The world will remember one thing only of King Abdullah, the late king of Saudi Arabia, and that is how President Barack Obama bowed before him in obeisance. Democracy was seen paying dues to absolute monarchy. Abdullah was every bit as determined to cling to privilege as his father and brothers who had been absolute monarchs before him. Unremittingly selfish and small-minded, these men are tribal chiefs able to pose as king only because the rest of the world is paying — and overpaying — for the oil it needs. These tribal chiefs of course resist everything that might lead to a change in their fortune. Abdullah made sure that women are still not allowed to drive; that a bookish young man by the name of Raif Badawi is sentenced to a thousand lashes and ten years in prison for suggesting it’s time to reform; that a woman from Myanmar is beheaded in public while screaming that she is innocent; that mosques are built all over the world but Saudi Arabia does not allow any Christian church. In an obituary even more misleading than usual, the New York Times attributed to him “a modern sensibility.”
Nobody really knows what goes on behind the closed doors of the Riyadh palaces in which the men of this displeasing family divide power and money among themselves. The death of the tribal chief each time leads to speculation in the media that now a crisis of succession must erupt. Simon Henderson of the Washington Institute is one of the few whose opinion about the country is worth having, but no sooner had he speculated that Abdullah’s brother Salman isn’t up to the position of tribal chief than Salman’s promotion was announced. Another selfish and small-minded man has been handpicked to maintain the privileges his extended family enjoys.
A day must come when in the nature of things this bizarre process of selection in secret throws up someone who will allow women to drive or Christians to pray in public. Saudi Arabia’s version of the Arab Spring looks set inflexibly for violence and revolution.