Nashville Public Radio:
I would like to start with an overview because I think a lot of Tennesseans may not know a lot about Saudi Arabia.
Thomas Lippman: I would say I know a lot more about Saudi Arabia than most Americans, but very little, because it is an impenetrable society. But please ask any questions you want, I am here to answer your questions.
NPR: Lets start with the governmental structure. It�s ostensibly a monarchy..
Lippman: Well it is a mistake to think of it as an absolute monarchy. It�s a monarchy in that there is a king and a crown prince, but essentially it�s run by a family. People often say it�s the world�s largest family owned business.
It�s run by the al Saud family. They chose the king. All kings since 1953 have been sons of the founding king,
King Abdul Aziz ibn
Saud. All kings for the foreseeable future will be sons or grandsons of the founding king. But the king doesn�t just issue orders. He has to build consensus within the family and he has to build consensus with the religious establishment of Saudi Arabia.
If you read the constitution of Saudi Arabia � the Basic Law � the purpose of the state is not the enhancement of individual rights or the promotion of individual opportunity. It is the promulgation of Islam. And the state is run on the basis of a bargain between the power of the royal family and the influence -- cultural and religious and behavioral -- of the religious leadership and everything that�s done is pretty much done on the basis of agreement between those two forces.
NPR: And one of their main charges is protecting and overseeing the holy sites?
Lippman:
Absolutely. The king�s official title is Custodian of the Two Holy
Mosques, which refers to the mosques of Mecca and
Medina. Since the time of the Prophet Mohammed in the seventh century they have been the holiest places in Islam. They are in western Saudi Arabia just outside the port city of
Jeddah. Those are the places to which Muslim pilgrims from all over the world go during the annual Muslim pilgrimage season. That�s a duty that all Muslims that are physically able must fulfill at least once in their lifetimes.
All Saudi citizens must be Muslims. Public practice of any other religion is prohibited, and no one can become a Saudi citizen who is not Muslim.
NPR: So how is the push towards democracy fitting in with the family structure and the centralized state religion?
Lippman: I don�t think there is much of a push toward democracy in Saudi Arabia, certainly not by the United States. For reasons having to do with economics and geopolitics President Bush, like all his predecessors, has decided to back off on trying to interfere with Saudi Arabia�s internal affairs.
We have other issues with Saudi Arabia that matter more -- whether it�s stability in Iraq or the price of oil or, as it was during the cold war, opposition to the spread of Communism in the Middle East.
However, within Saudi Arabia itself society is changing. Things are happening around the edges. They don�t affect the basic institutions of power. But people, mostly women -- half the graduates coming out of Saudi universities now are female. If you have been going there as long as I have, I first went there more than 30 years ago, you can see the pressure coming from this new generation of educated Saudi women to do things a little differently in Saudi society; to provide more economic and social and, eventually, even political opportunities for them.
That�s what was behind the petition signed by more than 1000 women last week that was sent to the King, saying the time has come to allow women to drive. That petition will not be granted. Not right away. It�s the kind of a society where if you ask they sort of have to say no. But eventually it will come.
NPR: Have you seen other progress with women�s issues in terms of the right to vote. Weren�t they allowed to vote?
Lippman:
No, they were not. There was a lot of talk right up until the last minute. For the first time since the 1950s they had elections in 2005. Some of the municipal councils in the country were elected.
Some people said it didn�t matter because the municipal councils don�t have any real power. But they have some power. Right up until the last minute it was not clear whether women would be allowed to vote or not. At the end of the day they were not allowed to vote because, I think, the rulers felt that had they been, that would have become the issue itself. It would have been a very incendiary gesture in the Saudi context. It�s a very conservative society. It is widely believed that in the next round which, I think, is next year, women will be allowed to participate in some way.
Where I see the change coming is in the issues of families, society and labor. What�s happened is that the women have forced into the open, forced into public discussion in the media and public forums issues that matter to them that were always taboo. Beginning with spousal abuse and child neglect, and including various diseases and issues that they�ve always pretended they didn�t have to deal with. Women now are taking jobs in, promoting awareness of, working to combat, social problems that are inherent in any society even in one that considers itself the perfect Muslim society like Saudi Arabia.
