Saudi Arabia's Week of Shame

Since King Abdullah returned to Riyadh last month, members of his ruling family have resorted to myriad political, economic, and personal measures to prevent public expressions of dissent against the Al Saud. The Ministry of Interior issued a statement warning that any act of public protest is prohibited in Saudi Arabia and punishable by law. The country’s senior ulema were quick to legitimize this criminalization of protest with religious justifications, reminding everyone that “conspiring” against the political leadership is an unIslamic act akin to conspiring against god. The ulema then issued an official memorandum requesting that preachers at mosques discuss the importance of loyalty to the Al Saud during Friday sermons and to discourage people from calling for or joining protests.  Minister of Foreign Affairs Saud al-Faisal then held a press conference in which he threatened against any foreign interference-- mainly implying the “influence” of Iran-- and called for national dialogue and the importance of continuing the project of reform peacefully.

Reminiscent of his father, King Abdullah sent his representatives to every corner of the Kingdom in the last three weeks to garner support from tribal and business leaders, political families and power brokers, and youth representatives, to name a few. Some tribal leaders from the southern and eastern parts of the country—areas historically accused of having secessionist tendencies— came to the King last week to renew their allegiance to him in person. The Ministries of Interior and Defense also contacted all their retired personnel via telephone to secure their loyalty and that of their children and grandchildren.  However, measures to mitigate potentially explosive tensions go beyond orthodox diplomacy and religio-legal maneuvers. According to a source in the Interior Ministry, hundreds of arrests have been made across the Kingdom in the last two weeks alone, all in relation to online organizing for popular protests that called for comprehensive reforms. In the beginning of the month, rumors were circulating that the founder of the Facebook page that called for a ‘day of rage’ on March 11th in Saudi Arabia was murdered in Riyadh. Although still unconfirmed, the rumor has succeeded in making people think twice about, if not completely deterring them from, getting involved in any sort of political organizing.

Even more alarming is the blatant anti-Iran, anti-Shi’a rhetoric that the Saudi state-owned media has been propagating for the last two weeks on behalf of the Al Saud ruling family. Raising the specter of an Iran-manufactured ‘day of rage’ in Saudi Arabia turned support for legitimate and popular demands into a crime against national security.  This was exacerbated by unofficial alerts that were circulated via text messages. Some warned that joining the protests was punishable by five years in prison and several hundred thousands of Saudi Riyals in fines. Others incriminated anyone who was caught taking photographs of any possible protest. The punishment for such a crime was stated to be three years in prison and tens of thousands of Saudi Riyals. Still more text and email messages announced that the March 11th protest was orchestrated by al-Qaeda and/or other unpopular figures such as the hated Islamist opposition leader Saad al-Faqih or the feminist scholar Hatoon al-Fassi. While the source of the alerts that circulated widely remains unknown, they nonetheless had the impact of shifting the mood, in Riyadh at least, from one of excitement, possibility and hope for bringing about change to one of suspicion, fear and doubt of the motives of the planned “day of rage.”

"Tsunami of Saudi Consciousness"

The March 11th protest started as a popular call for serious political, economic, and social reforms, undergirded by demands for the institution of a constitutional monarchy and the building of a vibrant and free civil society. The call started to gain momentum as larger segments of society were making their demands for reform public (see examples here and here). But many of those who had considered joining the demonstration gradually felt that the March 11th protest was being hijacked by Islamists whose goal was primarily to overthrow the Al Saud monarchy, and not necessarily to protest the lack of real political, economic, social, and human rights. That the ‘day of rage’ was later called by some the “Hunain Revolution,” a reference to a battle in the early history of Islam, is perhaps indicative of that. To say the least, the demonstrations, whose original organizers remain unknown, were badly planned and their goals were largely ambiguous. This made it easy for one insignificant opposition group, in this case a group of staunch anti-Al Saud Islamists, to hijack the ‘day of rage’ as their own, thus enabling proponents of the status quo to summarily discredit the whole movement for reforms. Regardless, on the eve of March 11th, in the aftermath of the Saudi security forces’ use of live ammunition to disperse a protest in the Eastern Province, it was becoming clearer that public demands for reform and the institution of a constitutional monarchy would have to be delayed. This was especially the case when the United States refrained from condemning the security forces’ violence against unarmed, peaceful demonstrators. What had started as a month of public discussions and debates on the possibility of forcing political, social, and economic reforms were silenced overnight in the name of national security.

What little hope was left for the possibility of protests taking place was shattered by the heightened security that was deployed in all major Saudi cities on Friday March 11th. As many foreign reporters have already described elsewhere, Riyadh felt and looked like a police state. A police vehicle was parked every fifty meters, and in some neighborhoods, every ten. In some areas, a mixture of police, undercover intelligence cars, and Interior Ministry trucks, was positioned every couple of hundred meters, especially between al Faisaliya and the Kingdom towers. Anti-riot police were also stationed at designated locations in every neighborhood in central Riyadh, with a huge presence in front of Jareer bookstore on Olaya street, close to the protest’s planned point of departure. Sirens went off all day and late into the night. And in the event that this was not enough to make the point, helicopters hovered low over Riyadh’s homes until midnight to scare off potential dissenters, if any had remained.

