Concerted efforts should be exerted to consolidate the Saudi moderation policies, a system which has achieved remarkable success and made every single citizen of the Kingdom proud, Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, Emir of Makkah, said here on Tuesday. Warning against two currents flowing in our intellectual life – the Takferi and the Westernization trends, Prince Khaled said the first one wants to strip us of our earthly world while the second is meant to distract us from our faith. “Each trend has its agenda basically aimed at marginalizing the Saudi moderate method,” he said. It is crucial, he said, to confront both these trends by consolidating the moderate and balanced approach. Prince Khaled was delivering a lecture as part of the cultural season of King Abdulaziz University here for the current academic year. The conference's hall was packed with university professors, business people, officials, and students who hailed Prince Khaled's wide ranging speech on the birth of Saudi Arabia and different eras of political changes it has gone through over the centuries. Prince Khaled said, “We are living in a period of progress and development. And it is also a transitional period distinguished for wars and fights between states and armed conflicts within states resulting eventually in the global economic crisis which has shaken all the economic systems.” Prince Khaled said, “Undoubtedly this has affected us too as we are also part of this world.” “We were not isolated from what was happening earlier. Thus, we can't isolate ourselves or exclude it from thought, culture and economic impacts especially after the quantum leap witnessed in telecommunications which has turned the world into a global village. We can't lag behind the world and, therefore, have to cope with these fast changes while maintaining the principles of our faith.” He stressed the Saudi leadership has succeeded in different eras in keeping pace with the development while safeguarding the country from several crises and regional and global feuds. “Owing to the unprecedented revolution witnessed in the telecommunications and information technology field the Saudi society has been affected by the different cultural and intellectual tides.” Prince Khaled said. At the end of his lecture, Prince Khaled established the Chair of Saudi Moderation at King Abdulaziz University. He hoped that the Chair will crystallize the moderation policy theoretically in which thinkers, men of letters and professors make significant contributions.
