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Saudi reigns

The Saudis are in the global saddle

Stephen Schwartz and Irfan Al-Alawi

Wednesday, 31st October 2007

The kingdom rides the rest of the world like a horse

In the Saudi media you find examples of a pseudo-religious ideology gone beyond madness. In September a Saudi man divorced his wife because she allegedly violated morality by watching men on television to whom she was (obviously) not married or related. The court vacated the charge but granted the divorce. In another sinister twist — one reminiscent of the propaganda emanating from Red China and Soviet Russia — the daily newspaper Al Hayat (Life) reported that a Saudi convict had written a book in Arabic and English praising his positive experience in Saudi jails, and claiming that the Wahhabi state protects human rights. This sort of thing is going on while popular outrage increases over murders and other crimes by the so-called religious police, or mutawiyin. The mutawiyin continue to operate with impunity, thumping women in public with their long sticks if the victims let a centimetre of flesh show between the all-covering abaya and their shoes, raiding homes and beating (even to death) Saudis suspected of possessing alcohol, and fatally assaulting suspected unmarried or unrelated couples.

Sometimes the absurdity is so outrageous that it is comical. Not long ago Saudi newspapers were heatedly debating whether camel ‘beauty contests’ should be discouraged, since they seemed to be an expression of primitive tribalism. When US diplomats attended such a contest there was an uproar because ‘unbelievers’ had gained access to the event. But this week, as King Abdullah was honoured with parades and gun salutes in London, the radical website al Sahat (the Battlefields) carried a post arguing that camel beauty contests could be the basis for the creation of political parties, which presently are banned. Given this sort of stuff, and looking back at great democratisation movements like Polish Solidarity, or considering the protests in Burma, it’s hard to believe that real change can come to the kingdom. All the same, increasing numbers of Saudis believe change can no longer be avoided.

What’s Britain’s role here? It is not easy to avoid the conclusion that just as the UK is the main centre of jihadist activity in Western Europe, so the British authorities, even more than the American, have bent to Saudi economic and political influence.

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May 6th, 2008 11:31pm

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