1 00:00:00,180 --> 00:00:04,680 Good evening and welcome. This is the fourth webinar for the Middle East, heterodoxy. 2 00:00:04,680 --> 00:00:13,260 My name is Eugene Rogan and as director of the centre, it's my great pleasure to welcome you to tonight's seminar presentation on Saudi Arabia. 3 00:00:13,260 --> 00:00:17,640 Our speakers will be Professor Mahdavi Rashid from the London School of Economics, 4 00:00:17,640 --> 00:00:22,920 author of the forthcoming book for Some Key Reform and Repression in Saudi Arabia, 5 00:00:22,920 --> 00:00:29,160 which will be due out in December of twenty twenty and then hotbed of The New York Times, 6 00:00:29,160 --> 00:00:34,080 whose most recent book, MVS, The Rise to Power of Mohammed bin Sandmen, 7 00:00:34,080 --> 00:00:44,250 has been on the lips of everybody talking about what is going on with Saudi Arabia under its influential and impetuous Crown Prince Ben Madary. 8 00:00:44,250 --> 00:00:50,310 What a pleasure to welcome you both to the Middle East Centre's webinar. How would you like to begin? 9 00:00:50,310 --> 00:00:54,410 Did we ever agree on the order of proceed? Or are we starting with you without it? 10 00:00:54,410 --> 00:00:59,250 Yes, I think, sir, I should know that before we started. Please, the floor is yours. 11 00:00:59,250 --> 00:01:07,180 Welcome. Thank you, Eugene. And thanks for this opportunity at difficult times. 12 00:01:07,180 --> 00:01:19,020 But at least we can connect through Xu. I'll be talking about my forthcoming book, The Sun King, but with a special reference to populist nationalism. 13 00:01:19,020 --> 00:01:28,920 Before I start, I would like to just set the scene by saying that the rise of IBS wasn't really a twenty seventeen when he was appointed crown prince. 14 00:01:28,920 --> 00:01:39,750 It goes back a couple of years before that. And I see the rise of Mohammed bin Salamat as a result of the Arab uprising in 2011, 15 00:01:39,750 --> 00:01:46,170 when Saudi Arabia, specifically the ruling family, felt the pressure off. 16 00:01:46,170 --> 00:01:54,190 The rising tide of protests in the region. And it was during the time of King Abdullah when, 17 00:01:54,190 --> 00:02:03,220 as happened with the Saudi leadership looked a little bit lagging behind in terms of its reforms, in terms of its outlook. 18 00:02:03,220 --> 00:02:11,260 So Mohammed bin Selamat, I think, was a product of that time when the regime was in fear. 19 00:02:11,260 --> 00:02:19,660 And also the Western allies of Saudi Arabia feared the outcome of the Arab uprisings reaching Saudi Arabia. 20 00:02:19,660 --> 00:02:33,370 So the search began to look for a young, energetic and social reformer to become the face of Saudi Arabia and all that was meant to come 21 00:02:33,370 --> 00:02:41,980 as a substitute or to mitigate against any kind of political change reaching the kingdom. 22 00:02:41,980 --> 00:02:54,100 And based on that, I think the idea often Hamad bin Salamat springs from a kind of discourse that still adheres to a kind 23 00:02:54,100 --> 00:03:03,910 of oriental despotism in the sense that in order to reform the so-called conservative Saudi society, 24 00:03:03,910 --> 00:03:10,570 the so-called lazy Saudis, the so-called religious fanatics in Saudi Arabia, 25 00:03:10,570 --> 00:03:21,400 there is an inevitability of repression and coercion for a new Saudi Arabia to emerge, meaning that a new modern Saudi Arabia. 26 00:03:21,400 --> 00:03:26,170 But without the fundamental pillar of modernity, 27 00:03:26,170 --> 00:03:31,300 and that is political change and moving the political system from an absolute 28 00:03:31,300 --> 00:03:38,170 monarchy to something more in line with what was demanded across the region, 29 00:03:38,170 --> 00:03:47,440 across the Arab world. So Mohammed bin Salman was the choice and a man did a series of reforms. 30 00:03:47,440 --> 00:03:55,480 And we all know what these reforms are. They touch the fabric of the religious establishment, the religious sphere. 31 00:03:55,480 --> 00:04:09,070 They also move to the social fabric of Saudi society in the sense that he started a series of reforms when women could begin to drive. 32 00:04:09,070 --> 00:04:21,310 And there is an increased visibility of women. There is a fun culture introduced in the form of entertainment and also economic reforms, 33 00:04:21,310 --> 00:04:27,370 which were meant to move the state centred, oil based capitalist economy of Saudi Arabia. 34 00:04:27,370 --> 00:04:39,610 That is tied to a global world of oil consumers to act as sort of a new liberal economy where the state starts selling some of its assets. 35 00:04:39,610 --> 00:04:45,910 And this was all summed up in Vision 2030 at the National Transformation Programme. 36 00:04:45,910 --> 00:04:50,500 However, part of that so-called reform was repression. 37 00:04:50,500 --> 00:04:55,660 And hence my book subtitle, Reform and Repression in Saudi Arabia. 38 00:04:55,660 --> 00:05:01,030 I do challenge the idea that in order to reform Saudi Arabia politically, socially, 39 00:05:01,030 --> 00:05:06,430 economically and religiously, you need a fair amount of repression and coercion. 40 00:05:06,430 --> 00:05:10,990 And I showed that in addition to repression, which is actually documented. 41 00:05:10,990 --> 00:05:20,750 And I don't want to waste the short time I have discussing the abuse of human rights, the detention campaigns against members of his own family, 42 00:05:20,750 --> 00:05:30,340 let alone the feminists and the activists, the Islamists, the professionals, intellectuals, etc. Even economists got about arrested. 43 00:05:30,340 --> 00:05:35,440 That is well documented. And anybody who was interested in that, they could consult. 44 00:05:35,440 --> 00:05:40,840 Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UN Council on Human Rights. 45 00:05:40,840 --> 00:05:48,220 What I want to focus on is on the subtle ways of making that kind of package social, 46 00:05:48,220 --> 00:05:53,620 economic, religious reform without political change work in Saudi Arabia. 47 00:05:53,620 --> 00:06:05,590 And Mohammed bin Satima launched a new kind of nationalism that I would call a hyper nationalist narrative summed up by hashtags on Twitter, 48 00:06:05,590 --> 00:06:13,360 such as Saudi Arabia's great or make Saudi Arabia great or even Saudi Arabia for Saudis. 49 00:06:13,360 --> 00:06:19,210 These are the signs of this nationalism. But how did we get to here? 50 00:06:19,210 --> 00:06:22,420 As I have a side of me that likes history, 51 00:06:22,420 --> 00:06:32,590 I would say that and the idea of Saudi nationalism or nationalism in Saudi Arabia was actually deeply in flux. 52 00:06:32,590 --> 00:06:37,210 It wasn't taken for granted. Nationalism itself was contested. 53 00:06:37,210 --> 00:06:43,360 But if we look at Saudi Arabia in a diachronic way from the beginning of the 20th century, 54 00:06:43,360 --> 00:06:48,970 I identify three phases that bring in some kind of nationalism. 55 00:06:48,970 --> 00:06:54,980 The first. One is religious nationalism that was associated with the Wahabi tradition, 56 00:06:54,980 --> 00:07:03,400 the Wahabi tradition was made to Homogenise Society in the name of bringing it to the right Islamic path. 57 00:07:03,400 --> 00:07:08,320 And as such, it became the religious nationalism of Saudi Arabia. 58 00:07:08,320 --> 00:07:17,500 And we could discuss that in the Q and eight. But this period and it was actually at the beginning of the 20th century, up to the 1960s, 59 00:07:17,500 --> 00:07:26,500 where all regions of Saudi Arabia had to be submerged under the banner of becoming true Muslims. 60 00:07:26,500 --> 00:07:38,740 And as in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Algeria, nationalism and its sort of secular in inverted commas version helped to homogenise the nation. 61 00:07:38,740 --> 00:07:50,110 I think religious nationalism and Wahhabism in particular played that role, but it was actually based on a religious dogma, on religious text, 62 00:07:50,110 --> 00:07:51,970 on ways of behaving, 63 00:07:51,970 --> 00:08:04,390 ways of conducting your legal affairs that have to be homogenised in Saudi Arabia in order to achieve the unity of Saudis as true Muslims. 64 00:08:04,390 --> 00:08:11,130 So that was the first phase that lasted until the 1950s and late 1960s. 65 00:08:11,130 --> 00:08:19,780 But then something else happened and Saudi Arabia thought that the Islamic utopia was created inside Saudi Arabia. 66 00:08:19,780 --> 00:08:28,720 And there is no other ways to continue to Islamise society to unify it under the banner of Wahhabism. 67 00:08:28,720 --> 00:08:40,350 So from the 1960s, because of a particular historical international context, Saudi Arabia shifted to an Islamic identity. 68 00:08:40,350 --> 00:08:46,990 So by Islamism became the pillar of what it means to be a Saudi. 69 00:08:46,990 --> 00:08:50,470 Saudis began to propagate the mission. 70 00:08:50,470 --> 00:09:01,150 So once the mission of the Islamic utopia was accomplished inside the country, there was a deliberate attempt to spread it around the world. 