TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/061791/0617003.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 10.0 KB | 200 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 39

SAUDI ARABIA

Skirmishes Under the Veil


Though life has returned to normal in the kingdom, the religious
conservatives and the moderates are stepping up their battle
over the country's direction

By DEAN FISCHER/RIYADH


    The camouflage-clad American troops with automatic rifles
slung over their shoulders have all but disappeared from the
streets of Riyadh. In the cool evening hours, Saudi families
once again browse in the stores, examining electronic gadgets
and comparing the latest imported luxury cars. In Jidda, gateway
to the Muslim shrines of Mecca and Medina, preparations are well
under way to accommodate the 2 million pilgrims expected during
this month's hajj. Says an adviser to a senior Saudi minister:
"We feel a cloud has been lifted from over our land."

    Three months after the gulf war ended, Saudi Arabia seems
to have returned to its placid ways. But the calm atmosphere is a
mirage. Operation Desert Storm may be over, but it has
unleashed powerful political and social crosswinds in the
kingdom. Buffeted by the currents, King Fahd is struggling to
preserve a precarious balance between secular moderates and
religious conservatives while opening up the family-run
government to his subjects. At stake is not only the direction
of Saudi society, but also the survival of a royal dynasty that
has ruled the country since its founding 60 years ago.

    Saudi officials even claim that the country is slightly
strapped for cash. The government has been forced to borrow $7
billion to fulfill commitments to the U.S.-led alliance. Despite
a wartime surge in oil production from 5.5 million to 8 million
bbl. a day, Western economists estimate a budget deficit of $25
billion this year. Skittish about both the expense and foreign
entanglements, Fahd has reneged on an agreement to base a
Pan-Arab defense force composed primarily of Egyptian and Syrian
troops on Saudi soil. The plan envisaged an exchange of Egyptian
and Syrian military manpower for economic and financial aid.

    The country's postwar foreign policy has been a mix of
shortsightedness and self-interest. Like the Bush
Administration, Fahd had hoped Saddam Hussein would be a
casualty of the gulf war; the King now fears that a
Shi`ite-dominated Iraq possibly aligned with Iran is worse than
coexisting with a weakened Saddam. Washington's hopes of Saudi
leadership in the intensified search for Arab-Israeli peace were
dashed when Riyadh refused direct participation in negotiations
with Israel. Only under intense U.S. pressure did the Saudis
consent to discuss such peripheral issues with Israel as arms
control and water rights if a peace conference is convened. Fahd
has not forgiven Jordan's King Hussein and Palestine Liberation
Organization chairman Yasser Arafat for their support of
Saddam, further complicating U.S. efforts to forge a united
position among Arab moderates.

    Eager to show Washington that he is willing to embrace at
least some democratic principles, Fahd announced plans in April
to appoint a Consultative Council to advise the policymaking
Council of Ministers. By Western democratic standards, the
proposal is modest. But in the autocratic gulf region, any step
to broaden participation in government is radical. Fahd first
proposed a Consultative Council more than a decade ago, but
shelved the initiative when the Iranian revolution aroused fears
of regional instability.

    In characteristically subdued Saudi style, the debate
prompted by Fahd's proposed reforms is neither conducted in
public meetings nor reported in the country's media. The
government bans public gatherings of three or more people, and
press censorship precludes coverage of internal disputes.
Instead, petitions and pamphlets, widely disseminated by
photocopiers and fax machines, inform the public of conservative
and liberal views. Both minorities seek to influence Saudi
Arabia's silent majority, but the literature of the
well-organized ultraconservatives is more plentiful and
vituperative. Religious extremists have even advocated the
execution of so-called secularists -- men without beards. So
vicious are the accusations that the country's most influential
Islamic scholars last week condemned the ultraconservative
campaign as "counter to the interests of the Muslim society."
Like the moderates, the conservatives have endorsed the concept
of a Consultative Council and called for an end to corruption.
But they also want Shari`a (Islamic law) applied to banks,
courts and the media. The government, for example, would be
barred from borrowing money from banks, and noncriminal offenses
would be tried in religious courts. So far, King Fahd has
rejected the demand.

