WASHINGTON: To say that Saudi Arabia has a perception problem in the United States is an understatement. A search for Saudi Arabia and terrorism on Google leads to more than 758,000 links in 0.24 second, participants at a recent seminar in Washington were told.

Organized by the National US-Arab Chamber of Commerce, the roundtable brought together prominent Americans, Saudis and other Arabs to explore the causes of this perception problem.

The participants were also told that things had improved since 9/11, when the hostility against Muslims and Arabs in general, and the Saudis in particular, was at its worst. What appears on the Internet now also shows this change.

A search for reforms in Saudi Arabia leads to 150,000 links, far more than it did last year when a similar search showed less than 15,000 links. This figure of 150,000 is still fives times less than those on terrorism, but it does show that people are looking for other subjects as well while searching for news about the kingdom.

Obviously, not all the stories about reforms portray a positive picture of the Arab state, which has had an image problem in the West since long before the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Because many of the hijackers who rammed their planes into US landmarks were Saudis, the attacks further intensified anti-Saudi feelings.

But Sept 11 also has forced both Saudis and many in the West to learn to know more about each other. Eager to wash the stigma caused by the association of some of the hijackers with the kingdom, the Saudis also have initiated a reform process and want the world to notice it.

Participants were told that the world is taking interest in what the Muslims and Arabs, particularly the Saudis, have to say. But mainly due to the media, in the West, the focus mostly is still on terrorism-related stories while talking about the kingdom, says Amr Khashoggi.

Mr Khashoggi, a member of the Executive Board of the Saudi National Committee for the Development of International Trade, however, was reminded at the roundtable that the Saudis too were not very successful in convincing the world of their good intentions.

"It comes from our culture. We are very poor at public relations," said Mr Khashoggi, who was the chief guest at this discussion on "reform and terrorism in Saudi Arabia. But the situation is not as simple as both Saudis and their critics in the West depict.

For instance, the Saudis, and other Muslims, have been saying since long before Sept 11 that their faith does not condone terrorism. Yet, somehow, many mainstream media and politicians in the West continue to equate Islam with terrorism.

Similarly, Western governments, and citizens, both have been trying to convince the Muslims that their war is against a small group of terrorists, not Islam. Not many Muslims are willing to believe them either.

While this mutual lack of trust is much deeper than either side is willing to admit, Saudi Arabia has an additional problem: It is an absolute monarchy in the 21st century. And Mr Khashoggi also had to confront this problem while defending the reforms the Saudi royal family is introducing in the kingdom. If the Saudi rulers want to reform their society, why have they arrested those demanding constitutional monarchy, he was asked.

His answer - that the reformers, now being tried at a court in Riyadh, went too far in demanding a constitutional monarchy in a country that has been ruled for its entire 72-year history by the Saudi royal family - did not sound very convincing in a Washington discussion room. And it will sound even less convincing on a mainstream television channel.

Yet the same argument, given before an Arab or a Muslim audience aware of the kingdom's history and its special status in the Muslim world, would be heard with more sympathy even if it is not fully accepted.

This is the gap of understanding between the two worlds that Mr Khashoggi said the Saudis were trying to bridge. But this has to be done in two ways, while demanding more sympathy from the West, the Arabs and Muslims will also have to take serious steps to reform their societies.

Monarchies, dictatorships and one-party governments will always have problems convincing the world that they are free societies. Such systems also have negative repercussions at home.

In Algeria, the military's excessive influence led to a bloody civil war. In Egypt, a simmering anti-government movement continues to express itself through senseless terrorist attacks. And in Saudi Arabia, some analysts argue, lack of political freedom is partly responsible for the emergence of terrorist groups like Al Qaeda.

Mr Khashoggi, like the rulers of his country, accepted the argument that there's a need for political and social reforms in the country but said such reforms must emerge from within the Saudi society. Western models, he said, would not work.

This is a classic argument that most Muslim governments, and their supporters, use while responding to the West's demands for introducing political reforms. The argument is right. But the problem is that neither Muslim rulers nor their Western patrons are willing to go through the process that can lead to the establishment of a true democratic system in the Arab and Muslim worlds.

The democracy and freedom that the West enjoys today is the result of a historical process that began in the 16th century and still continues. During this process, each segment of the society - religious fanatics, liberal thinkers, fascists, communists and even anarchists - was allowed to play itself out. It was after each of these political and social actors had played their roles that the Western society settled down to have a stable democratic setup.

And this process was not very peaceful. In fact, it was perhaps even more violent that what we see in the Arab and Muslim worlds today. It is true that the Muslims can learn from Europe's experience, shorten their journey and avoid some of the violence that European societies had to suffer during this process. Nevertheless, the process has to run its course.

All major players, including parties that do politics in the name of religion, will have to be allowed to play its role to allow the Arab and Muslim worlds to stabilize.

If the process is allowed to take its course, it will expose the extremists within religious groups, setting aside those who want to continue to strive for their beliefs through democratic and peaceful means.