71 00:09:01,150 --> 00:09:05,920 And this was encouraged by an international context specifically of the Cold War, 72 00:09:05,920 --> 00:09:16,870 when Saudi Wahhabism became an arm of foreign policy, used and encouraged by countries like the United States, Britain, 73 00:09:16,870 --> 00:09:29,320 who saw in the propagation of the Islamic utopia a counter trend against the challenges of the 60s and 70s with Arab nationalism, 74 00:09:29,320 --> 00:09:35,470 socialism, all the kind of fortresses of the Nazr and others. 75 00:09:35,470 --> 00:09:47,770 So Saudi Arabia began to adopt this banned Islamic identity and created institutions whereby the ethos of this spanned Islamism is embedded, 76 00:09:47,770 --> 00:09:54,400 such as Islamic universities, Islamic banking, Islamic youth organisation. 77 00:09:54,400 --> 00:10:00,000 And this was done actually under King Faisal. However, 78 00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:07,410 we come to 9/11 and it was the shock that the Saudi sponsored Western approved 79 00:10:07,410 --> 00:10:15,300 and encouraged type of pan Islamism led to kind of undesirable consequences, 80 00:10:15,300 --> 00:10:25,200 such as 9/11, the emergence of a global jihad movement that became a menace not only to the West, 81 00:10:25,200 --> 00:10:33,060 specifically to the US and 9/11 and in other parts of the world, but also inside Saudi Arabia. 82 00:10:33,060 --> 00:10:39,720 Let's remember that Saudi Arabia went through a very, very bad period during the terrorism crisis, 83 00:10:39,720 --> 00:10:50,250 which started in 1979, but continued and became very, very acute between 2003 and 2008 when Saudi cities were targeted. 84 00:10:50,250 --> 00:11:01,290 So that kind of pan Islamic identity was gradually being abandoned in order to create a Saudi modern Saudi nation. 85 00:11:01,290 --> 00:11:11,790 And today, Mohammed bin Salman takes it further by promoting Saudi Arabia and promoting Saudi nationalism. 86 00:11:11,790 --> 00:11:22,980 And the ingredients of this nationalism are different from that of those that were used in the 20s, 30s and then during the Pan Islamic period. 87 00:11:22,980 --> 00:11:29,580 So Mecca and Medina are no longer the pillars of this new Saudi nationalism. 88 00:11:29,580 --> 00:11:35,970 And that is an attempt to find other sort of secular sites for this nationalism, 89 00:11:35,970 --> 00:11:46,470 such as an earlier such as the archaeological digging in terms of tourism and pushing Saudis to appreciate their free Islamic heritage. 90 00:11:46,470 --> 00:11:58,500 They were happy pre the pan Islamic kind of orientation and maintained it and more focussed on other ingredients. 91 00:11:58,500 --> 00:12:04,410 And of course, like any national narrative, the Saudi one is in a state of flux all the time. 92 00:12:04,410 --> 00:12:11,850 And it is based on forgetting and remembering like all nationalisms around the world. 93 00:12:11,850 --> 00:12:21,750 But we are now in this particular period. However, this populist nationalism that is encouraged today by the crown prince. 94 00:12:21,750 --> 00:12:26,610 And it has its own supporters. It's like any other nationalism. 95 00:12:26,610 --> 00:12:30,480 It tends to unite people, but also to divide them. 96 00:12:30,480 --> 00:12:37,300 It tends to include and exclude. And what is really interesting is this populist nationalism. 97 00:12:37,300 --> 00:12:46,290 It goes against the Vision 2030 and and the sort of opening up of Saudi Arabia to global investment 98 00:12:46,290 --> 00:12:54,180 and capital and bringing a new entertainment that is really focussed on Western pop culture. 99 00:12:54,180 --> 00:12:59,160 So why he wants to open up the economy at the same time? 100 00:12:59,160 --> 00:13:04,140 There is this discourse that is directed against immigrants and by immigrants. 101 00:13:04,140 --> 00:13:11,970 It's not only that the post oil or post Second World War to migration to Saudi Arabia. 102 00:13:11,970 --> 00:13:17,790 It is targeting also the people who had been living in Saudi Arabia for decades, 103 00:13:17,790 --> 00:13:26,730 such as people from the caucuses, people from China, people from Thailand who are Muslims living in Mecca. 104 00:13:26,730 --> 00:13:34,170 So this kind of nationalism had its dark side, like we all know, and we have seen that. 105 00:13:34,170 --> 00:13:39,840 And it suffers from certain contradictions, like all nationalist narrative. 106 00:13:39,840 --> 00:13:48,240 First, let me just go through a list of certain kind of evidence to document what I'm talking about. 107 00:13:48,240 --> 00:13:59,160 So there is the empowerment of women and women become the vanguards of this new Saudi national narrative because they are icons of modernity. 108 00:13:59,160 --> 00:14:06,360 At the same time, we see that women are promoted as ambassadors, as members of the Shura Council. 109 00:14:06,360 --> 00:14:10,260 That is a deliberate attempt to feminised the nation. 110 00:14:10,260 --> 00:14:19,950 But at the same time, the same nationalism doesn't allow Saudi women to give her nationality to her children if she is married to a foreigner. 111 00:14:19,950 --> 00:14:28,980 And there are several cases in the books where women are denied custody of their children whose fathers are not Saudis. 112 00:14:28,980 --> 00:14:35,100 At the same time, there is this sectarian discourse that is used in the war in Yemen. 113 00:14:35,100 --> 00:14:42,990 So they were in Yemen at the beginning to 2015, was projected as a jihad against those infidels 80s. 114 00:14:42,990 --> 00:14:50,130 There is also an invocation of genealogies and tribal belonging, especially in the dispute with Qatar, 115 00:14:50,130 --> 00:14:58,430 while at the same time we're supposed to be all Saudis and there is actually a sinister side and. 116 00:14:58,430 --> 00:15:02,320 Stop as Eugene is making signs that I should. 117 00:15:02,320 --> 00:15:12,340 That is the sinister side of this nationalism that is leading to a discourse about treason and criminality. 118 00:15:12,340 --> 00:15:16,760 And it is that populist nationalism that led to the murder of Jamal. 119 00:15:16,760 --> 00:15:23,880 How should he? It is the nationalism that promotes and encourages citizens to become policemen. 120 00:15:23,880 --> 00:15:28,300 So the citizen policeman is an outcome of this nationalism. 121 00:15:28,300 --> 00:15:35,620 So to just conclude, I want to say that repression might be obvious and old regimes use, 122 00:15:35,620 --> 00:15:42,130 such as the Saudi one, would use it to promote a new era, a new vision. 123 00:15:42,130 --> 00:15:47,830 And it is very obvious you could documented. But what I'm talking about is populist nationalism. 124 00:15:47,830 --> 00:15:53,080 It's a subtle way of achieving a similar kind of outcome. 125 00:15:53,080 --> 00:15:58,020 Thank you for listening. If I exceeded my limit. 126 00:15:58,020 --> 00:16:07,090 On the contrary. And I thank you for a very concise and brilliant analysis of where Saudi Arabia has come to arrive at this moment. 127 00:16:07,090 --> 00:16:11,500 I particularly like the way in which you period dies Saudi history, 128 00:16:11,500 --> 00:16:19,240 because it's so breaks with the way in which the crown prince has spawned a kind of liberal Saudi Arabia before 1979. 129 00:16:19,240 --> 00:16:26,110 A post 1979 clampdown, Saudi Arabia of various others, religion and other new age he wants to usher in. 130 00:16:26,110 --> 00:16:32,230 So it's very good to have a counterpoint to the official periodisation of recent Saudi history. 131 00:16:32,230 --> 00:16:37,660 I'm sure at some point we're going to come back to the subsequent Q&A. And I'd like to head dog to bed. 132 00:16:37,660 --> 00:16:42,970 The reason why I'm going to try to keep you both to sort of 10 to 15 minutes each is just because 133 00:16:42,970 --> 00:16:48,160 we'll have a little discussion that I want to the time the questions were already coming in. So listeners, stick with us. 134 00:16:48,160 --> 00:16:55,280 We are definitely getting your questions. Ben, over to you. I'll try to keep it short so we can do as much discussion as possible. 135 00:16:55,280 --> 00:16:59,810 I think that my experience with Saudi Arabia certainly much shorter than doctor, would always. 136 00:16:59,810 --> 00:17:02,990 I mean, I basically, as a Middle East correspondent, working the Middle East 2013, 137 00:17:02,990 --> 00:17:05,540 my other said, I think, you know, I think you should try to go to Saudi Arabia. 138 00:17:05,540 --> 00:17:09,920 I got my first B. said I went and I spent a lot of time in the Arab world before that, spoke Arabic. 139 00:17:09,920 --> 00:17:14,780 And so it wasn't completely new to me. But in terms of on the ground experience, it was a very new place. 140 00:17:14,780 --> 00:17:20,950 I lived in Egypt and I travelled elsewhere. But Saudi Arabia, even if you are used to the Arab world, was an incredibly different place. 141 00:17:20,950 --> 00:17:28,850 And sort of looking back now, you know, from from 2020 to 2013 or to 2015, when Mohammed bin Salman really comes onto the scene, 142 00:17:28,850 --> 00:17:35,450 we sometimes forget how dynamic of a period has been and how much kind of accelerated change we've seen on so many fronts. 