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THE SAUDI POT: MELTING OR BOILING!

NATIONAL IDENTITY, POWER STRUCTURE & FUTURE PROSPECTS
IN SAUDI ARABIA

Saad A Sowayan

 

Less than a hundred years ago, Saudi Arabia consisted of different tribes and different regions that lacked political cohesion. To unify such a disparate assortment of tribes and regions into a political amalgam was no mean feat. By whatever name you call him and by whatever title you address him, King Abdulaziz was a real national hero and a great historical figure. But after wars of conquest and political unification, the late King was faced with the no less daunting task of nation building; how to induce antagonistic regions, warring tribesmen and hostile villagers to bury the hatchet and come together as one nation, how to change diversity into complementarity and fragmented parts into an integrated whole.

To create a stable, viable country, it is not enough to draw borders and set up a central political authority. In addition, you need to establish effective institutions that would meet people’s need and create a national consensus and a national culture with shared values and common interests. Despite the passing of years, traditional loyalties and associations, tribal, regional and sectarian, still run deep.

To transfer their loyalties from traditional associations and commit themselves fully to the state, people have to make sure that the state is a viable alternative, which could fully meet their needs and serve their interests. They need to be convinced that it is a neutral apparatus with no favoritism or preference for one point of view or one group over the others, and that its organs treat all citizens fairly and equally, regardless of origin or background, especially in applying the law and in the dispensation of justice and material benefits.

The saga of the Saudi dynasty goes back to 1744, when the religious reformer Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-Wahhab concluded a pact with Muhammad b. Saud, the baron of ad-Dir’iyyah, a small hamlet in central Najd. This pact intrinsically linked the history of the Saudi State to the Wahhabi creed and to Najd, its geographical and political center. But if you were to talk to Saudis from outside of Najd you would sense a tinge of simmering resentment for what they consider to be the cultural hegemony of Najd. Cultural hegemony takes many manifestations, including the imposition of the Wahhabi version of Islam, the imposition of the Najdi dress code as the national Saudi costume and the Najdi sword dance as the national anthem.

Najd is rather poor, economically and culturally, compared to other regions in the Kingdom. The wealth of the Kingdom comes mainly from the oil fields in the Eastern Province. However, a good percentage of the population in that province is Shi’a. The sectarian tension between Shi’a and Wahhabis is as exasperated as that between Catholics and Anabaptists.

On the other hand, the Hijazis think that it is pilgrimage to the two holy shrines in Mekkah and Madinah that, in addition to providing a good portion of the state’s annual revenue, gives the Kingdom the unique and leading position it enjoys in the Muslim World. Furthermore, Hijaz had a long history of self-rule under the Sharifs and it has always been a center of learning, therefore, it is considered more advanced culturally than Najd. Due to the flux of annual pilgrims to Hijaz from all corners of the world and due to its long contacts with Egypt and Syria, the Hijazis enjoy a more urbane and open outlook on life; therefore, they feel ill at ease with the way they are subjected to the strict Wahhabi doctrine.

Saudi Arabia is mainly desert and until recently, nomads constituted a large percentage of the total population. The remaining were mainly settled villagers and cultivators. The relation between the two groups was a combination of economic complementarity on the one hand and socio-political antagonism on the other. The nomads used to exchange with the villagers their animals and animal products for agricultural produce. In the past, the nomads constituted, due to their military advantage and possession of means of mobility in the forms of camels and horses, the nobility of the desert who lorded it over villagers and cultivators. But in the present situation, they are at a great disadvantage. They lost their military superiority over the townspeople. Illiteracy is very high among the Bedouins and they disdain manual labor and look at it as something below their dignity. The situation is aggravated by the historical prejudices entertained by nomads and settlers against one another. The tension between these two groups is further complicated by the fact that despite the prejudice of settlers against the nomads, a settler who cannot trace his genealogical descent to an aristocratic nomadic tribe is considered lacking in nobility. An example of the conflict between the old and the new value systems is when a simple, low paid, unskilled employee of a tribal background is bossed by a highly qualified manager of non-tribal genealogy. On the job, the employee resentfully gives in to his boss but outside the job the roles could easily be reversed. You still could see a poor illiterate man in rags of tribal origin, nomad or settler, who would look contemptuously to a nontribal citizen and would refuse to give him his daughter in marriage, even if he were a very successful businessman or high ranking official. Nontribal citizens form a class unto themselves and they cannot intermarry with those who claim tribal descent. This social custom is given religious sanction by some religious ‘ulama who annul marriages between spouses of incompatible genealogies. But nowadays, many young Saudis are finding such a practice to be unacceptable. For the last year or two the Saudi society has been hotly debating the issue of genealogical compatibility between husband and wife.

