While the gullibility of Americans is saddening, the
pernicious behavior of those who are willing to exploit this gullibility is
nothing short of criminal.
Could you speak more
about this?
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, November 02, 2003 3:17
PM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Riots in
Riyadh?
Excellent article -- thanks for posting it, Keith.
If
Turki al-Faisal is criticizing US policy and actions openly, this is indeed
serious. I figure it will take the US and UK about two decades to repair the
damage they have done to themselves overseas.. What an unnecessary penalty we
have to pay for the ignorance and narrow-focus agenda of the US
administration.
The
Shah tried the White Revolution, and found that it led to greater demands for
civil liberties and economic freedom, not fewer. Then with US advice and
advisors, he created SAVAK, an instrument of secret and not so secret
repression. And so he was overthrown and a counter-revolution swept into
power, instead of the moderates who led the anti-Shah effort. I don't
think the Saudis will go this way; the Saudi populace is more united and
coherent than Iran's (and smaller), and they have the tribal structures of
governance, which are accepted generally by all, to fall back on.
Specifically, I am referring to the diwanniya and succession
practices.
There is no intrinsic reason that the US and Saudi Arabia should not
get along. Attacks on Saudi Arabia have been pretty well organized by those
who want generally to poison US relations with the Arab and Muslim worlds.
These same people have orchestrated a series of actions by the US that is
designed, in my opinion, to harm US relations with these countries, and so to
set the US and Arabs/Muslims against each other long term. Unfortunately, no
one in the US government seems ready to denounce these
efforts.
The following, by our best foreign
reporter, John Simpson, with a long-time experience in the Middle East, can
be read as an adjunct to my previous posting (Crystal ball gazing on Saudi
Arabia) with the FT's interview with Prince Turki al-Faisal.
There
have been reports of small riots in Jeddah and other smaller towns in Saudi
Arabia from time to time, and there have also been small riots in Riyadh,
the capital, using football matches as excuses, but John Simpson writes here
of what seems to be the first serious riots in Riyadh. If, as I suggested
previously, a future riot starts getting out of hand, then that will give
the opportunity for someone to mount a coup d'etat -- probably someone in
the military.
KH
<<<< SAUDIS FEAR THAT BRITAIN
SEES THEM AS THE NEXT IRAN
John Simpson
There was silence
among the orderly lines of men sitting cross-legged down the length of a
hall in the King Abd-al Aziz Mosque. Someone looked at his watch. Another
man fiddled with the box of food in front of him, caught the disapproving
looks of his neighbours, and stopped.
Then came the stuttering of a
microphone, and expectant movement in the lines. The instant the muezzin's
voice proclaimed the end of the day's fasting, the hungry men pulled their
boxes open and started eating. The warm evening air was filled with the
smell of chicken and saffron rice. Iftar, the evening feast, had
begun.
The holy month of Ramadan is a bad time to visit Saudi Arabia
if you want to do business. This year it is worse then usual: to the
irritation of the Saudi government, the British Foreign Office and the
American State Department have warned people not to come here unless they
have to.
Half a column-inch in the newspapers here hints at the
reason: a senior al-Oaeda figure, Abu Mohammed al-Ablaj, has sent out an
e-mail promising "devastating attacks" during Ramadan. This is presumably
part of the information the British and Americans have based their warnings
on. It looks to me as though al-Ablaj is talking about Iraq, but now that
people have taken to suing their governments for not telling them the
obvious, the State Department and the Foreign Office tend to warn first and
ask questions afterwards.
This has, of course, got up the nose of the
Saudis in no small way. The government here maintains that it has a very
firm grip on the security situation. Six hundred suspects have been arrested
since April, and 3,500 Muslim clerics have been sent for "re-education". At
Friday prayers two days ago, the sermon I heard could have been written by
the Ministry of Information, it was so politically correct.
The
irritation with Britain and America is widespread throughout officialdom,
from Saudi Arabia's urbane ambassador to London, Prince Turki al-Faisal, to
his relative Prince Sultan, the minister of defence. Last Thursday, choosing
his words carefully. Prince Sultan told a group of generals who came to
offer their Ramadan greetings that there was a smear campaign against the
kingdom. "We are neither terrorists nor parasites," he said.
In other
words, he was responding angrily to accusations in Washington that Saudi
Arabia, the recipient in the past of so much American military support, is
somehow behind the new wave of anti-American violence.
Here, most
people seem to take it for granted that the United States has shifted
decisively away from Saudi Arabia as a result of the September 11 attacks.
They see the invasion of Iraq as being America's way of securing a safe
supply of oil for the future, and assume that the shifting of US military
bases from here to Qatar and Iraq symbolises the parting of the
ways.
As for the British attitude, it is a source of annoyance rather
than anger. The Saudis expect a greater sensitivity and understanding from
the British, and feel that they haven't had it. Senior government figures
scan British statements anxiously for any sign that London believes that
Saudi Arabia is going the way of Iran, a generation ago; and they feel they
can spot them.
Having watched the course of the Islamic Revolution in
Iran, I think the similarities are exaggerated -- and yet the danger is
clearly there. The Shah, too, tried to re-educate his clergy, but he did it
the hard way and simply reinforced their anger and willingness to be
martyred. In the teeming slums of Teheran his soldiers shot down the
demonstrators, while he himself vacillated between toughness and
conciliation.
The Saudis are aware of the precedent, though they feel
that the experiences of a Shi'ite state have little relevance to them.
Perhaps they are right, but history never repeats itself precisely. Two
weeks ago, hundreds of Saudis demonstrated for economic and political reform
in the streets of Riyadh; since demonstrations are illegal here, the police
dispersed them with tear gas and arrested a hundred or more.
As in
Iran in 1978, the opposition comes as much from liberals as from
fundamentalists, and they have a tendency to make a brief, tactical
alliance, though it doesn't last long. Like the Shah, the Saudi government
is experimenting with a little ultra-cautious liberalisation: press
restraints are marginally fewer, and there will be limited elections next
year.
These are nerve-racking times for the Saudi government. It
feels abandoned by its friends and increasingly threatened by its enemies,
and the princes who control most of the ministries cannot agree on the right
way forward. Maybe Ramadan will pass off without the attacks the Americans
and British have warned about; even so, the political choices here won't be
any easier.
John Simpson is the BBC's World Affairs
Editor
Sunday Telegraph 2
November >>>>
Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>, <www.handlo.com>,
<www.property-portraits.co.uk>
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