Despite government claims to the contrary, hope and possibility were very much in the air in the weeks prior to the “Friday of rage.” Saudis from all walks of life were expressing their lack of faith in a government that for decades has done nothing but talk and make empty promises of reform. In newspapers, online blogs and chat rooms, salons and cafes, many expressed their willingness to take to the streets and protest for their rights on condition that the pro-reform movement allow for diversity in political, religious and ideological views.  While the latter did not happen, the fate of last week’s protests was nonetheless never as done a deal as the Al Saud regime would like its people and the world to think. Prior to the planned protest, the government exhibited great signs of fear and insecurity. The ruling members of the Al Saud were and still are more anxious than they have been in decades, their media and online censors more vigilant than ever. If anything, the last four days’ hyper-glorified depictions of “the people’s love for their Al Saud rulers” and the “unbreakable bond that has united them since the great founding father, Ibn Saud” (See here, here and here) only goes to show Al Saud’s state of uncertainty. The ruling family may not lose sleep over sharing the same fate as Ben Ali or Mubarak any time soon. But as mentioned in a previous post, it takes much less to keep the antiquated Saudi ruling members on their guarded toes.

The Al Saud rulers, however, are resilient, and although they know that the status quo is unsustainable, resist change they will. The “reforms” announced by King Abdullah today, the majority of which bolster the power of his family’s two main constituencies, the security forces and the religious clerics, indicate just how concerned the Al Sauds are over their future, and the extent to which they will fight political and social reforms. The way the regime’s discourse shifted when calls for demonstrations on March 11th failed to materialize is most telling of this ‘old guard’ mentality within the family. The Ministry of Culture, for example, went from completely banning any mention of the day of rage in Saudi media to pressuring all writers to congratulate the ruling family in light of the “failure” of the previously unmentionable protests. The few ethical Saudi newspaper writers who have refrained from taking a celebratory and self-congratulating stance are being pressured into taking sides: the right, pro-government side, that is. Especially superficial analysis and state propaganda have dominated Saudi television and its printed press since the Saturday after the supposed ‘day of rage.’ These moves indicate a great sense of Al Saud relief that security forces have managed to suppress all calls for anti-government protests.

Well, almost all calls. The little matter of ongoing protests in the Eastern Province for over two months, mostly calling for the release of political prisoners, does not really count. These are usually framed by the Saudi regime as anti-patriotic expressions of disloyal (Shi’a) citizens heeding the orders of their Iranian coreligionist lords. The Al Saud regime, with its pervasive institutionalized sectarianism, has yet to recognize the Shia citizens of the Eastern Province as anything but second-class citizens. It denies them their religious, political, social and economic rights even more so than it does their Sunni counterparts. It also enables discrimination against the Shi’a in schools, hospitals, and employment. And when these disenfranchised citizens publicly demand the rights they are systematically denied, they are labeled ‘agents’ of Iran while simultaneously being expected to act as loyal Saudi subjects. Despite the continuation of a long history of institutional and popular discrimination against them, Saudi Shi’a protesters in the Eastern Province have taken great care in the last few years to show their allegiance to the Saudi crown and have raised the Saudi flag in their months-long demonstrations.

Yet, the Saudi regime continues to employ its Shi’a citizens as tools in its competition with its regional nemesis, Iran. It is perhaps one of the reasons that we often hear about protests in Saudi Arabia’s eastern (Shi’a) cities, but not, for example, the several ones that have taken place in Riyadh, Jeddah, and other parts of the Kingdom.  While all the protests seem to demand the release of political prisoners, bureaucratic reforms, and an end to corruption, Saudi media singles out the protests in the Eastern Province to show that they are the only ones creating chaos in the Kingdom. In recent weeks, this rhetoric was also used as a premise for Saudi troops to invade Bahrain under the guise of the GCC Shield Troops. The Saudi regime, fearful of ‘uprising contagion,’ argues that the Bahraini government has failed to quell what both countries' royal families have portrayed as a Shi’a uprising against the Sunni monarchy. The Saudi regime will thus take matters into its own hands in order to safeguard regional stability and protect its own national security. And despite US Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ assurance that his government found no evidence of Iranian interference in Bahrain, the Saudi regime has escalated its propaganda condemning Iran’s meddling in Bahrain’s internal affairs. After the Saudi regime sent in its troops to reshape Bahraini affairs, using Iran as a scarecrow, the King issued a second warning on March 14th against any international interference in Saudi affairs.

"GCC Shield Troops cutting off Iran's finger as it meddles in Bahraini affairs"

As UN Security Council Resolution 1973 gave broad backing to military action against Muammar Gaddafi this morning, it seems like an empty call to ponder the hypocrisy of supporting democratic opposition forces in some places, and not others. But at a time of tragic double standards, it might be worth asking what is so different about Gaddafi-- who’s Libya is an integral part of the African Union-- requesting support from neighboring African countries against internal opposition to his rule, and Bahrain’s supposed appeal for help from its GCC big sister, Saudi Arabia? It is quiet again in Saudi cities, after Saudi Arabia’s deplorable regional role foreclosed the short-lived sense of empowerment and possibility we felt here in the Kingdom over the last month. To speak would entail condemning one’s own complicity in what so many people here are very quietly calling their government’s "invasion of Bahrain,” despite the White House's claims to the opposite. Except for the few brave shows of solidarity in Qatif and Seyhat, it has been very quiet indeed. For many citizens of the Arab world, this moment, with its specificity, is all too reminiscent of the 1990-1 Gulf War. It is a very traumatic one, more so because it comes on the heels of the success of other Arab revolutions and the hope they gave birth to.  This week has been a historic one. But unlike the revolutions of Tunis and Egypt, it will go down in Saudi Arabia’s long history of shame, one that has much blood on its sleeves, and in which the West as well as other Arab countries are deeply complicit.  

"Steve Bell on Saudi Troops in Bahrain" www.guardian.com