Rich and Poor Alike, Saudis Demanding Political Voice

Under pressure from economic problems, internal violence and the U.S. success in toppling Saddam Hussein in neighboring Iraq, Saudi Arabia is embarking upon a series of reforms that many Saudis hope will lead to the most sweeping political change since the kingdom’s founding.

In recent months, Crown Prince Abdullah, the country’s de facto leader, has taken steps to promote more political participation in the oil-rich desert nation, where the monarchy has ruled with absolute power since 1932.

In June, he held a national debate where, for the first time, religious and economic leaders joined to ask for more freedom for the press, religious groups and women. He has quietly loosened restraints on political critics. And he has approved a crackdown on fundamentalist preachers opposed to change.

At the same time, ordinary Saudis are airing their discontent in unheard-of ways. People who once risked jail for urging an end to political corruption are now publicly discussing their views on television and the Internet, as well as in newspapers.

As soon as next year, royal family members and advisors say, the crown prince may announce nationwide municipal elections -- the first such vote in Saudi history. Partial elections at the provincial and national level would come later.

While some longtime observers are skeptical, Saudi leaders insist that change is coming to the kingdom.

“The decision is there. The political will is there, and, to a surprising extent, consensus is there,” Prince Saud al Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, said in an interview at his seaside palace in this country’s sweltering summer capital.

“Sometimes people come here with the impression that the society is boiling to the point of explosion and the government is trying to restrain the people from reform,” said the prince, a close political ally of Abdullah, who has run the country since King Fahd suffered a stroke in the mid-1990s. “But I see the opposite. I see the government boiling and the restraint is coming perhaps from the people.”

Such restraint is hard to find. Everywhere in Saudi Arabia these days, people are talking about one thing: al islah -- reform. From the luxurious palaces of the ruling family to private dinner rooms, both the powerful and the poor are demanding more participation in Saudi Arabia’s long-repressive political system.

Locals are calling it the Saudi openness or the Saudi spring. It is a sort of glasnost -- the period of political opening that marked the end of decades of censorship and repression in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. There is a feeling that something historic is taking place: a Saudi Arabia where people can speak openly, if cautiously, about internal problems.

“There has always been a small group of people trying and trying and trying,” said Mohammed Said Tayeb, the grandfather of the country’s reform movement. He has been arrested five times for speaking out, beginning in 1962 and most recently in 1993. “But now, reform is a popular demand. Everyone is talking about it -- men, women, friends, neighbors.”

Just as in the early days of glasnost, there is also doubt here about whether the reforms will really happen and where they will lead.

The Saudis have promised change before, most recently after the Persian Gulf War in 1991. But those measures did little to include ordinary people in politics, or to relieve growing anger at a monarchy that in many quarters is viewed as distant and corrupt.

Longtime observers of the kingdom fear that the Saudis may be making a show of reform while planning to do little. Critics note that the kingdom has launched a public-relations campaign in the United States to improve the country’s image, hurt by the fact that 15 of the 19 Sept. 11 attackers were Saudis.

Top Saudi officials are engaged in damage control because of the release of a congressional report in late July that raised new suspicions of possible Saudi ties to the two San Diego-based suicide hijackers. Prince Saud last week flew to Washington to ask that still-classified parts of the congressional report be made public, a move that President Bush rejected.

The Saudi royal family is led by a small clique of aging, all-powerful rulers who in the past have shown little interest in change. And Saudi society itself is extraordinarily conservative. Religious and tribal leaders are committed to maintaining a rigid status quo that quashes dissent, marginalizes women’s participation in public life and encourages adherence to the country’s religious code, based on the strict Wahhabi form of Islam.

Despite the recent announcement that the Ministry of Religion had fired more than 300 conservative clerics accused of preaching extremism and suspended an additional 1,000 for “re-education,” some still doubt that the Saudis will really try to challenge the religious establishment. Others fear that an attempt to open Saudi politics may wind up giving religious extremists in the kingdom more access to power, because they tend to be among the best organized Saudi group.

The extremism can prove deadly. Saudis belonging to an alleged Al Qaeda cell have been accused of carrying out the May bombings in Riyadh that left 34 dead, including nine attackers.

One Western diplomat with long experience in Saudi Arabia said he was skeptical about the chances for major reforms. The ruling family “only makes rapid changes when their feet are to the fire.... I’m not convinced at their capacity to push through change.”

