Unless you directly benefit from the rule of the Saudi Royal Family or are understandably afraid that you’ll get your head cut off, by what standard would you not be a dissident?
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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And what incentive to be a peaceful protester? Better to be hung for a wolf than a lamb, maybe.
The problem with being a dissident. Is the fear that the Saudi’s would call upon their USA bought and paid for supporters to help them by supplying troops and arms.
Things getting antsy for the House of Saud.
Nah. The only thing the KSA royals have to fear is in-fighting. When all the princes begin acting like proper princes and begin bumping off their competitors.
There are some tangible threats to the KSA; Yemen not least but also majority Shia Bahrain. Just because Bahrain’s troubles aren’t covered well by the global media doesn’t mean they aren’t at issue.
Executing Nimr al-Nimr turned an activist at least as much a nuisance to Tehran as Riyadh into an indelible martyr for a timely Shia social justice revival; for what? Now he’s Malcolm X to a new generation.
They also seem to have completely blown the cover of using counter-terrorism as an excuse for domestic political score-settling and oppression. Food for thought for all concerned.
KSA knocked out the 2011 protests in tiny Bahrain (population 1.3 million) without breaking a sweat. Yemen is so divided and poor that it’s difficult to see how its a tangible threat to KSA.
Dead martyrs from minority populations are rarely more than a short-term nuisance. Nimr al-Nimr may get a public shrine of some sort in a Shia territory of Iraq, but Shia dominated Iraq is not going to wage a war with KSA over his death. It’s possible that KSA Sunnis and Shia could set aside their differences to oust the House of Saud, but who would fund that?
But all these little cuts sap the legitimacy of a regime. To be forced into these behaviours, of making an example, say, of a prominent dissident cleric from a minority faction, erodes the one powerful exceptionalism that the KSA claims, to act and speak for Muslims worldwide. Once that narrative diminishes in value they are just an archaic, autocratic fiefdom with dwindling surplus wealth and a history of meddlesome regional overreach.
What legitimacy has the monarchy of KSA ever had?
It’s extraordinarily difficult, and therefore rare, for the rabble to revolt and oust a monarchy or dictatorship. Conditions for ordinary Saudi citizens may be as bad today as they were for Iranians in 1979, but they don’t have a living leader and they are divided by religious sects.
A dead, dissident Saudi Shia cleric is not going to gain the stature of the worldwide voice of Muslims. 87% of Muslims are Sunni and Saudis are a small portion of the Muslim population.
Dwindling surplus wealth with an expanding royal family impacts the stability of the House of Saud first. A hundred years on they have yet to exhaust the sons of Ibn Saud in the succession. There are an estimated 15,000 family members, but most of the wealth is controlled by 2,000 members. (There are also several non-royal Saudi billionaires.) They now have a princely democratic process to select their kings. As long as they retain a reasonably united front, they maintain their status with militarily and financially powerful foreign countries.
There are Shia minorities almost everywhere; let’s just set a marker and come back and look at this in a year or so. I’m not suggesting an insurrection. The legitimacy of the KSA, however intangible, seems at issue. The treatment of Shia during haj, for example, is another potential issue.
Just noticed that Billmon has jumped on a KSA “is cracking up” bandwagon. There are a few recent differences in their operating style. They’ve taken to more directly doing their own dirty work and been less opaque in hiring others to do it. Also, their long-standing back channels to Iran don’t seem intact — a likely blow-back from their interference in Syria. Then there is their oil price war that others seem to think is biting them harder than they expected and can withstand. So we shall see if Iran comes out better this time from attacking an embassy than it did the last time.
The recent leadership change was not towards moderation. The House of Saud has been playing a subtle game, as you have noted, up until recently. I sense, however, that they have overlooked a pending Shia renaissance with Iran free of sanctions and the status quo about to be accepted in Syria.
Why they executed this cleric now only makes sense if they intend to sabotage the Syrian talks; ditto for Erdogan and his itchy trigger finger. But they’re missing the bigger picture; now they have united Shi’ite from diverse regions in common cause against them; the House of Saud itself not some anonymous Sunni car-bombers. Lots of frustration there.
We’re seeing many of the same pieces, but seem to be applying different weights to them and putting them together in different configurations. So, we shall see.
This exposes the Kingdom’s weakness. Unfortunately, it might take a while for that weakness to manifest itself in a loss of power for the House of Saud. The evil genius of monolithic States which so thoroughly suppress speech through violence is that it makes it extremely difficult for a nation of dissidents to form themselves into mass movements. This becomes a problem when the Kingdom’s death grip on power begins to loosen, because people aren’t accustomed to working with each other on political goals.
Oligarchic states, like those ruled by a large royal family, depend on the obedience of head-choppers and legitimacy among enough people to maintain stability. That legitimacy is maintained the same way that racism is maintained, cultivating a culture in which the assumption is that everyone supports the culture whether they do or are fearful of the consequences if they admit they don’t. Getting your head cut off is not likely the greatest fear; other non-life-threatening punishments can be far worse in long-term practical terms; loss of a source of income can be by far more consequential in a high-unemployment patronage state. It works fairly well even in the United States.
Now estimate the number of Saudi residents who do not fall into one of those two categories. Those are the ones for whom deterrence is in doubt. When that number exceeds the resources available to contain the growth in the number, the regime is in trouble. And as we have seen often in the past, collapse can come suddenly and without clear warning of its coming.
○ Western Ally and War Profiteer Saudi Arabia Executed 47 Men Today [January 2, 2016]
○ Saudi Internal Security: A Risk Assessment | CSIS – 2004 | [pdf]
No mention of a trial, ‘speedy’ or otherwise.
Their judicious use of their judiciary might also be related to this;
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/saudi-faces-budget-cuts-economy-205031076.html;_ylt=A0LEVikhc4hWIsIAeh
onnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTBydWNmY2MwBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwM0BHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzcg–
Gonna be some more Arab Spring in the desert, hence the pre-emptive strike in their internal political control.
No need to end up like Mubarak in Egypt when a little head cutting might just forestall all that chaos.
The other group that has no reason to dissent are the Wahabis. They get to control the education and culture of the nation in return for their support of the royal family. (There are some on the Wahabi fringe who don’t support the royals because they don’t think they’re getting a good enough, pure enough deal.)
My question is why the United States has been turning a blind eye to all of this for so long. I guess because of the fear that the alternative are the Wahabis (or another group as bad or worse) with no royal family to maintain control.