Unheard voices in Saudi Arabia
--Reza Aslan, 360 Contributor"Terror Free Tomorrow's", poll of opinions in Saudi Arabia toward al-Qaeda and the US is good news, no doubt.
90% of those polled had an unfavorable view of al-Qaeda (85% held unfavorable views of bin Laden) while a surprising 40% held favorable views of the United States.
These are important numbers and we should all be grateful to "Terror Free Tomorrow", an international public opinion research group based in Washington, for providing them. This should take the wind out of the sails of those pundits who love to shout from their perches (usually on Fox) about how the Arab world feels about us, despite having never actually been to the Arab world, or spoken to an actual Arab (Fouad Ajami doesn't count).
Still, what would have been truly fascinating is if "Terror Free Tomorrow" had figured out a way to get not just into the homes of Saudis, but into their kitchens, their garages, their gardens, where millions of poor Pakistanis, Indians, Malaysian, Bangladeshis, Nepalese, etc. toil at little more than slave wages.
Exact numbers are hard to come by but foreign workers make up one-third of Saudi Arabia's population, and according to a 2004 Human Rights Watch report, many suffer horrific abuses at the hands of their Saudi employers. I wonder what these migrant workers think of al-Qaeda and the US?
