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PUBLIC OPINION AND GOVERNMENT POLICIES
IN SAUDI ARABIA
Less than a hundred years ago, Saudi Arabia consisted of
different tribes and different regions that lacked any form of
political cohesion. After unifying the country, the late King
Abdulaziz 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 with shared objectives and common interests. But
despite the passing of years, traditional loyalties and
associations, tribal, regional and sectarian, still run deep.
The history of the Saudi State is intrinsically linked 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 and the imposition of its
Wahhabi version of Islam. 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 are ShiÕa. The sectarian tension between ShiÕa 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 stateÕs 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.
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. 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 social stratification in Saudi Arabia 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. Nontribal folks cannot intermarry with those who
can claim tribal descent.
Such tribal, regional and sectarian divisions run through and
override most official associations, sometimes hindering their
proper 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 discordancies 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.
Popular uprising has never posed a credible threat in the Arab
World. 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 because the various branches of the security
forces 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 undermine any combined action by these
forces. Anyway, the Gulf Arabs generally have become
disillusioned and disenchanted with military juntas,
revolutionary projects and Pan-Arab nationalist 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, as I mentioned, 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.
Another impediment to collective political action on the popular
level is the prevalent traditional conception of the nature of
the relationship between ruler and ruled. This relationship is
not governed by a social contract with clearly stated and
mutually binding legal codes and constitutional precepts so much
as by vague mutual obligations couched in patriarchal and
paternalistic outlook. The ruler is a patriarch and the people
are his children. Any outward disagreement on the part of a
subject is conceived as parallel to showing disobedience and
disrespect to a paternal authority figure. Any 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 ruler, no doubt,
should be sensitive to public opinion, but only as long as that
opinion does not challenge 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 Islam.
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 shariÕah, the legal Islamic principles, is the
backbone of political legitimacy.
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 the organization of human
sentiments into implicit convictions. No one is allowed to leave
the fold or swerve from the right path followed by the community
of the faithful, the Ôummah. Any alternative stand is treated as
a deterioration from the pristine, original archetype of the
time of the prophet. The archetype is a model to be emulated and
reproduced, not dissected or scrutinized.
The concept of Ôummah is loaded with familial connotations. The
jural aspects of the relationships and obligations of citizens
to one another and to the ruler are articulated in familial
terms and built around status rather than contract. To fudge the
political and merge it with the social relieves the state from
elaborating viable, efficient political institutions and legally
accountable apparatus with clearly defined responsibilities.
This pushes the citizen back into the traditional loyalties of
locality and tribe. He is 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 institutional inefficiency, the citizen is forced
to reduce all jural and administrative problems he faces to the
level of personal affairs. 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 and help him get what actually should have
been his right as a citizen.
The alliance of the ruling elite with the clerical class gives
the latter a great leverage in social and political affairs. As
a matter of fact, any approval or disapproval of a government
decision 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. Whenever the government wishes to thwart or abort public
opposition to any domestic or foreign policy it resorts to the
Council of Grand Religious Ôulama to issue a religious fatwa
endorsing such a policy, as it did when it wanted to invite the
ÒinfidelÒ 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 measure against the fundamentalists it is taking
those measure against the religion of the people.
As a matter of fact, 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 articulated discourse,
substantial literature and a broad public base. They meet with
millions of devotees five times a day at the five daily prayers.
This is in contrast, for example, to 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 merchants and the bourgeoisie in
their struggle against the nobility and the feudal lords. The
merchant class in the Gulf Region, has a completely different
story to tell. All traditional sultanates, emirates, chieftains
and peti-states in the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf Region
were established by merchant families. The revenue from
merchandise gives them their material base, while their alliance
with the clerical class give their political and legal authority
the necessary legal justification. 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
religious class. This leaves the intellectuals and liberals out
of the show, with no role to play, at least up till now.
Being in league with the ruling class, any liberalization of the
laissez faire type 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 and entrepreneurship. Since ancient
times, the wealth of the Gulf merchants is export/import with no
industrial base.
Aside from the clerical class and the merchant class, tribal
elements also are staunch supporters of the regime. Political
alliance between the regime and present tribal leaders goes back
to the early days of unification. 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
loyalty of a tribal chief would insure the loyalty of the whole
tribe.
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 and in a rather timid way.
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,
especially when it comes to foreign policy, which is more and
more becoming of lesser concern to the Arab masses in general.
