May 06 2011: "Oil Wealth, U.S. Backing Enables Saudi Arabia to Crush Dissent in Bahrain"
Democracy Now! interviews Toby Jones, Rutgers University professor and author of Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia. Formerly of the International Crisis Group, Professor Jones discusses the current political situation in Saudi Arabia and highlights troubling trends in relation to the Arab Spring.
Below is an analysis and reiteration of Professor Jones' views of the current situation in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region:
Saudi Arabia has managed to avoid the fate of countries like Egypt, Algeria, and Tunisia largely due to its vast oil wealth and the support (or hands-off approach) of the US government. Though there has been some protest in eastern Saudi Arabia amongst the Shia, civil society has largely been silent throughout the rest of the country. The Kingdom has handled the domestic political situation according to longstanding themes of co-optation through financial handouts.
In order to quell protests and prevent their spread, King 'Abdullah has provided over $100 billion dollars since February to co-opt opposition and anyone critical of the regime. This trend has existed since the time of Ibn Saud in the early 1900s, when he would use financial compensation to encourage tribal cohesion. The incredible oil resources of the Saudi royal family provide seemingly unlimited means to continue to buy-off critics of the regime.
In a country of 19 million people, ten percent unemployment combined with a population majority under the age of thirty (70%) makes the risk of political upheaval great, should protest be allowed to grow beyond sectarian lines. In addition to monetary handouts, the Saudi government has declared that municipal elections will take place in September, thought women are still denied their place on the ballot and political parties are prohibited from forming.
The Saudi security apparatus is expansive, providing little or no space for protest from members of Saudi society that are frustrated by the lack of political and social reforms. In March, Saudi police and military took to the streets in major cities as a visible sign of possible force, should the other means of curbing protest be deemed insufficient.
Social and political changes have also spurred the government to reestablish ties with religious institutions and figures, signally a shift toward the empowerment of Islamists; the government looks to these religious institutions and figures to strip the legitimacy of protesters. This trend has not be present throughout the rule of 'Abdullah who, over the last half-decade, has attempted to limit the scope of influence of the religious establishment in the kingdom.
Perhaps the most dangerous and foreboding Saudi action in 2011 has been the military intervention and occupation in neighboring Bahrain. By lending military support to the al-Khalifa dynasty, Saudi Arabia seeks to prevent Shiite protests from spilling over the border and encouraging the overthrow of the monarchy. According to Jones, Saudi Arabia's framing of the conflict in Bahrain along sectarian lines and its emphasis on the presence of Iran in the region represent particularly disconcerting possibilities. Through essentializing the political behaviors of all Shia in the region, Saudi is perhaps creating a more coherent, transnational politicized population than actually exists. This faulty view combined with the perceived omnipresent threat of Iran results in little more than heightened tensions (and greater sectarianism) in both the kingdom and the region.
Saudi Arabia's role as the preeminent global oil producer has largely shielded the kingdom from international pressure. Since the 1950s, the United States has articulated its prioritization of the US-Saudi relationship and the need to ensure good relations with the petro-monarchy to ensure the security of the global oil supply. Though the Obama administration has been critical of Saudi intervention in Bahrain, the US has done little to limit such actions as it did in Libya.
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