On Saudi Arabia

On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines—and Future

cover of the book
Author	Karen Elliott House
Language	English
Subject	human rights, global politics and the future of the Saudi Arabia
Publisher	Knopf
Publication date	2012
Publication place	United States
Pages	308
ISBN	978-0307473288

On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines—and Future is a book by American journalist Karen Elliott House about the future of Saudi Arabia. House has visited the country for more than 30 years, and she describes the country for regional specialists and public readers alike in her book. The book provides information on human rights, global politics and the future of the Saudi Arabia. It offers insights into the "kingdom’s fault lines", as well as suggestions for a positive diplomacy that encourages modest reforms.

Research

Karen Elliott House began traveling to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the 1970s. She has managed to get into the poorest slums, the richest compounds, and the most elegant tents of the royal family — and, sometimes garbed in a burqa, into the most devout families. She first began reporting on the kingdom more than forty years ago, for the Wall Street Journal, and has witnessed the country's evolution.

For this book, House spent five years of "deep diving" in the country, calling on diplomatic connections to gain the access she needed. She has conducted talks with a diverse range of Saudi people, including terrorists, millionaire playboys, destitute widows, muftis, engineers, university professors, housewives, dissatisfied youth and former princes. The slow reform process in Saudi Arabia, and the gap between what the people want to see changed and what is actually changing, creates the book's most arresting tension.

Content

The book can be divided into three sections. The first is about what House calls “the fragility of the kingdom whose traditional sources of stability have been religion and the royal family” and about how “both are losing credibility and control.” A second section explores what she calls “the many fault lines” that divide “a sullen society in which Saudis are increasingly discontented with poor education; a stultified economy; widespread youth unemployment; repression of women; poverty; corruption; and a government that is not efficient, transparent, or accountable.” The final chapters of the book explore what she calls “potential outcomes.” She compares the Saudi regime with the Soviet Union in its final days and Writes: “Today’s Saudi Arabia is all too reminiscent of the late stages of the old Soviet Union in which an aged Brezhnev is succeeded by an infirm Andropov, who is followed by a doddering Chernenko before a new-generation leader like Gorbachev could try — and fail — to effect genuine reform.” She also asks what the kingdom’s “longtime American protector can do to help shape the Saudi future.”

House describes the society of Saudi Arabia as a maze “in which Saudis endlessly maneuver through winding paths between high walls of religious rules, government restrictions and cultural traditions.” She repeatedly compares the Saudi regime with the Soviet Union in its final days and anticipates a kind of explosion and overthrow in Saudi kingdom and believes that women and the younger generation who are increasingly furious likely to do something about it. According to House 60 percent of Saudis are under the age of 18.

The book devotes a complete chapter to the condition of Saudi women. She argues while 60 percent of the country’s university graduates are women, they constitute only 12 percent of the country’s employed. Meanwhile, the poorest class of society are women without men, widowed or divorced, who have to work hard to support their children.

Another topic that the book points out, is the support of terrorism. House argues that the Saudi government has rehabilitated profiles of former terrorists, which has tried to reintegrate them into Saudi society. The book quotes a statement from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as claiming that Saudis “constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.” As she says, Saudi Arabia has remained largely quiet even during the Arab Spring because of a heavy Saudi security presence.

About the economic system, the author believes that Saudis are paralyzed by an economy based almost solely on oil and government handouts. According to House, Al Saud have run their country like a family corporation with zero accountability. Because of an intractable, Backward education system, religious extremist ideologies and the fact that the country's best talents are stifled in every field, the Saudi economy will become less modern and diversified. They have instituted policies that have crippled their intellectuals, their artists, their businessmen and women, and even their own princes. She says that in the firm grip of Wahhabi fundamentalists, education system is spectacularly unable to prepare Saudis for professional jobs. And since most refuse blue-collar and service work, 90 percent of private-sector workers are foreigners. The book also delves into the issue of poverty in Saudi Arabia where forty percent of the population gets by on less than $850 a month.