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Like the U.S., Saudi Arabia is bordered on the east and west
by ocean, and like the U.S. you are more likely to encounter liberal
society on the coasts rather than in the middle of the country.
Of course, liberal in Saudi Arabia is a very relative term.
The town of Hafuf in Eastern Province is just inland from the
Persian Gulf. At a bathhouse on its outskirts, in a massive plantation
of date palms, the men of the al-Ameer clan are getting ready
for a wedding. Two of their number are getting married, and dozens
of them have come to this indoor facility to fool around and give
the grooms a good scrubbing so they are clean for their brides.
The al-Ameers are Shi'a. Shi'a make up around 5 percent of the
population of Saudi Arabia, and almost all of them originate in
Eastern Province. Their minority status is based on sect, not
ethnicity. Their Islamic practice is livelier than that of the
Wahabbis who dominate Saudi's official religious circles.
The look-over-your-shoulder-you-don't-know-who's-listening-police-state-tension
that characterizes conversations in Riyadh is absent here, and
people feel free to laugh and to joke. You're among people who
know they are second class citizens and don't have as much to
lose if they speak their minds.
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Everyone starts gathering at the wedding hall around 10 p.m. Men
and boys occupy one enormous set of rooms, the women another. They
never meet up. There is even a wall outside separating the two entrances.
The men sit in groups of five or six and platters with lamb and
fish and rice -- lots of rice -- are brought out. Meanwhile a
group of singers spin out songs of Ali and Hussein, the saints
of the Shi'a.
Shi'a Grievances
When dinner is over, a queue forms and the men come over and kiss
the grooms on the cheek, three times. Then everyone settles back
down for the one pastime that is not forbidden: talking. I stepped
outside for a breath of air and found myself speaking with a local
businessman, who wondered what on earth the American government
thought it was dealing with all these years in Saudi Arabia.
Like so many people in Saudi Arabia, he longs for reform, but
doesn't want reforms to be instigated by U.S. pressure. He says
the people of Saudi Arabia need to be the conduit of change.
For the Shi'a, the grievances are real. Their lives are thoroughly
circumscribed by the ancient prejudice the majority Sunni express
towards them. There are no Shi'a in the senior levels of the military,
no Shi'a in the diplomatic service. None of the local school principals
are from their community. Their children find themselves discriminated
against in getting university places. Not that any of this is codified
in law. It's just the way things are.
The day after the wedding, I was invited to meet with local business
leaders and clerics. They were talking about the difficulties
of fighting for rights in a society where no rights are guaranteed,
and certainly not in writing.
Because nothing is written, people who speak out about political
rights have no idea when they will say something that will get
them arrested. "There is no system, no constitution,"
says one of the men. He complains that "everything is unclear
in this country."
Beyond guarantees of rights, the Shi'a are angry because the thing
that truly defines Saudi Arabia is just underneath their feet:
oil.
Black Gold
An hour up the road from Hafuf is Dharhan home of Saudi Aramco.
The Aramco campus is an American suburb plunked down in the middle
of the desert, with all the facilities of an American gated community,
including a golf course with sand traps that go on forever. There
is also a fabulous museum of oil full of interactive exhibits.
If Islam is the unshakable foundation of the House of Saud, oil
revenue provides the walls and roof of their palace. Seventy years
ago, Aramco's antecedent, Standard Oil of California, cut a deal
to explore 350,000 square miles of Arabia for oil. The result
for the House of Saud, was a marriage made in heaven.
"Oil GDP is by far the largest part of Saudi Arabia's productive
activity. I think it's about 90 or 95 percent of GDP," says
Valerie Marcel, Senior Researcher at London's Royal Institute
of International Affairs.
One of Marcel's research topics is what happens to the oil revenue
generated by Saudi Aramco. According to Marcel, Saudi Arabia provides
only the most limited information to international bodies on where
the wealth is spent, making it difficult to estimate how much
oil revenue finds its way into the coffers of militant Islamic
organizations. Saudi oil revenues are projected to reach $85 billion
this year. Most of that revenue will not go to militant religion.
It will be distributed among the 20,000 plus members of the royal
family and find its way into society via public sector jobs. About
80 percent of the country's jobs are in the public sector. According
to Marcel, spreading the oil wealth around buys Saudi public support
for the political system. "Its part of the deal," she
says.
Uncertain Future
The oil won't last forever, and Saudi Arabia's population has
exploded in the last two decades. More than half the population
is under 18 years of age. Sooner or later, make-work jobs in the
public sector will shrink and the Saudi economy will have to create
real jobs for Saudi men to do. Already the unemployment rate is
closing in on 20 percent. Unemployment figures like that have
set off warning lights from Washington to Riyadh. Valerie Marcel
points out one reason why there isn't mass unrest already: Saudi
families ensure a social network that protects their young men.
The food court at the Al Rashed Shopping Mall in Al-Khobar just
down the road from Aramco Headquarters, gets crowded at lunch
time with students from King Fahd University of Petroleum and
Minerals. They chow down on fast food from the U.S., Iran, India
and, of course, China. Like college students everywhere they have
a bluff confidence in their knowledge of what's wrong with the
world and how they intend to fix it. At one table a group of four
guys, all Sunni's, were happy to explain to me why getting unemployed
Saudis back to work would be difficult. Saudis demand high salaries
and are not very efficient workers, declared one student.
These young men want more Saudis in senior positions. The government
couldn't agree more and has been calling for a program of "Saudi-ization,"
that is putting Saudis in jobs that are currently performed by
foreigners. The government isn't talking about just senior white
collar jobs however, they're talking about training Saudis to
be barbers and tailors and shopkeepers.
The young men demonstrate the "Unified Field Theory"
of Saudi public opinion. When speaking to a foreigner, they agree
on everything. They dislike the way they are portrayed in the
Western press, resentful of the impression of Islam given there
and don't like the Saudi government's decision, taken at the behest
of the Bush administration, to remove the collection boxes from
the mosques. Money collected at the mosques is believed to fund
Islamic terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and Hamas.
A few tables away some Shi'a students are not quite as bullish on
their post-university prospects. Their prescription for improving
the employment situation in their country would be to change the
education system. They say there are too many Islamic subjects and
not enough emphasis on providing training in engineering and high
tech.
After a while in Saudi Arabia, you get used to the unanimity of
opinion, and you get used to how circumspect people are in discussing
the nation's problems. A slight tinge of fear lurks in all these
discussions. Freedom of speech in politics is something Saudi's
aren't accustomed to practicing.
Next: In Jeddah, more and more groups are being formed to do that
unremarkable, remarkable thing: speak out for reform.
