» Click
to Listen
Saudi Arabia is a nation that adheres together rather than coheres.
It's a patchwork of population centers separated by thousands
of square miles of barely habitable desert. In this patchwork,
the region with the longest history of engagement with the outside
world is the Hijaz, home to the two Holy Cities, Mecca and Medina,
and the gateway to them, the Red Sea port of Jeddah.
Jeddah, population 2 million, has long been a cosmopolitan and
liberal place in Saudi terms. For 1,400 years this has been the
arrival port for Muslim pilgrims traveling to Mecca, around 60
miles inland. New ideas constantly flow through the city. Not
surprisingly, the pressure for governmental reform in the kingdom,
modest as it is, comes from here.
Reform Movement Saudi Style
In a big white room with marble floors and bright lights, 40 or
so men in white thobes are sitting around talking about reform.
This is the face of the reform movement at work in Saudi Arabia.
The men take sustenance as they work. Relays of food -- a salad
of chick peas, cucumbers and tomatoes dressed with warm vinegars
and spices from India -- are brought by servants from the Philippines
and Pakistan. After the chick pea salad come pomegranates from Yemen,
tiny apples from Morocco, and tea sandwiches in the English style
with crusts removed. Some of the men smoke a waterpipe.
This is the regular majlis, or meeting, at the home of Mohammed
Said Tayyib, publisher and former political prisoner. There are
dozens of get-togethers like this around Jeddah, but few are as
important. The cream of Jeddah's intelligentsia is in the room:
newspaper editors, university professors, lawyers, and physicians.
Transparency is the buzz word of the evening. The topic may
be urgent, but the atmosphere is relaxed. I took two gentlemen,
Abdullah Bakheder and Mohammed bin Siddiq, aside and asked them
what of real value actually happens at these occasions. They
explained to me that out of this majlis came a petition to Crown
Prince Abdullah, and he accepted the letter. If you don't live
in an absolute monarchy, it's hard to understand how important
the crown prince's gesture was. Abdullah Bakheder was loath to
give details about what was contained in the petition. He felt
that it would betray the confidence of a conversation with the
crown prince. Abdullah emphasized the fact that the crown prince
had read it gave the petition real legitimacy. "The government
itself opened a dialogue between the different institutions. Between
the individual groups. That is what is taking place now, it's
a part of the dialogue. And a lot is coming out of this dialogue.
It may be a little bit slow, but there is a sincere wish," says
Bakheder.
Not all the regulars at Mohammed Said Tayyib's Majlis think
that talking about reform is enough.
"You can talk until you're blue in the face," says Khaled al-Maeena,
editor of Arab News newspaper. "Unless words are translated into
action, this will raise the aspirations and hope of the people,
but suddenly you discover this is all talk, and this could really
all be counterproductive."
Khalid al-Maeena has a very clear idea of what the ruling family
could do to prove it is serious about changing Saudi society.
"We would like to see empowerment of people where the regional
issues will be solved in the regional context. If I have problems
in my area I don't need to wait for a total government plan, I
would like to start focusing on issues that are of prime concern
to me."
The request for a bit of local democracy was the essence of
the petition presented by Mohammed Said Tayyib's group to Crown
Prince Abdullah during the summer. Recently the Saudi government
announced that local elections will take place sometime in 2004.
Those elections will be the first ever held in the Royal Kingdom.
A little local democracy is just one item on editor Khalid al-Maeena's
check list of what he wants changed in his country. "There should
be a drastic change in the education system," he says. "Not because
Rumsfeld, or Powell, or Ashcroft wants it, but because we need
it so that we can be travelers on the road of life and progress."
Since this interview, some education reforms have been announced.
A secondary school Islamic text, the Tawheed, has had the chapter
called "Loyalty and Disavowal," which instructs students how to deal
with non-Muslims removed. But changing textbooks is only scratching
the surface. For more than two decades a certain kind of teacher has
predominated in Islamic schools and universities according to educator
Mazin Motabagani. "Some of the minds of those in Islamic studies think
that their own understanding of Islam is the only true and correct
understanding. When such views are transmitted to the students, it
becomes really dangerous," he says.