Such tribal, regional and sectarian divisions run through and override most official associations, sometimes hindering their proper and smooth functioning and rendering them less efficient. The regime is well aware of all these points of social disarticulations and the usefulness of using them as checks and balances against one another in order to create a sort of political equilibrium and rise above them as the ultimate and necessary arbiter. Keeping such discordances simmering but under control hinders the creation of any viable national consensus which would lead to any sort of concerted political action on the popular level.

Tribal and sectarian divisions are further accentuated by the composition of the various branches of the security forces which are counter poised one against the other with each under the command of a senior member of the royal family. The military conscripts are drawn mainly from the settled hadhar population, the National Guards from the Bedouin population, and the internal security and police forces are mixed with the majority coming from the Southern Province.

Such arrangement and heterogeneous composition would undermine any combined action by these forces. By reviewing recent Arab history, we would see that the most serious challenge posed to traditional regimes was the threat of military coups. But in Saudi Arabia such a threat is rather remote. The Gulf Arabs generally have become disillusioned with military juntas and revolutionary rhetoric of the last century. What the average Saudis worry most about is the possibility of division within the ruling house, especially with the problem of succession looming large as the sons of King Abdulaziz get older and the second generation prepares to take over with no clear rules laid out for this risky game. This is the more serious given the various points of social disarticulations I just mentioned which could be seized upon by different contenders, given the fact that each of the various branches of the security forces are under the command of a senior member of the royal family who usually passes it on to one of his sons. Added to this is the fact that every one of the seven major provinces of Saudi Arabia is also under the governorship of a senior member of the royal family.

These social divisions articulate with well-entrenched traditional norms to direct political action and shape political discourse. Appeal to traditional social norms as a way to run a modern state may seem anachronistic, but they are politically useful because they are congruous with the conservative outlook of the great majority of the general public, not to mention the fact that many policy makers and people in the government are themselves people with traditional mode of thinking and meager education who sincerely believe in the efficacy and merits of such methods. More importantly, they are organically anchored to the interests of the ruling elite and clerical establishment.

Media and educational institutions which are financed by the government and dominated by the clerical class are diverted from their true functions of raising consciousness and providing useful information and education and turned into machineries for the dissemination of such conservative discourse, a discourse revolving around certain interconnected traditional values which don theological garb in order to elevate them from the status of social norms to that of religious principles. Such discourse is dominating academic institutions, professional associations and literary clubs which leaves no podium for any true scientific, philosophical, inquisitive pursuit of true, objective knowledge.

Allow me to spell out some of these norms in order to show how they interlock with one another to form a comprehensive value system and how, in turn, this value system serves to intermesh political discourse with religious discourse and thus create an intellectual climate that is conducive neither to progressive change nor to individual freedom.

Let me start with the notion of unitarianism at-tawHied, since this is a pivotal concept, both religiously and politically. Unitarianism is a religious doctrine. But it is also a state of mind amenable to political manipulation. It is a mode of consciousness shaped by the interweaving of cultural values and religious conviction. The unitarian view spelled over from religious to political discourse and was generalized to encompass all aspects of mundane worldly existence. It is manifested not only in the ethical and religious sphere but also in the socio-political domain.

According to the Wahhabi unitarian view, the society is held together not so much by complimentary associations and mutual interdependencies, but by binding sentiments and common belief, a collective consciousness. It is based not on utilitarian and expedient considerations, but on shared moral principles, on the organization of human sentiments into implicit convictions. Collective sentiments embrace the greater part of the individual sentiments. Unitarianism gives room neither for rational choice nor for individual freedom. No matter where your mind or taste leads you, you are not allowed to leave the fold or swerve from the right path followed by the community of the faithful, the ‘umma. This leaves little room whatsoever for differences in opinion or in life styles. Even dress codes and personal appearance become regimented.

