Madawi Al-Rasheed, The Son King: Reform and Repression in Saudi Arabia (New Texts Out Now)

Madawi Al-Rasheed, The Son King: Reform and Repression in Saudi Arabia (New Texts Out Now)

Madawi Al-Rasheed, The Son King: Reform and Repression in Saudi Arabia (New Texts Out Now)

By : Madawi Al-Rasheed

Madawi Al-Rasheed, The Son King: Reform and Repression in Saudi Arabia (Hurst Publisher and Oxford University Press, 2020). 

Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book? 

Madawi Al-Rasheed (MAR): The book is an attempt to understand a central tension in Saudi society since the rise of King Salman and his son, Crown Prince Muhammad. From 2017, both the King and the Crown Prince began to introduce social reforms such as allowing women to drive, abolishing certain aspects of the guardianship system, increasing women’s employment, and making moves towards greater social liberalisation. They both promised to return Saudi Arabia to its ‘pristine moderate Islam by curbing the powers of the religious scholars and police. Economically, there was also the promise to expand employment, diversify the economy, and even privatise the oil company Aramco. The Prince promised to open Saudi Arabia to international capital, live entertainment, and tourism. There was a sense euphoria as the leadership promised a new Saudi utopia—not only in the country, but also to return Saudi Arabia to its influence globally and regionally. Western observers, governments, and journalists hailed the prince as a great reformer with an evolutionary vision to transform Saudi Arabia from a “closed conservative” nation to an open society. This was the dominant narrative for almost three years between 2015 and 2018.

Since the rise of the new crown prince, I began to adopt a critical assessment of the top-down revolutionary change as I documented the increasing number of young Saudis seeking asylum abroad and the shocking number of detainees inside the country. Most of the detainees were professionals, writers, feminists, religious activists, and liberals. This consortium of prisoners from a cross section of Saudi Arabia drew my attention to the duality of reform and repression. I wanted to explore this theme to shed light on state-society relations during the reign of King Salman and his son. I began to gather data on Saudi reforms and monitor the repression that became prevalent and led to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018. The book became an opportunity to insert the voices of many Saudi activists abroad and the emerging Saudi diaspora, both of whom had been targeted by the regime. In a way, the book is a story of exile, dislocation, and struggle for freedom. 

I look at the new hyper-nationalism introduced by the crown prince and how its excesses led to the murder of Khashoggi ...

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures does the book address? 

MAR: The book critically assesses orientalist narratives about Saudi society that dominate journalistic reporting on the country as a “socially conservative, religiously radical, economically lazy, and dependent on social welfare.” I consider why the new crown prince was seen as a reformer. I relate this to the shortcomings of those who wanted to see social, economic, and religious reform without tackling the thorny issue of political reform. It was believed that for Saudi Arabia to avoid the upheavals of the 2011 Arab uprisings, a new top-down revolution was the only way forward. However, the repression that accompanied this so-called reform pointed to the controversial aspects of these assumptions. In order to redefine state-society relations, I look at the new hyper-nationalism introduced by the crown prince and how its excesses led to the murder of Khashoggi and the exodus of dissidents and activists to safe havens.

I draw on the vast literature on diaspora politics, nationalism, and feminist activism. But I wanted the book to be accessible to the general public and so I refrained from saturating it with too much theory that is only relevant to academic specialists. In the book, there are many voices from the diaspora that register their biographies and experiences before and after leaving their homeland. I also explore the ideological, regional, religious, and political diversity of society through which citizens experience the political system. Youth politics and women voices are important in the book to display the diversity of aspirations and the consensus over freedom. The new online activism of a young generation is central to my analysis and assessment of the future of this cohort of men and women. 

J: How does this book connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

MAR: I think the book is simply a continuation of my interest in documenting the diversity of Saudi society and its aspirations. Liberals, Islamists, religious minorities, immigrants, and feminists are all represented in this book. I have always chosen difficult topics that do not get enough attention especially in a country where the leadership relies heavily on controlling the media and research and tries to bury dissenting voices to create fake consensus over regime policies.

J: Who do you hope will read this book, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

MAR: In addition to academic audiences and specialists, I hope the book appeals to the general public that was shocked by the murder of Khashoggi. I explain why the crime took place at a time when many observers thought that Saudi Arabia was embarking on a road to reform. Others seriously believed that the Saudi regime was drastically different from the Arab republics that had been notorious for silencing dissent by deploying excessive violence. The book blurs the boundaries between the aggressive Arab republics and the so-called benevolent monarchies of the Gulf and elsewhere in the Arab world. It is both an analysis of how power is exercised and legitimacy is created, while giving enough attention to society’s reaction and resistance. 

