|
|
|
The second King Saud (1953-64) was a disappointment to the other members of the royal Saud family. They found him too interested in leisure and spending money. He was, moreover, a heavy drinker. Faisal was elevated from foreign minister, becoming Saudi Arabia's third king. He began economic development and improvements in education. Oil revenues were increasing, and with these Faisal was able to start building programs and a system of welfare for all citizens. Faisal had a reputation as pious, and this enabled him to introduce cautious social reforms such as female education. In 1965, he approved television broadcasts inside the kingdom - a recitation of the Koran. Conservative Muslims protested, citing Islam's opposition to images.
Modernization brought Faisal into conflict with Saudi Arabia's religious leaders, who saw innovation as a threat to Islam. To appease them, King Faisal allowed his realm to become a sanctuary for Muslim scholars escaping from Egypt and Syria, where the governments were persecuting troublesome Muslims. Faisal invited them to teach Saudi Arabia's youth fundamentalism, and many of Saudi radicals were to study under these Egyptian and Syrian fundamentalists. Amid all the new luxury, Saudi Arabia remained devout in religion. Wahhabi clerics controlled education. Sophistication and avant guard attitudes remained among some of those who did a lot of travel abroad, while devotion to a strict fundamentalism continued to be expected of the common Saudi Arabian.
Following Islam's devotion to charity for the needy, the Saudi's spent as much as they could on welfare for their own people, and then they began looking abroad for places to make a contribution. In addition to contributing money to help the Muslims in Afghanistan in their war against the Russians, charity from Saudi Arabia contributed to the creation of schools in poor Islamic neighborhoods in black Africa, in Pakistan and other places. These schools were like the schools in Saudi Arabia: devoted to Wahhabi fundamentalism. Pursuing their interest in human decency, Saudi Arabians were spending some of their new wealth contributing to a new growth in Islamic fundamentalism.
The Saudis saw themselves as members in good standing in the Arab community of nations, and the Saud family tried to maintain recognition in the Arab world as leader in Islam, including the keeper of Islam's holy places: Mecca and Medina. The Saudis shared with other Arabs the view that the creation of Israel was an injustice. During the Arab-Israeli war of 1973 - the Yom Kippur War - the United States airlifted supplies to Israel, and the Arab League pressured King Faisal, who ordered Saudi oil off the market as part of an oil embargo by Arab producers. World oil prices quickly quadrupled. The oil embargo created a gasoline shortage in the United States, with long lines at gasoline stations. The U.S. Secretary of State, Henry Kissenger, announced that oil was a national security priority and that the U.S., if necessary, would intervene militarily. The Saudi oil embargo was having an impact on the U.S. waging war in Vietnam. Tensions with the U.S. relented when King Faisal agreed to supply oil in secret to the U.S. navy.
The Yom Kippur War last only nineteen days, and the oil embargo by Arab producers officially ended soon after, but the steep rise in oil prices launched worldwide inflation and recession for the years 1974 and '75. . But soon the need of producing companies to sell their oil and the dynamic of supply and demand brought the price of oil down again. By 1974 Arab-Israeli war and the oil embargo were ended.
On March 25, a nephew of the King Faisal, ibn Musaid, a member of the royal family, shot and killed the king. Musaid's brother had been one of those killed by police in 1965, during the protest against the introduction of television. Prince Khalid, a half-brother to Faisal, is selected as the fourth Saudi king.
In the wake of the Iranian Revolution, King Khalid strengthened their security tie with the United States, with oil revenues allowing Saudi Arabia to increase military spending.
In 1982, after an illness, King Khalid died and was succeeded by Crown Prince Fahd. By now, Saudi Arabia was second only to the United States as an importer of goods. Saudi Arabia bought a new infrastructure. It bought the construction of the best roadways, huge airports, fancy hotels, other great buildings and air-conditioned malls with Italian marble water fountains, balconies and hanging greenery. Luxury villas arose. Camels disappeared as the Saudis moved about in Mercedes, Japanese cars or mobile homes pulled by diesel trucks.
Since 1974, education levels in Saudi Arabia had soared, creating a problem of more educated people than there were jobs for them to do. For menial work the Saudis hired people from abroad. A joke went around that people of different nationalities were asked whether sex was fun or work. A Saudi was said to have answered that sex was fun, that if it were work he would hire a Pakistani to do it.
The Saudis bought U.S. surveillance aircraft and jet fighters. Qaddafi of Libya began a dispute with the Saudis, complaining about U.S. planes with U.S. crews affronting Islam by flying over Mecca. Qaddafi denounced the Saud dynasty as corrupt and urged an uprising against it. The Saudis believed that Qaddafi was supporting attacks on their diplomats and were financing groups within Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, and Tunisia against governments there. Saudi Arabia broke relations with Libya and King Fahd persuaded the Saudi Arabia's ulama to declare Qaddafi a heretic.
The sale of jet fighters to Saudi Arabia became an issue in the U.S. Congress, Congress voting down such sales and also sales to Saudi Arabia of stinger missiles. The Saudis were trying to protect themselves from Iran, while Congress was concerned about use of military equipment against Israel.
The Saudis wanted to keep the Middle East stable and advocated peace initiatives for settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - a plan for Israel to withdraw from occupied territories and the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
Through its good relations with Iraq, Jordan and Sudan, Saudi Arabia moved to improved its relations with Egypt. Egypt was readmitted to the League of Arab States, and in November 1987 Saudi Arabia restored diplomatic relations with Egypt.
Culturally the Saudis remained different from the West. Men were allowed four wives, and women continued to cover themselves from head to toe, including their arms, when they went out in public. Women used separate banks. They were not allowed to drive automobiles. Women controlled domestic matters while men controlled business and public affairs and dominated intellectually. Women were not allowed to be engineers or lawyers. Any drink that appeared as if it might be alcoholic was banned. Many books and other printed materials were also banned, as was innocent entertainment for common folks.
Sophistication was for the upper classes, who were likely to go to school abroad. The education of children was in the hands of Wahhabi clerics. Memorization of the Koran was a large part of this education, with high school students being warned that it was dangerous to have Jewish or Christian friends and warned of the danger of Muslim beliefs outside the Wahhabi point of view. "Infidels" were described as the enemy.
Saudi law was without the guarantees of rights that exist in the West. Theft, rape, murder and adultery were defined as crimes and harshly punished, and people were still being beheaded in public, including for adultery.
to the top |
1945-21st century |
The Iranian Revolution
Copyright © 2002 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.
address of this article: http://www.fsmitha.com/h2/ch33saud.html