Saudi Arabia in 2006 presents a complex society shaped by tradition but consumed by change. At the end of a year when King Abdullah Bin Abdelaziz finally ascended the throne, Jihadist opponents were in apparent retreat and the economy was awash with levels of liquidity not seen since the 1970s, the Kingdom is feeling far more comfortable in itself than seemed possible only one year ago. In this special issue, GSN takes the temperature of the Kingdom's politics and economics. To open, Jon and Paul Melly examine the leadership of a country where governance and debate must respond to rapid population growth, internet culture, global terrorism and the market economy, but where tribal structures and conservative religious beliefs retain huge importance.
The jihadist upsurge of 2003-04 among the predominantly youthful Saudi population, many of whom live in surprisingly difficult socioeconomic conditions for such a wealthy country, pointed to the urgency with which the Al-Saud would have toremake their ruling social compact if the princely regime was to survive for many decades more.
King Abdullah Bin Abdelaziz, who formally became ruler on 1 August 2005, had understood this long before the bombs ripped through Riyadh and other crossroads where Al-Saud rule interacts with its international allies.
He is thus better prepared than might be expected of a temperamentally conservative octogenarian to confront the coming decade of yet more accelerated change. King Abdullah, backed by a small group of modernising fellow princes (such as Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal) and younger generation aides, is reshaping Al-Saud rule.
The critical question is how far he can go, or wants to go, in achieving this. Saudi Arabia is complex terrain for socio-political engineering, but the winds of change are apparent.
Take just this small snapshot of recent events: a senior academic just revealed the release of almost 400 security detainees after a programme of reeducation; police had to be summoned to control crowds of savers seeking shares in a new public offering; more than one-quarter of the 2006 budget is allocated to education and training; the latest round of the National Dialogue - addressing Saudi inter-reaction with other cultures - has been televised live; teachers are speaking out about child abuse; 'un-Islamic' teachers have been beaten up by thugs, in one high-profile case hired by an imam.
The force of tradition remains enormously strong and should never be underestimated in contemporary Saudi Arabia, whose huge youthful population is growing up in the era of unprecedented consumerism (with the mall as much as the mosque the critical meeting ground), satellite television and the internet. Young Saudis have been drawn into a deeply materialistic culture, as well as towards the appeal of Osama Bin Laden and ultra-radical Islamic opposition.
King Abdullah is 82-years-old,conservative in personal style, the latest son in a serial first generation succession to the Kingdom's founder, King Abdelaziz Ibn Saud.
Al-Sauds are still to be found in all walks of life, especially in government and the armed forces, where princes hold office - not always in the most high profile posts - and hundreds, if not thousands still exert huge influence over all walks of life in a country whose population is variously put at 22m-25m.
The extent of Al-Saud penetration of Saudi politics, business and society is reflected in the Centrepiece listing of third, fourth and fifth generation princes (and a few princesses).
Comfort in conservatism
The tendency among many external observers is to focus on the Kingdom's conservatism and reluctance to change.
This is unsurprising in a system where several of the most powerful regional governors have been in post for more than three decades (although, as GSN 770/13 reported, some are now poised to move on).
Some months before King Abdullah's accession a Western diplomat in Riyadh told GSN he thought Saudis might wait a hundred years before securing the right to elect their own parliament.
Such views are not uncommon, but many of the Kingdom's own citizens expect to see such a development before the end of this decade - and some of them are princes.
Traditional in many respects he may be, but King Abdullah appears to have come to the conclusion some years ago - while he was crown prince and already de facto head of government - that perpetuation of the status quo was not a viable serious long-term option.
That is a view held by a growing share of the Saudi public, and rarely has there been such a powerful sense of expectation in a Kingdom - one of the two largest economies in the Arab world, standing unchallenged as the dominant political player in the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) region.
Awash with funds from the 2004-05 oil price spike, the consensus is that, this time around, the hydrocarbons windfall will not be wasted. Government will invest for the future, rather than in princely commissions, and the private sector will be allowed to invest in sectors from which it was previously excluded.
This will include the launch of several massive privately financed petrochemicals and other big ticket infrastructure schemes - showing that Saudi entrepreneurs are increasingly willing, and able, to invest big at home.
(Most high net-worth individuals, and their bankers, men of business and services providers canvassed by GSN, said they were making bigger investments in the Kingdom and wider Middle East in recognition of the changed mood after 9/11. However, the majority also admitted that huge fortunes would continue to be held abroad, suggesting a lack of total confidence in the Kingdom's future direction.)
What do Saudis want?
Exactly what Saudis expect or hope for is less clear and probably not yet a matter of consensus.
The constituency for Western-style liberal democracy may be limited (if more by a wariness of liberal social thinking than antipathy for popularly elected representative institutions). The substantial turnouts in the municipal elections of the spring point to a widespread appetite for expressing choices through the ballot box.
(An article on those elections is republished in the Perspective section of this Special Issue of GSN.)