J: What other projects are you working on now?

MAR: I am considering conducting research on the Arab and Western cities where I have lived in order to write an account of “witnessing urban life and history” through growing up in multiple countries. From Beirut during the civil war, to the comfort of academic life in both Cambridge and Oxford, I would like to document how an Arab experiences life away from home and in places where they also experience drastic change. 


Excerpt from the book (from the Introduction, p. 5)

The Son King explores the politics of a regime that until the murder of Khashoggi was not considered brutal, deploying repressive methods akin to those that flourished in the rest of the Arab world under authoritarian republics. Unlike assessments of the republican repressive Arab regimes, many observers considered Saudi rulers to have a strong legitimacy of a traditional nature, cemented by a functioning social contract between princes and commoners, and benefiting from lavish oil subsidies and welfare services. This narrative was typical of ‘knowledge in the time of oil’, when Saudi Arabia became so important for its Western partners. The latter regarded it as a bastion of stability, not only domestically but across the Arab region. Its abundant oil wealth, and the much-appreciated potential market for foreign investment, arm exports, global capital, and more recently, a flourishing entertainment industry for Western performers were enough to maintain partnership with the regime. Under Muhammad ibn Salman, in the eyes of many foreign observers, Saudi Arabia entered a new era of openness, prosperity, economic diversification, and ample opportunities for investment and tourism. Representations of the young future king mixed serious assessment with public-relation propaganda, wishful thinking, and manipulation of knowledge about the country, all done by its crown prince and accepted by outside media at face value. 

The hype about the promise of moving the succession to the second-generation princes and appointing the young Muhammad ibn Salman as crown prince developed into the ‘cult of the son king’. In Western media, his long name was abbreviated to MBS to facilitate quick recognition and branding. He became an iconic visionary, not only inside the country but globally, from Washington to Tokyo. The cult had many disciples, both paid and unpaid, who spread images and myths about his great reforms and invited sceptical audiences to join in celebrating the transformation brought about by the young and charismatic Arab prince. The regime’s pervasive media efforts to consolidate the cult of ‘MBS’ resemble what Paul Veyne describes as euergetism. The concept, which flourished in ancient Greece and Rome, concerned cities that honoured eminent persons who, through their money or public activity, ‘did good to the city’. For this cult to be visible and effective, it has to be founded on ‘bread and circuses’, combining money, power, entertainment, and prestige. When the state machine felt or believed that it was threatened by certain interests of its subjects, especially the youth, the crown prince swiftly introduced his subjects to mass culture entertainment, and promised more bread.

The prince wanted Saudis to move beyond dependence on oil by becoming entrepreneurs. He also provided ample opportunities for the circus as part of new mass culture. He embodies Juvenal’s prediction that ‘now that no one buys our votes, the public has long since cast off its cares; the people that once bestowed commands, consulship, legions and all else, now meddles no more and longs eagerly for just two things – Bread and Circuses’. When the circus is entirely made abroad and imported at a high cost, neither old Marxist approaches that condemn mass culture nor liberal perspectives celebrating its potential for progress are sufficient to explain the new and swift decision to import foreign entertainment into Saudi Arabia wholesale. The introduction of entertainment was undoubtedly the work of foreign consultants who operated within the neoliberal framework, and was a response to decades of accusations against Saudi Arabia of enforcing a strict religious regime which it was imposing on its modern citizens. Previous restrictions were believed to have contributed to the breeding of terrorism. Hence the crown prince wanted to abandon that past and plunge Saudis swiftly into entertainment as a diversion from the previous social and religious control. While entertainment is part of the diversification of the economy, it is nevertheless also a great distraction from more urgent thoughts and aspirations. Saudis are sold the illusion of freedom in the circus, while the prince amasses new income and ensures that his subjects replace religious observance with legitimate ‘decadence’. However, he is not outside the circus, a mere importer of its many attractions. In fact, he is at the heart of mass culture and entertainment. While international boxing champions and singers are imported for colossal sums, it is the prince himself who becomes the main celebrity, starring at each event. Items of his clothing, his posture, and body language are analysed and commented on in great detail, and images of his shoes and unusual coat immediately begin to circulate on social media by his fans. In the heart of the circus, we see him encircled by aides, world media, and local journalists eager to capture a glimpse of the celebrity prince. 

