to the oil business. An oil business owner must have an office in London, a line of credit from a French bank, and transport the oil using Greek carriers (at least in the 90's before Greece's tax ascent). Back in the 90's, 40 million barrels of oil were exported daily across the globe, with 20 million barrels going to the United States. Now, 100 million barrels are exported per day. To date, Saudi Arabia exports 8% of the world's oil.

With His Excellency Ambassador Abdallah Y. Al-Mouallimi of Saudi Arabia 

The Saudi King shared his world view with trader prior to closing the deal. Basically, he believed that Americans are Israel's "young son." In some ways, Americans think they are supranational: if they believe another country is doing something wrong, they will go in and bomb them. The United States is still a very young country and a bit naive, according to him. In addition, he had a much different interpretation of the Abrahamic story from the Bible. Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram, and the first born holds the inheritance. In Genesis, God also tells Abraham that he will "make thy seed as the sands of the sea" and that they will inherit many nations. He pointed out that Israel is small: perhaps America & Israel are in that camp, but the Arab world consists of many nations and is truly the "land flowing with milk and honey," since oil is the modern bread of life. He pointed out that Israel doesn't have a single drop of oil: a unique interpretation to a story I grew up hearing as a child.
My fortune cookie the day before said, "listen to everyone, truth is everywhere." I couldn't agree more. At the end of the day, we all hold different and unique interpretations of scripture. Chevron was one of the first companies to find oil in Saudi Arabia some 70 years ago before Saudi was even a country. Now, Saudi uses oil to desalinate ocean water into fresh water. An impressive 30% of Saudi Arabia's national budget goes to fund education, a remarkable feat for any country. "We achieved this by first focusing on access to education. The first time we opened a school for girls, we had to surround the school with police to handle the opposition. One year later, the same protestors were trying to get their daughters in that school," said Ambassador Al-Mouallimi. The United States and Saudi Arabia have a wonderful commercial relationship, I absolutely adore the Saudi UN Ambassador, and we shake hands as Abraham's descendants.

Energy from the United Arab Emirates to the United Kingdom

Or was it the United Kingdom to the United Arab Emirates? Within the palace walls in Abu Dhabi hangs a picture of the first oil deal made in the Middle East. This was long before Saudi Arabia was even a country. The UAE was merely a territory too, not a country, owned by the Brits. The photograph captures a well-dressed English man pointing to a paper, where a shepherd wearing a headdress is signing. There are sheep in the background witnessing the event. The current Emir of Dubai pointed to the shepherd and tells his guests, "that is my great grandfather." The English man pictured was from British Petroleum.

103 years later, Dubai hosted the World Energy Forum in 2012, the same year London hosted the Summer Olympics at the ExCel Convention Center. The ExCel Center was built by the Emir of Dubai and is the largest convention center in London. The ExCel owners attended the Energy Forum in Dubai last year and begged World Energy Forum to come to England. World Energy Forum is pleased to announce that World Energy Forum 2014 will be held in London, United Kingdom, addressed by His Highness Prince Charles, Crown Prince of the United Kingdom. Sometimes commercial incentives transcend political discord. Sometimes age-old partnerships revitalize hundreds of years later, and we stand back and witness nations unite once again.

China's Hidden Heroes

Who knew that China's current President, Xi Jinping, was arrested 30 years ago? Last night I went to dinner at the Capital Grille with the man who rescued him from prison, along with 8 people from his company. He breezed over the statement as if it was no big deal. I stopped him,"Wait, you rescued China's President? How?" The story follows: My new friend, at the age of 22, received a Visa under the Reagan Administration to be courted in China. He joined a group of about a dozen youth for the ride. Upon his arrival, he discovered that his host, Xi Jinping, had been arrested by a local sherif. He proceeded to tell the U.S. Ambassador to China about the situation. "Well I guess you'll have to get him out of jail. You can figure it out. Be creative," said the Ambassador. He managed to round up 50 marines dressed in blue and white, fully armed, to follow him to the jail. Upon arrival, John told the jailer, "Look here's the deal. I'm over here on an American Visa and you have my host locked away. So come on, just let him out. If you don't, behind me there are 50 marines." Xi Jinping was released immediately. 

Later that evening, my new friend "adopted" and offered to help my company. "If anyone treats you poorly, I'm going to send the FBI (he pointed across the table) and the mafia (pointed to another man) to go after them." Oh, the strength of America's commercial soldiers. :) Today, my boss and I talked about the Christian concept of consecration over lunch. In a dominantly quid pro quo world, I am most grateful for people like my new friend who are so generous with their time, resources, and kindness. 

Rockettes with the Ukrainians

Tamara Struk with the Ukrainian Ambassador's wife & mother

 LDS Area 70 Jeff Olsen and the Ukraine UN Ambassador Yuriy Sergeyev

Some countries have a certain delicacy to them. Ukraine is one of them. Ukrainians apparently are the most sought after women on online marriage purchasing sites. They have very striking features and a calming effect, as their flag suggests. Last Friday was my third interaction with the Ukrainian Ambassador. Yet this Eastern European country seems to speak more by what is not said than by what is said.

Mr. and Mrs. Sergeyev met in college and knew they would get married 5 days after their first meeting. They have been married for 35 years. We joined the couple for dinner, hosted by the LDS Church, at Ruth's Chris Steak House. Dinner was followed by the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular. I have officially resolved

 to audition for the New York Rockettes after seeing their stunning performance, just for the heck of it. :)

New York Rockettes

Tamara and I at Radio City Music Hall

Liszt, anyone?

