What The Helicopter Accident Tells Us About Saudi Arabia
05 November 2017By Emre Gönen
News has been pouring in with unexpected speed and importance: Dozens of
high-ranking officials have been sacked, a ballistic missile was fired upon
Riyadh from Yemen unsuccessfully, and it was the first attack over the Saudi
Arabia capital.
A Saudi helicopter crashed near the kingdom's southern border with Yemen. The
accident claimed the lives of a dozen high-ranking administrators, including
the son of the former intelligence chief and Crown Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz,
who is second in line for the succession of King Salman. He probably won't
keep this status for a very long time in the huge Saudi royal family with its
complex network of competing factions. His son, Prince Mansour bin Muqren, who
lost his life in the helicopter accident, was the deputy governor of the Asir
province.
This proliferation of princes, crown princes, governors, and deputy-governors
make it hard to understand the functioning of the Saudi administration. It
remains a totally obscure, authoritarian state apparatus. Dynamics of change
have been almost visible in the last few years, with the enthronization of
King Salman in 2015, whose son, Prince Mohammed, the minister of defense,
looks like the strong man in charge of the Saudi Kingdom destiny. King
Salman's other sons hold important positions within the state apparatus,
Prince Abdulaziz is the Oil Minister deputy - a key position - Prince Faisal
is the governor of Medina, Prince Sultan is the head of the tourism authority
and a former Royal Saudi Air Force pilot and astronaut and Prince Turki chairs
the Saudi Research and Marketing Group, a huge publishing holding company.
The first important sign of a "palace coup" came with the declaration by
Prince Mohammed on state television that a "moderate Islam" would be the new
line of conduct for the kingdom. Coming from the representative of the "Wahhabi"
Islam, this declaration was to be taken very cautiously, which is what the
world media did. What Prince Mohammed meant was not fully understood at first,
so long as it is probably not the duty of a minister of defense to give
guidance concerning religious matters, especially in the Wahhabi kingdom.
Already, some hesitant but important steps were taken to ease the weight of
Islamic rules in the daily life, like allowing women to drive cars within the
kingdom. That may sound funny to Western democratic countries, but for Saudi
women this was obviously an important step toward a better status in society.
What ignites this change in Saudi Arabia is probably more a dire need to
reform the state rather than a theological debate over the flexibility and
implementation of Wahhabism. Saudi Arabia is rich beyond imagination and the
immense part of wealth created by oil revenues are used to create a modern
infrastructure in the country, which is not at all coupled with better and
participative governance.
More importantly, Saudi Arabia has been funneling the oil revenues into
developed countries' company shares. The way of living of most ministers and
princes is reminiscent of Aga Khan or King Farouk of Egypt, dilapidating
immense sums for pleasure and showing off, in the most expensive resorts and
touristic regions of developed Western countries. Together with their Russian
counterparts, oil-rich executives and representatives of Gulf regimes of the
Middle East have been injecting huge sums of money into Europe's professional
football teams buying financially weak football teams and inflating the
football industry finances to a degree unseen of in history.
For a country that aims to represent the "ummah," this is obviously not an
ideal image.
However, there is more, Saudi Arabia is losing ground against Iran, whose
regime is hardly more participative and democratic, but looks definitely more
ascetic than the flamboyant lifestyle of Saudi princes. Yemen was the theater
of a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and in spite of a huge asymmetry
between the Saudi armament and the Iran-backed rebels in Sanaa, the Saudi Air
Force has not been able to overcome this rebellion. A couple of days ago,
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned over the assessment that he was
not able to govern his country, because the Iran-backed Hezbollah sabotaged
the whole administration. The Iraq central government is almost openly
subservient to Iran, and the very clumsy attempt to establish an embargo over
Qatar has been a real failure for the Saudi regime, which lost Turkey's
support on the issue.
There is a saying in the United States, if it looks like a duck, swims like a
duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. The new unfolding
events in Saudi Arabia, taken within the context of recent political
developments, looks like a palace coup, sounds like a palace coup and
progresses like a palace coup. Whether it is a palace coup, we don't know yet,
but time will show.
Saudi prince reportedly killed in gunfight while resisting arrest
A Saudi prince reportedly died late Monday during a gunfight while resisting
arrest.
Former FBI Special Agent Ali H. Soufan announced the passing of Prince Abdul
Aziz bin Fahd at age 44 on Twitter without specifying a cause of death. Prince
Aziz was the youngest son of the late King Fahd.
Several media outlets reported that Prince Aziz was killed after armed clash
erupted between law enforcement agents and his personal security.
Other sources claimed that the prince died from a heart attack.
Prince Aziz was the second Saudi royal to die in the last two days after
Prince Mansour bin Muqren was killed Sunday when a helicopter crashed near the
kingdom's southern border with war-torn Yemen.
Saudi Arabia is currently in the middle of a self-described anti-corruption
purge, which has seen at least 11 princes, including tycoon Prince Alwaleed
bin Talal, and dozens of former ministers arrested.
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