Family, Oil, and God

Rule and Dissent in Saudi Arabia

How did Saudi state-building differ from state-building in Turkey, Iraq, and elsewhere?

• More indigenous process– No direct colonialism– Tribal/marriage alliances– Wahabbi Islam & the Ikhwan

• Different symbolic vocabulary– “Ancient” claims– Islam

• Gradual process of unification and “statification” from the “inside” out

– Ibn Saud’s victories– Formal recognition 1932– Informal state practices

• Council of Ministers 1950s• No real bureaucratization

until 1970s

King Fahd (II), died 2005

King Abd al-Aziz, 1876-1953

King Faisal, Rules 1964-1975

King Abdullah, 2005-present

All in the family (of Saud)

Oil:

• Discovered 1938– Aramco/Saudi Aramco– 1974-75: 330% increase

in oil revenues • More proven oil reserves

than any other country (about 25% of proven world supply)– About 18% US oil from S.

Arabia• makes up 90-95% of total

Saudi export earnings• 70%-80% of state

revenues• 40% of the country's GDP

Oil tanks at the Ju'aymah oil refinery in Saudi Arabia – Photo: Aramco Services Co.

What money can buy• Defense expenditures

– About a third of Saudi annual revenue spent on defense

• International distribution of oil wealth– PLO and elsewhere

• Domestic distribution of oil wealth– Massive programs of

economic and social development

• Expanded roads, infrastructure, architecture, communications

– Expansion in education• Universities• Education for girls

Armed helicopter "Combat Scout" operating from King Khalid Military City. Photo: Cees-Jan van der Ende

The role of oil: two perspectives

• Rentier State model– Rentier State:

a state that receives substantial income (“rents”) from foreign sources, and where only a few people are engaged in the generation of this wealth

– Work ethic and state-society relations

• Oil as supporting & extending pre-existing patterns of power (Fandy)

Al-Murabba palace, home to Abd Al Aziz and later center of government.

Photo: http://www.deskpicture.com/DPs/Places/mecca.jpg

Religion and Politics

• Ulama: lawyers, consultants, judges

• Quran as constitution• (Literalist) sharia as

legal code• The Hajj

– More than 2. 5 million pilgrims in one week

– Hajj service industry• Extensive influence over

education, legal system, public morality– “Morality Police”

• Limits on religious freedom

• Double-edged sword?

Three tensions in Saudi politics

• S. Arabia an “Islamic” state, but Islam subservient to Saudi state– “Quran as constitution”

• “Basic Law” codifying crimes etc

– Power struggles between the royal family, ulema, other Islamic activists

• Repression, modernity, and Wealth – “Puritanical” (Wahhabi

Islam) but modern & wealthy

• What to buy with oil?– Urbanization,

commercialization– Repression

• Politics as “Tribal” (familial) but globally integrated– Foreign workers

Dissent: Origins• Contradictions between

wealth/Wahabbi Islam– “Corrupt” royalty vs ord. people

and Wahabbi purists• New education system and

expansion of universities• Drop in oil revenues

– Early 1980s: Oil drops from $32 a barrel to $15; 30% drop in state revenues

– Economic crisis• Unemployment, drop in income,

infrastructural decay

• Foreign affairs– Iranian Revolution, Soviet

invasion of Afghanistan– 1991 Gulf War and stationing of

US troops in S. Arabia leads to crisis of legitimacy

King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, established in 1967.

The First Gulf War.

Photo: http://www.army.mod.uk/26regtra/our_history/

Dissent: Who• Early secular dissent

– 1950s-1960s: Baathists, Arab nationalists, leftists

• Islamic dissent– Criticism of the regime,

petitions, call for more popular participation, demonstrations

– Late 1970s: Siege on Mecca mosque, Shiite riots stemming from discrimination

• Radical Islamist dissent– Increasing opposition, 1980s

and 1990s• Memorandum of Advice• Formation of major Islamist

opposition groups– Jihadist returnees from

Afghanistan– Osama bin Laden: Advice

& Reform Committee, al Qaeda

• “insurgency,” 2003-2005

Surveying the scene of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, in which more than 20 people died and more than 300 were wounded.

State Responses (accommodation and repression)

• Official ulama mobilized to support government

• Institutional reforms– New Basic law, (unelected)

Consultative Council, law of provinces

– Municipal elections, 2005 – New legal code

• State crackdown– Hundreds arrested, many

executed– Major campaign against Islamist

dissent, media campaign on behalf of ‘moderate’ Islam

– All accentuated after 2003 suicide bombings in S. Arabia itself

A photographer records a public execution in Jeddah from behind the bars of a window

- photo from Amnesty International.