We all forget that, in the latter part of the Cold War, a US-led campaign encouraged the Saudis and Gulf states to spend money building Islamic-schools aka Madrassahs around the Muslim world. The aim? To counteract Moscow’s widespread soft-power influence in youth-movements and colleges of the anti-colonialist/imperialist anti-western variety. The Saudi/US campaign succeeded all too well in countries like Turkey and Pakistan, and elsewhere, ultimately shifting the balance of power against the Soviets in Afghanistan by funding and training the Mujahideen resistance. But, for reasons still obscure, Washington didn’t lean on the Saudis to halt the Wahhabist momentum once the Soviet union collapsed. Radical Islam had gained purchase as the dominant kinetic Muslim ideology. From it came Al Qaeda, ISIS, the Taliban and numerous splinter terror groups. Iran got in on the act, despite being Shiite and anathema to the orthodox Sunni establishment, simply by usurping the political ends of the movement.
Which is where we are today – except for one fundamental difference. The Gulf has changed and Saudi Arabia is following suit. At a certain point, while the Saudis could still depend on oil, the smaller Gulf states decided their future lay in developing their economy as a travel hub and conference center. Real estate boomed in tandem to accomodate the transformation – not just to create hotels but as investment draws for all the grey money sloshing around the Mideast. In essence, the Gulfies got out of the global politics game. They had to. No tourist attraction survives with a fire-breathing puritan religious image. But to move from Islamism to conference centers to full-blown tourism – a lot of internal re-invention was needed.
For a start, the local population needed to embrace a thorough social realignment. Their womenfolk started working, meeting foreigners, meeting men outside the family and the like. Moreover, cultural life and night life had to change. This was not, in the past, a geographical area abounding with culture – or entertainment. At first, the conference center economy drew vast numbers of foreign men in need of entertainment after work hours at conferences. There was little to do. Ubiquitous hotel discos with loitering ‘Russian’ escorts became the norm – not a good longterm option. Women conferencers felt uncomfortable. Wives around the world discouraged their men from attending. The area got a bad reputation for being a Mideastern equivalent of Las Vegas.
It was time to move on to the next stage – shopping, culture, full blown tourism including female tourists and families. And so, international museums were encouraged to create extensions there. New museums devoted to Islamic Art went on global purchasing sprees. Top designer brands opened branches. The beach economy expanded, videos of hang-gliders floating above skyscrapers proliferated – a sort of artificial glamorous lifestyle was implanted and took hold after a fashion. The Saudis watched on the sidelines. But they had internal obstacles, namely the custodianship of Mecca, religious imperatives, a powerful phalanx of Wahhabi clerics symbiotic with the indigenous culture of the Saudi tribes since the 1700s. The isolated desert settings, the identity shaped by the elements – the flinty, puritan, patriarchal ethos seemed bred-in-the-bone. How could it ever change? The Saudis had their own authentic cultural identity and it was retarding progress beyond oil wealth. Lots of money without social evolution.
Enter Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, the de facto Saudi ruler with iron control for some ten years now. (Hereafter known as MBS). These days if you meet anyone, especially anyone female, from Saudi or doing business there, you’ll find them surly and rebellious that the world identifies MBS with the endless war in Yemen, the assassination of journalist Jamal Kashoggi in Turkey, the detaining en masse of his local rivals and the like. Instead, or simultaneously, MBS arguably deserves a reputation for having launched the rebirth of Saudi Arabia on a new future freed of its historical shackles and ossified social hindrances. Essentially, what MBS has done is to initiate a socio-cultural revolution while freezing all political liberalization. Hence for example women can now drive cars solo but women’s rights political activists are liable to get jailed. Meanwhile, the state is funding young Saudi women to study classical music in the UK, developing a vibrant fashion industry while conducting its own fashion week and opening up its vast desert hinterlands to international tourism with emphasis on regional attractions and identities. And, of course, the star-studded soccer league headed up by Cristiano Ronaldo.
Most observers in the west simply cannot fathom the multiplex contradictions in the scenario. In fact, taken as a whole, it fits precisely into Islamic tradition going back to the Middle Ages. The most authoritarian rulers often presided over the richest cultural courts. Take the Moghuls of India with epic poetry recited at court, with miniature painting and architecture flourishing to great heights. In the case of MBS, his iron control has kept the clerics and reactionary forces at bay while intimidating top rival businessmen in the elite from funding any subversion at home or rogue Islamist movements abroad. Why has MBS taken this peculiar path? The US is losing interest in protecting fossil fuel allies, especially in the Middle East. The world is turning to clean energy. Other oil powers such as Russia and Iran daily threaten the kingdom’s strategic prominence. Oil qua oil is no longer a dependable solo bet.
And Saudi’s population is exploding. The economy desperately needs diversifying. Hence the Prince’s decision to shift the wealth of Aramco to a national sovereign fund. MBS has seen the economic pluralism chosen by Gulf neighbors and decided to emulate them in what he thinks is the safest way – with complete internal control. Which is also why he chose detente with Iran and Russia, and a potential strategic deal with China if the US backs away. These are not the kind of regimes that demand political freedoms from their allies. The old alignments and heirarchies are all in play both in domestic and foreign policy, not to mention religious policy. For the society that controls Islam’s holiest sites to set an example of radical social change, well, let’s say it will affect the wider Muslim world, even the world as a whole.
