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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Saudi Arabia
Index
The hereditary leaders of important beduin tribes and several
merchant families have wielded political influence in the kingdom
since its establishment. The principal tribes were the Anayzah,
Bani Khalid, Harb, Al Murrah, Mutayr, Qahtan, Shammar, and
Utaiba. In addition, there were at least fifteen minor tribes,
including the predominantly urban Quraysh, the ancient Hijaz
tribe to which the Prophet Muhammad belonged. The national guard,
which has been headed by Crown Prince Abd Allah since 1963,
recruited its personnel mostly from among the beduin tribes and
its units were organized by tribal affiliation. Abd Allah's
family ties to the tribes were also strong because his mother was
the daughter of a shaykh of the Shammar, a Najdi tribe with clans
in Iraq and Syria. Although the king and senior Al Saud princes
did not usually consult with the tribal shaykhs before making
decisions affecting national policy, the royal family routinely
sought their advice on provincial matters. Consequently, tribal
leaders still exercised significant influence in local politics.
The traditional merchant families, whose wealth rivaled that
of the Al Saud, included the Alireza, Ba Khashab, Bin Ladin, Al
Qusaibi, Jamjum, Juffali, Kaki, Nasif, Olayan, Al Rajhi, and
Sulayman. During the long reign of Abd al Aziz, the royal family
depended on these commercial families for financial support.
After oil revenues became a steady source of government income,
the relationship between the Al Saud and the merchant families
began to change. Significantly, the monarchy no longer needed
monetary favors from the merchants. Nevertheless, the families
that had complied with Abd al Aziz's repeated requests for loans
were rewarded with preferential development contracts. In
addition, the post-1973 development boom led to the emergence of
new entrepreneurial families such as Kamil, Khashoggi, Ojjeh, and
Pharaon. The sons of Abd al Aziz continued to consult regularly
with business leaders and appointed members of their families to
government positions, including the Council of Ministers and the
diplomatic corps.
The social changes resulting from government-sponsored
development projects helped to create a new class of Saudi
professionals and technocrats. These men comprised an urbanbased , Western-educated elite that emerged from both the
traditional merchant class and low-status families. The
technocrats have had responsibility for implementing the
country's economic development programs. Since the mid-1970s, a
majority of the cabinet appointees to the Council of Ministers
have been members of this group. Saudi kings recruited
technocrats to high government positions on the basis of their
demonstrated competency and loyalty to Al Saud dynastic rule.
However, involvement with the extensive Al Saud carried political
risks because implementation of economic policies inevitably
interfered with the privileges or business interests of one or
more princes. For example, Fahd summarily dismissed three of the
country's most respected technocrats, former Minister of Health
Ghazi al Qusaibi, former Minister of Oil Ahmad Zaki Yamani, and
former Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency head Abd al Aziz Qurayshi
after their advocacy of specific policies had alienated several
Saudi princes.
Other than the Council of Ministers, the new class of
technocrats had no institutional base from which to express its
views. Even within the Council of Ministers, the influence of
this new class was circumscribed; they provided advice when the
king solicited it, but ultimate decision-making authority
remained within the royal family. Because political parties and
similar associations were not permitted, there were no legal
means by which like-minded persons might organize. Nevertheless,
evidence suggested that the Saudi professionals and technocrats
were dissatisfied both with their exclusion from the political
process and their expected conformity to rigid standards of
social behavior. Periodically, individuals of this class
petitioned the king, asking him to permit broader political
participation. On the most recent occasion, at the end of 1990,
several technocrats signed a petition asking for the creation of
an elected majlis, a judiciary independent of the ulama, and a
review of the restrictive codes that applied to women
(see Cultural Homogeneity and Values
, ch. 2). One of the boldest
public protests was staged by more than forty educated women who
drove their cars through the streets of Riyadh in the fall of
1990 in violation of an unofficial but strictly enforced ban on
women driving automobiles.
The ulama, tribal leaders, wealthy merchants, and technocrats
constituted the four major groups that enjoyed varying degrees of
access to political influence. The major group excluded was the
Shia minority concentrated in and near the towns of Al Hufuf and
Al Qatif in the Eastern Province
(see Shia
, ch. 2). Most of Saudi
Arabia's estimated 200,000 to 400,000 Shia believed that the
government, and especially the Sunni ulama, discriminated against
them. Shia resentment exploded in a series of violent
demonstrations in 1979 and 1980; at least twenty people were
killed in these incidents. Since 1980 the government has tried to
reconcile the disaffected population through development projects
in Shia communities. However, in 1992 the Shia minority still had
no means of participating in the political process, and most held
low-status jobs. Saudi Shia, in fact, comprised virtually the
only indigenous members of the country's working class. Foreign
laborers, who had obtained temporary permits to reside in the
kingdom, performed almost all manual labor
(see
Saudis and Non-Saudis
, ch. 2).
Data as of December 1992
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