This submergence of individual personality in the group limits the possibility of free choice and individual preference. Any attempt to assert uniqueness or individuality is viewed not as a licit alternative stand stemming from a rational free choice, but as a detrimental antithesis of the fundamental truth, as a deterioration from a pristine, original archetype of the time of the prophet. The archetype is a model to be emulated and reproduced, not dissected or scrutinized.

Such mode of thinking is characterized by a static conception of the universe. Not only does it censure individual differences but it also does not accommodate temporal social change. Social change is not progress and evolution. It is decay and degeneration, always for the worst. According to this conception, the further we turn back in time the closer we get to the ideal golden age of pure innocence.

The concept of ‘ummah, i. e. community of the faithful, is loaded with familial connotations. The whole community is seen as one extended family. Political, economic, social and all other forms of relationships, with all that is incumbent upon them in terms of rights and obligations, are couched in familial terms. This is a relic from an earlier stage of political development, the tribal, pre-state stage when members of the whole tribe were conceived to be, according to tribal ideology, all related to each other as descendants from an ancient common ancestor.

Such conception has its impact on political behavior. The jural aspects of the relationships and obligations of citizens to one another and with the ruler are articulated in kinship terms and tinged with familial coloring. The relationship between ruler and ruled is not governed by a social contract with clearly stated and mutually binding legal codes and constitutional precepts so much as by mutual obligations vaguely couched in paternal expressions. To fudge the political and merge it with the social relieves the state from elaborating viable, efficient political institutions with clearly defined responsibilities and legally accountable apparatus.

This leaves the citizen perplexed. He is a citizen of a modern state, living in an impersonal crowded urban setting, yet he is supposed to operate and run his daily business according to rural, traditional, small community, face-to-face principles. To deal with such challenges, which are compounded by the absence of effective government institutions, professional organizations and viable unions of civil society, the citizen is pushed back into the traditional loyalties of locality and tribe. He must reduce all jural and administrative problems he faces to the level of personal issues. He attaches himself as the clientele of an influential figure of his tribe or locale with wide network and good connections who would be his patron, or waastah, to look after him, to further his interests and to help him get what actually should be his right as a citizen.

Furthermore, the familial conception of society has its impact on how the role of public media is perceived. Public media means public exposure, which would violate the concept of sitir. The concept of sitir is an important concept in traditional Arab culture, which is hard to translate into English. It is related to discretion, privacy and cover up. When you pray to Allah to grant you sitir, you are hoping that you live your life honorably and decently without ever being exposed to public shame, disgrace or embarrassment. Until recently, families in Gulf countries, especially in Saudi Arabia, avoided public exposures and shunned public places. For example, Riyadh is a very modern capital in many respects, yet there is a dearth of public parks or movie houses. Private homes are fortified and surrounded with high fences. It is only within the last few years that families there started to venture to go dine in restaurants. Public exposure could reveal your weaknesses. You should never reveal your vices, nor your physical and material weaknesses. You should always appear to the outside world as an honorable man of substantial means and strength. That is why you should walk in the streets wearing expensive clothes, even if you have to do it on an empty stomach, because people could see what you are wearing but not what you have eaten.

Therefore, the media should always be laudatory, never critical. Outward criticism on the part of a subject of a government authority is conceived as parallel to showing disrespect to a family authority figure. Criticism could convey the wrong message to the outside world, a message that the house is divided and, by implication, weak. Any grievance regarding the performance of the regime should be communicated to the ruler in his majlis or submitted in a written letter addressed discretely to the proper channels without broadcasting such a grievance to the outside world. The oft-repeated cliché is that we should not expose our laundry to outsiders. A nation, like a family, should appear strong and united behind the ruler, like members of a family behind a patriarch. This is aptly expressed by one of the princess when three Saudi activists were released from jail at the inauguration of king Abdullah. The prince justified their release by saying that they were children who erred against their father and their father forgives them.

This patriarchal conception of political authority is buttressed by the dominant official religious ideology that disapproves of any outward show of civil dissent and lends no provision to popular suffrage. According to this ideology, the function of a ruler is mainly to insure security for his people and their property, provide for the needy and maintain law and order according to Islamic ethical principles. Administering justice according to shari’ah, the legal Islamic principles, is the backbone of political legitimacy. The ruler, no doubt, should be sensitive to public opinion, but only as long as that opinion does not undermine his authority. Consideration of public opinion is not so much yielding to public pressure as it is motivated by benevolence and a sense of duty of ruler to ruled as stipulated by the sharie’ah.

