The “legend” says that the founding father of the modern Saudi Arabia,” Abdel Aziz Bin Saud”, captured the current Saudi Capital, Riyadh, with a group of only forty men.
He moved after that and defeated his arch enemies the Hashemites, the family of the current rulers of Jordan, and captured Mecca and Medina- the heart and soul of Islam- and the heart and soul of the Hashemites.
Ibn Saud, as he was popularly known, was a politician by nature, a perceptive, clever and devious Bedouin, a tribesman who knew how to work and make alliances throughout the Arabian Peninsula either by multiple and calculated marriages from various competing tribes, bribery or force, as needed.
Ibn Saud was actually setting on the engine of the modern civilization, Oil, which was discovered just after he established the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He went ahead in the early years and made the two most important alliances that kept the family until today in power; the first one was internally with the Wahhabis, an extreme sect and interpretation of the Sunni Islam which the Wahhabis created and marketed as the true religion; in fact, it is the political version of their view of Islam.
The second alliance was with the rising and to be dominant world power since the beginning of the 20th century, the United States of America. Very ironic and significant alliance between two extreme contrasts; America outside and the Wahhabis inside.
As a matter of fact, the Saudis were the first to establish the political Sunni Muslim religious movement best known as El-Ekhwan- the Brothers or Brotherhood- of which the most famous one sprung, the Muslim Brotherhood that has become the nightmare of the Arab political secular regimes and now is the democratically elected rulers in both Egypt and Tunisia-In Tunisia, they do not call themselves the Brotherhood but it’s the same ideology and style.
Two monumental events reshaped Saudi Arabia in the last quarter of the 20th century and the very first years of the 21st century, the first took place in 1979- same year when the clerics of Iran took over the country from the Shah- when a group of militant Saudi extremists seized the Grand Mosque of Mecca for over two weeks with allegations that the seizure could not have taken place without the direct help of the Bin Laden family which had sympathizers among them to those fanatics. In addition, the Bin Laden family at the time was in charge of the renovations to expand the Grand Mosque of Mecca.
The second event took place in the morning of 09/11/2001, when a group of Sunni Muslim Arabs from Al-Qaeda terrorist organization led by Osama Bin Laden, mostly Saudis with an Egyptian as the mastermind, seized and hijacked planes and attacked targets in America. The first terrorist attack in 1979 had regional consequences but it should have raised red flags of the horrors to come. The second terrorist attack had a world and earth shaking consequences that are still taking place until now and will continue for the foreseen future.
The sons of Saud, who took over from the father when he passed in the early 50s, inherited a country that has been the focal point in world politics, it has Oil, it has the holiest religious places for Muslims and it produced arguably the worst and deadliest enemies to civilization in the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21 century, Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda terrorist organization.
The current king of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah, is in his late 80s, the Crown Prince is in the same age group and both with health issues. It was much said about the late Crown Prince Sultan Bin Abdel Aziz that he had never been a talented leader; he had been the defense minister for over fifty years until his passing on October 22, 2011. His role and handling of the seizure in Mecca in 1979 was considered mediocre. His name was attached to the modernization of the armed forces but probably anyone could have done the same with hundreds of billions of dollars at their disposal and thousands of advocates and consultants on their side.
Besides, of course the other hundreds who made billions just from briberies to get the weapons deals passed. His son and most well know politician, Bandar Bin Sultan, likes to be known, which he is not, as the Machiavellian of Arab politics. He indirectly through a journalist published a book few years ago, “Prince”, which he mirrored on but with a different plot “The Prince” by Machiavelli, in which with the co writer thought to put some vagueness and mystery around his role in Saudi and regional Middle Eastern politics.
Anyone that ever watched Prince Bandar would have probably noticed that he is like an open book; you can tell what he thinks of before he even thinks of it, the style is so obvious. Prince Bandar was explicitly implicated in the famous British BAE weapons deal called “Al-Yamamah” in which British press said that he made hundreds of millions of dollars in “commission” out of over 40 billion pounds weapons deal.
Tony Blair the former British prime minister had to intervene personally asking the formal investigation to halt, citing British national security. The Saudis have been famous for generations in having brokers and intermediaries from the royal family and close to them getting bribes in exchange of lucrative weapons deals to their own country.
Many probably remember the most famous Saudi weapon dealer in the 60s and 70s, Adnan Khashoggi, who once made the honor of being on Time cover for his flamboyant dealings. It seems to me that the first step to reform Saudi Arabia is to transfer the powers to the cousins, the sons of the brothers, whom are the sons of Abdel Aziz; it is like a maze. The second step is to Create a Vatican like status to Mecca and Medina, the holiest sites for the Muslims and the birth place and later residence of the prophet Muhammad, and open up the rest of the kingdom gradually to a style that would make women feel like normal human beings, that can drive, travel, work, vote, without having to have a male sponsor, a husband, brother, driver, etc.
Today, 01/05/2013, a Saudi clerk, advocated that women and men should continue to be separated. The alliance between Al-Saud and Al-Wahabbeen, the strict and in my opinion not related to the original tolerant Sunni interpretation of the religion Islam, will continue but will take into a different shape if the royals in Saudi Arabia want their privileges kept; the anger at the religious police in Saudi Arabia is growing and especially among women who are standing up for themselves and refusing their insults in the streets of the country.
The Saudis need to reach out to the minority Shiite that they have been oppressing and provide them with equal rights; the Shiite in Saudi Arabia are a time bomb that can explode any moment and with it the whole oil rich Eastern section of the kingdom could explode.
The very last step which is probably needed is the establishment of a new popular system that would allow the Saudis, men and women to choose a representation and a government under the royal flag, to move closer to a constitutional monarchy that has direct involvement and guardianship with the holy places, with the rest falls under parliamentary oversight.
So far, those that call themselves reformers within Saudi Arabia are nothing but carbon copies of the current regime. They ask for political freedom for themselves and their fellow men but not the female sector of the society. The reformers need to look deeper into what is considered the root cause of the problem, which is the grand void the Saudis feel, it is as a cage made of diamonds, but still a cage.
There are numerous stories, true probably, about a hypocritical society that when inside Saudi Arabia they claim all the virtues in the book and outside Saudi Arabia, and inside within the high walls of their palaces, they live the lives of playboys and playgirls, both the Saudi men and women. The reformers ask for freedom that they deny their closest family members, their mothers and sisters and wives and “companions”.
It is a society that is so pretentious, so fanatic inside yet so tolerant to world alliances. A society whose allegations and rumors of a corrupt royal family fill the news daily. A strange secretive society closer to a cult rather than a regular country, a cult that is called a country. But a cult that is made out of clear and breakable glass.
