SAUDI ARABIA: ADAPT OR DIE

The royal rulers of Saudi Arabia sense that their country is in crisis but don't know how to solve it. Time is short.

"WHAT the Saudis want is a quiet life," says a distinguished British Arabist, dolefully acknowledging that they can no longer have it.

Sitting on top of the world's biggest patch of oil, the extended family that runs the most absolute and also the most complex of the world's surviving monarchies has managed to fend off the assaults of modernity and democracy for the 72 years since the Saudi state's foundation. It has done so by paying off subjects and neighbours and by pandering to
the region's most ferociously puritanical religious establishment, all as a reward for relative calm.

No more. Saudi Arabia's biggest neighbour, Iraq, is a cauldron whose swirling potion threatens to spill over into the kingdom. The Saudi clergy are divided, resentful and restive. And judging by the relentless catalogue of raids against suspected terrorist nests within the kingdom, some of the ailing King Fahd's subjects are ready to die in order to bring down the house of Saud, though what they want instead
is not so plain. Saudi Arabia is simmering.

Crown Prince Abdullah, the king's 81-year-old half-brother, who has run the show since the monarch suffered a series of strokes in 1995, knows he must reform if he is to save his country--and his family--from chaos. In the past year he has made several unprecedented but still tentative changes. Wittingly or not, he has raised hopes among reformers and prompted a wave of foreboding among conservatives.

The most daring of his promises is to let people vote for half the seats in local elections to be held by October. That is a far cry, to be sure, from full-blooded democracy; but the crown prince's reform-minded friends drop heavy hints that it is only a beginning: a new tolerance, openness and accountability are on the way, leading to greater religious, economic and political pluralism. More recently, however, a sense of dithering hesitation has returned; discord within
the ruling family may be bubbling, as the crown prince seeks to balance liberals and reactionaries.

The two biggest events that have knocked Saudi Arabia askew are the felling of New York's Twin Towers in September 2001 by suicide bombers,some three-quarters of whom were Saudi, and the American invasion of Iraq, together with the subsequent continuing attempt to replace an Arab dictatorship with that rarest of species, an Arab democracy. Two other events have also shaken Saudi Arabia: the bombings and terrorist attacks inside the kingdom last May and November.

As far as Saudis were concerned, the Twin Towers were far away. Many Saudis felt that, at least to a degree, the arrogant Americans deserved that disaster. Moreover, many Saudis remained in denial of their country's connection, often subscribing to the view, popular even among well-educated Arabs, that somehow the Israelis were responsible for the
atrocity. And the surge of American hostility to Saudi Arabia, when it emerged that most of the hijackers were Saudi, fostered an ever sharper sense of Saudi prickliness.

Many Saudis say that the bomb blast in May last year, which killed 34 people, eight of them American, opened Saudi eyes to the reality of home-grown terror. But again, the attack was directed at foreigners, and moreover a growing number of Saudis wanted all Americans out. The November bomb, however, was different: almost all of its 18 victims were Arabs, and many were Saudis. That, it appears, has changed and concentrated minds. It was certainly a spectacular own goal by the bombers that may well have set back the cause of creating an infidel-free, Sunni Islamist, theocratic republic.

But the cause lives on. Last year the Saudi security forces, according to a paper circulated by the Saudi-US Relations Information Service, carried out "158 raids on various terrorist elements and groups". Since September 11th 2001, several thousand terrorist suspects have been questioned and more than 600 detained. The net has been cast wide, taking in the capital, Riyadh, as well as the holy cities of Mecca and
Medina, the commercial port of Jeddah, the conservative heartland's province of Qasim and its city of Buraida, and the south-western province of Asir that abuts the notoriously porous border with Yemen, where the family of Osama bin Laden originates. The authorities say they are getting on top of the terrorists. But the continuation of activities--the police were brazenly attacked in Riyadh in January--suggests they have far to go.

It is, of course, difficult to judge the popularity of Mr bin Laden--or indeed of anyone in the kingdom, given the absence of elections, the muzzling of the media, the reluctance to talk openly about politics and the dearth of opinion polls. A survey carried out last July for the Arab-American Institute, an American lobby, found barely 8% of respondents praising the al-Qaeda leader--perhaps unsurprisingly, given Saudi awareness of the risks of dissent. It seems likely, anyway, that his popularity has dipped since the November attacks.

Anecdotal evidence, however, backs an assertion by an Australian writer on Saudi Arabia, Daryl Champion, that Mr bin Laden "enjoys a semi-underground folk-hero status with many in the kingdom--and not just the 15,000 Saudi nationals who participated in the JIHAD in Afghanistan". His admirers are said to be numerous on university campuses and among the rising number of unemployed. Plainly, many radical clerics have expressed support for his aims, though the
authorities have been vigorously cracking down on the more outspoken of them. A former West European ambassador to Saudi Arabia recently made a bold guess: "If there were an election today, bin Laden would win by a landslide."

Who can tell? Doubtless many Saudis do still want that quiet life. But clearly, too, there is a widening pool of resentment that could, especially if the oil price were to dive, foment extremism. The spectre of Mr bin Laden terrifies both the royal rulers and the professional middle class that wants more of a say in running the place.