What I have just said about the concept of sitir is intricately interlinked with another widely circulated concept that has been gaining grounds lately because it has proven to be politically expedient. This is the concept of khusousiyyah.

khusousiyyah has a broad semantic field and a wide range of different shades of meaning, among them: authenticity, uniqueness, distinctiveness, peculiarity, idiosyncrasy, and many more. But, as a political slogan, it is an ill-defined concept, which is used as a bulwark against change by conservatives who want to maintain the status quo.

The obscurity and indeterminacy of meaning makes the word an ideal trump card to be used when you want to silence the opponent and win the argument by fiat through appeal to sentimental rather than logical grounds. The concept of khusousiyyah is so loose, any form of oppression, extremism or chauvinism can be justified in the name of preserving and maintaining our khusousiyyah. The word could be used to defend many abuses such as oppression of women. Democracy and human rights go counter to our khusousiyyah. Satellites, the internet and all modern means of communication are resisted because they would impinge on our private culture and dilute our khusousiyyah. Streamlining of the country with the rest of the world is resisted because it means the giving up of khusousiyyah. When liberal voices are raised demanding change they are silenced in the name of khusousiyyah.

The ruling elite and the religious establishment both are allied in their championing of khusousiyyah. They use it, each in its own way, to entrench their positions and strengthen their hold on the populace. But this alliance between the political and the religious establishments does not always work out smoothly. Considerations of expediency, realpolitik and pressures, internal and external, may force the political establishment sometimes to make calculated concessions. This offers the religious establishment the opportunity to present itself to the masses and pose as the real champion of khusousiyyah. Thus, khusousiyyah becomes a political commodity that goes for the bidder who offers the highest price, in terms of more extreme rhetoric.

However, we should keep in mind that the establishment of the Saudi state and the core of its legitimacy revolve around its alliance with the clerical class. Therefore, relying on the clerical class for legitimacy entails avoiding rupture with the religious establishment and sometimes succumbing to their fundamentalist ideology. This gives the clerical class a great leverage in social and political affairs. As a matter of fact, any approval or disapproval of government policies has to be couched in a religious language to give it any weight or credence. One may dare oppose a political decree but it would be heretical and suicidal to oppose a religious fatwa. Religious considerations take precedent over secular considerations. Issues are examined and evaluated from a religious vantage point. Whenever the government wishes to thwart or abort public opposition to any domestic or foreign policy it resorts to the Council of Grand Religious ‘ulama to issue a religious fatwa endorsing such a policy, as it did when it wanted to invite the “infidel“ American soldiers to liberate Kuwait, or when it asked for a fatwa against terrorist groups or against the take over of the Grand Mosque by Juhaiman. This alliance with the clerical class puts the regime in a delicate position regarding its efforts to combat fundamentalists and extremists. It is intent on crushing them but it does not wish to convey the feeling that by taking harsh measures against the fundamentalists it is taking those measures against the religion of the people.

Actually, the government is not to be blamed for being more lenient with the fundamentalists, visa vis intellectuals and liberals. What the government is doing is the political thing to do. This is the nature of the power beast. Politics take note only of those who have backing behind them, those who express the interest of a class, a block of constituents. The fundamentalist discourse, in its emphasis on the importance of religion in life, is, more or less, expressing the interest of the clerical class, which is quite sizable; from callers to prayers, to leaders of prayers, to judges in courts, to teachers and students in religious institutions, etc, etc. The clerics are the only well-established professional class in the Arab World with historical roots, which go a long way back in history, with well articulated discourse, substantial literature and a broad public base, not to mention that practically all endowments and philanthropic contributions in the Arab World go to religious functions and institutions with only very negligible share directed towards scientific research, cultural activities, the humanities and the arts. So what if a handful of intellectuals go round talking to a score of audience in few soirees a week! The clerics meet with multitudes of devotees five times a day at the five daily prayers. This is in contrast, for example, to the liberals and intellectuals who are powerless and ineffectual because they do not express the interest of any social class. At the close of the 18th century, the liberal voice in Europe was expressing the interest of the rising class of the mercantilists and the bourgeoisie in their struggle against the nobility and the feudal lords. Without the material support and political backing of the merchant class, liberalism in Europe might not have achieved such tremendous success. Before the rise of the merchant class in Europe, many reformers, from John Wyclif to John Huss, were burnt at the stake with no one rushing to take their side. We should also remember that the timing of the reformation movement of Martin Luther was the secret for its success. It came at a time when the German provinces were anxious to throw the yoke of the Vatican and wanted to keep the taxes and revenues of their provinces to themselves instead of sending it to Rome. We might say the same thing regarding the Wahhabi movement. It succeeded because it managed to recruit a power base, that of ad-De’iyyah, and because the Najdi merchants did not want to send their zakaat to Istanbul.

