Whither Saudi Arabia?

Saudi Arabia has sent a team of about 200 men to the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea, held September 19 to October 4.  But there are no Saudi women at the multi-sport competition that takes places every four years. The Human Rights Watch says arrests, trials, and unfair convictions of peaceful dissidents are on the rise in the oil-rich kingdom. Beheadings are still carried out as a form of punishment, even for minor offenses such as smuggling hashish or witchcraft, as the country implements the strictest form of the Islamic law. But some analysts say that the rulers have also relaxed some social strictures in recent years.

Tribal traditions and the modern technocratic world clash in the country where Islam was born. Saudi Arabia has seen more change in the past six decades than in the previous 13 centuries. For some, it has been too much, for others too little.

Riyadh, the bustling and ultramodern capital of Saudi Arabia, was little more than a quiet outpost until the mid-20th century. Like most developments in this wealthiest of Arab nations, the city’s dramatic transformation was financed by the oil industry. Saudi Arabia’s vast natural oil reserves, one quarter of the world’s total, have enabled it to develop exemplary health and welfare systems, free education, a modern well-equipped military force, and an infrastructure that includes an excellent road system.

Khurais oil field,  Saudi Arabia

But in terms of social developments, the oil wealth has had little impact. Saudi Arabia has remained a tribal society, ruled by a royal family with seemingly complete power over its people.

“I think one problem with Saudi Arabia is, that like many countries, there isn't one Saudi Arabia,” said Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East analyst at the Center for Strategic and International studies and author of the book Saudi Arabia Enters the 21st Century.

“If you go to the area along the Gulf Coast where the oil industry is concentrated, it’s very modern. And people there have more exposure to other states in the west. It is perhaps more liberal. The area around Riyadh and most of the internal areas in Saudi Arabia are less exposed to the West and more conservative,” said Cordesman.

Saudi Arabia’s role as the keeper of the Muslim holy cities Mecca and Medina has compelled many Saudis to adhere strictly to social and religious mores and serve as model to 1.3 billion Muslims worldwide.

“It is an intensely conservative, puritanical Islamic country. It is a country of tribes and extended families. It is still a nation of people who do not have, in broad terms, good contact with either the West or indeed, to the extent that other Arab countries do, the Middle East as a whole,” said Cordesman.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia

Since 1932 when Saudi Arabia was founded, it has been ruled by one clan, the Saud family. At the turn of the 20th century Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud, supported by the clan of religious reformer Muhammad al-Wahab, wrested the power from Al Rasheeds.

The discovery of oil in the early 1930’s led to the 1970’s oil boom. High oil revenues enable many Arabs to live in luxury that rivals or surpasses the west. This in turn has lured some six million foreign workers to perform highly skilled jobs as well as menial labor.

Walter Cutler, former U-S ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said this western influence outrages traditionalists.

“I think one of the sources of unhappiness among these people is that: look, when you have this vast oil income and you develop your country, what has happened is you have a lot of western technology and a lot of westerners coming in to help develop the country. In other words, you have a very large foreign presence there,” said Cutler.

So during the 1970-s when the country enjoyed bountiful oil revenues, King Faisal was killed and armed opponents of the royal family temporarily seized the holy city of Mecca. Corruption, oppression and foreign influence were among the chief complaints against the ruling elite.

The royal family tended to attribute acts of discontent to foreign groups. But the 2003 bombings of two residential complexes in Riyadh, where many Muslims lived, shocked the royal family into realizing there was home-grown terrorism.

Many analysts have said the chief cause of Arab discontent is economic as well as political. There is growing unemployment as oil revenues decline. Like most Arab countries, Saudi Arabia has a population boom. An average Saudi woman bears more than six children. The population has quadrupled in the past three decades with more than half under age 20.

Joseph Kechichian, author of several books on the Middle East, including Succession in Saudi Arabia, said a growing number of young men are educated in Islamic theology, culture and history but not in the skills needed for today’s technological industry.

“So therefore, you have a pool of unemployed young men, religiously educated and well motivated, some of whom have military training because they’ve served at one point or another in the armed forces, who are venting their frustrations against the establishment," said Kechichian. "And the establishment are not only the ruling family, but the large business holders, the established religious scholars, who have accepted the Sauds as their rulers and so on and so forth.”

According to Kechichian, the idle and increasingly destitute youths are targeted by recruiters for terrorist organizations. But many of these young men who grew up with MTV and Internet, also want a more open and democratic society.

Under pressure to change, the royal family has begun planning political and economic reforms. Cutler, who is still a frequent visitor to Saudi Arabia, said changes are coming.

“What I’ve noticed in my last couple of times there during the last two years is a greater openness in dialogue. Here I am talking about the media in particular. A discussion of social issues that one would not have expected to find in the media when I was there in the 1980-s.” 

In 2000, the kingdom revived the national consultative council, Majlis as-Shura. Although all of them are appointed by the King, some observers regard the council as a forerunner of an elected legislature that may one day share power with the monarchy.  But no one can tell if that day will come.

“It is anything but clear that if the Saudi monarchy should fall, the technocrats and the business class would not fall with them or that you would get anything other than an Islamic conservative country, which would be far less able to deal with the economic and demographic problems that Saudi Arabia faces,” said Cutler.

Most of the 150 council members are highly educated and considered to be experts in their field, making it one of the most educated assemblies in the world. More than half hold doctorate degrees and close to three-quarter are graduates of major Western universities. Only a dozen hold degrees in religious studies, which is typical in the rest of the society. But the group does not represent the nation’s diverse society, including young people, rural elements and the one third of the population that is still illiterate.

Al-Haram Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia

Some analysts blame the Saudi leadership for moving too slowly on reforms. Cordesman disagrees.