Many autocrats resist large-scale mass culture because they believe that ‘if we allow the people to have festivals, innocent enough affairs in themselves, they will suppose that they are free to do whatever they like, and they will no longer be willing to obey or to fight’. But the crown prince’s solution was to provide public enjoyment confined to certain limited moments, for example the Riyadh and Diriyyah Festivals, which are turned into patriotic events. Such spectacles of power, featuring popular Western concerts, car races, boxing matches, football events, cinema, and theatre, assert the crown prince’s right to be obeyed, and this needs to be actualized and expressed in conspicuous consumption in controlled conditions. For this purpose, the prince established the Entertainment Authority, which controls fun and festivals, and delivers them at specific seasons and places. Needless to say, the new entertainment, from concerts to boxing matches, proved a good distraction for an eager millennial generation so far deprived of fun. While the cult of ‘MBS’ flourished abroad, the abbreviation of his full name was not used domestically, and only those opposed to his policies referred to him as MBS, thus appropriating the branded name and turning it against his propaganda.

New Texts Out Now: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein, guest eds. "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis." Special Issue of Conflict, Security & Development

Conflict, Security and Development, Volume 15, No. 5 (December 2015) Special issue: "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis," Guest Editors: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein.

Jadaliyya (J): What made you compile this volume?

Mandy Turner (MT): Both the peace process and the two-state solution are dead. Despite more than twenty years of negotiations, Israel’s occupation, colonization and repression continue–and the political and geographical fragmentation of the Palestinian people is proceeding apace.

This is not news, nor is it surprising to any keen observer of the situation. But what is surprising–and thus requires explanation – is the resilience of the Oslo framework and paradigm: both objectively and subjectively. It operates objectively as a straitjacket by trapping Palestinians in economic and security arrangements that are designed to ensure stabilization and will not to lead to sovereignty or a just and sustainable solution. And it operates subjectively as a straitjacket by shutting out discussion of alternative ways of understanding the situation and ways out of the impasse. The persistence of this framework that is focused on conflict management and stabilization, is good for Israel but bad for Palestinians.

The Oslo peace paradigm–of a track-one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution–is therefore in crisis. And yet it is entirely possible that the current situation could continue for a while longer–particularly given the endorsement and support it enjoys from the major Western donors and the “international community,” as well as the fact that there has been no attempt to develop an alternative. The immediate short-term future is therefore bleak.

Guided by these observations, this special issue sought to undertake two tasks. The first task was to analyze the perceptions underpinning the Oslo framework and paradigm as well as some of the transformations instituted by its implementation: why is it so resilient, what has it created? The second task, which follows on from the first, was then to ask: how can we reframe our understanding of what is happening, what are some potential alternatives, and who is arguing and mobilizing for them?

These questions and themes grew out of a number of conversations with early-career scholars – some based at the Kenyon Institute in East Jerusalem, and some based in the occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere. These conversations led to two interlinked panels at the International Studies Association annual convention in Toronto, Canada, in March 2014. To have two panels accepted on “conflict transformation and resistance in Palestine” at such a conventional international relations conference with (at the time unknown) early-career scholars is no mean feat. The large and engaged audience we received at these panels – with some very established names coming along (one of whom contributed to this special issue) – convinced us that this new stream of scholars and scholarship should have an outlet.  

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures do the articles address?

MT: The first half of the special issue analyzes how certain problematic assumptions shaped the Oslo framework, and how the Oslo framework in turn shaped the political, economic and territorial landscape.

Virginia Tilley’s article focuses on the paradigm of conflict resolution upon which the Oslo Accords were based, and calls for a re-evaluation of what she argues are the two interlinked central principles underpinning its worldview: internationally accepted notions of Israeli sovereignty; and the internationally accepted idea that the “conflict” is essentially one between two peoples–the “Palestinian people” and the “Jewish people”. Through her critical interrogation of these two “common sense” principles, Tilley proposes that the “conflict” be reinterpreted as an example of settler colonialism, and, as a result of this, recommends an alternative conflict resolution model based on a paradigm shift away from an ethno-nationalist division of the polity towards a civic model of the nation.

Tariq Dana unpacks another central plank of the Oslo paradigm–that of promoting economic relations between Israel and the OPT. He analyses this through the prism of “economic peace” (particularly the recent revival of theories of “capitalist peace”), whose underlying assumptions are predicated on the perceived superiority of economic approaches over political approaches to resolving conflict. Dana argues that there is a symbiosis between Israeli strategies of “economic peace” and recent Palestinian “statebuilding strategies” (referred to as Fayyadism), and that both operate as a form of pacification and control because economic cooperation leaves the colonial relationship unchallenged.