Editor Khalid al-Maeena says, "It's the religious establishment
that needs changing." And that, in his view, is not a job
for the House of Saud. "It's people like us. We have to come out
and tell them enough is enough. You cannot hijack the society.
You cannot preach only one view of Islam. There has to be tolerance
and a dialogue and communication between all people."
But how? With whom do you have this dialogue? Where will this
dialogue take place?
Globalism Run Aground
In Saudi Arabia, Islam is everywhere, in everything. From before
the sun rises, it is the sound that wakes people, it is the censor
of thoughts, it is the political doctrine of private man and public
man as well as his spiritual guide. In Saudi Arabia, Islam is
a concept of religion beyond the power of our language to explain.
Here's an example of what I mean. At the end of my trip to Saudi
Arabia I flew to Abha in the mountains near the Yemeni border.
Abha is a decent sized regional city and silent as the grave except
when its many muezzins are calling. The sound rolls up the brown,
stubble-covered hillsides.
The government has spent millions of dollars in Abha turning
it into a resort town. An amusement park near a reservoir has
been built. Cable cars glide from hilltop to hilltop where luxury
hotels receive visitors. Profit doesn't seem to be a big motive
in building the resort. It is only open three months a year. It
seems to have been built by the government to make a statement
about its modernizing intentions.
You probably have in your mind an accurate vision of what the
place looks like, and make an assumption from that that you share
many modern points of view with the people who live there. But
Saudi Arabia is a society that suffers from a multiple cultural
personality disorder and an outsider's assumptions about its people
based on what you see on the surface are apt to be wrong.
Out of season, the big event in Abha is Friday afternoon prayers.
Recently the sermons have become more anodyne as the Saudi regime
tries to rein in the political preaching, which has encouraged
a generation to fight Islam's enemies, real and imagined, around
the world.
It's a little late for that.
Several of the September 11th hijackers came from the Abha region.
They did not come out of nowhere. The intellectual distance they
traveled to Osama bin Laden wasn't that far. Radical Islam is
ordinary Islam here. And in the name of Islam, very little Westerners
hold dear is sacred; the right of the public citizen to speak
his mind, for example. The Abha office of al-Watan, Saudi Arabia's
main newspaper, is guarded by an armored vehicle with a machine
gun mounted on it. The paper has been threatened by local Islamists.
Its last editor was forced to leave the country because of death
threats.
Saudi Arabia is the place where the triumphal discourse of globalism
runs aground. Globalization supposes that somehow because a society
uses modern technology and products, its citizens have a modern
mindset. But this country is the place where ultra-modernity collides
with feudalism. Because make no mistake, Saudi Arabia is a feudal
society in which the royal family is responsible for the disbursement
of wealth to its citizens and custodianship of its people's religion.
If you want to figure out how the conflict between the modern
and the feudal may resolve itself, you need to go to London where
a Saudi can speak. And speak with Saad al-Fagih, head of the Movement
for Islamic Reform in Arabia.
Soul of Islam
 |
 |
Mecca, which lies
inland 73 kilometers east of the city of Jeddah, is
the holiest city for Muslims. Five times each day,
the world's one billion Muslims turn to Mecca to pray.
It is believed Mecca is where the Prophet Muhammad,
founder of Islam, first received God's message. The
religious center of the city of Mecca is the Haram
Mosque and the well of Zamzam.
At least once in their lives, all Muslims who are not
prevented by personal circumstance are instructed to
go to Mecca to perform the Hajj, an annual pilgrimage
ritual in the Islam tradition. The Holy Mosque in Mecca
houses the Ka'aba, an oblong stone building in the corner
of which is the Black Stone. The Black Stone marks the
starting point for the seven circumambulations of the
Holy Mosque, which the pilgrims are required to complete
during their pilgrimage visit to Mecca. |
|
|
 |
Saad al-Fagih explains that the supreme religious board of directors
is paid by the Saudi regime, the entire justice system with clergymen
sitting in judgment, is paid by the regime, the police of the
Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice,
is paid for by the regime, as well as the three religious universities
and the schools associated with them. "So if you put all
those together, you are talking about hundreds of thousands of
jobs, which are all dependant on the regime. And unless you agree
with what the regime wants, you will be sacked from your job.
