Saudis Take the Slow Road

An old man with long, gray tendrils of beard tottered up to the crown prince here, wailing. The man’s son had died the day before in a car accident. What was the family going to do without a wage earner?

Saudi Arabia’s acting head of state whispered something and sent him on his way. Later, Crown Prince Abdullah retired to his office, a huge room draped in silk and glistening with crystal chandeliers, and signed dispensations for dozens of supplicants who had come that day.

Did the old man get help? Or was his recent request one of those the prince dismissed without signature to his bowing assistant? In Saudi Arabia, there is no way of knowing. There is no parliament or complete national budget, and in the end, what Abdullah does for his subjects is whatever he feels like doing that day.

A few hundred miles away, in Iraq, a war is underway that President Bush says will lead to a popularly elected government to replace Saddam Hussein’s regime. The Bush administration says it hopes the seeds of democracy in Baghdad will spawn similar change in conservative regimes elsewhere in the Middle East.

Here in Saudi Arabia, one thing is almost universally agreed upon. Of all possible outcomes of the war, one of the most perilous is the idea of suddenly injecting democracy into a region of emirs, tribal chiefs and military dictators -- a concept that prompted one Saudi official to call the administration’s idea “the most preposterous, idealistic statement I have heard in a long time.”

Yet the prospects for Iraq are quietly lending support to a political reform movement underway in this conservative kingdom. While Saudis almost universally oppose the Anglo-American offensive, many express quiet hope that political change in Iraq after the war could give the House of Saud the confidence to move toward elections, women’s rights and an end to political repression.

The Saudi government, which has been a more positive force for liberalization than its generally conservative subjects, already has signaled that it is prepared to move toward significant reforms when the time is right. With the nation’s economy dependent on oil and hit with plunging per capita incomes, the Saudi royal family appears convinced that only real change, especially on issues such as investment laws and the judiciary, can keep the country competitive and stable in the new world economy.

The war, Saudi leaders say, is actually hampering the move toward greater democratization by igniting dangerous instability and anti-Western sentiment in the region.

“If there is any talk of reform, it is proposed by the government,” Foreign Minister Prince Saud al Faisal said recently. “But if there is stability, if there is peace in the region, that is the way that will bring about democratization. Not through war.”

“There is enough talk about reform that the agenda is gaining momentum now,” said Hussein Shobokshi, a businessman in the city of Jidda. “Everybody seems to be riding the reform bandwagon now, so we can ill- afford to be left out.”

Currently, the face of the country’s limited democracy is Abdullah -- sitting at his three-day-a-week majlis, listening to the proposals and peeves of the tribesmen. In some ways, it is a remarkably open process. A man -- and only a man -- is admitted to talk with Abdullah simply by showing up at the palace gate and checking any weapon at the door.

It is a process of shura, or consultation, in which citizens consider themselves on equal footing with their leaders. Abdullah himself has a circle of close friends who argue with him openly on policy, and consensus is reached, his advisors say.

But the reality is that there is very little predictability or institutional memory in whispered conversations with a prince. Saudi Arabia has no secular commercial courts, its citizens take a certain pride in ignoring its traffic codes, and the only real rule of law is enshrined in Sharia -- the Islamic law of the Koran -- and in the Saud family.

For years, the relatively progressive Saud clan has maintained stability -- and a tight grip on power -- through an alliance with a religious leadership that is probably the most fundamentalist in the Muslim world.

Now, the royal family finds itself confronted with calls for reform from both sides: the Western-oriented liberals and the Islamic conservatives. The liberals want to see expanded rights for women, the creation of reliable court systems, and government agencies that would provide assurance for investment, a changeable prime minister and a move toward an elected parliament.

The conservatives want an end to corruption in the royal family, no more abrupt and indefinite detention of religious leaders who don’t toe the royal line, and an end to Saudi Arabia’s long flirtation with the U.S., particularly in light of the war with Iraq.

The Sauds clearly realize they are sitting atop a country that has turned into a boiling kettle and must do something -- but what? How do you hold free elections with a populace that would probably, if given the chance, select a religious sheik as its first prime minister and the Taliban as his cabinet?

The key, Saudi leaders say, is to start slowly. Within three months, Abdullah is expected to unveil the first steps in a series of important economic and political reforms aimed at moving toward a partially elected consultative council, opening the economy and privatizing key industries, including the gas sector, telephones and electricity, according to sources close to the royal family.

The crown prince is said to favor judicial reform as well, and reportedly may introduce the kingdom’s first commercial courts as an alternative to the Sharia courts that have been a roadblock to foreign investment. The Islamic courts essentially prohibit many transactions with the international banking system and do not necessarily recognize Western-style contract law.

Abdullah also reportedly has granted permission to charter the kingdom’s first private human rights organization -- an important step in a country that has been the subject of widespread criticism for repressing religious minorities and imprisoning political dissidents, often for years, without formal charges.

The move to hold the ruling family more publicly accountable dates at least to the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when the need to call in hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops to defend the kingdom prompted unusual public criticism of the monarchy. Religious conservatives in particular saw the American presence as an affront to Islam -- a sentiment that helped breed Al Qaeda.