NPR: If we could change the subject just a little bit and talk about how the Saudi economy is impacting the society itself. I�ve heard that, and correct me if this is not true, but that there are a lot of slums and �favela� type neighborhoods right outside Riyadh. So, is the welfare state trickling down through to the bottom?
Lippman: There are, �favela� is a good term if people know what that is. �Favela� is essentially Brazilian slums right? They are shantytowns. Most of those, though, are not occupied by Saudi Arabs; most of those are occupied by the vast legions of imported labor who do all the heavy lifting in Saudi Arabia.
Because Saudi Arabia got rich basically overnight it never went through the intermediate stages of development that we and the Europeans went through with the Industrial Revolution and the development of mechanized agriculture and progress -- slow progress -- in transportation.
One day they had nothing, the next day they were drowning in cash, virtually overnight. And so rather than do the heavy lifting, you know, carrying their own concrete, they imported labor and it�s a huge problem in Saudi Arabia even to this day. They went straight from illiteracy to too many PhD�s, because everybody wants to be Doctor, and it�s not necessarily productive.
This is a problem that the Saudis have been wrestling with, really since the 1970s. Just yesterday, the Saudi government announced that for its fiscal year, which just ended, they had a budget surplus of $77 billion. That�s the highest ever. So that right now, with oil at $80 a barrel, Saudi Arabia is once again flush with cash.
The reason this matters is that for the past 20 or 30 years, as rich as Saudi Arabia was, the population has been growing faster than the economy. So the GDP per capita in Saudi Arabia is only about 40% of what it was back at the end of the 1970s. That has created a lot of frustration among the people who are not cashing in. On one of my recent trips to Riyadh I was shocked to see beggars in the street. I had never seen that in Saudi Arabia. Newspapers write about this and it has put a terrible strain, even with all the money available, on public services that the Saudis have come to take for granted -- medical care, even on the schools. They build schools and hospitals and they don�t have enough people to staff them.
They are always looking for ways to provide non-oil jobs that Saudi people will take. At the same time any serious Saudi person that you talk to recognizes that they can�t go on excluding half the educated work force, namely the women, from the economy. In my opinion everything that they have done so far has essentially nibbled at the margin of these problems. My favorite example is the light bulb factory where all the employees are women. So perhaps they created 50 jobs for women, but it is a completely artificial situation. It�s the long answer to what should be a short question. Yes they have plenty of money. No they don�t have an economic structure that allows them, or forces them, to put their personal power to the most productive use.
NPR: With all that money I would imagine Saudi Arabia has a fair amount of influence over the countries in the Middle East. We know it definitely has influence over international markets with OPEC, but have you seen changes in that influence, whether it goes up or down?
Lippman: I�ve seen a lot of changes in that influence in several ways. The most dramatic change has come in the last five years, since 9-11, when suddenly the Saudis were under pressure.. ..the Saudis essentially had been exporting their religious and social attitudes through the mosques and schools of poorer countries for the past 25 years -- into places like Somalia and poorer neighboring countries and even to South Asia and Central Asia. Let�s say ideas -- about life, religion and society that we would find, would be uncomfortable with, let�s put it as politely as possible -- were exported because the Saudis had huge amounts of money that they could pump into building mosques and providing the people to preach at them, and the teachers to teach at the schools.
That has changed drastically since 9-11 as they tried to stop essentially the outflow of hatred. The question of the political influence has changed. Back in the 60�s and 70�s the standard model was that you had certain Arab countries allied basically with Moscow, mainly Egypt under Nasser, and Iraq under the early Baathists and you had the ones that were all allied with us, led by Saudi Arabia.
That model is entirely in flux now. There is no more Soviet Union. The United States for various reasons is in disfavor. We can�t count on nor can we expect the Saudis to carry our water for us in ways that they used to, nor do they wish to.
So the question of Saudi influence is one that is in a state of evolution. Part will depend on what happens in Iraq. Part will depend if they can find a modus vivendi with Iran.