143 00:17:35,450 --> 00:17:38,930 When I went to Saudi Arabia before 2015, it was really a boring place. 144 00:17:38,930 --> 00:17:44,270 I mean, it was a place that was ruled by an elderly king. There was this idea of sort of this family council that would, you know, 145 00:17:44,270 --> 00:17:47,740 of the senior princes who would divide up the files and they would rule by consensus. 146 00:17:47,740 --> 00:17:52,700 And, you know, in any sort of Saudi expert that you would talk to would tell you, you know, this is the way it is in Saudi Arabia. 147 00:17:52,700 --> 00:17:58,280 This is the way it's going to be. You obviously had deep social conservative Islam and, you know, music and arts and things like that, 148 00:17:58,280 --> 00:18:04,340 which sort of looked down upon and a lot of places socially and also sort of from the official narrative. 149 00:18:04,340 --> 00:18:09,470 Saudi Arabia had no influence in the region, but it was always trying to exercise it behind the scenes, you know, 150 00:18:09,470 --> 00:18:16,160 sort of working behind the curtain and paying people off in various places, but not sort of very activist foreign policy. 151 00:18:16,160 --> 00:18:17,390 And this is kind of the way it was. 152 00:18:17,390 --> 00:18:23,030 And so being a journalist going there, it was a very sort of difficult, you know, you would go and there kind of wasn't all that much to see. 153 00:18:23,030 --> 00:18:27,890 It was sometimes hard to figure out what was going on. And then 2015 comes along and then, you know, 154 00:18:27,890 --> 00:18:33,320 we very quickly realised that sort of m.b us was the kind of figure that we don't see in the Middle East very often. 155 00:18:33,320 --> 00:18:38,690 And one indicator of that is the fact that, you know, here he's been on the scene for five years. 156 00:18:38,690 --> 00:18:43,820 He's not the king of Saudi Arabia. And there are all already already multiple books written about him, including my own. 157 00:18:43,820 --> 00:18:47,030 There are kings of Saudi Arabia who never had so many books written about them. 158 00:18:47,030 --> 00:18:49,970 So, you know, it's been a time of dramatic change. 159 00:18:49,970 --> 00:18:55,930 And, you know, and I won't sort of rehash a lot of the things that we brought up about what we've seen. 160 00:18:55,930 --> 00:19:01,790 You know, socially, we've seen that trying to sort of put large parts of conservative society back in the box, whether it's, 161 00:19:01,790 --> 00:19:07,580 you know, taking the power to arrest away from the religious police, extensive arrest campaigns against conservative clerics. 162 00:19:07,580 --> 00:19:12,170 There's obviously all the reforms that have had to do with women, you know, things that just may seem very common. 163 00:19:12,170 --> 00:19:16,490 But inside of Saudi Arabia, quite a big deal. Obviously, women driving's what got the most attention. 164 00:19:16,490 --> 00:19:20,210 Also, things like allowing physical education classes for girls, students. 165 00:19:20,210 --> 00:19:24,720 I mean, this is something that you didn't have in Saudi Arabia before. And they're rolling these things out. 166 00:19:24,720 --> 00:19:28,940 You know, arts going from being sort of something that was considered Western and looked down upon and music, 167 00:19:28,940 --> 00:19:33,950 you know, now they're biting almost any Western musician that they can to come perform in Saudi Arabia. 168 00:19:33,950 --> 00:19:39,260 Politically, it's also been a very dynamic time. You know, you can gauge that by the war in Yemen. 169 00:19:39,260 --> 00:19:45,470 Saudi Arabia had a large military and they spent tens of billions of dollars on weapons from the United States, the U.K. and other countries. 170 00:19:45,470 --> 00:19:49,820 But they have never intervened militarily in that kind of a way. 171 00:19:49,820 --> 00:19:53,780 And we know within a few months, months of coming on the scene when he was still deputy crown prince, 172 00:19:53,780 --> 00:19:59,030 you know, Mohammed bin Salman, the stature, the Saudi military to intervene in Yemen and they're still there. 173 00:19:59,030 --> 00:20:03,320 We've seen all sorts of other you know, we could talk about sort of the standoff with Iran across the region, 174 00:20:03,320 --> 00:20:10,160 the various ways the Saudis have done that, the famous sort of detention and forced resignation of Saad Hariri in Lebanon where I am. 175 00:20:10,160 --> 00:20:14,480 I mean, these are the kinds of things that nobody ever expected from Saudi Arabia before because 176 00:20:14,480 --> 00:20:18,690 they were never that assertive and never that many people would say aggressive. 177 00:20:18,690 --> 00:20:25,640 And I would agree with the subtitle of Mentality's books that I think when you look back over this very quick succession of events, 178 00:20:25,640 --> 00:20:29,150 the two themes that really rise up are reform and repression. 179 00:20:29,150 --> 00:20:34,160 On one hand, there has been there have been dramatic changes in terms of social life in Saudi Arabia. 180 00:20:34,160 --> 00:20:38,780 There have been, I would say at this point at least dramatic initiatives to try to reform the economy. 181 00:20:38,780 --> 00:20:44,660 I don't think those have made as much progress and certainly as Mohammed bin Salman or his advisers would like. 182 00:20:44,660 --> 00:20:50,400 But there's certainly been a lot of attention put into that. But it's also been a time of great repression. 183 00:20:50,400 --> 00:20:54,630 You know, I write in my book that Saudi Arabia used to be sort of a soft love autocracy. 184 00:20:54,630 --> 00:20:57,890 You know, you could get together with your friends and you could complain about this. 185 00:20:57,890 --> 00:21:04,950 And as long as you weren't sort of plotting protests or building a political party, they would kind of, you know, likely to look the other way. 186 00:21:04,950 --> 00:21:08,270 That's that's definitely changed. Now, people are people are scared. 187 00:21:08,270 --> 00:21:14,990 A lot of the Saudis that I got to know during the time when I was going somewhat freely back and forth to the kingdom, won't talk to me anymore. 188 00:21:14,990 --> 00:21:21,950 When they get together, they put their cell phones in the fridge because they're scared of electronic spying on their conversations you've had. 189 00:21:21,950 --> 00:21:24,050 There's all kinds of swordsmen that I mentioned, the number of them. 190 00:21:24,050 --> 00:21:29,330 You know, there are people who have been basically disappeared from their families because they ran sarcastic Twitter accounts. 191 00:21:29,330 --> 00:21:35,420 I mean, this is something that you didn't have before in Saudi Arabia. So both of those things of reform, reform and repression are. 192 00:21:35,420 --> 00:21:39,530 I think that the two sort of biggest themes that we've seen and then when you start thinking about 193 00:21:39,530 --> 00:21:44,490 Saudi Arabia into the future and when we try to figure out sort of where is Saudi Arabia going? 194 00:21:44,490 --> 00:21:51,210 Whereas Mohammed bin Salman going, I think it's what is the balance going to be between those two things, which I don't think the. 195 00:21:51,210 --> 00:21:52,200 Mutually exclusive. 196 00:21:52,200 --> 00:21:58,860 As many people in the West do, I think some people think that if you're a former, then you must also believe in democracy and political participation. 197 00:21:58,860 --> 00:22:05,340 I don't think that's the case. There's plenty of examples to the contrary. And I think in terms of, you know, I'll just I'll just end on this. 198 00:22:05,340 --> 00:22:07,760 I think in terms of the future, I think, you know, 199 00:22:07,760 --> 00:22:12,990 mother always spoke a lot about the political challenges and what she speaks to see on the political front. 200 00:22:12,990 --> 00:22:18,540 I think the largest I think the biggest challenges to my haven't been some men and everything that he wants to do, our economic. 201 00:22:18,540 --> 00:22:21,240 I think he faces tremendous economic challenges. 202 00:22:21,240 --> 00:22:29,190 And even though I think he deserves some credit for, I would say, addressing these head on in terms of defining the problem, diagnosing the problem, 203 00:22:29,190 --> 00:22:37,140 proposing a number of ways to try to get out this, I think it's very difficult to overestimate the size of the economic challenge to Saudi Arabia. 204 00:22:37,140 --> 00:22:41,370 You know, you have a country two thirds of its population, roughly, is under age 30. 205 00:22:41,370 --> 00:22:47,160 You have hundreds of thousands of young Saudis entering the job market every year and the government can't pinpoint them anymore. 206 00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:53,400 Historically, the Saudi government has been the largest employer in the kingdom. And there they just don't have the money that they used to do. 207 00:22:53,400 --> 00:22:58,240 And so, you know, you have Vision 2030 and you have all these other efforts to find ways to diversify the economy. 208 00:22:58,240 --> 00:23:04,170 And I think so far, I don't think that the efforts have lived up to the size of the challenge. 