The political landscape in the OPT has been transformed by the Oslo paradigm, particularly by the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Alaa Tartir therefore analyses the basis, agenda and trajectory of the PA, particularly its post-2007 state building strategy. By focusing on the issue of local legitimacy and accountability, and based on fieldwork in two sites in the occupied West Bank (Balata and Jenin refugee camps), Tartir concludes that the main impact of the creation of the PA on ordinary people’s lives has been the strengthening of authoritarian control and the hijacking of any meaningful visions of Palestinian liberation.

The origin of the administrative division between the West Bank and Gaza Strip is the focus of Tareq Baconi’s article. He charts how Hamas’s initial opposition to the Oslo Accords and the PA was transformed over time, leading to its participation (and success) in the 2006 legislative elections. Baconi argues that it was the perceived demise of the peace process following the collapse of the Camp David discussions that facilitated this change. But this set Hamas on a collision course with Israel and the international community, which ultimately led to the conflict between Hamas and Fateh, and the administrative division, which continues to exist.

The special issue thereafter focuses, in the second section, on alternatives and resistance to Oslo’s transformations.

Cherine Hussein’s article charts the re-emergence of the single-state idea in opposition to the processes of separation unleashed ideologically and practically that were codified in the Oslo Accords. Analysing it as both a movement of resistance and as a political alternative to Oslo, while recognizing that it is currently largely a movement of intellectuals (particularly of diaspora Palestinians and Israelis), Hussein takes seriously its claim to be a more just and liberating alternative to the two-state solution.

My article highlights the work of a small but dedicated group of anti-Zionist Jewish-Israeli activists involved in two groups: Zochrot and Boycott from Within. Both groups emerged in the post-Second Intifada period, which was marked by deep disillusionment with the Oslo paradigm. This article unpacks the alternative – albeit marginalized – analysis, solution and route to peace proposed by these groups through the application of three concepts: hegemony, counter-hegemony and praxis. The solution, argue the activists, lies in Israel-Palestine going through a process of de-Zionization and decolonization, and the process of achieving this lies in actions in solidarity with Palestinians.

This type of solidarity action is the focus of the final article by Suzanne Morrison, who analyses the “We Divest” campaign, which is the largest divestment campaign in the US and forms part of the wider Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Through attention to their activities and language, Morrison shows how “We Divest”, with its networked, decentralized, grassroots and horizontal structure, represents a new way of challenging Israel’s occupation and the suppression of Palestinian rights.

The two parts of the special issue are symbiotic: the critique and alternative perspectives analyzed in part two are responses to the issues and problems identified in part one.

J: How does this volume connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

MT: My work focuses on the political economy of donor intervention (which falls under the rubric of “peacebuilding”) in the OPT, particularly a critique of the Oslo peace paradigm and framework. This is a product of my broader conceptual and historical interest in the sociology of intervention as a method of capitalist expansion and imperial control (as explored in “The Politics of International Intervention: the Tyranny of Peace”, co-edited with Florian Kuhn, Routledge, 2016), and how post-conflict peacebuilding and development agendas are part of this (as explored in “Whose Peace: Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding”, co-edited with Michael Pugh and Neil Cooper (PalgraveMacmillan, 2008).  

My first book on Palestine (co-edited with Omar Shweiki), Decolonizing Palestinian Political Economy: De-development and Beyond (PalgraveMacmillan, 2014), was a collection of essays by experts in their field, of the political-economic experience of different sections of the Palestinian community. The book, however, aimed to reunite these individual experiences into one historical political-economy narrative of a people experiencing a common theme of dispossession, disenfranchisement and disarticulation. It was guided by the desire to critically assess the utility of the concept of de-development to different sectors and issues–and had a foreword by Sara Roy, the scholar who coined the term, and who was involved in the workshop from which the book emerged.

This co-edited special issue (with Cherine Hussein, who, at the time of the issue construction, was the deputy director of the Kenyon Institute) was therefore the next logical step in my research on Palestine, although my article on Jewish-Israeli anti-Zionists did constitute a slight departure from my usual focus.

J: Who do you hope will read this volume, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

MT: I would imagine the main audience will be those whose research and political interests lie in Palestine Studies. It is difficult, given the structure of academic publishing – which has become ever more corporate and money grabbing – for research outputs such as this to be accessed by the general public. Only those with access to academic libraries are sure to be able to read it – and this is a travesty, in my opinion. To counteract this commodification of knowledge, we should all provide free access to our outputs through online open source websites such as academia.edu, etc. If academic research is going to have an impact beyond merely providing more material for teaching and background reading for yet more research (which is inaccessible to the general public) then this is essential. Websites such as Jadaliyya are therefore incredibly important.