NOT SO RICH AFTER ALL

Saudis feel a lot less perky than they did, say, 20 years ago. For one thing, demography is going against prosperity. Some 60% of the indigenous population is reckoned to be under 20, and some 70% under 30. The population has soared since 1980, the high point in the country's GDP per head, without a commensurate growth in national wealth. Income per person has since fallen, by some accounts, from around $20,000 to less than half of that. Unemployment has soared, though no one can agree on a figure--in a country where, as a leading
Saudi banker puts it, "We don't have a tradition of statistics." The government says 8-9%;other estimates range from 13-30%.

Other causes of dissent are more obviously political. As Saudis become more educated and cosmopolitan, many of them, especially professionals, increasingly resent their country's isolation from the modern world, the power of the clerics to control their social life, and the ability of the royal family to limit their influence in public affairs and to hog the exchequer. The MUTAWWAIN, the religious police, officially
known as the Commission for the Protection of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, still throw their weight about. Cinemas are still banned, as is music in public places; companies have even been forbidden to play jingles on the telephone when calls are on hold. Alcohol remains banned, in private as well as in public. This year, as usual, any manifestation of St Valentine's Day was expressly forbidden by the
authorities as being "pagan Christian"--and some 200 Bangladeshi and Burmese workers were arrested, apparently for drinking and dancing despite the edict.

The internet, the mobile phone and satellite television (technically banned but accessible without interference to a good 80% of the population) are all eroding the authorities' control. But even in the communications ether, the security organs still strive to have their way. By one estimate, some 30,000 websites are blocked. Technically, all sites must be approved.

Newspapers are strictly controlled, and even the more respected ones published abroad (and invariably owned or controlled by members of the Saudi royal family) tend to observe the limits--or risk loss of advertising as well as the freedom to circulate. No Saudi newspaper, for instance, reported the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1991 until five days after the event, presumably under the government's instruction. Last year THE ECONOMIST was banned eight times, for reasons ungiven.

Saudi editors who are considered too liberal (AL-WATAN's Jamal Khashoggi, for instance) or columnists who cross a line (OKAZ's Hussein Shobokshi) are summarily sacked. In a column last year, Mr Shobokshi's offence was to dream that his grown-up daughter, a lawyer, picked him up from the airport after he had won a prize at an international
human-rights conference; and that on the way home, they had chatted about voting in the local election and about the finance minister's broadcast on television about the next budget--all things that cannot yet happen.

Public protests remain strictly forbidden. Last October the government said that 271 people in Riyadh had been arrested, of whom 83 were told they would be put on trial, for demonstrating during a human-rights conference organised by the Saudi Arabian Red Crescent, itself an unusual event. A week later, likeminded protesters in Jeddah, Dammam
and Hail were similarly dealt with.

For those who flout the law, punishment is usually severe. Yet its application is inconsistent and most trials are held behind closed doors, without counsel for defendants. Amnesty International, which remains barred from the kingdom, has recorded over 1,400 executions since 1980. Some 40 people a year are still publicly beheaded for crimes including drug offences, robbery and rape. Sodomy and sorcery have also, in recent years, earned the ultimate penalty. Saudis--and more often expatriates--are frequently reported to have been flogged for such crimes as selling illicit alcohol, sometimes with as many as 1,000 lashes being inflicted, with 50 or so strokes in a session being
administered at intervals of two or three weeks.

BLACK MOVING OBJECTS

A host of restrictions against women are still in force. With a
probable fertility rate of over six children per woman, the religious authorities deem the rightful place for females is home. In public they must be shrouded in the black ABAYA, letting only the face be seen; usually just eyes are visible. They cannot travel without a male chaperone, usually a husband or close relation. They cannot run a business in their own name unless they get permission from a MAHRAM (a kind of agent), probably the husband. They cannot marry non-citizens without government permission. Nor can they drive cars--by FATWA from on high.

Though they make up more than half of the university intake, they have only 6% of the jobs, and in the workplace (with the exception of hospitals) they are invariably segregated, even, for instance, in newspaper offices or banks. And they are entirely unrepresented in government or in the MAJLIS AL-SHURA, the consultative council that is the closest thing to a parliament.

This picture of repression is, however, a lot less bleak than it was. Criminal and commercial laws are gradually being encoded and liberalised. Last year a stream of petitions were graciously accepted by the crown prince from various groups that purported to speak for--among others--Shia Muslims, businessmen and intellectuals of both an Islamist and secular tint, including a number of women. Newspapers, though still looking over their shoulder, have begun to reflect a
growing debate about the need for reform. Above all, Saudis are becoming far readier --though wariness persists--to discuss such matters at home and in the workplace. Topics that were taboo--talk of Shias and women's rights, for instance--are entering discourse, at least in professional circles.

AT LAST AN OPEN DEBATE HAS BEGUN

In June Crown Prince Abdullah opened a "national dialogue", bringing a hundred or so people together to discuss the future in a procedure he is now institutionalising. This month the third such meeting--perhaps including, unprecedentedly, some 30 or so women--will discuss women's issues. The MAJLIS AL-SHURA now has three female "advisers". This year television got its first female presenters. Businesswomen, such as Lubna Olayan, are gaining more serious attention. It is clear that the crown prince wants gradually to bring women into the public arena and realises, besides, that their enforced inability to play a bigger part
in the economy is damaging it.

