Randall Cyman, Executive Manager, Middle East Batteries

Voice File

I have actually left my home and ended up living in a country which has been Saudi Arabia, which my wife and I have very much enjoyed . we made a lot of friends since living in “Al Khobar” we have found the people of Saudi Arabia to be very warm and caring and we made many friends in the region here.

Well, you know being an American living in a country that has got a lot of - I think- negative publicities  as a result of a the 11/9 and all the events that have occurred after that. Obviously, when you are an outside and hearing this news and not actually living in Saudi Arabia you will have a deferent prospective, because you really don't know what happening, I think the real issue is that the people of Saudi Arabia very much care about what happens in their country, they care about the images projected, not only inside but outside their country and as a result of  11/9 and other terrorist activities, they have been given , in my opinion, a very bad image as resulted of those events that have taken place, I think if you look at the majority of population of Saudi Arabia people want the same thing in Saudi Arabia as they want in Washington D.C., New York city, Beirut Lebanon , China, or every where they want peace and they want happiness in their lives.  and I think that's. What the people of Saudi Arabia truly want. unfortunately, a lot of the publicities have been negative towards Saudi image results of events I just mentioned, but I think in time, that all will come to light, every body will come to understand the importance and the significance of the people that they are caring in Saudi Arabia.

 I came here prior to 11/9 and since then the whole World changed. As a results, I was actually flying back home to pick my wife up to bring her to Saudi Arabia on 11/9, So I was in the air and I was on one of the planes that were detained to Canada. It took 65 hours to get home, normally its a 24 hours flight to my home town in Minneapolis, Indiana. However, what I found out after the incident of Sep11th and the impact that had on people back in the states, I think they became very prejudice  in their views toward  not only the people of Saudi Arabia, but Middle Eastern people predominately, which is unfortunate because there were just a few who caused the problem it was not the whole population.

My family of course  wonders: are you crazy to live and work in Saudi Arabia ! ! this is what I get a lot, and you need to get out of  there as soon as you can. to be quite honest with you, I have grown this plant and lot of the people of this organization have become part of my family because I have worked here for 3 years and I have been in many of their homes for dinner, I have met many of their  wives , they have met my wife, we have gone to dinner, we have gone out and have done fun things like picnics, I have been in the desert, Our Charmin of  Board Mr. Al Zamel I have been invited to his home many times as he has been to mine, I have been invited to the desert with his camping friends that he goes with. So, people are people and if you have a truly good heart I think you know it does not matter what nationality you are, what events happened in the past . I still think that there will be investment here in Saudi Arabia because this is a growing country, this is a country that has a lot of natural resources, every body knows about that, I don't have to talk about the situation with Oil and Gas . but I still I think that you will see , as time goes by, and I think that this is  thing that time will heal, some of these injuries whether you call them that or not, what ever time will fix that,

My advice would be to step back and see what happened I know the area have a lot of issues, get a global view of what's happening, because this is not the only place that has terrorist activity, there is activity going on in Turkey as we know, there is in USA actually all over the world it is every where.

*(25 January 2004)