209 00:23:04,170 --> 00:23:07,560 Certainly, Koban 19 is not going to make that any easier. 210 00:23:07,560 --> 00:23:11,130 But for me, sort of thinking about the future, I mean, I think we'll keep an eye on the reforms. 211 00:23:11,130 --> 00:23:14,130 Where does that go? We keep an eye on the repression. Where does that go? 212 00:23:14,130 --> 00:23:20,600 But for me, I mean, if I were Mohammed bin Salman, the thing that would keep me up at night would be the economy. 213 00:23:20,600 --> 00:23:25,310 Then I'm going to take silence to incompletion. Yes, we can move on to the discussion. 214 00:23:25,310 --> 00:23:34,340 Well, thank you very much. Again, a very tantalising insight into the kind of issues that you are exploring at much greater length in your book. 215 00:23:34,340 --> 00:23:41,870 And I'd like to begin the discussion by bringing it back to the frame of analysis that our first speaker, 216 00:23:41,870 --> 00:23:49,880 Anna Alice Vladi, gave us when he presented us with the dictatorship syndrome coming out of his experience in Egypt. 217 00:23:49,880 --> 00:23:54,020 But something that he saw as more of a symptom of our times more broadly. 218 00:23:54,020 --> 00:23:59,000 And I'm not trying to paint you into describing Saudi Arabia today as a dictatorship. 219 00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:03,800 I think that there is an authoritarianism in Saudi Arabia, which is quite distinct. 220 00:24:03,800 --> 00:24:10,700 But I'm just wondering whether one element of a Swinney's analysis could be brought into the discussion at this point, 221 00:24:10,700 --> 00:24:17,150 which is the complicity of society as enablers of authoritarian rule. 222 00:24:17,150 --> 00:24:22,160 And I'm very struck. You spoke then about the fear that you have encountered. 223 00:24:22,160 --> 00:24:26,720 But I think there's a generation divide between those who are openly enthusiastic about a 224 00:24:26,720 --> 00:24:33,170 reform agenda that they see favouring them and their generation amongst the 30 and younger. 225 00:24:33,170 --> 00:24:38,540 And the people that I know who have shown concern or fear tend to be 40 and above. 226 00:24:38,540 --> 00:24:44,870 And so could we talk a little bit about society's role in enabling what is of five 227 00:24:44,870 --> 00:24:52,350 extraordinary year experiment under MBBS and whether there is a generational divide in that? 228 00:24:52,350 --> 00:24:56,910 But yes, you're absolutely right, Eugene. 229 00:24:56,910 --> 00:25:05,250 I mean, before I let a swine in, we know that dictatorship or authoritarian rule doesn't work on its own. 230 00:25:05,250 --> 00:25:12,870 It doesn't descend on people. You need to have a Napier's and you have to enlist a society. 231 00:25:12,870 --> 00:25:22,290 And do we know from history of Europe in the 20th century of fascism and all that, we know that the certain classes, 232 00:25:22,290 --> 00:25:30,810 certain categories of citizens participate in the drive to oppress and repress their own fellow citizens. 233 00:25:30,810 --> 00:25:38,520 But in my book and The Sun King, I have done quite a lot of work on the rising diaspora. 234 00:25:38,520 --> 00:25:42,150 Saudi Arabia is experiencing an incipient diaspora, 235 00:25:42,150 --> 00:25:52,770 which it has not seen during the effluence off of oil in the modern period, a case not in the 20th century. 236 00:25:52,770 --> 00:25:57,180 Yes, we had one exile here and there, leaving going to Egypt. 237 00:25:57,180 --> 00:26:05,040 Even princes left the three princes left or went to Egypt, then Beirut and Iraq and other places. 238 00:26:05,040 --> 00:26:13,260 But what we have seen since 2015 is the rise office, young Saudi diaspora. 239 00:26:13,260 --> 00:26:21,940 And this was actually intriguing if, as the journalist told us, had been Salman appeals to this youth cohort. 240 00:26:21,940 --> 00:26:29,820 He's a young man who who changes his Nokia dump's the Nokia telephone and gets a smartphone. 241 00:26:29,820 --> 00:26:37,020 And you see the crowds at the entertainment venues. You think everybody is supporting Mohammed bin Salman. 242 00:26:37,020 --> 00:26:42,960 But I wasn't trying to find out why are women feminist leaving Saudi Arabia artists? 243 00:26:42,960 --> 00:26:47,900 He created Misk Foundation in order to call the artist. 244 00:26:47,900 --> 00:27:00,090 So why are they sleeping? We have young women now as asylum seekers in Canada and the USA and the Arab world and as far as Australia. 245 00:27:00,090 --> 00:27:06,450 Also, we have young men who have actually left. But these are people enabling autocracy, if you like. 246 00:27:06,450 --> 00:27:13,050 These are people fleeing it. And I wonder whether we could talk about the role of society in encouraging or enabling the 247 00:27:13,050 --> 00:27:20,070 great enthusiasm that the under 30s are showing for the personality of IBS and the project. 248 00:27:20,070 --> 00:27:20,810 Absolutely. 249 00:27:20,810 --> 00:27:30,120 You know, you have a society that has gone through the three phases, the two phases, I describe that religious rationalism and that is realism. 250 00:27:30,120 --> 00:27:41,130 So in those phases, the person that they agency that is rewarded is the one who can recite the Koran at age 15 or the one who spreads. 251 00:27:41,130 --> 00:27:49,140 They will have a mission abroad. And he's given prises. But there is a generational shift, and that's not the work of Mohammed bin Salman. 252 00:27:49,140 --> 00:27:56,450 This shift had occurred. If you look at what the Saudis were doing in 2011 during the Arab uprising, 253 00:27:56,450 --> 00:28:05,100 that connectedness with with their Arab fellows, the way they were articulating their demands for change. 254 00:28:05,100 --> 00:28:12,720 And you think that in coming this a man was just a fait accompli that came after the event, after the fact they are seen in Syria, 255 00:28:12,720 --> 00:28:21,270 was prospering before him come out and said, look at this cohort had been denied basic human rights, basic entertainment. 256 00:28:21,270 --> 00:28:26,070 And it's so obvious that when you open up, you absorb that. 257 00:28:26,070 --> 00:28:34,590 And what Mohammed bin Salman is doing, a era combining the simplest with red brick had been stumbling. 258 00:28:34,590 --> 00:28:41,220 There is no brand ashore. And he is always asking the youth to be self reliant. 259 00:28:41,220 --> 00:28:46,290 The welfare state is shrinking. So, yes, there was a circus, Mohammed bin Salman. 260 00:28:46,290 --> 00:28:55,710 And he was the only celebrity in that circus. And everybody had to consume his persona, his celebrity status. 261 00:28:55,710 --> 00:29:00,720 And at the same time enjoying the fun. But what they really wanted is jobs. 262 00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:05,760 I mean, if you look at the literature that is coming from Saudi Arabia, the unemployment level, 263 00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:11,710 people who are going to universities and top universities in the kingdom, then what is not? 264 00:29:11,710 --> 00:29:18,240 They're not finding jobs, et cetera. As you were talking about, Mohammed Bin said of the power structure, which is ruled optimistic. 265 00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:22,970 But let me bring better here and she'd better. Do you have any reflections to add to this? 266 00:29:22,970 --> 00:29:29,240 One thing I would say for context, I think it's it's almost become sort of a, you know, talking point that you hear all the time, 267 00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:34,130 the sort of young Saudis love my husband mean older Saudi, older Saudis are nervous about Mohammed bin Salman. 268 00:29:34,130 --> 00:29:40,430 And I think that that's true to a certain extent. But I think it's very difficult and almost impossible to know how true. 269 00:29:40,430 --> 00:29:44,060 Know Saudi Arabia. Let's let's remember, is a place that does not have a free press. 270 00:29:44,060 --> 00:29:50,030 It has virtually no civil society that's not controlled by the government, which I guess would mean it's not civil society anyway. 271 00:29:50,030 --> 00:29:59,560 No. Sort of realistically independent, you know, public opinion polling when journalists or think tankers or researchers go pretty. 272 00:29:59,560 --> 00:30:01,100 You know, people know what they're supposed to say. 273 00:30:01,100 --> 00:30:05,660 And unless you spend a lot of time there and you get to know people, they're unlikely to sort of tell you, 274 00:30:05,660 --> 00:30:09,800 you know, to stray from the official line because they know what the consequences of that could be. 275 00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:13,730 Certainly now, after all the repression that we've talked about previously. 276 00:30:13,730 --> 00:30:18,620 So I think I think it's difficult to generalise kind of about who is really onboard and who is not. 277 00:30:18,620 --> 00:30:22,520 I think it's probably also not entirely correct to assume that all young Saudis are liberals. 