So we have an army of religious establishment. This army creates
this culture that if you are an opponent to the regime, you are
a heretic."
In Fagih's view, this is an army of oppression analogous to the
secular apparatus of control found in Saddam's Iraq and Bashir al
Assad's Syria. But because it is based in religion it adds the extra
level of fear inherent in that concept beyond the secular mind:
heresy. Saad Al-Fagih, who considers himself a modern Islamist,
trained as a surgeon in Britain and returned to London nine years
ago to begin a campaign for greater democracy in Saudi Arabia.
He makes use of all the tools of modernity, broadcasting a daily
radio program via satellite into the Royal Kingdom. He claims
tens of thousands of people listen. Recently at his call, people
have been staging anti-government demonstrations, something unheard
of in the history of Saudi Arabia.
"What we achieved is to separate Islam from the regime's
deeds, the regime's actions, the regime's pretense. The moment
we succeeded in that, we made people comfortable, and they were
brave enough to go on and face the regime."
Saad al-Fagih says that until his radio broadcasts started reaching
Saudis, they had no way to channel their anger against the regime
other than tacit or overt support of the anti-American strategy
of violent Islam as represented by Al Qaeda and Osama bin-Laden.
"Violent Islam, especially in the fashion which has been
in the past few years, has got a lot to do with the conspiracy
between the royal family and the government of the United States.
The royal family goes on with its oppression and corruption, putting
people in a very narrow corner, and the United States conspired
with the royal family to loot the country's resources, and worries
only about its interests."
Saad al-Fagih claims that many Saudis think the U.S. dominates
the House of Saud. They resent what they see as American control
of their nation because of America's historic involvement in the
oil industry.
"The people are convinced Bin Laden is a big thing because
he forced America to respond to him. Bin Laden says hold on, your
problem is not with the royal family, your problem is with the
master of the royal family, who is protecting them and giving
them orders to oppress you, to loot your resources."
Saad Al-Fagih however says that violent Islam is not the way
he would bring change to Saudi Arabia.
"We published our political program and we believe that if
we are fortunate, it would happen by civil action, that we mobilize
the people in a peaceful way and we convince the regime to leave,
just like the Iranians succeeded in expelling the shah."
Saad al-Fagih speaks of the fall of the House of Saud with the
certainty of someone who has literally put his life on the line
for a cause. Earlier this year unknown assailants attacked him
in his home. Editor Khaled al-Maeena is equally certain the House
of Saud will be around for a while. Over the last couple of decades
two massive upheavals have been regularly predicted: a big earthquake
destroying Los Angeles and the fall of the House of Saud. I asked
Khaled al Maeena which he thought was more likely.
"The big one hitting L.A.," he says, "Let me tell
you something about the House of Saud, I'm not batting for them.
I believe the al-Saud are a necessity because they're the glue
that holds the country together. What do I have in common with
somebody in the south of Arabia? Nothing. It is the Al Saud who
holds me to them. The royal family is the glue that holds this
mosaic together and I shudder to think of this country without
them."
Even Saad al-Fagih doesn't expect the end of the regime anytime
soon. "Our optimism is not very high. We believe that the
regime will resist this and will use violence, and we are worried
that we might pass through a stage of chaos," he says.
Until recently chaos was not a word associated with the House of
Saud. But despite arresting hundreds, some say thousands of Islamic
militants in the last six months, terrorists are still capable of
striking at the heart of the country.
Since uniting most of the Arabian Peninsula by the sword in the
first third of the twentieth century, the House of Saud has ruled
without question as feudal overseers of their nation's oil wealth
and its religion. However, today there is a battle going on for
the soul of Islam, and now the royal family can feel the sands
of Arabia shifting beneath their feet. The question is can a little
reform keep them in charge, or will a more militant Islamic voice,
Saad al-Fagih's or someone else's, drive them from power.