The polite revolt, by way of communiques and late-night meetings in living rooms, was quickly quashed. Several leading academics and clerics were arrested; others lost their jobs. Yet the government in 1993 created the kingdom’s first consultative council, or majlis al-shura, which in subsequent years has been expanded to 120 members.

The council is appointed by the crown prince and has no independent powers, but it has increasingly been flexing its muscles. On Jan. 12, the majlis summarily rejected the government’s proposal to impose the kingdom’s first tax on the earnings of foreign workers, in effect killing the plan because Abdullah chose not to override the council’s recommendation.

The pressure for change grew after Sept. 11, 2001, as Americans demanded to know why 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi natives. Suddenly, questions were raised about whether the kingdom’s precarious demographics, economic stagnation and political repression were further fostering Islamic extremism.

Consider the fact that nearly half the kingdom’s citizens have been born since the end of the 1991 war, thanks to the average of 6.2 children born to each woman. Then, factor in that since 1999 there have been 340,000 entrants to the labor force -- not counting women, whose work opportunities are sharply limited -- and only 175,000 jobs created. Average wages are declining, and the trend of low interest rates and high oil prices that has kept the public sector afloat until now is forecast to reverse itself soon.

“We’re worried that, 10 years out, there’s a stability problem,” said one diplomat in Riyadh.

Most analysts say there is little chance of Saudi Arabia following the path of Islamic revolution set in Iran in 1979. The Saudi royal family, unlike Iran’s late shah, has co-opted Islamic dissent by adopting a severe code of Islamic law and tradition as the law of the land. And government leaders believe they will be able to pay off a large share of the public debt and collect enough cash through privatization and new investment to improve long-range economic prospects.

“Is the government going to topple today or tomorrow? No. History has demonstrated that the al Saud have the will to power. They will do what it takes to stay in power,” one diplomat said. But with recent U.S. pressure to aid the military effort in Iraq, he said, “they are being put in a situation where they in some cases are at odds” with their own subjects.

The reform movement took off in earnest in January, when 104 citizens sent to the crown prince, who rules because of the extended illness of King Fahd, a petition calling for municipal and national elections, full women’s rights, nondiscrimination, an end to corruption, an independent judiciary and freedom of speech and assembly.

The signers were stunned when Abdullah called about 40 of them in to discuss change. The crown prince had drafted his own charter calling for “internal reform and enhanced political participation” throughout the Arab world.

Mohammed Said Tayeb, a Jidda lawyer, said he is proud that his name was first on the petition. Tayeb could be considered a career dissident: He had his first trip to prison in 1963 and his second in 1969, when he began serving a five-year term for criticizing the government.

Still, he was one of the main backers of the reform petition that followed the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and he wrote a letter to a member of the majlis shortly after it was created in 1993, urging the council to act more aggressively.

“This majlis, it was and is still until now, the weakest in the world. They are not allowed to discuss anything until the king transfers that subject to them and asks them to discuss it,” Tayeb said. “I was asking that member, you have to play your role. I said I am quite sure the king will close his eyes, if you play it carefully. I added at the end, the king will be proud of you. He will not be proud of dead people.”

Tayeb sighed. “But I know the king,” he said. “He doesn’t like me. He has never liked me.”

Tayeb was arrested again that year and spent 77 days in prison. That didn’t stop him from taking the lead in the latest reform petition, though, and so far he has managed to stay out of jail. It may be, he said, that the government is beginning to realize the urgency of reform.

“I deeply believe that reform is the only way to save this country. Because if you leave things as they are, no basic rights, the Saudi family insisting to hold everything, no elections, no popular participation to run the country, it will become very dangerous. I’m afraid the fundamentalists will find a way to take over,” Tayeb said. “Really, we are in the last moment.”

Cooler heads warn that a headlong rush to democracy could produce precisely the opposite of the intended effect. Open elections most likely would produce a parliament of Islamists far more repressive than the Sauds, they warn, or a slate of tribal chiefs more committed to the interests of their fiefdoms than the welfare of the nation.

“A functioning democracy needs basics like a middle class, a working civil society, a tradition of prosperity, institutions. In the Arab world, we are still in the tribal and the religious era,” said a Saudi official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“In Saudi Arabia, we think the shortest way to democracy is probably the longest. Start slowly, introduce the concept of the state, of institutions, of civil society,” he said. “You cannot do this with armies.”

Abdul Mohsen al Atkas, a member of the majlis, said the council has begun asserting its authority and needs to be given time to expand its work.

“The majlis has frankly less power than it deserves and more power than many people realize,” he said. “What we need is a controlled, gradual enlargement of the public space. How to do that, reasonable people can disagree.”

What nearly everyone agrees on is that impetus for change should not come from Washington. “Even if you have a democratically elected government in Iraq, I think the impact elsewhere will not be swift and direct,” said Ihsan Ali Buhulaiga, an economist who sits on the majlis. “People could say, there you have an American-installed regime. That would be enough to kill it.”

“It has to be home-grown,” Buhulaiga said. “You know, one woman told me, ‘I want to drive a car. I don’t want to have to wear an abaya.’ I agree. I would like to change so many things! But I don’t want them changed because of you Americans.”