The doubt also runs through the Saudi monarchy’s diffuse and fragmented political opposition. Several opposition groups operate from headquarters in London and Washington, D.C., because they fear repression.

They point to recent setbacks, such as the firing of prominent newspaper journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was dismissed over a political cartoon that suggested a link between fundamentalist preachers and the Riyadh suicide bombings. However, Khashoggi has since gone to work for the government, and is now an advisor to Prince Turki al Faisal, the Saudi ambassador in London.

Those backing reforms who work in Saudi Arabia are careful to say that they continue to support the monarchy. But they are now criticizing the government openly and directly, a sensitive act of defiance that in the past has resulted in prison terms.

For instance, many reformers -- some of whom call themselves the “Tuesday Club” after the Tuesday gatherings at one prominent member’s home here in Jidda -- insist that the monarchy tackle “corruption” -- a code word for members of the royal family who reap the benefits of government contracts and land deals.

While doubtful that such changes are forthcoming, the reformers are taking advantage of what they see as new tolerance for dissent.

“The government is hesitating. It doesn’t know how much freedom to give or to whom to give it. But it allows us the opportunity to communicate our problems,” said Abdulaziz Gasim, who has been jailed twice for his outspoken demands for a corruption crackdown.

There are undeniable signs of an open if somewhat muted political debate -- itself a first in the kingdom.

In June, some 30 religious leaders, economists and scholars met at the King Abdul Aziz library adjoining Abdullah’s palace in Riyadh to discuss the issue of reforming the government. The meeting was called by Abdullah in response to a petition delivered earlier this year by leading dissidents.

The men -- no women were allowed -- spent three days privately discussing political, social and economic problems in the kingdom. Then, they delivered a report to Abdullah that was made public in which they asked for better performance from the government, more freedom for women and more public participation in the political process.

The national dialogue, as it was called, stirred an ongoing wave of debate. Newspaper columnists have written pieces raising once-taboo topics, like allowing women to drive. Two different groups of women are now circulating petitions demanding more freedom.

“Saudi Arabia has no choice. Reform is not a choice anymore. It’s a must. It’s not something they can just think about. It’s a must for the House of Saud to survive,” Hatoon Ajwad Fassi, a professor of ancient history and a leader in the budding women’s movement here, said in reference to the royal family.

As petroleum prices fell in the late-1990s, Saudi’s oil-based economy could not keep up with rapid population growth. Unemployment and poverty have increased. Per-capita income has dropped in constant dollars from $28,000 in the early 1980s to a little more than $7,000 today.

When Saudi Arabia actively participated in the 1991 Gulf War, the stationing of U.S. troops on Saudi soil to launch attacks against another Muslim country led to criticism of the Saudi monarchy both by liberal groups and more conservative religious figures.

Those early gestures met with sharp repression. Several of those who signed a petition calling for more Western-style political participation were jailed. Some lost their jobs.

While cracking down, however, the Saudi leadership also promised political reform. It created the majlis al shura, a council appointed to advise the king and made up of leading academics, religious leaders and businessmen. In practical terms, the council had no real political power and rarely opposed Abdullah or his brothers in the royal family, who run many of the government ministries.

In the late 1990s, financial pressures forced the Saudis to move toward a more liberalized economy and to begin a campaign to join the World Trade Organization.

After a long hiatus, Saudi officials have now begun to negotiate in earnest with the United States and Europe in the hope of joining the WTO within a year.

The only question in the royal circle about reform is how fast it should move, according to family members and close associates.

“The signs of the illness have been established and announced. The question right now is, what is the speed and design of the cure? Will it be quick or slow?” said billionaire businessman Prince Walid bin Talal, a member of the royal family.

The most recent push for change gained steam only recently as a result of such events as the May bombings in Riyadh. The bombings served as an alarm for some Saudis, indicating that the discontent had turned violent.

The most important catalyst, however, seems to have been the war in Iraq.

Before the war, Saudis were nervous about spillover attacks from a genocidal tyrant in a neighboring country. With Hussein deposed, however, the uncertainty of an ongoing conflict suddenly vanished. It was replaced by the awareness that the United States was actively promoting a functioning democracy right next door.

“It’s a strange thing to wake up in the morning and Saddam Hussein is no longer your neighbor,” said Ihsan Ali Bu Hulaiga, an economist and member of the shura who participated in the national dialogue. “It’s also a strange feeling to know that the U.S. is now your neighbor.”