Rumors in the Kingdom: What elites are whispering about the increasingly shaky Saudi regime

[applegrove]

Rumors in the Kingdom: What elites are whispering about the increasingly shaky Saudi regime

by Vijay Prashad, AlterNet, Salon

http://www.salon.com/2016/05/13/saudi_arabias_palace_intrigue_partner/

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To sidestep the trials of low oil prices, Prince Mohammed bin Salman has pledged to sell off part of Saudi Aramco. Undoubtedly his ally al-Falih backed him on that plan. Such a massive infusion of capital—over $2 trillion—would give Saudi Arabia the kind of buoyancy that it needs to both try and reshape its economy and continue its regional aspirations. Or so that it what is believed in the palace.

Prince Mohammed bin Salman hopes that this capital will finance his plan for the new Saudi Arabia, which he has called Saudi Vision 2030. Last week, I wrote about this plan for Alternet, considering it to be an illusion. The reaction toward this column from Saudi Arabia was curious—as many people wrote to say that they agreed with me as wrote to denounce my verdict. I asked Adam Hanieh, author of Capitalism and Class in the Gulf Arab States, about this reaction. “I can’t recall such high levels of internal dissent about a domestic issue,” Hanieh told me. “It’s also striking how often these criticisms point to the fact that the plan was largely drawn up by foreign consultants (such as McKinsey).”

To gain the measure of this internal dissent, I asked a group of Saudi intellectuals and corporate leaders what they thought of the new plan for the kingdom. Samar Fatany, a highly respected broadcast journalist in Jeddah, confirmed the high level of discussion over Saudi Vision 2030. She divided the opinions into four camps: the supporters, the doubters, the skeptics and the obstructionists. The obstructionists, she said, are the “ultra-conservatives who are against any change and think that the transformation plan is not good for the country.” These are those who see the reforms as a threat to the highly regimented social life in the kingdom, particularly in terms of domestic hierarchies. Any economic reform that talks about women’s employment is a threat to the order that relies upon women’s subordination. These people, Fatany said, label reformers as “enemies of the faith.”

The doubters and skeptics come from an older generation and from specific sections of the professional class. Fatany says that they include economists and other academics as well as members of the business community. The skeptics, she told me, “have enough knowledge to understand the limitations of our manpower and the lack of experts and experienced professionals.” Not only do they know that diversification of the economy cannot take place in a few years, but they have also been through earlier – failed – attempts to reform the economy and political institutions. “ They are the ones who have been trying to push for reforms for years when the price of oil was high and they have run out of steam,” she told me. If these are the skeptics, then the doubters are merely those who believe that the extremists and obstructionists will simply not allow the reform agenda to proceed. Why worry about implementation when the entire process is dead on arrival?




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[Redwoods Red]

1. Can't wait for the end of the House of Saud.

And that little shit weasel of a foreign minister, too.

They've wreaked havoc in Syria and Yemen.

They keep cranking out salafist nutjobs.

They want to singlehandedly ignite sectarian war around the region.