Having said all that, I am under no illusions about the potential for ANY research on Israel-Palestine to contribute to changing the dynamics of the situation. However, as a collection of excellent analyses conducted by mostly early-career scholars in the field of Palestine studies, I am hopeful that their interesting and new perspectives will be read and digested. 

J: What other projects are you working on now?

MT: I am currently working on an edited volume provisionally entitled From the River to the Sea: Disintegration, Reintegration and Domination in Israel and Palestine. This book is the culmination of a two-year research project funded by the British Academy, which analyzed the impacts of the past twenty years of the Oslo peace framework and paradigm as processes of disintegration, reintegration and domination – and how they have created a new socio-economic and political landscape, which requires new agendas and frameworks. I am also working on a new research project with Tariq Dana at Birzeit University on capital and class in the occupied West Bank.

Excerpt from the Editor’s Note 

[Note: This issue was published in Dec. 2015]

Initially perceived to have inaugurated a new era of hope in the search for peace and justice in Palestine-Israel, the Oslo peace paradigm of a track one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution is in crisis today, if not completely at an end.

While the major Western donors and the ‘international community’ continue to publicly endorse the Oslo peace paradigm, Israeli and Palestinian political elites have both stepped away from it. The Israeli government has adopted what appears to be an outright rejection of the internationally-accepted end-goal of negotiations, i.e. the emergence of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. In March 2015, in the final days of his re-election campaign, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visited the Jewish settlement of Har Homa in Palestinian East Jerusalem, which is regarded as illegal under international law. Reminding its inhabitants that it was him and his Likud government that had established the settlement in 1997 as part of the Israeli state’s vision of a unified indivisible Jerusalem, he promised to expand the construction of settlements in East Jerusalem if re-elected. And in an interview with Israeli news site, NRG, Netanyahu vowed that the prospects of a Palestinian state were non-existent as long as he remained in office. Holding on to the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), he argued, was necessary to ensure Israel’s security in the context of regional instability and Islamic extremism. It is widely acknowledged that Netanyahu’s emphasis on Israel’s security—against both external and internal enemies—gave him a surprise win in an election he was widely expected to lose.

Despite attempts to backtrack under recognition that the US and European states are critical of this turn in official Israeli state policy, Netanyahu’s promise to bury the two-state solution in favour of a policy of further annexation has become the Israeli government’s official intent, and has been enthusiastically endorsed by leading ministers and key advisers.

[…]

The Palestinian Authority (PA) based in the West Bank also appears to have rejected a key principle of the Oslo peace paradigm—that of bilateral negotiations under the supervision of the US. Despite a herculean effort by US Secretary of State, John Kerry, to bring the two parties to the negotiating table, in response to the lack of movement towards final status issues and continued settlement expansion (amongst other issues), the Palestinian political elite have withdrawn from negotiations and resumed attempts to ‘internationalise the struggle’ by seeking membership of international organisations such as the United Nations (UN), and signing international treaties such as the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court. This change of direction is part of a rethink in the PA and PLO’s strategy rooted in wider discussions and debates. The publication of a document by the Palestine Strategy Study Group (PSSG) in August 2008, the production of which involved many members of the Palestinian political elite (and whose recommendations were studiously discussed at the highest levels of the PA and PLO), showed widespread discontent with the bilateral negotiations framework and suggested ways in which Palestinians could ‘regain the initiative’.

[…]

And yet despite these changes in official Palestinian and Israeli political strategies that signal a deepening of the crisis, donors and the ‘international community’ are reluctant to accept the failure of the Oslo peace paradigm. This political myopia has meant the persistence of a framework that is increasingly divorced from the possibility of a just and sustainable peace. It is also acting as an ideological straitjacket by shutting out alternative interpretations. This special issue seeks a way out of this political and intellectual dead end. In pursuit of this, our various contributions undertake what we regard to be two key tasks: first, to critically analyse the perceptions underpinning the Oslo paradigm and the transformations instituted by its implementation; and second, to assess some alternative ways of understanding the situation rooted in new strategies of resistance that have emerged in the context of these transformations in the post-Oslo landscape.

[…]

Taken as a whole, the articles in this special issue aim to ignite conversations on the conflict that are not based within abstracted debates that centre upon the peace process itself—but that begin from within the realities and geographies of both the continually transforming land of Palestine-Israel and the voices, struggles, worldviews and imaginings of the future of the people who presently inhabit it. For it is by highlighting these transformations, and from within these points of beginning, that we believe more hopeful pathways for alternative ways forward can be collectively imagined, articulated, debated and built.