We did see, though, the power of Saudi influence at the recent Arab summit conference, when all the countries of the Arab League reaffirmed support for the Saudi plan for peace with Israel. Peace between the Arabs and Israel. A lot of them don�t like it but the Saudis have floated that and made it stick. They do exert a lot of influence.
NPR: They are scheduled to have another conference and Hamas called on Saudi Arabia to not attend?
Lippman: President Bush and the United States are trying to put together a major regional conference that will make real progress on the subject of peace between Israel and the Palestinians -- a deal between Israel and the Palestinians.
Hamas, which for benefit of your audience, essentially consists of the militant wing of the Palestinian movement and is in control of the Gaza strip. Hamas opposes any such move. They are opposed to the existence of Israel. They don�t want to make peace with Israel, and they certainly are opposed to a conference that would be under American sponsorship. They would prefer that the Saudis not attend.
This is a very difficult question for the Saudis. And they have made clear, their Foreign Minister Prince al Faisal has said that the Saudis will attend if they are convinced that it will make a substantive difference and the ball will really be moved down the field.
NPR: As far as the Saudi Arabian plan for the Israeli-Palestinian
question, what does that entail exactly.
Lippman:
In simplest form it says that if the Israelis return to the borders that existed before the 1967 war -- give up the occupied territories; and if some arrangements acceptable to the Palestinians can be made -- some gesture that the Palestinians can swallow toward the question of the return of Palestinian refugees, which would be very hard to do; if they can do that then it is game over, the war ends. Then the Arabs collectively will, you might say, hold their noses and accept the existence of Israel and agree to do business with it the way Egypt and Jordan already have.
That�s the deal. It�s a very hard deal for Israel to accept because going back to the 1967 borders would be a political earthquake in Israel. It would allow the Syrians to return to the eastern shores of the Sea of Galilee and frankly the Palestinian and the Arab record on the subject is not encouraging.
The Israelis know perfectly well that Hezbollah has said for years that its only program was to get the Israelis out of south Lebanon. The Israelis left south Lebanon and Hezbollah went down there and opened fire on Israel. The Palestinians said they wanted Israel out of the occupied territories. The Israelis pulled out of Gaza and the result was the Palestinians opened fire on Israel when they had full control of Gaza. That record is not encouraging. And to ask the Israelis essentially to gamble the security of their state and the safety of their people on the promises on a collection of unstable governments that they regard as hostile and unreliable is very difficult. On the other hand what�s the choice? Do they want to live as a garrison state for another three generations? Certainly the Saudis don�t want that -- the Saudis want to get this issue off the table.
NPR: When was the last time you were in the Middle East.
Lippman: I was there in May of this year.
NPR: How have you seen US attitudes towards Saudi Arabia change over time? There is a new movie coming out called �The Kingdom.� I�m sure you have heard about that. How is that going to influence US perceptions?
Lippman: For as far back as I can remember, going back to the Paul Newman movie �Exodus,� American popular culture has portrayed the Israelis as plucky little, violin playing, jazz loving Davids, against the incompetent hostile Arabs.
Believe me, everyone in the Arab world remembers the scene in �Raiders of the Lost Ark� when the [sword waving] Arab comes after Harrison Ford and �Indy� takes out his pistol and blows him away. This is emblematic of what Arabs think American attitudes are. And to a great extent I think they are right.
You know, we grew up in a tradition where the Israelis were our guys. We don�t know much about the Arabs. Our traditions, for most Americans, our traditions, our food, our music, our grandparents, our religion came from Europe, not the Arabian Peninsula. That�s changing as we have more Muslims in this country, as more Americans become Muslims.
9-11 was a huge factor in this as I�m sure you know, particularly in regards to Saudi Arabia. It was �open season� on Saudi Arabia and you can argue whether it was deserved or not, but it was �open season� on Saudi Arabia for a couple of years after that. That has settled down now, and I think certain events over time are changing the way we think about this.
The Israelis did themselves no favor with the Hezbollah war last summer. Nobody can understand the point of that war. More and more Americans are doing business with the Arab world. That�s where the money is.
