Skip to main content

Spending billions to keep the people quiet and at bay?

"In an interview with SPIEGEL several years ago, Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, a multi-billionaire, described the fact that many young Saudi Arabians had no work as a "time bomb." They are not unemployed because there are no jobs, but because most work is performed by foreign migrant workers.

Last Thursday Al-Waleed, who is a nephew of the king, issued an even stronger warning. In an opinion piece in the New York Times, he wrote: "Unless many Arab governments adopt radically different policies, their countries will very likely experience more political and civil unrest." The facts, Walid added, are undeniable, with youth unemployment at 20 percent or more in most Arab countries, the standard of living of the middle classes declining under rising inflation, and a widening "gap between the haves and the have-nots."

A few days earlier, Prince Al-Waleed's father, Talal bin Abdul-Aziz, put things even more directly. The population, said Talal bin Abdul-Aziz, a half-brother of King Abdullah who is known for his straight talking, want more than handouts. Instead, they are demanding political reforms and a share of power. If the king does not fulfill this hope, he added, "it will be very dangerous for our country."

The kingdom is facing more than just a billion-dollar question. It is being confronted with the question of whether it is possible to buy stability."

From a piece "Can Oil Money Buy Political Stability?"on Spiegel OnLine International.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Video: Israel demolishing a Bedouin village

From Mondoweiss - Israel's supposed "most moral army in the world", the IDF, engaged in immoral, and according to international law, illegal action.... "Israeli forces have demolished every home in the Bedouin village of Khirbet Taha in the northern West Bank district of Nablus during three separate demolitions since the start of the year. Unlike most Bedouin villages, the residents in Khirbet Taha own their own land. However that land falls in Area C, territory in the occupied West Bank under full Israeli control. The village’s only school was also destroyed, leaving children to study in a dilapidated 100-year-old mosque — the only structure left standing in the village. According the United Nations, Israel has demolished half as many Palestinian buildings in the first few months of 2016, as they had in all of 2015. In February alone, the UN found that more Palestinians homes were destroyed than any other month since 2009, when the organization began its docum...
Post a Comment
Read more

Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives?  In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Palestinian children in irons. UK to investigate

Not for the first time does MPS wonder what sort of country it is when Israel so flagrently allows what can only be described as barbaric and inhuman behaviour to be undertaken by, amongst others, its IDF. No one has seemingly challenged Israel's actions. However, perhaps it's gone a bridge too far - as The Independent reports. The Foreign Office revealed last night that it would be challenging the Israelis over their treatment of Palestinian children after a report by a delegation of senior British lawyers revealed unconscionable practices, such as hooding and the use of leg irons. In the first investigation of its kind, a team of nine senior legal figures examined how Palestinians as young as 12 were treated when arrested. Their shocking report Children in Military Custody details claims that youngsters are dragged from their beds in the middle of the night, have their wrists bound behind their backs, and are blindfolded and made to kneel or lie face down in military vehi...
Post a Comment
Read more