– Arunava Dasgupta:
King Abdulaziz ibn Al Saud
The stage is on fire and Mohammad bin Salman has decided to walk on the razor’s edge. Will he transform the entire region into a true cradle of thriving civilization. Or is the whole thing a facade to seize power and wipe out enemies?
It was on 23rd September, 1932 that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in its present entity was formed on 23 September 1932 with Abdulaziz Ibn Saud formally uniting Nejd and Hejaz into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and declaring himself as the king. He transferred his court to Murabba Palace from the Masmak Fort in 1938 and the palace remained his residence and the seat of government until his death in 1953.
King Abdulaziz is believed to have 22 wives, 45 sons (36 survived to reach adulthood) and many daughters. Ten of his sons were eligible to be the King, six ascended the throne and four remained Crown Prince.
Having defeated the Ottomans, the Rashidis and wresting Makkah from Sharif Hussein thus ending the 700 years of Hashemite rule, he established his Kingdom of Saudi Arabia based on Wahabism with the Kalma from the Quoran being the country flag, the Shariah as the law and a rule based on absolutely conservative Islamic values.
Following the demise of King Abdulaziz, his sons ascended the throne, first by King Saud (deposed in 1964 but allowed to leave with full honours), King Faisal (assassinated 1975), King Khalid (died 1982), King Fahd (died 2005),King Abdullah (died 2015) and King Salman (till present). All were children of King Abdulaziz bin Saud but from different mothers.
When King Salman ascended the throne, he appointed Mohammed bin Nayef, who was also the kingdom’s interior minister, and widely known internationally as Saudi Arabia’s counter-terrorism czar, to be the Crown Prince.
bin Abdulaziz is out, bin Salman is in
But what happened in the last two years has been stunning – the unfettered rise of Prince Mohammad bin Salman [King Salman’s son], aged 32 years as the Crown Prince, who in a series of recent swift manouvres placed Prince Nayef under house arrest and followed it with more swift action by arresting about a dozen princes and senior officials on charges of alleged corruption. Hotel Ritz Carlton is believed to be the new gilded cage where the royalty is locked up; two Saudi princes have reportedly died under mysterious circumstances.
Today, the Arab Kingdom is shaking and shivering with the revolutionary changes that have been thrust upon this otherwise highly conservative country. Prince Mohammad bin Salman [MBS] as he is popularly known, has led the charge by initiating radical changes since his arrival, firstly leading a coalition against Houthi rebels in Yemen conflict, and secondly, laying out a new Development Plan – Vision 2030 – that takes Saudi Arabia away from an oil-based easy economy, and thirdly, a complete boycott of Qatar by a coalition (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and UAE).
MBS: The Prince with a Vision or will he be the Prince of Chaos
MBS appears to have a vision and the will to enforce it but will he be able to sustain the present momentum and carry the royalty, the nobility, the clergy and the people along with him is something yet to be seen, and thus proven! MBS may be far ahead of Saudi times but will he be able to garner an effective team who can the ‘walk the MBS’s talk’ is also to be seen – the present generation has been so used to easy money and comfort that not only have many become largely inefficient, lethargic but highly arrogant too!
The Middle East Eye reports, “People inside the royal court also told …that the scale of the crackdown, which has brought new arrests each day, is much bigger than Saudi authorities have admitted, with more than 500 people detained and double that number questioned.
Some, but not all, of the top figures arrested were singled out for the most brutal treatment, suffering wounds to the body sustained by classic torture methods. Some detainees were tortured to reveal details of their bank accounts.
Earlier roundup of Muslim clerics, writers, economists and public figures, is creating panic in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, particularly among those associated with the old regime of King Abdullah, who died in 2015, with power then passing to his half-brother, King Salman”.
India – a witness and victim to Saudi corruption
Indians have been witness to the highly corrupt ways of many Saudis who are aided by their Indian agents to feed their greed and their lust – every appointment for a Saudi Arabian employment [in fact, all gulf countries] is possible after the payment of thousands or at times over hundred thousand Indian rupee as ‘fees’ to the Indian agents who are empanelled by the Saudi employer. This money is collected to entertain the Saudi employing authorities, pay their bills while in India and make the agent ‘rich’. I believe such practices exist in visa matters too! The situation is so bad that a former Saudi ambassador to India had referred to these Indian recruitment agencies as ‘blood suckers’ who suck the blood of their fellow countrymen!!
Over the years, the situation remains unaltered with the truly poor job applicants paying through their nose by mortgaging their house, their land, the little jewellery they may possess to line the deep pockets of such people. The situation remains unaltered even today! One hopes MBS will have a look at it and truly whip the corrupt Saudi Arabians under Saudi laws.
Whether a minister, or whether a prince, none shall be spared
True to his word, MBS’s orchestrated drive against corruption has spread its arms sparing none. Quoting MEE,“One of the most famous is Prince Bandar bin Sultan, a former Saudi ambassador to Washington and confidant of former US President George W Bush. There is no word on his fate, but Saudi authorities said that one of the corruption cases they are looking at is the al-Yamamah arms deal, in which Bandar was involved.
Bandar bought an entire village in the Cotswolds, a picturesque area of central England, and a 2,000-acre sporting estate with part of the proceeds from kickbacks he received in the al-Yamamah arms deal, which netted British manufacturer BAE £43bn ($56.5bn) in contracts for fighter aircraft. As much as $30m (£15m) is alleged to have been paid into Bandar’s dollar account at Riggs Bank in Washington and the affair led to corruption probes in the US and UK, although the case was dropped in the UK in 2006 after an intervention by then-prime minister Tony Blair”.
Indeed the deserts of Saudi Arabia are shivering! But as said earlier, will MBS be able to sustain his campaign and withstand the backlash from the dishonoured Saudi nobility, business houses like the Bin Laden, the clergy, the Bedouin tribesmen and external forces like Qatar (whom MBS trampled upon) or Iran, – which may find this to be an opportunity to pounce upon, remains to be seen. Will Saudi Arabia become Salman Arabia or Arabia or Saudi Arabia time will only tell!
On a macro-global scale, this move by MBS, its success or failure can impact global economy very much. It can also have a major impact on Wahabism and the Saudi brand of Islam which was being exported worldwide. Prince Mohammad bin Salman appears to have support from very strong quarters internationally.
Will MBS modernize Saudi Arabia culturally and beyond their penchant for the finest ‘single malt’? Will MBS be the new Kemal Ataturk to complete revamp the gulf and thereby the Arabs.
The stage is on fire and Mohammad bin Salman has decided to walk on the razor’s edge. Is his decision just a pretext to wipe out all enemies inside and outside the House of Saud before he replaces his father. Or will he transform the entire region into a true cradle of thriving civilization.
But one thing is certain – the unity among Abdulaziz family has been shattered and there shall possibly be the emergence of a new name!
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