“Part of the reason it is so slow is this is not a country where a conservative monarchy, sort of, sits on a progressive people, " he said. "Since the time of Ibn Saud, it has usually been a country where the monarchy, the technocrats and the business class move a very conservative people forward as fast as those people wish to move.”

Bombings, protests and other expressions of discontent in recent years indicate that some Saudis are eager for change.  But what kind of change? A lack of polls, focus groups and political research makes it hard to gauge whether the majority want to revert to a more conservative and closed Islamic society, or a democratic one open to the rest of the world.  Will young disgruntled Saudis answer the ever louder call to jihad by Islamic State militants in neighboring Iraq?

Some observers say that in such circumstances, gradual reforms are more prudent than a rapid change that could lead to violence.  Others contend that a more democratic kingdom has a better chance of survival than a hardline "Islamic" one.

Muslim Communities: U.S. vs. Europe

Islamic State militants are waging a war of terror in an effort to create a state stretching from northern Syria into Iraq.  According to the latest CIA estimate there could now be more than 31,000 of them.  A growing number of foreign fighters from Europe, the United States and elsewhere are joining IS ranks. 

The Soufan group, an international security consulting firm, estimates that about 700 are from France, 800 from Russia, almost 300 from Britain and about 100 from the United States.  According to these figures, the number of American Muslims answering the call to jihad seems relatively small.  Some analysts say this is because American Muslims are generally more integrated in local society than their counterparts in Europe.

Two recent studies, one funded by the German government, found that the majority of Muslims believe that Islamic Sharia law should take precedence over the secular constitutions and laws of their European host countries.

“There is a new wall rising in the city of Berlin,” wrote German author and sociologist Peter Schneider a few years ago in reaction to the murder of a young Turkish girl by her own brother. The girl had "shamed" her family by leaving a husband they forced her to marry. Schneider said that the majority of Berliners have not crossed the invisible barrier separating the affluent central and northern districts of the city from the suburbs housing some 300-thousand Muslims.

Germany has more than three-and-a-half million Muslims, 70 percent of whom are Turks and Kurds. They started arriving in the 1950s and helped fuel the country’s post-war economic boom. They were called “Gastarbeiter”, or guest workers, because they were expected to eventually return to their home countries. But most of them stayed and were joined by their families. Their children and often grandchildren were born in Germany. France, Italy and Scandinavian countries also have growing Muslim populations. 

James Zogby

James Zogby, President of the Arab-American Institute in Washington, says Germany and many other European societies still consider generations of immigrants as temporary laborers.

“They may have come as guest workers, but today they are stake holders, " said Zogby. "They are fundamentally tied to the countries they are in. There is no way that they are not going to be there. The host countries need them. They have sunk roots deep into the country, but they have been alienated.”

Since World War II, Muslims have settled in many parts of Western Europe -- some in search of a better living, others to flee the post-colonial disorder or ethnic violence in their home countries. Although circumstances vary from country to country, European societies for years have been reluctant to embrace newcomers from different cultures.

According to Zogby, it is much easier for Muslims to become Americans.

“The process of naturalization is much more accessible to immigrants, but also the process of becoming American means more than just getting citizenship. It means that you also get a new identity. You also get an attachment to a new culture. You also get a new sense of who you are and, in the process, the idea of being American changes because all of us become different. We are today a different America than we were a hundred years ago.”

An American today can be portrayed as Hispanic, African-American, Asian-American, or a woman wearing a head scarf. "This was not a case a century ago," noted Zogby. "But images of French, German or Italian citizens have changed little to reflect growing immigrant populations."

Leena El-Ali, program director for the non-profit conflict resolution group Search for Common Ground, said many Muslim immigrants have come to the United States in search of higher education. And many of them came independently, she said.

“In other words, a son would come and soon afterwards perhaps a sister would follow, then a father, than a mother, etc. But the point of entry, to a large extent, was education. [They came] in a search of higher education, a better education. And then they would stay. In Europe, perhaps because it’s a lot closer to the Middle East in particular, they [i.e., the Muslims] tend to be entire families who emigrated. So you find in France that you have entire North African families. You have in the UK entire families, Middle Eastern, but particularly Indian subcontinent Asians: Pakistanis, Indians and Bangladeshis. In Germany you find entire Turkish families, and so on.”

Observers note that most American Muslims, especially those born in the United States, are successful businessmen, scholars, professionals or highly skilled workers. And most are integrated into mainstream society. In contrast, few Turks in Germany, Moroccans in France or Pakistanis in Britain, for example, have progressed beyond low-skilled jobs. When unemployment rises, it does so at a higher rate for immigrants and their children who often live in, what many observers call, immigrant ghettos.

Young Muslims without prospects for the future are easy pray to radicals offering a religious explanation for their misery and jihad as a way out of it.  Some of them end up performing atrocities for Islamic State. 

Islam is the third largest religion in the United States. The exact number of adherents is a matter of debate because the U.S. Census does not include a question about religious affiliation.  Estimated figures range between about 4 million and 8 million.  About half a million of these Muslims are of foreign origin.  

Sulayman Nyang, Professor of Islam and African studies at Howard University in Washington, warns that new waves of poor and uneducated Muslim refugees in some U.S. cities are beginning to live in similar circumstances as their counterparts in Europe. 

 “One thing that is happening to the American-Muslim community is that the gradual increase in the number of refugees from Afghanistan, Somalia and other places, is beginning to dilute the solidity of the Muslim economic presence in America,” said Nyang.

Sociologists warn that poor education, poverty, unemployment and a sense of alienation could turn some Muslims in the United States away from mainstream society, and efforts must be made to prevent that from happening. 

*  *  *

Further reading:

Peter Morici: Terrorism is inspired and financed by the failings of the global economy

http://www.theglobalist.com/isis-blame-germany-and-china/