There is talk of some members of both local and provincial councils being directly elected. Ditto the MAJLIS AL-SHURA. Many reformers say that accountability and openness are more vital than elections. There is growing demand for full publication of the budget. The MAJLIS AL-SHURA is slowly gaining powers, for instance, to question ministers, though not yet with a right to follow up their answers on the spot.
Meanwhile, the prospect of partly elected local councils may, if reformers' hopes are fulfilled, uncork the genie of democracy and let the public enter the sphere of decision-making.

For Crown Prince Abdullah, the worry is that by legitimising
alternative sources of power, however limited at this stage, he will risk opening the floodgates of democracy and destroy his royal family. Yet it is unlikely that that bastion of wealth and privilege can last much longer in its present state. Gradual economic and political reform is already threatening to alter the status quo dramatically. For example, the government's wish for Saudi Arabia to join the World Trade Organisation will not be achieved without a drastic opening of a pretty closed economy in which the royal family has special privileges to tap into the country's huge natural wealth.

Probably no one outside the royal family knows the precise numbers within it or how power is allotted. ("Those who talk don't know, and those that know don't talk," applies pretty well to Saudi royal Kremlinology in general.) Estimates of the number of princes vary widely, from around 5,000 to 10,000, with the extended family all told numbering between 20,000 and 27,000, all getting a slice of wealth, with no publication whatever of the amounts. Saudi Arabia still has no personal income tax, for princes or others.

The ones who count for most are the direct descendants--probably now in the high hundreds--of King Abdel Aziz ibn Saud (1880-1953), the founder of the modern kingdom, who had some 44 recognised sons. If King Fahd dies, as he soon may, Crown Prince Abdullah would take over. Next in line is his half-brother Prince Sultan, now 79, who has been defence minister since 1962. Thereafter come more sons of King Abdel Aziz: Prince Nayef, interior minister since 1975, and Prince Salman, the long-time governor of Riyadh province. After that, it gets fuzzy.

There is a hopeful prospect and a gloomy one. In the former, the crown prince, with hard-nosed reformers at his side such as Ghazi al-Gosaibi, the minister for electricity and water, pushes boldly but tactfully ahead towards political, religious and economic pluralism. In the boldest of such schemes, he arranges for the succession to skip a generation and move to a caucus of younger, western-educated princes, who acknowledge that the era of royal unaccountability and virtually unlimited wealth is over and that a constitutional monarchy must gradually emerge, with the MAJLIS AL-SHURA becoming the parliament, directly elected, maybe with a self-elected or indirectly-elected assembly of princes (and princesses?) as a senate. The notion of the succession moving down the line to the likes of Prince Nayef, who is
utterly loathed by the reformers for his diehard conservatism as well as incompetence, is unbearable to the modernisers.

This far-reaching reformist possibility is widely seen as both Utopian and dangerous. Already there are signs of resistance within the family. Prince Nayef, for one, is hugely powerful: he controls the media and the religious establishment as well as the police. Reformers fear that the long-prevailing tradition of consensus and balance (family unity at all costs has long been a mantra) is making the crown prince hesitate. But they fear, too, that if he moves too fast the conservatives will
oust him.

The clergy, heirs to the puritanical Wahhabi strain of Islam with which the house of Saud allied itself two centuries ago, are bound to fight against efforts to liberalise society and, for instance, to give wider rights to the country's 1m-plus Shias, who have only two of the 120 members of the MAJLIS AL-SHURA and are still reviled in textbooks, by the Sunni ULEMA (clergy) and by society at large. It should be added,
moreover, that very many Saudis sympathise with the conservatives.

Iraq is another reason for royal hesitation. If it settled down and a Shia-dominated government emerged in a federal set-up, many Sunni Saudis would be aghast; for one thing, their own Shias would start demanding a lot more power. But if Iraq descended further into chaos, with al-Qaeda or its allies making it ungovernable, the spill-over across a porous border could spell disaster for the Saudi regime. Either way, the Saudi royals lose.

WHERE'S THE SAUDI HOUDINI

Is there a "third way"? Perhaps. The most hopeful sign of compromise, albeit outside the current power base, is that moderate Islamists and secular reformers sound prepared, so far, to work together towards winning greater representation for themselves and greater accountability from the royal rulers. Indeed, it is arguable that the al-Qaeda phenomenon has forced non-violent Islamists and secular gradualists to converge. Both lots, in any case, think the house of Saud must adapt or die.

Is there a Saudi Gorbachev--or could Crown Prince Abdullah become one? Probably not. Besides, he would point out that, though Soviet rule ended more or less peacefully, the Union collapsed and the ruling elite were chased out. Perhaps Spain's General Franco is a more hopeful model. But where is a Saudi Adolfo Suarez, let alone a democracy-loving
constitutional monarch a la Juan Carlos. He could be there, among the vast array of princes. But no one seems to have found him yet.