The real questions concern less the principle of elections - which was little challenged, except by an extremist fringe - than what elected councillors or parliamentarians could do.
Should local councils or an elected Majlis Ash-Shura have real power, the capacity to call officials and ministers to account, to take major policy decisions or propose laws? Or should they be mere sounding boards, fora for specific complaints and technical assessments of obscure projects?
In the near term, Saudis and their leaders do not need to reach a consensus on this key question. The fact that some traditionalists and many of the more conservative Al-Sauds see no room for real democratic accountability and power can still be reconciled with the views of those Saudis who want to see a more genuine form of democratisation. There is still a considerable way to go in establishing even the most cosmetic of elected institutions, before the question of their powers and capacity for autonomous thought becomes the central issue.
It is worth noting that while Saudi men (women still being excluded) were ready to turn out in large numbers to elect half the country's municipal councillors last spring, there was no sign of bubbling public pressure for the rapid nomination of the other - appointed - half of each council, so that the new bodies could begin work. Nor, even during the campaign,were voters overly concerned about the details of exactly what powers the councils would have.
Municipal polls
The elections were important less for their institutional function (as a means of choosing local presentatives) than for their symbolism as a public recognition by the regime of citizens' right to freely choose through the ballot box those who should speak on their behalf.
For all its qualities as a vehicle for consultation and complaint, the traditional majlis system is based on a concept fundamentally different from the principles of electoral one man-one vote democracy. Individuals have the right to come forward to present requests and concerns to powerful figures.
Well-connected voices have more chance of being taken seriously, especially on public policy matters, than others; tribal and family connections play a key role.
In a democracy, the weight of the ballot is the same for every voter, whatever their position, background or financial means. That was the principle recognised by the Al-Sauds for the first time on a nationwide basis when Municipal Affairs Minister Prince Mitaeb Bin Abdelaziz and his son Prince Mansour were commissioned to organise the local polls.
The diffuse traditional structure of Saudi government meant that once Mitaeb had been formally charged with organising municipal elections, he and Mansour enjoyed wide freedom in deciding how far they would go - and there is little doubt that they went some way further than old guard members of the ruling family might have liked.
Women were only excluded from voting on technical administrative grounds - the fact that most do not yet have their own individual identity documents - rather than for reasons of religion or social tradition. This provoked a vocal public debate on female political rights and made it extremely difficult for the government to contemplate depriving them of municipal votes for a second time, when the councils come up for re-election.
Prince Mitaeb also took the chance to make a conciliatory gesture to the Shiites of Eastern Province, by hiving off the northern part of the Dammam metro area to be covered by a separate council for Qatif, where Shiites are in a hefty majority and could be sure of winning seats. This had real symbolic importance in a region whose majority Shia population still complains loudly (if in private) about the glass ceiling on opportunities they confront.
What comes next?
The question now is whether further steps towards national political development will follow the municipal polls - or whether, traditional Saudi style, they will be followed by a lengthy period of glacially slow evolution, before the government contemplates elections for a national assembly of some kind?
No one yet knows - if King Abdullah has reached a decision on this, he has yet to make it public.
He may want to see how the new municipal councillors perform. Apart from Shiite victories in Qatif and the Al-Hasa oasis region, most seats were won by candidates presenting themselves as mainstream traditional Islamists - many of whom benefited from the non-official support of an Islamist email and phone text campaign, promoting a so-called Golden List of candidates in each area. Even in liberal Jeddah it was the Islamists who triumphed - although, ironically, they did not achieve a clean sweep in some of the most conservative municipalities of the north.
The term Islamist must be used with caution in analysing a country whose religious identity is woven into the fabric of public and political life. Many of the winning candidates were technocrats and they certainly cannot all be characterised as Saudi counterparts of the overtly conservative Salafyist factions that play such a signal role in, for example Kuwaiti and Bahraini politics.
National Dialogue
Less than halfway through his first year on the throne, King Abdullah may not yet know how far or how fast he really wants to go.
Pessimistic critics dismiss reformist moves as an empty public relations gesture, designed to create a breathing space, fob off external critics and allow the Al-Saud to maintain their power and privileges fundamentally intact. They feel that in welcoming the National Dialogue, prisoner releases or the men-only municipal polls, Western governments are simply fostering complacency and giving comfort to an old-style authoritarian regime that is not willing to contemplate meaningful reform, because that would jeopardise its vested interests in power and wealth.
But there are many Saudi insiders - of varying political, social and religious complexions - who believe that the Al-Saud, and King Abdullah in particular, recognise the necessity of significant change. Indeed, many argue that the process engaged, however fitfully, since 2002 so cannot be stopped. This was the view of several groups of intellectual and business leaders, spanning several generations, who engaged with GSN on this issue during a visit to the Kingdom in November.
