House of Saud shows its colors
By Sudha Ramachandran - Asia Times
BANGALORE - The Saudi Arabian government's heavy-handed response to an Islamist group's call for an anti-monarchy demonstration shows how little its attitude toward democratic reform has changed. While the House of Saud remains reluctant to reform and is intolerant of any expression of dissent or challenge to its authority, political activists who were demanding reform until recently now appear to be calling for a revolution. Osama bin Laden, meanwhile, is taking full advantage of the kingdom's chaos.
An Islamic website has posted an audio-tape message attributed to bin Laden in which he bitterly criticizes the Saudi government, blaming it for the ongoing unrest. Speaking in Koranic verses, the voice accuses Saudi rulers of "violating God's rules" and being "too close to the infidel", a reference to the United States. He adds that the Saudi government is violating people's rights and misusing the country's wealth, and also criticizes the government's promise to hold municipal elections and open a national dialogue on democratization and other issues.
If the voice on the tape is indeed bin Laden's, his timing is by no means coincidental, intended to fuel the undercurrent of discontent fast breeding in the kingdom. One such group of dissenters, the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA), an exiled London-based opposition group, had called for peaceful demonstrations on the streets of Riyadh and Jeddah on Thursday. To thwart the protest call and preempt the public expression of challenge to its authority, the Saudi government deployed a large number of heavily armed police to prevent activists from congregating in central Riyadh. Barricades were set up to block access roads, while helicopters hovering overhead kept watch for protesters. (Public rallies and marches are banned in Saudi Arabia.)
MIRA's planned protest might have failed to materialize, but the Saudi government's preemptive response to the call has revealed what MIRA has been saying for some time - that the House of Saud is "unreformable".
In October last year, MIRA led a protest march in Riyadh - the first ever mass public protest in this conservative kingdom. The demonstration was broken up by police, who administered beatings and fired shots into the air to disperse the crowd. About 270 protesters were arrested. The 2003 demonstration was called to protest the slow pace of reform and to demand the release of political prisoners and greater political participation.
The protest rallies planned for Thursday on the streets of Riyadh and Jeddah were aimed at much more. The demonstrations were to be part of a "series of civil activities" that MIRA is organizing that aim at bringing "total change" in Saudi Arabia. Signaling a new stridency in MIRA's demands, the organization's London-based leader, Saad al-Faqih, told the media ahead of the demonstration: "We are not asking for minor economic, political or social reform. We are marching to remove the current regime," he said. "The regime is unreformable."
Faqih's pessimism about the House of Saud is not without reason. The country's aged princes have promised reform but have delivered little. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, governed according to an extremely conservative interpretation of Islamic Sharia law. The ruling House of Saud is intolerant of dissent or any questioning of its authority. Political parties are banned and the media are under strict control. The regime has maintained its iron grip through coercion and repression. Its record on human rights - especially women's rights - is abysmal.
Demands for reform have come up from time to time, but the government has been able to keep the lid on such demands through brutal crackdowns on dissidents. That changed in the 1990s when, after the 1990-91 Gulf crisis, the regime came under pressure from within and outside to reform. In response, the government announced some reforms in 1992, the most important of which were the Basic Law of Government and the establishment of a consultative council, albeit one whose members were appointed by the king.
Yet the measures seemed promising. They provided for an "independent" legislative body and codifying a constitution that promised an independent and just judiciary and human rights. But in practice the reforms amounted to little as they were accompanied by a simultaneous brutal crackdown on reformists.
Since the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, which were carried out mainly by Saudi nationals, the Saudi government has come under immense pressure from the United States to reform the system and provide outlets for political dissent. Pressure on the government has built up from within the country as well. Early last year, petitions calling for reform were submitted to Crown Prince Abdullah. The government verbally welcomed the petitions. This some read as a sign of a new willingness in the House of Saud to initiate change. The government opened a Center for National Dialogue to encourage the exchange of ideas. On October 13, 2003, it announced its intention to establish municipal councils, half of whose members would be selected through elections, to be held within a year.
But barely had the announcement been made when the government showed its true colors. It dealt far too sternly with peaceful protesters participating in the demonstration called by MIRA. Its use of the coercive apparatus to deal with political dissent signaled that it would brook no challenge to its authority. More restrictions were placed on the long-suppressed local media, which were forbidden to discuss the protests or the government's coercive response.
Saudi Arabia's road to reform has been downhill ever since. In fact, many believe that the reforms have not just stalled, they have gone into reverse.
In March this year, the government authorized a semi-official human-rights-monitoring body. But soon after, a group of reformists calling for a constitutional monarchy were jailed. Three are still in custody without charge, while the toothless human-rights body has done nothing to secure their release. A recently passed law bans government employees from signing petitions or publicly questioning or criticizing the government.
In October, government announced that elections for the municipal councils, now due in February, would be for only half of their seats, with women barred from voting.
After a series of violent attacks by Islamist militants with links to al-Qaeda, the Saudi government, in a much-delayed response to the militant group's extensive network in the kingdom, launched a crackdown. Over the past year, hundreds of suspected militants were taken into custody. Safe houses were identified, weapons caches confiscated and funding for terror groups tracked down. Extremist clerics were "re-educated" and school curricula changed.
While the threat posed by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is indeed real, the government has used the "war on terrorism" to its advantage in dealing with political dissidents and Islamist moderates. Several of those who have been arrested in the "operations against al-Qaeda" are in fact critics and opponents of the government, people who are demanding that the corrupt, parasitic House of Saud reform itself.
It is the Islamist reformists who have suffered more than their secular counterparts in these anti-militant operations. This is perhaps because the House of Saud perceives the challenge from the Islamists to be far more threatening. Unlike the Islamists, the liberals are for state-led reform and preserving the monarchy, and they are less confrontationist than the Islamists, such as those of MIRA, who are calling for the ouster of the monarchy.
Faqih's detractors have pointed out that his vision of the state that would replace the Saudi monarchy is far more conservative than that of the current regime. They point out that he is in favor of an Islamic government in Saudi Arabia under the rule of the ulema (religious leaders) and is inspired by the same brand of conservative Wahhabism that reigns in the kingdom. But Faqih says he wants an elected leadership, one in which women too can vote, to replace the monarchy with a system that provides "power-sharing, accountability, transparency and an independent judiciary, as well as freedom of expression and assembly". The people would decide on a new constitution, he says, but the constitution would need "the stamp of Islamic law".
The Saudi government has used the "threat of terrorism" to put off reforms. Prince Nayif, the Saudi minister of the interior who is head of the intelligence services and chief of police, is of the view that "the current circumstances are not conducive to raising or speaking about such matters" (political reform). Security, he says, is the most important issue before Saudi Arabia today and change must not be achieved at the expense of stability.
The challenge posed by al-Qaeda to the Saudi regime has made the already reluctant-to-reform House of Saud even more determined not to loosen its grip on power. But by bolting the doors against reform and refraining from allowing political channels for expression of dissent, the regime is in effect strengthening the hands of the militants, including bin Laden.
By preventing Thursday's anti-monarchy demonstrations, the House of Saud might have managed to silence a vocal section of its opponents, but by denying them peaceful means of articulating their demands, the Saudi monarchy is pushing them to turn to violence as an alternative way to have their voices heard.
Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in Bangalore, India.
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