From 1992 through 1998, I had the privilege of living in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia. It was a wonderful place to grow up because as a child I was sheltered from a lot of problems which children in America face, such as alcohol and drug abuse. It was an existence in which the biggest thing I had to worry about was convincing my parents that we should go to Disney World for summer vacation. To be clear Saudi Arabia was not and is not without its faults. Much of what you see on television today is absolutely true. Women are not allowed to drive, there is no real free speech(although papers like the Arab news are much more autonomous today than they were in the mid ’90s), there is no right to vote, and it is a religious Muslim state in which stores, schools, and all other institutions close for prayer. However, Saudi Arabia is not representative of the rest of the Middle East and its interpretation of Islamic law is certainly more strict.
Over the past few months I have been reading “The Dream Palace of the Arabs” by Fouad Ajami, a writer for the New Republic and a professor at Johns Hopkins. My reading preferences are very eclectic and just one day while in Barnes and Noble, I picked up this book. No doubt, I’m better for it. Ajami discusses the pan Arab nationalist movement which began in the early 1950’s and ended in the early 1980’s. This movement was secular in nature and was led by Arab intellectuals undivided by nationality or religion.
Ajami tells us that the movement was led by poets like the Lebanese Khalil Hawi and the famed Egyptian Gamel Abdel Nasser. Hawi was a Christian but in his time these social revolutionaries were united by ideology and not by faith. They believed in a secular nationalism which promoted the interests of Arabs as a whole, sometimes at the expense of other nations and oftentimes at the expense of religious leaders. However, with the fall of Iran, in no way an Arab nation to begin with, and the rise of religious leaders like the Ayatollah Khomeini, the sands began to blow in a different direction. Inevitably leaders like the Saudi King Fahad and the Egyptian Hosni Mubarak attempted to concentrate as much power in their own hands as possible. In an attempt to modernize and in fact westernize their countries, they left the majority in the dark. Disenchantment with the Arab nationalist movement led to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism as a challenge to the growing power of the state. What began as radical Islamic newspapers and a few violent militiamen turned entire populations against the west and against their leaders.
It is my belief that the prevailing ideology in the Middle East is not anti-western but rather against their dictators who we happen to support. If free speech were not such a a problem in Saudi Arabia, I had no doubt then, and have no doubt now, that there would be protests against the royal family for much of what they have done. It has always been our policy to support democracy but unfortunately in this case, the movement for democracy in a country like Saudi Arabia is not secular in its nature. It is a religious movement because the people have found their saviors in the arms of sheiks, clerics, and other religious leaders. There are no Anwar Sadats in the middle east today and that is our problem.
Few people seem to understand that we simply cannot adapt an anti-royal family policy. It’s not practical, its not logical and it is certainly not in the best interests of the war against terror. The overwhelming complaint from many politicians is that we are not getting enough cooperation from either Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. The truth is that both countries and both regimes could do better but only at the expense of igniting a revolution. Should either the Saud family or Musharraf take a more vehement Pro-American or secular stance, they will be overthrown in a heartbeat. If this is the case, how do we create change without inciting a revolution?
I think the answer is two-fold. First, we have to understand how revolts work. It is my understanding that when there is a non democratic government in power and discontent is at an alltime high, there are two basic tendencies which the people follow. First, the people can organize a revolution which will overthrow the status quo and replace it with a fundamentalist theocratic regime. This is obviously something which we do not want and must avoid at all costs. These theocratic regimes come into power by blaming the west and linking the west with the fallen tyrant. Such a revolution is disastrous because it guarantees a state that derives its power from being Anti-American. Such a state, if allowed to come into power, will breed terrorists. In the second possibility the people organize a social revolution that displaces the tyrant and his regime in place of a secular state. These types of revolutions are fought by the lower classes but led by the intellectuals and the elites. They are fought with the recognition that the tyrant or the monarch has little or no interest in economic development, the plight of the middle and lower classes, and the workers. I believe the situation in Saudi Arabia is ripe for a social revolution because the royal family is on its last legs. On principle, I think we should encourage a gradual transfer of power from the royal family to a democratically elected parliament and prime minister. An ideal system in this case is the one which the British currently use with the royal family as a figurehead.
How do we ensure that the type of revolution is type two as opposed to type one? The unemployment rate in Saudi Arabia hovers around 20% and while GDP growth was around 10% last year, there still has not been significant change for the majority of the population which lives in poverty. This is ripe for a social revolution or perhaps benevolent American aid. When there is a serious disparity in wealth and a large landless lower class, the people are likely to flee into the arms of the church, or in this case the arms of the religious fanatics. These people need hope. That’s how we fight terrorism, we fight it as an ideology, not as a zero sum game in which the more we kill the less we will have to deal with.
The supply of potential terrorists is seemingly infinite unless we destroy the primary motivation for a poor Arab male to become a terrorist, poverty. By promoting economic growth and providing stimulus to the Saudi economy as well as creating a secular movement which rests on growth as opposed to grief, we will stand a much better chance of success.
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