278 00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:25,370 I'm sure that there are plenty of young conservative Saudis that, yeah, 279 00:30:25,370 --> 00:30:28,040 they might think it's cool to go to a movie theatre, but then you ask them all, 280 00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:30,410 what do you think about your sister going on a date and then, you know, 281 00:30:30,410 --> 00:30:34,010 their blood pressure goes up and they're no longer as liberal as you thought they were. 282 00:30:34,010 --> 00:30:38,660 So I think, you know, I think we have to be very careful about sort of making these sweeping judgements about political opinion. 283 00:30:38,660 --> 00:30:42,200 I think we really just talk about public option. I think we just don't know. 284 00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:46,070 And that is what makes it difficult to answer your question about sort of how. 285 00:30:46,070 --> 00:30:53,690 If you want to say sort of how culpable are citizens in the authoritarianism that's happening in Saudi Arabia? 286 00:30:53,690 --> 00:30:57,650 I think the other thing that that it's hard for people in the West to understand 287 00:30:57,650 --> 00:31:01,330 is really the tremendous power that the state has over people in Saudi Arabia. 288 00:31:01,330 --> 00:31:06,440 I mean, if you're in the West, if you're in the United States or the U.K., you live somewhere in Europe and you want to be a dissident. 289 00:31:06,440 --> 00:31:10,040 I mean, what does that even mean? I mean, you say you disagree with your government and maybe you're on Twitter, 290 00:31:10,040 --> 00:31:17,660 you have a blog and your friends think you're kind of weird and your family may not invite you to functions, but like, nobody cares all that much. 291 00:31:17,660 --> 00:31:23,000 Saudi Arabia becoming a dissident is a major life commitment. I mean, if you're going to take that step. 292 00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:27,560 The state has all kinds of means that they can bring down on your head and that they have increasingly 293 00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:32,550 not hesitated to bring down on your head since the throughout the rise of Mohammed bin Salman Descant. 294 00:31:32,550 --> 00:31:37,070 This a lot of this has to do with the power that the state has in the economy. 295 00:31:37,070 --> 00:31:42,980 When you look at the number of people who are employed by the state, whether it's in the National Guard, the security services, the bureaucracy, 296 00:31:42,980 --> 00:31:46,800 it's not uncommon for when people sort of get out of line to receive a phone call and say, 297 00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:54,080 you know, how many of your brothers and cousins work for the government? And this happens and people know that, like, well, if I don't get in line, 298 00:31:54,080 --> 00:32:00,570 that can fall back on my family and kind of a painful way that's done through tribal structures and more rural or more conservative areas. 299 00:32:00,570 --> 00:32:06,110 That's I mean, there's many different ways that they can do this that falls short of sort of what we usually think of repression, 300 00:32:06,110 --> 00:32:09,920 which means they go out and they arrest you and they throw you in prison, which does happen. 301 00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:14,940 But there's a whole type of repression that happens below that. And we don't hear much about. 302 00:32:14,940 --> 00:32:20,450 And so that, you know, that that sort of makes it difficult to know who is really on board and who's not, 303 00:32:20,450 --> 00:32:28,090 because when the government has that much ability to kind of shape the way that you behave in the way that you behave publicly, 304 00:32:28,090 --> 00:32:34,100 then it sort of forces you to question, you know, when people are on social media praising the. 305 00:32:34,100 --> 00:32:38,200 Sonata, when people are getting sued by some researcher who's managed to get a visa to go to Saudi Arabia, 306 00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:41,980 it's very difficult to know what they saying, what they know they're supposed to be saying. Are they going to be frank with you? 307 00:32:41,980 --> 00:32:45,790 No. In science, I mean, I just think we need to be a little I mean, 308 00:32:45,790 --> 00:32:50,320 there are definitely plenty of citizens who are playing a role in the rise of hope and some man. 309 00:32:50,320 --> 00:32:54,130 And but I think we also need to recognise the tremendous power that the state 310 00:32:54,130 --> 00:32:58,780 has to sort of pull people in and to keep them from going outside of that. 311 00:32:58,780 --> 00:33:01,820 I mean, another great example of this is you just look at the life of Jamal Khashoggi. 312 00:33:01,820 --> 00:33:09,610 I mean, this was a guy who for decades was sort of the consummate insider. And we all know what happened to him when he decided to become an outsider. 313 00:33:09,610 --> 00:33:15,400 Yeah, no. And I was going to say it's not a country that celebrated for its public opinion polling, 314 00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:19,480 although it must be said that public opinion polling is not a celebrated as it used to be. 315 00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:26,830 I'm going to move on to questions. We have about twenty five minutes left before we keep to our six one hour limit to these webinars. 316 00:33:26,830 --> 00:33:30,970 And the questions are coming in fast and furious. I already see 22 on the Q and A bar, 317 00:33:30,970 --> 00:33:37,480 but I'm going to start with one that comes from Mohamed left with us largely because it's a question that I wanted to put to you, 318 00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:41,560 which is another enabler of Mohammed bin Suleiman's rule. 319 00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:50,470 Breaking tendencies is iconoclasm has been this age of rule breakers and no one more influential in that than Donald Trump. 320 00:33:50,470 --> 00:33:56,290 It looks like tonight is the night where we will have a final result that will allow Joe Biden to 321 00:33:56,290 --> 00:34:01,480 declare his victory in the presidency and at the age of Trump now seem to be coming to an end. 322 00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:08,170 Could you give us some sense of what the impact of that will be on Saudi Arabia and on Mohammed bin Salman? 323 00:34:08,170 --> 00:34:12,220 Will he now have to consider going more by the rules than he did before? 324 00:34:12,220 --> 00:34:19,980 Will be no longer have the American support for his way of doing things that seem to facilitate. 325 00:34:19,980 --> 00:34:23,250 Then we might start with you and then I'd like to go to Madali. 326 00:34:23,250 --> 00:34:28,580 Yeah, I mean, I believe as a news reporter, I really have to stay out of fortunetelling business, so I won't. 327 00:34:28,580 --> 00:34:29,970 You know, we don't know who's going to win the election. 328 00:34:29,970 --> 00:34:35,160 And so I don't want to sort of go too far in saying what a President Joe Biden would or would not do. 329 00:34:35,160 --> 00:34:41,070 What we can safely say is that I do think it's safe to say that the Trump administration and its posture toward 330 00:34:41,070 --> 00:34:46,230 Saudi Arabia made things much easier from a human being so that they basically do whatever he wanted to do. 331 00:34:46,230 --> 00:34:47,190 And this started fairly, 332 00:34:47,190 --> 00:34:53,570 very early in the administration when Trump basically surprised everybody by deciding to take his first foreign trip as president. 333 00:34:53,570 --> 00:34:57,990 Not just one of the historic allies, but to go to Saudi Arabia first time a president has ever done that. 334 00:34:57,990 --> 00:35:03,060 And the Saudis took this as a sign of an investment in the relationship, which it was, 335 00:35:03,060 --> 00:35:07,530 and they turned it into a massive international summit for the United States and the Islamic world. 336 00:35:07,530 --> 00:35:12,840 And so that's kind of where it started off. And, you know, you also have saw the relationship between Jared Kushner and Mohammed bin Salman. 337 00:35:12,840 --> 00:35:15,370 There's been a lot written about that. 338 00:35:15,370 --> 00:35:22,210 You know, when we look at the election, I mean, it's hard to imagine that many other American presidents would have been as oppressed, 339 00:35:22,210 --> 00:35:26,710 as protective of the Saudis when it comes to things like arms sales and the Yemen war, 340 00:35:26,710 --> 00:35:27,850 where you have, I believe, 341 00:35:27,850 --> 00:35:35,500 to at least two presidential vetoes of legislation that was that was aimed at stopping arms sales to Saudi Arabia based over the war in Yemen. 342 00:35:35,500 --> 00:35:39,520 When you look at the statements that came out of the White House after the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, 343 00:35:39,520 --> 00:35:44,980 basically saying, yeah, maybe he did it, maybe he didn't. But we don't really care because they're good friends of ours and we really need them. 344 00:35:44,980 --> 00:35:51,640 They're really important for us. It's really hard to imagine previous presidents, both Republican and Democrat, doing those kinds of actions. 