The National Dialogue may be a particularly useful insight into the King's thinking as it is a process he launched while crown prince. National Dialogue Centre secretary general Faisal Bin Muammar is among his key advisers.
The various phases of the Dialogue staged since 2003 have opened up public debate on issues that in past decades the Saudi leadership tended to sweep under the carpet - such as the differences between Wahhabi and Shia or Ismaili Islam, the attitudes of women or young people, or Saudi perceptions of foreigners.
Abdullah was closely associated with this - one attendee commented on how he made a point of greeting a wide range of delegates, rather than playing the traditional senior prince, focusing only on a few power-brokers.
The potential alienation of youth was one of the main themes of the fifth Dialogue session, completed in mid- December the mountain city of Abha, Asir.
Delegates at this session - which was televised live - agreed that Saudis needed to review the way they treated foreigners living in the Kingdom; reinforced protection for foreigners rights was one of the main proposals set out in the National Vision paper produced by the conference (the first time a Dialogue meeting has issued such a document).
The Abha meeting also openly discussed the existence of the difference schools of Islamic thought that exist in the Kingdom - previously a taboo subject in Wahhabi Saudi Arabia, but which has been considered in previous sessions.
This suggests that King Abdullah and his advisers are seeking to explore ways in which the Al-Saud regime can reconcile its traditional positioning as the defender of the conservative official Wahhabi school of thinking with a genuine respect for the other Islamic streams that command strong support in parts of the country.
Widening the base
Also apparent is a wider evolution in the regime's political base. Legitimacy of the Al-Saud family, as the Kingdom's ruling institution, has traditionally been rooted in its role as a strong and often severe defender of Wahhabi orthodoxy. However, the regime's modernisers may now see scope for reshaping this approach so that legitimacy also flows from being perceived as an effective government that defends the rights of all citizens.
Thus through overtures to the Shiites the government hopes to consolidate their loyalty (see the Minorities article in this Special Issue).
Reforging the monarchy's base of authority in this way could be a necessary prelude to further political development.
There are critics who may never be won round to Al-Saud's continued role in power. Exiled hard-line Islamist opponents such as the London-based Dr Saad Al-Fagih and Mohammed Al-Massari are irreconcilable critics of the ruling dynasty, seeing it as a corrupt diversion from the path towards a true Islamic state.
Some liberal and Shia Islamist critics are almost as sceptical, believing that King Abdullah is merely engaged in public relations gestures to appease the West.
Diehard exiled Islamists such as Al-Fagih command some public following, benefiting hugely from access to the internet - a critical factor in contemporary political life, for all the efforts of governments to maintain censorship. A youthful fringe of Saudis has been seduced by radical jihadist ideology,making up an important phalanx of Salafyist foot soldiers in Iraq (see Security and Perspective, below).
But most Saudis, socially conservative though they may be,are not drawn to confrontation. They have been horrified by the terrorism incidents of recent years. They want decent government and services, jobs and security.
Towards a new ruling consensus
The municipal elections would suggest that a significant number believe it is time they had some sort of democratically formalised say in how the country is run.
Saudi Arabia's streets have not seen the sort of big public demonstrations seen in, for example, Bahrain or Egypt.
However, a growing camp of intellectual critics, both liberal and Islamist, have emerged, and in a local media that is gradually wakening up from a deadening slumber of years of self-censorship, they are finding a voice.
The liberal and Islamist strands might differ on their eventual visions of society, but they are in broad agreement over many of the steps that need to be taken in the near future, to transform the Saudi state into an institution that is more publicly accountable, transparent, tolerant and subject to some form of justification before elected representatives of the people.
The intellectuals targeted by the spring 2004 crackdown by Interior Minister Prince Nayef Bin Abdelaziz included moderate Islamists as well as liberals. These critics are within touching distance of the sort of ideas that King Abdullah has tentatively been exploring. During 2003 many were involved in the campaign of petitions and meetings with the then crown prince - before Prince Nayef 's intervention the following year put a brake on the scope for public criticism.
Now Prince Abdullah has acceded to the throne, the scope for public debate and critique has opened up once more. The era of glasnost ('openness', to borrow Mikhail Gorbachev's phrase) has reached Saudi Arabia. It remains to be seen what form perestroika (reconstruction) might take.
The jihadist upsurge in 2003-04 led many external observers to conclude that, as in Gorbachev's case, the process of glasnost and perestroika could unlock forces that would sweep away the ancien rgime. Sure enough, there are grounds for new concerns over popular discontent, Al-Saud internal divisions and returning jihadists.
But Al-Saud rule has been typified by an extraordinary ability to evolve within a conservative framework.
If Saudi economic management allows for a more equitable division of wealth and other social benefits, the social compact between the Al-Saud and their predominantly youthful population may yet be remade under the auspices of an octogenarian monarch. A stronger Kingdom could emerge, able to weather the challenges of living in a fast-changing real and virtual world, atop a sea of oil.
© Gulf States Newsletter 2005