    During Ramadan, the month-long Islamic fasting period that
followed the war, vigilante members of the religious police, the
mutawain, stepped up their harassment of Saudi and foreign women
who displayed too much skin in violation of dress codes. Women
appearing in public without veils, or without wearing
head-to-toe abayas, have been abused and occasionally assaulted
by the cane-wielding morals squads.

    The vigilantes, mostly semi-educated young men bitterly
opposed to Western values, have broken into compounds in Riyadh
and Jidda to threaten and arrest Westerners drinking
home-brewed liquor in defiance of the ban on alcohol. A women's
tennis tournament in Riyadh was halted when the mutawain learned
of it. The government advised an oil-company executive to cancel
a party because members of both sexes were invited. Wives of
Western businessmen and diplomats are fearful of leaving their
villas in the evening unless accompanied by their husbands. To
do otherwise in the atmosphere of intimidation created by the
mutawain is to risk imprisonment.

    To curb the excesses of the fanatics, the King appointed
a religious moderate, Abdul Rahman al-Said, to head the
mutawain, officially known as the Committee for the Promotion
of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. Al-Said, a former dean of
Islamic studies at Imam Mohammed Ibn Saud Islamic University,
received an $18 million budget increase and instructions to rid
the mutawain of zealous volunteers. But harassment of Saudis and
foreigners by the mutawain continues, underscoring how difficult
it will be for al-Said to gain control of the organization and
its durable network of faculty and student supporters.

    Alarmed by the aggressiveness of the religious extremists,
43 moderate businessmen and intellectuals petitioned Fahd to
fulfill his pledge to make the government more democratic. "A
Consultative Council is a symbol of participation that will help
educate the public," says Abdul Muhsin al-Akkas, an executive
of the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry. "We are not yet
ready for free elections, but it is a step forward." In
response, the religious conservatives marshaled support in the
mosques for the implementation of Shari`a. Last month religious
leaders in the conservative stronghold of Buraida spread rumors
that a popular sheik, Salman al-Oda, had been arrested. Five
thousand followers marched on the governor's palace in protest.

    The moderates were encouraged when Fahd met in April with
four of the 47 women who drove their automobiles last November
in defiance of tradition. The women, many of them teachers (one
of the few professions open to females), were suspended from
their jobs, plagued by anonymous phone calls, threatened with
beheading by rabid Muslim preachers and denied permission to
leave the country. Like a stern but forgiving father, Fahd told
the women he had to discipline them as he would his own
daughters, but hinted that their punishment would soon end.
Nonetheless, the issue of women's rights is likely to be
deferred until the Consultative Council issue is settled.

    To educated middle-class Saudis, who chafe at religious
persecution and political disenfranchisement, Fahd's promises
have raised hopes of progressive if gradual change. "By next
fall," predicts an aide to a senior prince, "there will be a
Consultative Council and a major Cabinet reshuffle." The
council, consisting of 80 to 100 appointive members, will have
limited powers that will not impinge on the absolute authority
of the monarch. According to the Saudi adviser, the Cabinet
changes will not involve defense and internal security. Fahd's
half brother, Crown Prince Abdullah, commands the National
Guard, and his full brothers, Prince Sultan and Prince Naif,
direct the Defense and Interior ministries.

    Authority would remain firmly in the hands of the King and
his brothers. But in the Saudi tradition, the slightest
movement toward liberalization is noteworthy. It was not until
the 1960s that slavery was abolished and women were allowed to
attend schools. A Consultative Council is a concession to the
concept of political dialogue, if not to the principle of power
sharing. Fahd, who governs by family consensus, should not shy
away from a modest extension of the political franchise,
particularly if it represents no dilution of his own power. He
might even find it easier to control the religious extremists
who pose such a threat, in the moderates' view, to the stability
of the kingdom. Despite their endorsement of a Consultative
Council, says a Western diplomat, "the religious conservatives
correctly perceive that one of its aims is to provide a forum
for people to speak out against their excesses."

    Moderates fret that Fahd will once again back down rather
than confront the conservatives. "He will never fight them,"
says a Saudi intellectual. But failure to institute reforms now
will only serve to encourage the extremists. Fahd's father,
King Abdul Aziz, founder of the kingdom, did not hesitate to
sever his alliance with the puritanical Wahhabi warriors when
they defied his rule. As the struggle over Saudi Arabia's
future intensifies, Fahd could do worse than recall his father's
choice when challenged by his kingdom's zealots.