345 00:35:51,640 --> 00:35:57,580 And there has been a lot. Biden has. He has gone on the record quite frequently being critical of the Saudis, 346 00:35:57,580 --> 00:36:02,410 both as a senator and during the campaign saying, you know, we're not going to give them a free pass. 347 00:36:02,410 --> 00:36:06,820 They've had in the past. We're going to we're we're not going to look the other way at human rights violations. 348 00:36:06,820 --> 00:36:14,470 And, you know, of course, it's difficult to know how campaign talk sort of survives the election and makes its way into policy. 349 00:36:14,470 --> 00:36:21,940 And so I think the big question, if there is a President Joe Biden starting in January, then I think the question is sort of how much will will. 350 00:36:21,940 --> 00:36:26,650 Will that talk be translated into policy and how much will just have been election talk? 351 00:36:26,650 --> 00:36:32,620 You know, this was sort of a season when being friends with Saudi Arabia was not probably going to win you a lot of votes. 352 00:36:32,620 --> 00:36:35,560 At the same time, it doesn't appear to, of course, Donald Trump many votes. 353 00:36:35,560 --> 00:36:40,250 But that's the question that I would be wondering about if we have a change in Washington in January. 354 00:36:40,250 --> 00:36:45,230 But then we I'm sure you have plenty to add to that question. But I have a number of questions specifically targeting you. 355 00:36:45,230 --> 00:36:51,110 And if I could, I'd like to move on to those leaking as many of our viewers questions as possible. 356 00:36:51,110 --> 00:36:57,430 Manti Askari, I would like you to explain now that the goals of Vision 2030 are unattainable. 357 00:36:57,430 --> 00:37:01,480 What can replace it? And what are the implications? 358 00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:10,060 Well, I think I mean, two important events in the last year that actually derailed the Vision 2030. 359 00:37:10,060 --> 00:37:15,340 First one is the constant and continuous decline of oil prices. 360 00:37:15,340 --> 00:37:27,910 And the second thing was covered that year, closed Saudi Arabia to even pilgrimage that alone, tourism and entertainment and travel. 361 00:37:27,910 --> 00:37:33,460 But also before these to hit hard. Well, there was of pressure, just murder. 362 00:37:33,460 --> 00:37:42,570 That actually dissuaded many investors to rush to Saudi Arabia, although the three conferences held after the murder of. 363 00:37:42,570 --> 00:37:45,610 We did see some, you know, 364 00:37:45,610 --> 00:37:55,990 opportunists who want to actually make the most of this narrow opportunity after others had thrown it out off of the investment conferences. 365 00:37:55,990 --> 00:38:04,640 So, yes, a Vision 2030 is still there, but it hasn't materialised in the way Mohammed bin Salman would have liked it, too. 366 00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:10,840 And the future thing lies. And really, what what happens to oil prices? 367 00:38:10,840 --> 00:38:21,880 And how long this Kofod problem is going to last? In addition to the changing climate around the world and specifically in the US. 368 00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:27,520 I mean, Ben talked about a change of leadership, if it happens in the US by January. 369 00:38:27,520 --> 00:38:32,410 Obviously come a are man will feel the pressure, not because Biden is going to correct, 370 00:38:32,410 --> 00:38:36,430 you know, 70 years of American foreign policy in the Middle East. 371 00:38:36,430 --> 00:38:41,620 But he would make enough noise, for example, that may lead. 372 00:38:41,620 --> 00:38:48,490 And some people hope that the noises that Biden might make would lead to freeing some kind of 373 00:38:48,490 --> 00:38:55,420 prisoners of conscience and opening up the freedom of limited freedom of speech in Saudi Arabia. 374 00:38:55,420 --> 00:39:00,700 But I don't see a major change that Biden is capable of doing. 375 00:39:00,700 --> 00:39:06,490 He's not going to shun Saudi Arabia now. I mean, the whole world economy is is a disaster. 376 00:39:06,490 --> 00:39:12,910 And the last thing that the U.S. wants is to sort of put more pressure on Saudi Arabia. 377 00:39:12,910 --> 00:39:23,100 So let's be realistic. A Democrat in the White House is not going to transform this sort of historical, so-called historical alliance. 378 00:39:23,100 --> 00:39:30,430 Obviously, the U.S. will continue to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, especially if we have a predatory China and Russia. 379 00:39:30,430 --> 00:39:38,080 What might happen is Saudi Arabia would be put under more pressure to reach a kind of reconciliation with Iran, 380 00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:45,550 and that would lower the threshold of violence in the Arab world and the competition between the two countries. 381 00:39:45,550 --> 00:39:54,040 So I think that is important. And then there remains the question that if they had normalisation with Israel, 382 00:39:54,040 --> 00:40:06,280 I don't know whether Biden will go along the same path dreaded by Trump and put more pressure on Saudi Arabia to follow the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan. 383 00:40:06,280 --> 00:40:10,390 Let me stop you there, only to throw another question out to this one from your fun. 384 00:40:10,390 --> 00:40:16,240 She would like you to extend all the elements of embassies promoting nationalism that make it populist. 385 00:40:16,240 --> 00:40:22,660 So could you develop that part of your discussion about the populist side of embassies nationalism? 386 00:40:22,660 --> 00:40:28,110 It is openness because it fires at people very much like what Trump has been doing. 387 00:40:28,110 --> 00:40:35,860 Really? I mean, these hashtags that he uses Saudi Arabia for Saudis make Saudi Arabia great. 388 00:40:35,860 --> 00:40:45,160 These and all these are tagged and hashtags that promote this kind of populism. 389 00:40:45,160 --> 00:40:54,250 His appearances during sort of entertainment venues, when people are supposed to actually watch what is very long, 390 00:40:54,250 --> 00:41:00,610 whether it's a boxing match or a race car, et cetera, is going to host Formula One for the first time. 391 00:41:00,610 --> 00:41:10,810 These are events that are used for this populist nationalism to appeal to the primitive sort of bottom line of people's emotions. 392 00:41:10,810 --> 00:41:14,410 And that is not the kind of nationalism that, you know. 393 00:41:14,410 --> 00:41:20,440 It is similar to what Michelle OFLC was doing in Syria and Iraq that tries to 394 00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:26,830 sort of rewrite the history of the Arab nation or as sort of unnecessary Iraq. 395 00:41:26,830 --> 00:41:36,600 It is a kind of primitive populist nationalism for consumption, instantaneous, constant consumption, and social media helps with that. 396 00:41:36,600 --> 00:41:40,570 And so I don't see this rigid nationalism of the 1960s. 397 00:41:40,570 --> 00:41:47,680 I see a different kind of nationalism that is in tune with the meanings of its own transmission. 398 00:41:47,680 --> 00:41:52,090 That works on social media. That works on television. 399 00:41:52,090 --> 00:41:56,910 That works. And in this kind of live venues. 400 00:41:56,910 --> 00:42:01,840 And it lacks it lacks a serious theorise mission and is very, very contested. 401 00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:11,200 The people who can talk, they still can't switch. And I interviewed people who were of the older generation, but they're not very old. 402 00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:17,770 They're still in their 40s and 50s. And they were saying, like, you know, I remember when I was a child at school, 403 00:42:17,770 --> 00:42:28,120 I had to chant Islamic recitations and an al Qaeda to promote the Islamic Ummah and promote Palestine and Jerusalem. 404 00:42:28,120 --> 00:42:32,560 And now I'm expected to promote a lorella order. 405 00:42:32,560 --> 00:42:37,450 And it is not easy for people to switch from that kind of pen. 406 00:42:37,450 --> 00:42:43,190 Islamic outlook of the Saudis are the vanguards will go and spread Islam. 407 00:42:43,190 --> 00:42:48,610 They're not the ones who can sue a pop culture inside the country. 408 00:42:48,610 --> 00:42:55,060 And this is the kind of populism that is actually very, very crude and basic. 409 00:42:55,060 --> 00:43:04,310 Thank you. But it wasn't the power. It has the power to mobilise. As we've seen, I've got a couple of questions I'd like to, but your way then. 410 00:43:04,310 --> 00:43:12,620 First off from Dr. Sarah as we Shenae. Who are Mohammed bin Salmond's rivals in Saudi Arabia today? 411 00:43:12,620 --> 00:43:19,380 And do they still present a credible challenge after the sojourn in the Ritz Carlton? 412 00:43:19,380 --> 00:43:24,150 I mean, I I think from what from what we know, I don't think he has any serious rivals to speak of. 413 00:43:24,150 --> 00:43:28,260 I mean, you could say, you know, Mohammed bin Nayef was was a rival for a period. 