Saudi Arabia’s Arab Spring, at Last

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/opinion/saudi-prince-mbs-arab-spring.html

by zonotope • 9 years ago

9 9 9 years ago

>it will not only change the character of Saudi Arabia but the tone and tenor of Islam across the globe. Only a fool would predict its success — but only a fool would not root for it.

That's for sure. Murdering millions of their fellow muslims in Yemen. What's not to root for?

erikb• 9 years ago

No revolution, written by a man, talking about another man before he even really started his reforms, a good chance that most of the "reforms" the Prince is planning are more on the marketing side than on the implementation side.

_nedR2• 9 years ago

Some of the reforms have already happened. Prominent examples include the reforms to the guardian system and woman's driving issue. Also there is the planned and widely announced IPO of Saudi Aramco. If the IPO announcement is a marketing stunt, then it is a pretty lame one as it is easily verifiable/disprovable. I have trouble figuring out what the short term gains could possibly be from announcing a fake IPO.

thisisit• 9 years ago

So when his father, who has never been tainted by corruption charges during his nearly five decades as governor of Riyadh, ascended to the throne in 2015

Is it just me or that sounds sarcastic?

polotics• 9 years ago

The Saudis rulers are trying to sell a small chunck (5%) of Aramco, for about a hundred billion bucks. If they fail to attract capital, it's back to camels after oil.

candiodari• 9 years ago

I highly doubt that the king massacring half of the current power structure for his own ends, and castrating the other half is an arab spring, and will not bring increased freedom.

We all know what's coming next: a few incidents where the old power structure takes some small measure of revenge, followed by mistrust, fear and repression. The king, and all of the new government, does not trust it's hold on power and will have to cut benefits across the population. These things don't mix well.

Half the western press is implying that the current king, who was not even the successor to the throne as little as 5 years ago is really an attempt to modernize and westernize saudi arabia. This is exactly the line the saudi government is putting out (while keeping significant parts of the old power structure hostage at gunpoint one might add [1], maybe worse than just keeping them hostage [2]). Currently the king is taking a populist viewpoint, but that's out of desperation and fear.

The economic reality means he's going to have to cut financial benefits to the population by a lot. And if there's one thing for absolute certain in this world, it's that that has never brought social progress. Conservatives will increase in power as a result of this for obvious reasons. What will happen ?

It's embarassing, one might even suspect a lot of money is involved in that western press attitude.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/06/how-saudi-elit...

[2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5108651/American-mer...

_nedR2• 9 years ago

One 'anonymous' source cited by the Daily mail; Really? That too claiming that billionaire prince Alaweed no less is being dangled by his feet.

hedonistbot• 9 years ago

Just came to say that Tom Friedman is a hack and this op-ed reads like a paid commercial. To call a top-down authoritarian power grab "Arab Spring" is mind boggling.

stablemap• 9 years ago

A collection of like stories in the Times over the last 70 years:

https://twitter.com/anhistorian/status/934080718816399361

Saudi Arabia’s Arab Spring, at Last

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