The roots of the European merchant class go back to guild associations, a professional class independent from both church and state. The merchant class in the Middle East, and Arab World in particular, especially in the Gulf Region, has a completely different story to tell. Let us start with the prophet. His tribe, Quraish is a merchant tribe. Even before then, the temples in the ancient Middle Eastern States have always been associated with merchant activities. Sacred precincts in the East were meant to be safe areas to engage in trade. The spread of Sufi zawaya and the religion of Islam in Africa and the Far East are associated with the itinerant merchants.

Furthermore, in the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf Region, all traditional sultanates, emirates, chieftains and peti-states were established by merchant families, mainly from the ‘Geil merchants or pearle merchants. The revenue from merchandise gives them their material base, while their alliance with the clerical class give their political and legal authority the necessary legitimacy. This shows the political and religious roots of mercantilism in the Gulf Region and the intertwining of the merchant class with the ruling class and the clerical class. This leaves the intellectuals and liberals out in the cold, with no role to play, at least up till now.

Being in league with the ruling class, any liberalization of the laissez faire vintage might hurt the merchants more than benefits them, since it could break their monopolies. They draw their wealth mainly from trade and lucrative government contracts, more than from industry or entrepreneurship. Since ancient times, the wealth of the Gulf merchants is export/import with no industrial base, therefore, they have no interest in scientific research and technological development. As for clerics, their hostility towards natural and physical sciences and secular knowledge in general need no proof. In such social formation there is no room for any intellectual enterprise.

Aside from the clerical class and the merchant class, tribal elements also are staunch supporters of the regimes in the Gulf Region. Political alliance between the regime and present tribal leaders goes back to the early days of unification and state formation when the tribes employed their military energy and mobility as rapid deployment force in any battlefield or any emergency. Tribal leaders who resisted the hegemony of King Abdulaziz or allied themselves to opposing powers such as the Othmans or Sharif Husayn of Hejaz were routed and deposed and a new leadership was installed who owe their position and allegiance to the House of Al Saud. Continuing largess and patronage keep this loyalty active. Insuring the allegiance of a tribal chief would insure the allegiance of the whole tribe. Due to the demographic weight of the tribal elements in society and its active role in state wars, tribal ethos are not drowned by the religious principles. On the contrary, the religious and the tribal merge to form a national identity with two juxtaposed ideals, both of which are conservative in outlook and loyal to the state.

Tribes, Clerics, and to a certain extent merchants are the only organized groups who, each as an independent and discrete block, could act to influence government decisions, mainly with regard to domestic policies. The power and wealth they have enable them to own and monopolize the media in all its forms, from preaching channels to poetry channels, and thus shape public opinion and color it the conservative color. Although these media outlets are not financed directly by the government, they usually work in line with government media policies.

On the other hand, liberals and intellectuals enjoy neither power base nor popular support. Their presence on the national arena is rather feeble and impotent. Many are the odds they face and insurmountable are the obstacles preventing them from fulfilling their mission of enlightenment. They have to combat outmoded but well entrenched traditional values which I have already spelled out. To help visualize the situation let me draw the following scenario.

