Change in Saudi Arabia

Tom Friedman traveled to Riyadh to interview crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (M.B.S.) and talk to other Saudis, and the result is a long article that practically bubbles over with enthusiasm. He calls recent events the "Saudi Arab Spring":

Unlike the other Arab Springs — all of which emerged bottom up and failed miserably, except in Tunisia — this one is led from the top down by the country’s 32-year-old crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and, if it succeeds, it will not only change the character of Saudi Arabia but the tone and tenor of Islam across the globe. Only a fool would predict its success — but only a fool would not root for it.

He emphasizes two things about the new regime. First, the anti-corruption drive, which led to the arrest of hundreds of wealthy Saudis:

The stakes are high for M.B.S. in this anticorruption drive. If the public feels that he is truly purging corruption that was sapping the system and doing so in a way that is transparent and makes clear to future Saudi and foreign investors that the rule of law will prevail, it will really instill a lot of new confidence in the system. But if the process ends up feeling arbitrary, bullying and opaque, aimed more at aggregating power for power’s sake and unchecked by any rule of law, it will end up instilling fear that will unnerve Saudi and foreign investors in ways the country can’t afford.

But one thing I know for sure: Not a single Saudi I spoke to here over three days expressed anything other than effusive support for this anticorruption drive. The Saudi silent majority is clearly fed up with the injustice of so many princes and billionaires ripping off their country. While foreigners, like me, were inquiring about the legal framework for this operation, the mood among Saudis I spoke with was: “Just turn them all upside down, shake the money out of their pockets and don’t stop shaking them until it’s all out!”

And second, the prince's move toward a moderate interpretation of Islam. The people around the prince do not consider the Wahhabi sect to be the real tradition of Islam, or even of Saudi Arabia, but a radical movement imposed on the people after 1979:

Indeed, M.B.S. instructed me: “Do not write that we are ‘reinterpreting’ Islam — we are ‘restoring’ Islam to its origins — and our biggest tools are the Prophet’s practices and [daily life in] Saudi Arabia before 1979.” At the time of the Prophet Muhammad, he argued, there were musical theaters, there was mixing between men and women, there was respect for Christians and Jews in Arabia. “The first commercial judge in Medina was a woman!” So if the Prophet embraced all of this, M.B.S. asked, “Do you mean the Prophet was not a Muslim?”

Then one of his ministers got out his cellphone and shared with me pictures and YouTube videos of Saudi Arabia in the 1950s — women without heads covered, wearing skirts and walking with men in public, as well as concerts and cinemas. It was still a traditional and modest place, but not one where fun had been outlawed, which is what happened after 1979.

I do not consider Tom Friedman to be a person of good judgment – for starters, he supported Bush's invasion of Iraq – but knows a lot more about the Middle East than I do, so maybe it is worth taking his enthusiasm seriously. Actually it may be that his support for overthrowing Saddam and his admiration for the new regime of M.B.S. stem from the same source, his sense that the Middle East is so messed up that only radical shake-ups have any chance of leading to real improvement.

I have three serious concerns about the events in Saudi Arabia. The first is that the prince and his father have taken a very hard line against Iran and regularly compare Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to Hitler, and I worry they could either stumble into war or provoke one if they got in trouble domestically. The second is that M.B.S. seems like a would-be tyrant to me, and the history of the Middle East is full of leaders who talked radical reform when they came to power but clung to it until they themselves became the corruption. And the third is what the Saudi proponents of puritanical Islam might do in response to these reforms; a repeat of the violent struggle in Egypt between the military regime and the Muslim Brotherhood seems well within the possible.

But it feels good to me to think that change for the better is at least possible.