Changes come to Saudi Arabia

Press, 22 February 1977, Page 16

Changes come to Saudi Arabia

Bv

MICHAEL FIELD

the “Daily Telegraph”

Wealth, the rich have always told the poor, is a burden, its responsibilities far outweighing the privileges and security it is supposed to Confer. This was the impression given by the Princes and Sheikhs of Saudi Arabia when they turned out recently to welcome President Giscard d’Estaing of France — yet one more representative of the humbled Occident coming to pay infidel homage at the shrine, not of Mahomet, in secret Mecca, but of Mammon, the Royal treasury in Riyadh. Like so many others, the French state visit is already a fading memory in the quick-moving annals of contemporary Arabia. But it served to emphasise once more the major fact about the country today: Saudi Arabia, guardian of the Moslem holy places, owner of 30 per cent of the world’s oil reserves, wealthy beyond the dreams of nations, has to a unique degree the growing pains of a people forced by geography, history — and, of course, geology — to emerge from their provincialism on to the world stage.

Already, the late King Faisal, assassinated by one of his nephews on March 25, 1975, had made the great decision that his country should “join” the twentieth century. His successor, King Khaled, and the lobby of “progressive” Princes led by Crown Prince Fahad, have gone much further. And fate, as much as their own will, has dictated that Saudi Arabia must now play a dominant role in shaning the future of the Middle East, and so the world. It has no escape from its “manifest destiny." The convulsion of the Arab world, with its newfound power expressed in the "oil weapon,” tends to

obscure the fact which most strikes the visitor today: Saudi Arabia, the old heartland of this often so hostile and disturbing people, is really a “Western” outpost. American experts from Stanford University drew up the Saudi development plan. Most of the roads, powerstations, industries and so on have been built with American technology and equipment. Saudia, the national airline, is run by T.W.A., the Bendix Corporation runs the Army quartermaster’s department, the National Guard, equipped exclusively with American weapons, is trained by the Vinnel Corporation and the coastguards by the Avco Corporation. Raytheon has supplied rocket installations and Lockheed service the air defence system. About 30,000 Americans now live in the country’ and the number is expected to double within a year on two. Today’s Saudi elite are themselves largely American trained.

With its wealth, incipient modernisation and determination to maintain the whiphand in the Arab world, Saudi Arabia is ruled by a government as uncompromisingly anti-com-munist as that of General Pinochet in Chile. Exactly how this government works is a mystery unrevealed to profane eyes. No organised opposition has yet been identified.

The changes brought by such rapid development are, of course, beginning to have effect: the large influx of foreign workers — Yemenis, Somalis, Sudanese in the Jeddah and the west. Pakistanis and others in Dhahran and the east, Lebanese, Pallestinians, etc. in Riyadh — has laid the foundations of future labour agitation, despite high wages, and working hours and benefits com-

parable with those of the industrial world. The traditional seclusion of women and their exclusion from any role outside the home is beginning to be questioned, if only because there is growing bewilderment about why thousands of girls are now being educated if they are later forbidden to enter the professions. There is, for example, the curious “Hoda affair.” In 1972, Hoda, a 12-year-old schoolgirl, answering a magazine questionnaire, said that she was “in love with” a popular singer. For this, she was accused by the Director of Feminine Education, Sheikh Ben Rachid, of “immodesty” and blacklisted at all schools in the kingdom.

Hoda had to change her name and town of origin in order to continue her schooling. When, recently, the time came for her to apply to enter university, she persuaded a newspaper editor to publish an article denouncing Sheikh Ben Rachid’s “obscurantism.” He replied in the same currency of abuse and managed to get the offending editor jailed for one week. But the Government nevertheless ruled that Hoda could enrol at the university under her own name. Was this the first historic step towards the emancipation of women? The Royal autocracy, perfectly adapted to the Wahabite Kingdom while it remained isolated from the uninterested in the outside world, is still unquestionably in power. But there are very faint stirrings among some of the elite who have caut i o u s 1 y whispered of strengthening the State by some sort of constitutional instrument, presumably to associate the nouveaux riches of the hourgeosie with decision-making. Still, however, the impru-

dent Westerner who mentions “democracy,” asks about the “Constitution,” is scornfully told that nothing of the kind is needed in Islam. “What need have we of any more laws and statutes when we have the Holy Koran?” the Princes ask.

This abiding faith in Islam — backed by the fact that the religion of the Prophet is still an expanding force — has its corollary in Saudi detestation and fear of communist and quasi-communist regimes in the area and has created a quite “Western” awareness of the need for security.

Nowadays, in spite of the arrogance and contempt for foreigners implicit in so many Saudi ways, these dignified men of the desert, in their gold-fringed robes,

have moments of shyness, uncertainty and insecurity and show a touching need for understanding and friendship. To begin with, “instant industrialisation,” theoretically possible with such fabulous wealth, is running into problems like shortage of manpower — especially of the right sort — in a largely nomadic population whose exact number is not known (there is much scepticism about the official figture of 7,500,000) or kept dark because it is dangerously low. Inflation has accompanied the arrival of such volumes of capital and goods and is already estimated at 50 per cent. Herr Karl Schiller, the former German Finance Minister is at present in

Riyadh, privately advising the Government on how to deal with this imported ill.

Above all, Saudi Arabia makes no secret of its need, not just desire, for a negotiated settlement of the Middle last conflict.

Gone are the intransigent days of King Faisal’s three negatives: no to the existence of Israel, no to negotia tions, no to peace. Saudi fear of subversion has introduced a note of caution into foreign policy. King Khaled, guided, perhaps. by Prince Fahad. evidently wants his strong links with the United States to lead, with Western European help, to bringing about a compromise to remove the danger of yet another Israeli-Arab war which could have an incalculable effect on the present delicate power-balance. There is scepticism in Riyadh about the value of reconvening the Genet a conference until substantive bilateral talks between all parties have laid the foundations of a settlement. The French, eager to play some role, quickly endorsed this and, the Saudis evidently hope, will play a part in persuading the Americans of the need to get the Israelis to play ball. Another paradox in this extraordinarily complex venture is the Saudi attitude towards the multiplicity of currents in the Palestine Liberation Organisation. They may have paid panArab lip-service to the French for releasing Abu Daoud, but he is just the sort of Palestinian they most hate. Though nothing was allowed to emerge on this, or any similar topic, it can be assumed that King Khaled, with the utmost courtesy, tried to win the hesitant French away from their current ambiguity and evident indecision about which Palestinians, the “orthodox" P.L.O. or the wild boys of the "rejection front,” they should be supporting.