If, as an intellectual, you happen to be invited by a member of the business community to a weekend soiree, you will find yourself in the odd position of having to defend yourself, along with your fellow intellectuals, for not raising your voice and for remaining free still and not yet being thrown in jail for expressing opposition to the establishment. One of the people present, after taking two sips from his glass of expensive scotch and gulping a handful of roasted peanuts, would accost you and reprimand you for your pacifism and give you a long harangue about the necessity of reform. You look at his manicured, shiny face and his stiffly starched headdress and wonder to yourself: Is this guy really serious? You leave the soiree a bit tipsy but hopeful and full of enthusiasm. The next day you write up a petition addressed to the king or president, whoever happened to be the head of your state and whichever happened to be the system of your government, asking for some moderate measures of liberal reforms. Then, you take the petition to your fellow intellectuals for signature assuring them that some of the most important and influential business people would cosign it. After that, you take the petition to the same business people who two nights ago were full of talk about change and reform. As it turns out, every one of them has his own excuse and ‘good’ reason for not signing. You decide to go ahead anyway with your petition. As a result, you and the handful of your colleagues who signed with you are either fired from your jobs or your passports are withdrawn from you to prevent you from leaving the country or, in case the language of the petition is not too bold, you are prevented from ever appearing on TV or writing in any newspaper to express any opinion on any subject whatsoever. Yet, none of those manicured businessmen would dare ruffle his starched headdress and come to your rescue. It is only then that you realize that their pompous harangues about reform were meant only to clear their conscious for being so wealthy despite their illiteracy and to prove to their own satisfaction that members of the educated class are losers and failures which shows that education is useless anyway.

Let us now move to the other side of the fence and tell a different story. Suppose that one of the religious fundamentalists grabbed a microphone after Friday prayers in any mosque and started a sort of soapbox sermon on the moral ills of the time. Overcome with zeal, he would most likely step over all bounds in seeing heresy everywhere and accusing everybody of infidelity and pointing to high government officials as cohorts of the devil for remaining silent while they see all these travesties. He might even challenge the sovereignty of the state and exhort everybody to take the law into their own hands and rise up in the name of the true faith to correct such flagrant transgressions against God. If authorities find the guts to arrest him, multitudes would flood the offices of government officials demanding his release. If his sentence is prolonged they will see to it that his family is well taken care off. Websites will be created to collect signatures for his release and donations for his family. When he comes out of jail, he will be received by the people as a conquering hero. On the other hand, the other fellow, our friend the intellectual cum liberal, will be avoided like a camel with scabies.

What is needed is not only a separation of powers or separation between church and state, but rather to disengage the ruling class, the merchant class and the clerical class from one another. Globalization and mandatory membership in international organization such as World Trade Organization might be the catalyst, which could bring about such a process by fiat. After all, it is globalization, which is forcing the regimes of the region to resort to technocrats rather than clerics to fill certain government posts and ministries.

Fragmentation of public opinion and lack of national consensus due to the social divisions alluded to above, in addition to absence of professional syndicates, labor unions, and associations of civil societies make it difficult for popular voice to gather strength and rise to a perceptible momentum that could exercise any political pressure on government decisions.

Within the last few decades, Saudi Arabia has been going through an unprecedented demographic explosion whereby the average size of a nuclear family is soaring somewhere between 8 to 12 individuals. People under the age of 25 years constitute the greater percentage of the population. Problems of adjusting to modern times are felt most acutely by these young people, males and females. Public schools and colleges are becoming overcrowded, with many students finding it almost impossible to find places for themselves to continue and finish their higher education. High rate of unemployment coupled with inflation and high rents and high prices of commodities puts high financial strain on families with average income. Due to the low standard of public schools and public hospitals many families are obliged to send their children to expensive private schools and private clinics, with no insurance policies to pay for the bills. The low standard of the curriculum does not equip university graduates with the necessary skills and qualifications to compete successfully in the job market and start successful careers, which means they will not have the necessary income to get married, build a house and establish a family and stable life of their own. Unwed young boys and girls is becoming one of the most hotly debated issues in Saudi society today. Recent exposure to the outside world through modern media and means of communication and travel had created a big generation gap between the old and the young. Young people cannot fail to notice the big difference between the outside world, with its political freedom and social openness and economic affluence, and the repressive social milieu they live in. Girls revel in watching the latest in fashion and cosmetics on TV, yet they must cover up when they go out in the streets.

With uncertain future ahead of them, the sense of anxiety and frustration by the young generation is further aggravated by the general political instability in the region as a whole.

