About twenty years ago, a Palestinian writer, Said Abu Reish, penned a book titled The Rise, Corruption and Coming Fall of the House of Saud. The book came out in 1994, its writer died in 2012, and the House of Saud is still standing. This week, the liberal weekly newspaper, The Observer, published an editorial under the title: House of Saud: Built on Sand. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is 84 years old this year so the ‘built on sand' analogy does not hold. My attention was caught by a subtitle in The Observer's editorial that read: Until now, Saudi Arabia has been an oasis of calm in a region of turmoil, but without significant reforms that may not last. What kind of reform are we talking about? Saudi Arabia is not an ideal country. There has never been an ideal country in the entire world. Every existing state has room for reform. I however noticed that most people who talk about Saudi Arabia do not actually know it, and some of them have never even visited it or spoken to the officials or citizens there. I know the Saudis very well: from the King, to the Crown Prince, to the cab driver at the airport. I also have many Saudi friends since I lived there for a year and I've visited the country every year since the 1970s. I do wish to see reforms in Saudi Arabia such as equal rights for men and women. I want to see ladies driving a car and a motorbike. I want the Saudi female lawyers to be able to open a law firm under their own name without the need for a male partner. I prefer by far that the salesperson in a female garments store be a female. And since I oppose the death penalty except for the cases of child rape and killing, I certainly wish people would not be executed in Saudi Arabia for armed robbery crimes. I think that some of what I'm wishing for will come true within a few months or years. However, some other wishes may not come true during my lifetime because I cannot possibly design the Saudi Arabia that I dream of. The country must meet the desires of its own people. King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz is liberal and reformative as per Saudi standards. It is quite unfortunate for Saudi Arabia that this king only accessed power in his eighties and is now facing health troubles. Nevertheless, King Abdullah has achieved many of the people's aspirations and we hope he will keep on doing that. Crown Prince Salman Bin Abdul Aziz is also a reformist. However, I can say in all objectivity that the Saudi government has always been more liberal than the Saudi people. Therefore, it had to be cautious in selecting some reforms and ruling out some others in order to please the majority of the people, rather than to meet the aspirations of this or that minister. The reason why Saudi Arabia is "an oasis of calm" in a region of turmoil is because the government has succeeded in creating a balance between its conservative people and the need for reforms that match the international trend. If the government was to impose some of the reforms that the foreigners are calling for, this will cause problems due to the nature of the Saudi society. Perhaps education and the fact that hundreds of thousands of Saudi students have obtained college degrees in the past decades will constitute the key for the aspired for progress and reform. Any other kind of talk will be akin to wishful thinking, like wishing that the Arab countries will be turning into the Scandinavia of the MENA region. I can say that education is a good thing and I do admit the need for internal reforms. Saudi Arabia has succeeded in confronting the local and foreign forms of terrorism, to the extent that American security services decided to copy some of Saudi Arabia's methods in dealing with potential suspects. Since I've been familiar with Saudi Arabia for forty years, I can say that it has made enormous progress during those last forty years. However, the country isn't perfect yet and needs some miracles such as the eradication of poverty. Meanwhile, the Saudi house is firm. The ignorance, the differences, the wishes, and the rumors will not affect this firmness. They will rather fire back on the people who started them and will reflect their bad intentions. I hereby challenge anyone who says otherwise and I accept to be held accountable for my statements in the future. [email protected]
