random story from internet, about king abdullah of saudi arabia who died recently This is going to be an interesting few years for Saudi Arabia. King Abdullah was considered a reformer - his brother and predecessor, King Fahd, was a conservative who drove Saudi Arabia far deeper into Wahhabi Islam, in order to appease the clerics. King Abdullah, on the other hand, pushed quietly for a lot of reform for females and tried to reverse a lot of the change the hard-line conservatives in the country did during his predecessors reign. There are a LOT of people who dont quite understand the dynamic between the Saudi people and the Saudi government - an absolute monarchy - and why blaming splitting/spurning Saudi Arabia could hurt us a lot more than trying to keep reforms in Saudi Arabia going. The following is a bit of a history lesson, but very relevant to the struggle going on there. First, we must go back to December 1979, a pivotal month year in modern Islam. At the end of 1979, Islamists seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca, during the hajj, when millions around the world came for pilgrimage. Hundreds of pilgrims were taken hostage - hundreds died and the ringleaders were beheaded. That same December, Ayatollah Khomeini officially became the 1st Supreme Leader of Iran. In doing so, his revolution had successfully created a Shia theocracy in Iran, a rival of the Arabs and in particular Saudi Arabia. Also in December of 1979, the Soviet Union, an atheist state, invaded Afghanistan, an Islamic state. Why do all of these tie in together? For one, the Saudi royal family sees themselves as the caretakers of Mecca and Medina - a sort of royal protector of Islam like an Islamic Vatican State. In Iran in 1979, however, there was a new rival in both culture (Arabs vs Persian), religious sect (Sunni vs Shia), and now in government (monarchy vs theocracy). Note that many hardline Islamists do not believe that monarchies can exist in strict Islam - as thus, the Saudi royal family was nothing more than a western, imperialist creation that was ultimately un-Islamic. Furthermore, the agreement theyve had with the US for protection (established by FDR during WW2 actually, after he met with the founder of Saudi Arabia, in exchange for logistics bases for the war) was seen as a mortal sin - dealing with an infidel country. The Saudi family feared that Iran would become a model for the commoners to rise up. The Saudi populace is very conservative and while the Saudi royal family has been famous for its debauchery and westernized living (especially abroad), for the most part the population had been quiet. The Seizure of the Grand Mosque, however, sent a shockwave through the Saudi family - they were not immune. They feared they too would be toppled by an Iranian-style revolution by those who deemed them not Islamic-enough. As thus, the Saudis embarked on appeasing the hardliner clerics with more strict laws, a tougher moral police, etc. Prior to all this, Saudi Arabia didnt have such strict laws as requiring women to be covered in public, foreign females could drive legally, etc. In exchange, the clerics continued the agreement to legitimize the Saudi family. Furthermore, the Soviet invasion was an unexpected boon - the Saudi government encouraged young Islamist-leaning males to go fight in holy jihad against the atheist commies and defend Islam in Afghanistan. Also, many Saudi citizens donated money to establish mosques in Pakistan and Afghanistan to preach their ideology and send more fighters against the Soviets. All of this was welcomed by the Saudi government -this relieved a lot of the pressure internally as those fighters and money went away from funding fundamentalists internally. Where did it all go wrong? Well, fast forward to 1991 and the Gulf War. When Saddam invaded Kuwait, Osama bin Laden - through his family connections - petitioned the Saudi king to let him and his hardened fighters in Afghanistan come and fight the Iraqis. The Saudi King refused - instead, he requested the US and an international coalition come help. The Saudis volunteered their soil for US bases. To Osama, this was the last straw - the Saudi King let an infidel army establish bases on the holiest soil in Islam. In turn, Osama declared war not just on the US and the west - but also on the Saudi government and its royal family. This is why all the talk about removing our support from Saudi Arabia, etc. simply isnt going to happen. Yes, most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi citizens - but the Saudi government itself has been under attack by people of those same ideologies. The Saudi government has had to play a balancing act between its western-leaning royal family and the hardliner citizens that make up its population. This is also why we need the Saudi government to come aboard in cracking down harder on its citizens - after a string of attacks in the 90s and 2000s, they finally came to a realization that they had to do something and its made a lot of headway in the fight against Islamists. And thats why Saudi Arabia has supported toppling Gaddafi (because hes a clown) and Assad (because hes an ally of Shia Iran), whether there are Islamist rebels or not -- its radical citizens have a place to go wage jihad away from home -- but also has supported toppling Morsi (because hes a hardline Islamist) and re-establishing the secular rule of the Egyptian military.
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 10:58:44 +0000
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