In case you might not have heard, King Fahd died.
This, I have to admit, is not interesting news in itself. He's been sick for quite some time and has played no active role in leading his country, having handed that task over to his half-brother, Abdullah, formerly the Crown Prince, now the king. Now, Abdullah himself is no spring chicken at 81. King Fahd was only three years older than him and his successor, another half-brother, named Sultan is 77. These are the sons of Abdul-Aziz bin Saud, who founded the Kingdom. And these are only three of his sons: he sired forty-two children that we know about. God only knows how many illegitimate children he fathered.
I think it's safe to say that nothing interesting is going to happen in The Kingdom until Abdullah and Sultan pass on, provided Sultan moves to the "younger" generation---Abdul-Aziz's grandsons---for his successor. If Crown Prince Sultan doesn't move to the younger generation for his successor, well, things could get interesting of their own accord. Saudi Arabia needs younger leadership: Fahd was great for stability, but Saudi infrastructure is stagnating and needs a boost. If Crown Price Sultan sticks with his own generation for his successor, that could create even more problems within an already disenfranchised population. This would give ground to Islamofascists and democracy activists alike: who both want the House of Saud to crash to the ground.
I'm no expert on The Kingdom, but politics are politics: whether it's in the Kingdom of Great Britain circa 1400 or The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia c. 2005. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that the House of Saud holds great power, but that said hold is slipping. The only way to keep that power from slipping further is to find a balance between what's good for the House of Saud and what's good for the population of the country and is something they're willing to live with. There's quite a bit to be done within the Kindgom as it stands right now. Unemployment is sky high within the native population (there are plenty of guest workers, including westerners, but educated young men are increasingly frustrated at the lack of employment opportunity within the country); the economy, other than the oil industry, is stagnating; a great deal of the country's wealth is in the hands of a very small number of people, like this guy, (yeah, he's the guy whose money Rudy Giuliani refused for the 9/11 fund) who would prefer to bring in westerners to rebuild the infrastructure of the Kingdom rather than spending his tens of billions of dollars doing it himself. And this, of course, says nothing of that particularly frustrating brand of Islam called Wahhabism that the House of Saud promotes that causes its own bunch of problems.
Whomever gets the reins after Crown Prince Sultan is going to dictate the direction of Saudi Arabia. The country will either go up in revolutionary flames, or it will continue along the same path with what could be considered to be radical improvements. The ball is still rolling in the same direction it was under King Fahd. We're going to have to wait and see what happens to the ball when the younger generation takes power.
Posted by Kathy at August 2, 2005 12:13 PM | TrackBack