King Fahd Leaves Behind a Threatened Monarchy
Saudi Arabia Analysis
By Yassin Musharbash in Berlin
service.spiegel.de
King Fahd's successor has long been pre-arranged -- his brother Prince Abdullah has been the de facto ruler of the country for ten years. But one can no longer take anything in Saudi Arabia as preordained: The population wants more rights, the oil is running out, terrorism is threatening the government -- and the new king is already 81 years old.
At least two dozen black Mercedes limousines and not fewer than 350 personal servants: the pomp and circumstance that King Fahd lavished on his annual vacation in Marbella is legendary. But what appeared to the monarch, whose personal wealth was recently estimated at €48 billion, to be the normal standard of living, put a bitter taste in the mouths of many of his subjects.
Unemployment in Saudi Arabia has recently almost reached 25 percent, and the country's oil deposits are beginning to run low. King Fahd, who died on Monday after a long period of illness, was hesitant to face up to the upheaval now shaking the country, and did some to help create it -- an accusation he must leave to his brother and successor Abdullah, who has essentially run the country since Fahd's stroke in 1995, to face. The kingdom is facing a major crisis: Social, religious and political tensions could soon transform into a volcano.
That the transfer of power to Abdullah has happened without friction, as expected, doesn't change anything. The problem lies much deeper: Abdullah, only two years younger than Fahd, is already 81 years old, and the newly-named Crown Prince Sultan is only slightly younger. Also, the laws of the 79 year-old country demand that the sons and grandsons of the county's founder, Abd al Asis, must serve as king. Scores of the over 40 offspring of Abd al Asis are still alive -- yet since they are all already well advanced in years, Saudi Arabia is likely facing a series of quickly-changing monarchies. A long-term strategy to reform the political system is therefore not to be expected.
The Islamic Playboy Prince
King Fahd was used to living in less troubled times. He had a turbulent youth, and was often called a playboy prince. Even though he was named to Education Minister at 30, his lifestyle didn't change much. The terrorism that is today shaking the foundations of the Saudi Arabian monarchy was already then an old problem, but one that was easily kept overseas. Militant Islamists could expect financial support from Riyadh, as long as they operated only outside of Saudi Arabia. Now terrorism has returned home, and is presenting a threat to the royal family.
Just as long as the oil money flowed, then ruling the kingdom was more a question of distributing the cash than anything else; Saudi Arabia degenerated into a country which focused purely on profit and could afford to support millions of guest workers. It is only now, as the end of the boom is in sight, that conflicts are starting to emerge, such as whether women should be allowed to drive. This debate is so contentious because chauffeurs for the country's women cost the Saudi economy over two billion US dollars every year.
But at the same time King Fahd was also faced with existential questions. In 1990, when Saddam Hussein's Iraqi dictatorship threatened, after the invasion of Kuwait, to march on Saudi Arabia, Fahd invited the American army into the country. That had heavy consequences. Although the Iraqi threat had been averted, in the eyes of the Islamists the monarchy had committed a grave sin and given infidels the key to "occupancy" of the "country of the two sanctuaries" (Mecca and Medina). The fact that the country's Islamic clerics, who have close ties to the royal family, endorsed the US military presence meant that the conflict couldn't get worse.
Half-Hearted Reforms
Domestically Fahd will be remembered for a series of half-hearted attempts at reform. In 1983 he introduced an advisory council whose members were appointed by the king. This was an attempt to meet the demands of the (weak) democratic opposition for a parliament -- real co-determination still doesn't exist today. Almost 10 years later Fahd developed a type of basic law which allowed for certain civil liberties. Yet the Koran has remained the country's constitution.
He may be only two years younger than the late King Fahd, but Abdullah has been chosen to succeed the throne.
One measure which was more popular and was initiated by his representative Abdullah, the new king, was to limit some of the royal family's privileges, such as the private use of jets belonging to the state airline. Abdullah is seen as conservative and pious. He advocates a relaxed relationship with the West and is thought to be a cautious reformer. But he is also not exactly popular.
This is due to a peculiarly Saudi dilemma: the Islamic opposition is in actual fact even more fundamental than the state. The Islamists shuddered when Abdullah recently shook George W. Bush's hand for a few minutes. "The tyrant is dead" al-Qaida supporters proclaimed on their websites the day of his death. At the same time they are already making it clear that they also have no intention of making their piece with Abdullah. Osama bin Laden has all too often accused Fahd personally, and the royal family in general, of living unislamic lives and scolded them for not being capable of defending the holy cities with their own power.
Ruling Saudi Arabia had always been a matter of bridging the divide between doctrine and realism. The kingdom is based on the puritanical Wahhabi branch of Islam: modernity is condemned and the words of the conservative and radical clerics carry a lot of weight. At the same time the most oil-rich country of the world can't afford to isolate itself internationally. After Sept. 11, 2001, Saudi Arabia feared that it might find itself on the list of rogue states because 15 of the 19 attackers were Saudis. Maintaining a good relationship with the USA became a question of survival for the monarchy -- but the price of this salvation has been to fall still further out of favor with the Islamists.
In the longterm, the only thing that can prevent the country falling apart is a more sophisticated pragmatic approach. But the new King Abdullah can still follow his own father's example: when the kingdom found itself on the verge of bankruptcy, just months after it was founded, Abd al-Asis introduced a tax on tobacco. The clerics were strictly against it, because to even earn any money from the new tax, Abd al-Asis had to first allow the use of tobacco.
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