I'm going to stray from politics for a minute and talk about a piece from the famous Hungarian composer Franz Liszt. There are few things more challenging, and rewarding, than learning arguably the most difficult piano solo on the planet. I work with and depend so much on people at work all day, that it is quite refreshing to rehearse a talent that depends 100% on me. No one else can make me sound good. Perfection is not an option on the piano, it's a necessity. I think there's great wisdom to teaching a child a musical instrument: only perfection is acceptable (and tolerable). "Be ye therefore perfect," as the scripture says. I do marathon training about three times per week. Running is SO basic compared to Liszt. No single strategy works: I am constantly trying different methods each time I rehearse. My mentality and approach change all the time. The only constant is practice. The great thing about the piano is that practice really does make perfect. Or, as my friend says, "perfect practice makes perfect."

                  

United Nations meets Harvard Professor Christensen

In truly one of the most delightful evenings of my life, I had the pleasure of joining the Sri Lankan and former Iraqi UN Ambassadors for a banquet with Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen. Dr. Christensen received a M.Phil at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and was a mentor of mine during my Rhodes candidacy at Hopkins. Ambassador Kohona was also a Rhodes candidate in college. We were honored to join the good professor at the table for this occasion. Clayton gave an astounding keynote presentation about religion, business, and domestic and international politics. He discussed how the LDS faith is one that never stops asking questions.

 One Marxist Economist Clay knew who had come to America on a Fulbright once mentioned, "I never knew how critical religion was to the establishment of democracy. You probably don't see it because you're right in the middle of it." Clayton said that most Americans voluntarily choose to obey the laws. The reason why democracy works is because people of faith believe that if the police don't catch him, God will catch him. Around the world, when Americans try to install democracy, if they don't have this fundamental belief, it doesn't work very well. Democracy exists best in countries that are accompanied by some form of religion. At least the theism religions have institutions where they voluntarily try to teach next generations to obey the laws. If we take theistic religions & stick them in the back seat, what remains in our government is the religion of atheism. What are atheist institutions that try to teach citizens to voluntarily obey the law? That's the big question: would we like to have our country linked to theism or atheism? What are the atheist institutions that try to teach to uphold the law? The Fulbright scholar couldn't answer the question. Too often, he stated, countries try to separate church and state, when they really function best together.

Clayton also had the opportunity to be a White House Fellow in the early years of the Reagan Administration. One day he had lunch with Richard Nixon, for about 4 hours, 10 years after the Watergate Problems that took him out of office. They decided not to talk to him about that, but rather about the decision to have a diplomatic relationship with China. "Now those of you who have grey hair may remember that that decision was really sleeping with the enemy." To open that relationship with China was a very unexpected event. So he asked Nixon why he had done that. Nixon answered that he had studied our history of foreign affairs and it seemed to him that whenever a despot took charge of a nation, when they tried to topple a despot by isolating them, it always strengthened the dictator. It enabled them to control what their people heard, it enabled them to blame Americans for the problem the mismanagement created, and ultimately strengthened the dictator. He noted that whenever we open up relationships with a country, first diplomatic interaction, then educational and cultural, and ultimately economic interaction, always the despot crumbles and went away. "I realized we had to eliminate Mao as an enemy." Then over the next 20 years, what had been a horrible enemy to us has became a close friend. Nobody had to be killed by doing this. Now you look around and where we continually try to isolate despots, as in North Korea and Cuba and Iran, each time the dictator has become stronger and stronger. The question we should ask that we don't is that shouldn't we always do what Jesus taught? To love our enemies and do good to people who despitefully use us? Does the Savior's teachings apply not just to individuals, but to nations? I think that's the question that would give us a good answer. 

Ambassador Al-Bayati from Iraq asked a question which warranted a round of applause from the audience. Only once in my life have I seen this, and it was at the United Nations. Ambassador Al-Bayati stated that he was born into a Muslim family, but attended a Christian school since the age of 4. He has been to Salt Lake City, has had lunch with two LDS apostles, and has lectured at University of Utah. He said he has read all the holy books and that all of them say that we are descendants from two parents: Adam and Eve. His question was, "If we are one big family, brothers and sisters as you say in your church, why is it that so many wars have been fought in the name of religion? Shouldn't we all get along if we are one big family?" Dr. Christensen smiled and responded that it is largely because religious people are actually not living their own religions fully, or there is a complete absence of religion. He said that there is one civilization in the ancient Americas that fully lived up to their religious beliefs for 300 years. However, there are only 6 verses in the Book of Mormon that talk about how they did that. He said that when he meets God face to face after he dies, God will ask him a bunch of questions but he will sit down and say, "I have one question for you first!" He would ask God how they managed to live righteously for such a long period of time. Clayton Christensen received a standing ovation after his remarkable presentation.

Professor Clayton Christensen with Ambassador Kohona from Sri Lanka and Ambassador Al-Bayati from Iraq.
"We are just sad we didn't get you at Harvard." -Anne Christensen to Hamid Al-Bayati

Dinner at the Sri Lankan Ambassador's

View from the Ambassador's Residence

One of my closest friends in UN circles is the Sri Lankan UN Ambassador, Palitha Kohona. Last Friday he invited a few friends and I over for dinner. Palitha, Chair of the UN's Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices, added his two cents to the Norwegian Ambassador's proposal from the prior evening. "The big problem with that proposal is that the West Bank was allocated largely as a Palestinian Territory at one point. However, since then, Israeli occupation has increased to around 1.3 million in the West Bank." Israeli jurisdiction and regional council extends to about 42 percent, according to the Israeli NGO B'Tselem. "It would be next to impossible to ask the Jews to leave. Best to integrate them into the West Bank." More and more, I'm learning the value of meticulous attention to detail when international deals are concerned. One provision, or the lack thereof, can make or break an entire deal.

I discovered that the fans behind me are a symbol of royalty, whereas the crossed spears are a sign of strength.