Within the past few years Saudi Arabia has achieved unprecedented economic growth and significant foreign investment outside the oil and gas sectors. The coming years promise to bring unparalleled growth and development, huge public projects with huge budgets having been announced, and some already having been started, but it will take some time before the money for financing these projects is siphoned down to the public. Furthermore, there is real concern that contracts for these projects will go to few certain families with political leverage and family connections to the ruling elite. The wealth is getting concentrated in the hands of the privileged few. A clear class distinction is emerging with a great divide between the haves and the have-nots, with no sizable middle class in between to stabilize society. More and more voices are being heard lately demanding that granting of contracts as well as high government posts should be awarded according to merits and qualifications and not family connections and social network. These same voices are demanding a more equitable division of national wealth and that the whole population of the country should be given a fair and even chance to share in this wealth instead of it being the exclusive privilege of a limited number of specific families whose members and children are assured secure future with high paying jobs and influential positions, regardless of what they contribute to the prosperity and development of the kingdom.

Let me sum up the situation by saying that the Saudi society is actually divided into two camps. The majority camp of fundamentalists who see danger looming everywhere because the society is changing too fast. Then there is a small but growing camp of liberals who also see danger but because they think society is not changing fast enough to keep pace with the rest of the world

Yet, the general feeling among all sectors of the Saudi society is that the present regime, like all regimes, might not be ideal but the alternative could be much worse and would eventually lead to anarchy. None of the regimes in the recent history of the Middle East offers an attractive or a better alternative. Nowadays, the average Saudi would not relish a Qadhdhaafi style, or even a Khomeini style revolution. This feeling is fortified by recent moves by the Saudi regime to introduce some measures of moderate social reforms and a semblance of freedom of expression.

If you pick up any Saudi newspaper on any day of the week, you will find that social issues take up a good deal of space. More voices are raised demanding equality for women and a stop of sex discrimination and wife beating. Demands for opening public theatres and cinemas are mounting these days. The argument is that if you can watch a movie on TV in your living room why not be able to watch one on a big screen in a theatre house!  Of course, the objection comes mainly from those who do not want to see ikhtilaat, i. e. the mixing together of men and women in the same place, because the prophet said in one hadieth “whenever a strange man and a strange woman meet privately in seclusion, surely the devil will join them”, meaning the man will try to seduce the woman. But the other side claims that it is not true that the only interaction that could take place between man and woman is sexual intercourse, for women are not merely sex objects.

Another hotly debated issue is changing the days of the weekend from Thursday and Friday to be Friday and Saturday. Although some clerics object strongly to this change claiming that it would coincide with the Jewish Sabbath, economic realities might eventually force such change because it would cut down business losses of closing in Saudi Arabia on Thursday and Friday followed by businesses in the rest of the world closing on Saturday and Sunday, a total of four days of business interruption. Following the settlement of this issue, I predict the coming issue to be brought up is the half-hour shut down of businesses every day during the five daily prayers.

Perhaps one of the most pressing issues the Saudi society is facing these days is the coexistence of various religious sects, especially sunnah and shi’ah. No one even dared raise this issue few years ago. But today it is a burning topic that every body is concerned about. There are extremists on both sects, but the common consensus is that the concept of citizenship should mean a kind of socio-political contract based on jural and not religious considerations. All people who carry the Saudi nationality should have equal rights, regardless of their sectarian convictions. King Abdullah himself is carrying the banner of sectarian tolerance and coexistence. He never misses an opportunity to stress this point, the latest was his endorsement of the interfaith dialogue.

Let me conclude by asserting that the point of this presentation is not to make a political statement. My purpose, which I hope that I have managed to accomplish, is to present you with a detached socio-political assessment of what is happening and why it is happening. I only hope that this is a cultural stage we will soon pass by. After all, we have to keep in mind that the idea of cultural evolution and social progress, as well as the idea of individual liberty, are late discoveries in the intellectual development of mankind. Less than two centuries ago, Europe was still debating merits of the ancients versus merits of the moderns. Individual liberty and freedom of choice are the products of the principle of laissez-faire, which is concomitant with capitalism and market economy, themselves products of the industrial revolution, itself a product of the scientific revolution. So, may be before we clamor for individual freedom and liberty we should work towards reaching scientific and intellectual freedom.

 

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