The young Saudis are not so preoccupied with foreign policy as
with domestic issues and the running of their daily affairs.
Within the last few decades, Saudi Arabia has been going through
an unprecedented demographic explosion whereby people under the
age of 25 years constitute the greater percentage of the
population. The average size of a nuclear family is soaring
somewhere between 8 to 12 individuals. High rate of unemployment
coupled with inflation and high rents and high prices of
commodities puts high financial strain on families with average
income. The low quality 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. The main concern of the people now is
to see a more equitable division of national wealth so that the
whole population of the country are given a fair and even chance
to share in this wealth. They want to see that granting of
lucrative contracts as well as high government posts are awarded
according to merits and qualifications and not according to
family connections.
Furthermore, there is a growing feeling among all sectors of the
Saudi society that the present regime 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.
Disappointment with surrounding political experiences in the
recent history of the Middle East, disenchantment with Pan Arab
nationalistic ideologies, concern with more pressing domestic
issues, apprehension concerning internal economic and social
development; all these factors have pushed interest in foreign
policy to the back burners in the minds of the average Saudi.
Popular stands on foreign affairs, such as the situation in Iraq
or an attack on Iran, are taken not so much from an ideological
vantage point as from how they would reflect on the local
economy and social stability, given the fact that a good
percentage of the Saudi population are shiÕa.
Constraints on Saudi foreign policy, if there are any
constraints, are external rather than internal. The image the
kingdom wishes to convey to the outside world as home of the two
holiest Muslim shrines and as leader of the Muslim World put on
her certain responsibilities regarding foreign policy matters
affecting the Arab and Muslim World. The Saudis need to
establish credibility with Arab and Muslim nations as much as
with Arab and Muslim governments.
Saudi Arabia, which Ðsince the days of the late King FaisalÐ has
focused its attention on the Muslim World, is now fortifying its
position and moving perceptibly towards a more intensely
regional focus. The kingdom is clearly emerging as a key player
in the regional politics of the Middle East. The waning
influence of Egypt, the international isolation of Syria, and
the current weakness of Iraq have thrown much of the burden of
putting the Arab house in order, onto Saudi Arabia.
King Abdullah would seem to be well-placed to steer this shift.
Since his days as second deputy prime minister during the reign
of King Khalid, he has been among the most active of the senior
Saudi royals in championing Arab causes. During the reign of
King Fahad he regularly carried out the difficult mission of
trying to rein in the belligerent policies of Assad of Syria and
Saddam of Iraq. Most importantly, perhaps, is that it is his
plan for peace with Israel Ðsubmitted to the Arab summit in
Beirut in 2002Ð which has been accepted by the Arab countries
and dubbed ÔThe Arab plan for peace in the Middle EastÕ. This is
the second peace initiative offered by the Saudis to the
Israelis, the first was submitted by late king Fahad to the Fez
summit in 1982. That initiative was substantially the same as
the one submitted to the Beirut summit in 2002, which was put
back on the table during the last summit held in Riyadh in March
2007. Livni, along with Olmert, are sending some positive,
though very faint signals regarding the Arab piece initiative,
perhaps with a strong nudge from the USA. There are even rumors
circulating here and there that the Saudis are in contact with
the Israelis, most likely through third party liaison, regarding
the Arab piece initiative, and it is said that this is motivated
by the joint fear of both countries from the rising Iranian
threat. Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab World have never
been more disposed towards peace with Israel as they are now,
but lack of decisive leadership in Israel and the unconditional
support of the US make peace very difficult. It is worth noting
that the summit of 2007 was the first Arab summit ever to be
held in Riyadh, another sign of the growing regional role of the
kingdom.
Within the past few years Saudi Arabia has been quite successful
in fighting terrorism, as well as having 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 works projects
with huge budgets having been announced, and some already having
been started.
However, the Saudi regime is well aware that the political
stability and economic prosperity of the kingdom as well as
combatting the tide of terrorist rhetoric depend to a large
extent on the political stability of the region. Regional unrest
could frustrate the ambitious development and modernization
projects in Saudi Arabia. Conflicts in Iraq and Lebanon are also
fomenting sectarian tension between Sunni and Shia, which is a
major concern for Saudi Arabia owing to the kingdom being home
to a large Shia minority. The situation could be further
aggravated by an attack on Iran, especially if Israel takes an
active part in such an attack. This would put the kingdom in an
extremely delicate position not so much with its own people, but
with the whole Muslim World. |