414 00:43:28,260 --> 00:43:30,780 You know, maybe it might have been Abdullah was a rival for a period. I mean, 415 00:43:30,780 --> 00:43:33,870 these were just because these were other people who were kind of in senior 416 00:43:33,870 --> 00:43:38,460 positions in the royal family and had significant government positions as well. 417 00:43:38,460 --> 00:43:46,140 But they were all, you know, these these people were all sufficiently sort of disarmed, isolated, in some cases incarcerated fairly early in his rise. 418 00:43:46,140 --> 00:43:49,740 And I just you know, I mean, I don't want to say that I think it's over for Mohammed bin Salman. 419 00:43:49,740 --> 00:43:54,870 But if there is going to be a significant challenge, it's very hard to see where I would come from now. 420 00:43:54,870 --> 00:44:00,360 Saudi Arabia is not you know, it certainly has no history and sort of military coups or anything like that. 421 00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:02,040 It's very difficult to see. 422 00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:09,780 I mean, the fact that he has managed during his rise to really restructure how power is exercised and bring all the levers into his own hands. 423 00:44:09,780 --> 00:44:15,800 I mean, from the National Guard to the intelligence services, the interior ministry, the military, 424 00:44:15,800 --> 00:44:21,870 it's just very hard to see that even if there are other prend, there certainly are other princes who are not happy with the way this has happened. 425 00:44:21,870 --> 00:44:29,210 It's very hard to see where they're going to get the resources to pose a significant challenge to him. 426 00:44:29,210 --> 00:44:37,850 And building on that, I mean, do you foresee there being any flashpoint for opposition in the long run over the Saudi intervention in Yemen? 427 00:44:37,850 --> 00:44:40,460 Does this fit into the narrative populist nationalism? 428 00:44:40,460 --> 00:44:45,200 Are there comparisons to be made between what Saudi Arabia is going through and what's gone on in the Vietnam War? 429 00:44:45,200 --> 00:44:54,990 By extension, could there be a kind of movement against the war which would weigh down MVS and his popularity? 430 00:44:54,990 --> 00:44:59,430 You want me to ask them back? I'd love to hear from you. 431 00:44:59,430 --> 00:45:07,230 Yeah, I read that at the beginning. The water of Yemen was probably as they have flagship off Mohammed bin Salman in inverted commas, 432 00:45:07,230 --> 00:45:13,710 because it is that context that sort of promoted this populist nationalism that we are attacked. 433 00:45:13,710 --> 00:45:21,690 But you have to realise that in Saudi Arabia, Yemen is a very long way and it's was not felt. 434 00:45:21,690 --> 00:45:30,440 The war in Riyadh make a jet that made the eastern province as much as it would have had. 435 00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:40,140 Had there been a close proximity. But it did become real when they hosted missiles, started arriving in Riyadh and inject that. 436 00:45:40,140 --> 00:45:52,860 And also the oil fields where bomb did create that momentum, that sort of moment where we are targeted by the foreign enemy. 437 00:45:52,860 --> 00:46:00,890 And there was a lot of solidarity, but it's the whole point of the war of Yemen is not discussed. 438 00:46:00,890 --> 00:46:07,590 You cannot criticise the war. You do not know even what's going on at the borders. 439 00:46:07,590 --> 00:46:11,730 And you have to look at that sort of area as strange as that. 440 00:46:11,730 --> 00:46:14,370 All of that and what has happened in it. 441 00:46:14,370 --> 00:46:23,400 There are lots of exiles who had come out of that area and there is a shift in the population composition of these places. 442 00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:28,560 Many, many of the local inhabitants had been moved to the north and it actually started 443 00:46:28,560 --> 00:46:34,170 during the King Abdullah when there was an incident with a smiley community. 444 00:46:34,170 --> 00:46:44,370 And also the residents there, the people who live in these areas are very, very upset that their that their area is flooded by foreign soldiers. 445 00:46:44,370 --> 00:46:48,480 Pakistanis is Jordanians, Egyptians, generals. 446 00:46:48,480 --> 00:46:56,580 And they they don't feel secure being there. They they they told me in these interviews that they don't want their daughters to 447 00:46:56,580 --> 00:47:01,290 go in the streets because they're foreign soldiers and these cities on the border. 448 00:47:01,290 --> 00:47:07,260 So they were in Yemen is it was important for the populist nationalism. 449 00:47:07,260 --> 00:47:17,070 And it was used quite a lot to the extent of sending women journalists with the army in addition to religious scholars, to promote Saudi nationalism. 450 00:47:17,070 --> 00:47:24,840 And you see women in military attire on top of tanks reporting, and I'm talking to the soldiers. 451 00:47:24,840 --> 00:47:29,100 So this is the popular populist nationalism I'm talking about. And in addition, 452 00:47:29,100 --> 00:47:35,310 you get a traditional religious scholar who would go to the front and mobilise the 453 00:47:35,310 --> 00:47:41,830 soldiers on the basis that they are fighting a jihad against against that Zaidi who. 454 00:47:41,830 --> 00:47:44,280 So I think all of these contradictions are there, 455 00:47:44,280 --> 00:47:53,250 but it's very difficult to see how the war on Yemen would precipitate any kind of agitations inside the country first. 456 00:47:53,250 --> 00:47:58,300 People can't actually give their opinion about the war. Thank you the way. 457 00:47:58,300 --> 00:48:02,920 Ben, I'm sure you could answer that one, but I've got about another one your way to keep the questions moving. 458 00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:08,900 We have from Diana Galai ever a question about Saudi Russian relations. 459 00:48:08,900 --> 00:48:18,070 And what do you see the future of relations between Saudi Arabia and Russia, given the close ties between Putin and MVS? 460 00:48:18,070 --> 00:48:21,330 Yeah, I'm afraid I don't. Probably very sophisticated answer for that. 461 00:48:21,330 --> 00:48:28,680 I mean, I the only context I can provide is that he has has has made an effort to sort of diversify Saudi Arabia's foreign relations. 462 00:48:28,680 --> 00:48:31,490 And this is includes high-Profile trips to China. 463 00:48:31,490 --> 00:48:37,830 The king himself actually went to Russia, which was a huge you know, that was that was something that had not happened for many, many decades. 464 00:48:37,830 --> 00:48:41,580 Where it goes in the future, I don't know. I mean, I won't try to predict that. 465 00:48:41,580 --> 00:48:45,900 But I think that MVS has sort of seen I think part of it has to do with you sort of 466 00:48:45,900 --> 00:48:49,990 diversifying away from just being so dependent on the United States and the UK. 467 00:48:49,990 --> 00:48:54,810 And I also think it has to do with him, you know, perhaps plays into the sort of nationalism idea. 468 00:48:54,810 --> 00:48:57,900 But I think he also wants Saudi Arabia to be a great power. 469 00:48:57,900 --> 00:49:02,430 He you know, he's very they're they're very excited this year to get the presidency of the G20. 470 00:49:02,430 --> 00:49:07,200 And I think that he believes, as you know, for Saudi Arabia to play what he believes is their proper role in the world, 471 00:49:07,200 --> 00:49:10,710 they need to have relations with these other large powers where it goes in the future. 472 00:49:10,710 --> 00:49:16,680 I don't know. I mean, certainly the oil war didn't particularly help the price war earlier this year, certainly didn't help relations. 473 00:49:16,680 --> 00:49:20,470 But we'll have to wait and see where it goes. Thank you, Ben. 474 00:49:20,470 --> 00:49:24,610 Look, I'm going to confess at this point to our viewers that I'm a bit of an interloper tonight 475 00:49:24,610 --> 00:49:29,650 as both Ben and my dad we know this event was organised by my colleague Simon Hasani, 476 00:49:29,650 --> 00:49:34,840 and he was meant to be the moderator and his technology has failed him until this moment. 477 00:49:34,840 --> 00:49:40,450 I can see his face now on the screen. And actually, I've had a number of the questions and the question bar coming from Osama. 478 00:49:40,450 --> 00:49:47,330 So better late than never. Osama, could I invite you to ask one of your questions to bring the evening to a close? 479 00:49:47,330 --> 00:49:53,270 Thank you very much, Eugene, and I apologise to everyone, I spent a great deal of time on social media saying that I would be hosting this event. 480 00:49:53,270 --> 00:49:58,130 So this is a bit of an embarrassment for me that I'm showing up so late to my own sort of event. 481 00:49:58,130 --> 00:50:02,750 But I've really been delighted to be able to listen to both of you learn a great deal. 482 00:50:02,750 --> 00:50:10,490 I'm really looking forward to Meadow's book, and I have had a wonderful experience reading Ben's book probably on four or five months ago now. 483 00:50:10,490 --> 00:50:15,050 But in a sense, my question, I think some of my questions have already been answered. 