In fact I just got some statistics this morning and right here in Tennessee -- in
2001 Tennessee exported $48 million worth of goods and services just to Saudi Arabia. In 2006 that figure was $346 million. And that�s just one state in this country. Can you imagine how many people are doing business with Saudi Arabia?
So I think Americans are less dug in on some of the ways that they look at that part of the world. Now, I don�t know what the long-term influence on American thinking will be about Arabs, in general, because of Iraq. It�s too early to tell.
NPR: What about issues like the Dubai ports deal?
Lippman: Personally I thought it was outrageous. Here is something to think about. There is an office building in southwest Washington, DC near Fort McNair, a big office building. It is the headquarters of the United States Coast Guard. It is owned by Kuwaitis. So what was up with the security risks of Dubai Ports World? Dubai Ports World is an internationally respected company.
I thought there was a lot of political pandering to presumed fears about Arabs sneaking into our country and blowing people up. I understand why some people were amenable to that argument but I think you are going to see it differently now with this bid of Dubai to take over the NYMEX. Except for Senator Schumer, nobody is going to get up on his high horse of security righteousness on that one. I think that with the Dubai Ports thing people, such as Senator Schumer and even Senator Clinton, tapped into a string of, not hostility to but, suspicion of Arabs that�s not far below the surface. I would hope we would get over that.
NPR:
In your time here over the last few days -- I know you have been teaching in a lot of classes, and I imagine hearing from a lot of people -- has there been a common concern or common question that people are asking you about?
Lippman: Yes, and I have to say I�ve been surprised by what it was. It was not so much among tenth graders, you know, who didn�t venture political opinions. But among the university students, the civic club groups, individuals that I have met through the
Tennessee World Affairs
Council, I found deep hostility to, and anger about, and disgust with, the war in Iraq. Quite wide spread. I hear that all the time in Washington. I didn�t expect to find it so much in central Tennessee.
Now maybe it�s just that people who feel differently about Iraq didn�t come to my events but I�ve had structured and unstructured conversations. They touched on a wide range of subjects. Many people are interested in the basic issues of women�s rights and human rights in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Arab world, but if I had to say one thing that I came away with is that people are fed up with the war in Iraq.
NPR: Is there one thing that you want to impart to Tennesseans here?
Lippman: What I want to impart to Tennesseans is that the outside world matters, and the Middle East matters a lot. I understand very well that it sometimes seems confusing to the point of being nightmarish. We at the Middle East Institute, the Tennessee World Affairs Council and other organizations, we are here to help make sense of it. There are ways to come to grips with these very thorny topics.
Information and opportunities are available. I was very encouraged by the creation of the Tennessee World Affairs Council, by the enthusiasm and inquiries I got from student groups, by meeting Saudi students at Tennessee Tech who say they have been very well received, so it matters.
NPR: Well thank you very much.
[Mr.
Lippman was interviewed at the Nashville Public Radio
studios on September 27, 2007.]
ABOUT
Thomas W. Lippman is an adjunct scholar at the
Middle East Institute in Washington. In four years as the
Washington Post's Middle East bureau chief, three years as the Post's oil and energy reporter and a decade as the newspaper's national security and
diplomatic correspondent, he traveled extensively to Saudi Arabia. He is
the author of Inside the Mirage: America's Fragile Partnership with Saudi
Arabia, Madeleine Albright and the New American
Diplomacy, Understanding Islam, and Egypt After
Nasser. A writer and journalist specializing in U.S. foreign policy and Middle Eastern affairs, he lives in Washington, DC.
[Mr. Lippman was interviewed in the editorial offices
of SUSRIS.org in Cookeville, Tennessee on September 27, 2007.]
ABOUT
The
Middle East Institute -- "Since 1946
the Middle East Institute has been an important
conduit of information between Middle Eastern
nations and American policymakers, organizations and
the public. We strive to increase knowledge of the
Middle East among our own citizens and to promote
understanding between the peoples of the Middle East
and America. Today we play a vital and unique role
in expanding the dialogue beyond Washington, DC, and
actively with organizations in the Middle East.."
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