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| Arabia |
| House of cards |
| 2015-10-03 |
| [DAWN] IN Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... , the punishment of crucifixion results in the victim's decapitation, and the public display of his body. This is what the teenaged Ali Mohammed Al-Nimr has been condemned to. His crime? He was tossed in the clink Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! in 2012 at a pro-democracy demonstration, but under torture, young Ali was made to confess to being part of a plot to overthrow the government. Another young pro-democracy Saudi, Raif Badawi, is in prison for 10 years; his sentence includes 1,000 lashes, of which he has received 50. And this is the country that has been elected to chair a committee of the United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... Human Rights Council. No wonder so many states question the credibility of the UN's human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... body. Israel openly rejects its reports because it can say, with some justification, that the Saudis have no right to lecture others on human rights. As for international law, we have the appalling bombing campaign against Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... being carried out by the kingdom and its Gulf allies over months. Thousands of unarmed civilians have been killed, including 130 members of a wedding party a few days ago. Schools, hospitals and market places have been indiscriminately targeted by incompetent pilots. And the ongoing blockade of the impoverished nation has put millions at risk of starvation. A shortage of lifesaving medicines is also causing untold misery. Had a coalition of Western forces inflicted so much death and destruction in a Moslem country, believers from Indonesia to Tunisia would have been rioting and attacking the embassies of the 'infidels'. And yet when the custodians of the holy sites slaughter fellow Moslems, there's not a squeak from the ummah. This is entirely in keeping with our tradition of maintaining a discreet silence over Moslem-on-Moslem killings, while accusing the West of targeting the Islamic world, and of Islamophobia ...the irrational fear that Moslems will act the way they usually do... in its treatment of Moslem migrants. And yet it is the West that has taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the Syrian conflict. The Saudis have offered to build mosques (hallelujah!), but have not taken any refugees. Ditto the Gulf states. Against this backdrop, the callous attitude displayed by Saudi officials and princelings about the hundreds of deaths at the recent Haj is easy to understand. One blamed the pilgrims for 'indiscipline', while another made racist comments about African hajis. Considering the kingdom benefits to the extent of 7pc of its GDP from Haj and umrah, one would have expected a little sympathy, if not a better-managed pilgrimage. The truth is that when it comes to such needless deaths, the Saudis (and most other Moslems) tend to shrug their shoulders, look skywards and mumble: "It was the will of Allah." However, there's more than one way to skin a cat... incompetence and stupidity can hardly be laid at the Maker's door. After all, He gave us brains to think with, so surely Saudi Arabia should accept the blame for its mistakes that cause so many deaths over Haj. The toll this year has been worse than usual, but is hardly abnormal. But slowly, the chickens are coming home to roost. As oil prices refuse to rise above $50 per barrel, the House of Saud is feeling the pinch. Given the vast subsidies the ruling family hands out to keep the population quiet, as well as the mounting cost of the Yemen misadventure, oil needs to be around $107 per barrel for the kingdom to balance its books. With thousands of royal relatives, the squeeze is getting real. Already, the Saudis are drawing down on some of their vast overseas holdings. How much longer they can live with low oil prices remains to be seen. Meanwhile, ...back at the alley, Slats Chumbaloni was staring into a hole that was just .45 inch in diameter and was less than three feet from his face ... dissent is simmering in the ranks. Quoting a letter circulated by an unnamed prince, the Guardian reports that there is talk of regime change, with important members of the royal family wanting King Salman ...either the largest species of Pacific salmon or the current Sheikh of the Burnin' Sands, Cutodian of the Two Holy Mosquesand Lord of Most of the Arabians.... and his son Mohammed bin Salman to be ousted. But while such rumbling indicates dissatisfaction with the aggressive policies being followed by the present king and his son, these royals only call for the replacement of one Saud by another. There is no hint here of any democratic transformation of a backward, autocratic society. More and more, though, the world sees through the pious mask worn by the ruling aristocracy. Its recourse to an extreme ideology to appease its clergy, and its export of a violent version of Islam, has destabilised much of the Moslem world. The sectarian violence we see in Iraq and Syria is largely due to the takfiri ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed... philosophy used by turbans to justify their mindless cruelty. Thus far, Saudi Arabia has relied on its vast oil reserves to buy Western support. However, there's more than one way to skin a cat... as the nuclear deal with Iran showed us, the Saudis are no longer indispensable. Cheap oil and gas have eroded Saudi clout. Surely the day of reckoning is coming. For me, it couldn't be soon enough. |
| Posted by:Fred |