484 00:50:15,050 --> 00:50:21,140 My my major sort of question was relating to the possibility that something would actually happen with respect to them. 485 00:50:21,140 --> 00:50:29,450 How shocked you. And I think that that has kind of been addressed that and I think I can recognise Meadow is point 486 00:50:29,450 --> 00:50:35,630 that there is not really much in it for a Biden presidency to try and sort of go for that. 487 00:50:35,630 --> 00:50:44,420 Another dimension which I'm curious about is what a potential Biden presidency would do with respect to the relationship with Israel, 488 00:50:44,420 --> 00:50:50,150 as you well know, fairly recently. The embassy was moved to Jerusalem. 489 00:50:50,150 --> 00:50:59,750 Is there a chance that Biden will try to reset that relationship somewhat with Netanyahu by trying to move the embassy away from it? 490 00:50:59,750 --> 00:51:05,640 Was that now pathetic company? This is a question for either one of you, it's not I. 491 00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:12,750 But I would be interested to hear Benton's response, perhaps as the American. 492 00:51:12,750 --> 00:51:18,330 Yeah. I mean I mean, I certainly can't predict what a potential vice and Biden as president would do. 493 00:51:18,330 --> 00:51:24,360 I don't see any reason to. I mean, I don't know if a future administration would pursue normalisation, 494 00:51:24,360 --> 00:51:28,620 new normalisation deals kind of as assertively as the Trump administration has. 495 00:51:28,620 --> 00:51:32,130 I certainly have no reason to think that a different administration would, you know, 496 00:51:32,130 --> 00:51:36,810 look down on these deals or try to undo them or would not even welcome further deals, you know. 497 00:51:36,810 --> 00:51:42,870 I mean, if Saudi Arabia decided to to normalise with Israel, I don't think a by demonstration is going to condemn that view. 498 00:51:42,870 --> 00:51:50,750 That's something that I think they would welcome as well. So I don't know if I can say much more how he would interact in that know. 499 00:51:50,750 --> 00:51:56,710 We have to wait and see. And I didn't Madali, you wanted to add anything to that. 500 00:51:56,710 --> 00:52:10,600 I think the pressure would probably be less on MVS to rush to normalisation along the lines of the one with the UAE and Bahrain and Sudan. 501 00:52:10,600 --> 00:52:20,770 So I think someone will be relieved if Barton doesn't put pressure because he could maintain secret under the table relations with Israel, 502 00:52:20,770 --> 00:52:26,680 which had been going on for a long time now, especially if the target is Iran. 503 00:52:26,680 --> 00:52:33,190 They shared intelligence. They there was a transfer of technology and he prefers to keep it that way. 504 00:52:33,190 --> 00:52:43,270 But I think that how much of a man is going to rush and have the Israeli flag in Riyadh and just to sort of move fast? 505 00:52:43,270 --> 00:52:53,140 I don't think I think he's lost. He would be counting his loss and he gains more by by keeping the relationship under the table. 506 00:52:53,140 --> 00:53:05,290 There's no rush to do anything about that. So he might place some pressure with regard to the repression that is taking place at home. 507 00:53:05,290 --> 00:53:12,220 And we we still don't know what the advisers to Trump, to Biden, sorry. 508 00:53:12,220 --> 00:53:20,230 Should he become the president in a couple of months and whether they will revive their interest? 509 00:53:20,230 --> 00:53:27,440 Those those are the arms of the U.S. state, such as the CIA or other. 510 00:53:27,440 --> 00:53:34,990 That's the Foreign Office. Whether they would revise and an interest their interest in Hamad bin Nayef, 511 00:53:34,990 --> 00:53:45,010 although Hamad bin Nayef seems to me as redundant now simply because of his cooperation in the war on terror. 512 00:53:45,010 --> 00:53:52,900 He had medals from the CIA, etc. And as Europe now is going through a wave of terrorism. 513 00:53:52,900 --> 00:53:59,920 I don't know how that is going to develop and whether the U.S. will be the next or the coming target. 514 00:53:59,920 --> 00:54:04,810 And how would Biden react to that? We have to wait and see. 515 00:54:04,810 --> 00:54:14,080 It's very difficult to predict. I mean, in some sense, the Biden presidency could be a boon to someone, despite all the ways in which I mean, 516 00:54:14,080 --> 00:54:16,900 with respect to Israel specifically, I think that's what you're suggesting, 517 00:54:16,900 --> 00:54:21,460 that you'd actually relieve some of the pressure of having to maintain that 518 00:54:21,460 --> 00:54:25,180 cordial relationship with the Trumps and Jared Kushner and all the rest of them. 519 00:54:25,180 --> 00:54:32,050 I think at the same time, the sort of other aspects of that relationship that you outlined can create 520 00:54:32,050 --> 00:54:36,430 other kinds of pressures that perhaps weren't present under a Trump presidency. 521 00:54:36,430 --> 00:54:40,270 I'm really conscious. We have literally one minute left. 522 00:54:40,270 --> 00:54:45,970 I'm very curious about one particular question, which either you can take and if you using gives me the signal, 523 00:54:45,970 --> 00:54:49,780 I would go on with this question, which is perfect. Thank you. 524 00:54:49,780 --> 00:54:55,840 And basically, this is about the relationship with Abu Dhabi and specifically with MDA. 525 00:54:55,840 --> 00:55:00,410 So there is. Jocie asks. Much has been made of M.B said in Abu Dhabi being a mentor. 526 00:55:00,410 --> 00:55:01,660 And yes, indeed, 527 00:55:01,660 --> 00:55:12,040 many think the MBA and Visa is the brains behind UBS and B.S. is sort of ryze that this crude populist brand of populism also manifest in the UAE. 528 00:55:12,040 --> 00:55:16,920 And if so, how do the two relate to each other, particularly in the context of the war in Yemen? 529 00:55:16,920 --> 00:55:23,380 Yeah, well, conciliators, populist nationalism is also elsewhere in the region. 530 00:55:23,380 --> 00:55:30,430 Qatar and especially under the sanctions of the Saudis and that Moroccans. 531 00:55:30,430 --> 00:55:37,840 But I think I mean, your question reminds me of a conversation I had with Emirati academic a long time ago. 532 00:55:37,840 --> 00:55:44,830 And I asked him, what is it for the UAE to promote Hamad bin Selamat? 533 00:55:44,830 --> 00:55:54,070 And eventually he's going to be a competitor. I mean, the Saudis economically in terms of the Saudi market, in terms of their capabilities. 534 00:55:54,070 --> 00:55:56,440 Yes, the UAE is important, 535 00:55:56,440 --> 00:56:05,290 but it is a small country in the grand scheme of things and doesn't have the historical sort of symbolic capital that that Saudi Arabia has. 536 00:56:05,290 --> 00:56:10,870 And he said to me, it is basically the Arab uprisings. 537 00:56:10,870 --> 00:56:17,410 And if the Arab uprisings reach Saudi Arabia, then they become a danger in the UAE. 538 00:56:17,410 --> 00:56:26,650 Right. And if we wanted to defeat the Wahhabi tradition that threatens our way of life in Dubai and elsewhere, 539 00:56:26,650 --> 00:56:32,440 we have to defeat it in Saudi Arabia, hence the interests of employees at an end. 540 00:56:32,440 --> 00:56:38,950 Yes. And if MBBS continues with his social reforms. 541 00:56:38,950 --> 00:56:39,800 Thank you very much. 542 00:56:39,800 --> 00:56:48,460 I mean, that really is an interesting perspective because it's looking at the Wahhabi dimension as being a major concern for NBC specifically. 543 00:56:48,460 --> 00:56:55,890 And that's not an analysis that you've come across very often. I'm going to very sadly have to bring things to a swift conclusion at this point. 544 00:56:55,890 --> 00:57:02,770 I'd like to extend my thanks to Madobe and Ben for really giving us a lot of food for thought. 545 00:57:02,770 --> 00:57:08,770 And I hope encouraging many of us to go out and read their books or in the case of Mahdavi. 546 00:57:08,770 --> 00:57:13,960 Her forthcoming book, she added to the volume, of course, on Solomon's legacy recently. 547 00:57:13,960 --> 00:57:20,770 And I'd also like to extend a very warm thanks to Eugene for really rescuing this podcast. 548 00:57:20,770 --> 00:57:28,870 When my system crashed on me earlier this evening, you've already really been sort of wonderful audience as well, asking many questions. 549 00:57:28,870 --> 00:57:31,450 We're very sorry not to have been able to go through all of them, 550 00:57:31,450 --> 00:57:37,000 but I'm sure there will be future opportunities in which we can have more discussions 551 00:57:37,000 --> 00:57:42,340 with some of our own guests and on some of the same sorts of themes going forward. 552 00:57:42,340 --> 00:57:46,630 So with that, I'd like to again, thank you all for joining us. 553 00:57:46,630 --> 00:57:50,870 Thank the panellists and look forward to seeing you in the near future. Take care. 554 00:57:50,870 --> 00:57:52,746 But when.