From the library: On Saudi Arabia, by Karen Elliott House

Last updated on: April 12, 2016 at 7:04 am by Jane the Actuary

From the library: On Saudi Arabia, by Karen Elliott House 2016-04-12T06:57:18-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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Subtitled Its People,Past, Religion, Fault Lines — and Future, this book, published in 2012, was the result of House’s travels and interviews over a four year period, during which time she met with ordinary people and Saudi princes alike. It’s what I found at the library after reading the articles I linked to the other day.

Much of the story of Saudi Arabia is familiar: women who are virtual prisoners in their homes, guest workers living in poverty, religious police enforcing separation of the sexes. But there’s a lot I didn’t know.

Here are some statistics: the population is shockingly young, with 70% of Saudis are under 30 years of age, and 60% are age 20 or younger. 40% of Saudis live in poverty, and at least 60% cannot afford a home. 40% of Saudi youth between 20 and 24 are unemployed, but, at the same time, 90% of all workers in the private sector are foreign. With a population so young, the economy would need to create significant numbers of new jobs every year, but that’s not happening, and, what’s more, the unemployed young men reject private sector jobs, hoping for the same sort of government jobs their fathers had, so that the new jobs in private industry are going to ever-growing numbers of foreign workers.

Some things I did not know: the public school system, only 50 years old, has historically been controlled by the religious authorities, and it’s produced an education that is still largely focused on studying the Quran, and on rote memorization more generally. Even at the university level, the large majority of the degrees are in Islamic studies, meaning that the issue of new graduates failing to get private sector jobs isn’t just a matter of willingness and work ethic, but they lack the academic qualifications for the sort of middle-class jobs they’d want. In 2009, King Abdullah established a new, “modern” university intended to counter this, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, or KAUST, in which the religious police are banned from campus, men and women attend classes together, and women are even allowed to drive on campus, but how little this contributes to the advancement of the education of Saudis themselves is indicated in its wikipedia article,

As of September 2014, KAUST has 840 students in total. The student population comes from over 60 nationalities from all continents. The largest single national representation is from China with India in second place. Saudi Arabia is the third most prevalent nationality of the student make up.

There is a real problem with poverty. I had figured that there was a comprehensive welfare system, but House says that’s not the case, that there are subsidies for energy and water, but that the poor get by with a combination of charity and some minimal government programs. In any case, the Saudis who make the news for partying outside the country are in the minority, as most don’t have this lavish a living standard.

The degree of religious conservatism/extremism has also varied — in the 1970s, for instance, the government permitted movie theatres, and a greater degree of mixing between men and women, and even allowed images of unveiled women on TV. And women, too, were less likely to be veiled then. But in 1979, extremists seized the Grand Mosque, and, after the Saudi military cleared them, it moved to co-opt the extremist cause by itself adopting more extreme Wahabbi measures. But House cites approvingly certain reform measures instituted by then-king Abdullah, including the right of women (with their guardians’ permission) to vote in municipal advisory council elections.

House also believes that the extremism isn’t simply a matter of top-down imposition from the monarchy. The veiling (that is, covering one’s face rather than just one’s hair) is a decision made by the people themselves. She visits whith a “typical family” in which the mother is deeply committed to raising her daughters to be just as obedient and observant as she is (and as accepting of sharing a husband with another wife).

But it’s also not a matter of women simply doing so as a voluntary choice. There is a great importance placed on conformity, not sticking out, doing what everyone else is doing. Indeed, she characterizes this as a defining trait of the Saudis:

The combined effect of Al Saud survival skills, vast oil riches, and the religious requirement of obedience all add up to a largely somnolent and passive Saudi poplace. . . .

Saudis’ overwhelming desire to conform, to pass unnoticed among the rest of society, is surely a boon to Al Saud control. If Westerners love individualism, most Saudis are literally frightened at the mere thought of being different. To be different is to attract attention. To attract attention is to invite envy from peers and anger from family. (p. 31)

And this passivity comes in part from the growth of the Saudi state, in which the royal family established their power and control by doling out favors. House writes (p. 65),

[B]oth tradition and religion have made most Saudis accustomed to dependence, to being reactive, not proactive; to accepting, not questioning; to being obedient, not challenging; to being provided for rather than being responsible for their own futures. During the centuries when Arabia was dominated by warring tribes, the tribal head was responsible for the needs of his tribe and expected to receive loyalty and obedience from others if he met those needs.

House leaves some questions unanswered. If polygamy is so common, even among the middle class, how do the “lost boys” who are unable to find wives, live out their adult years (besides joining the Taliban or ISIS, that is)? If men refuse to work in the private sector, and would rather be unemployed, or not even job-hunt at all, how do they support themselves? — or do their parents continue to support them long after reaching adulthood?

House also discusses the issue of royal succession, and the fact that the throne has passed from one brother-prince to the next, but this generation is aging. Since her book, however, the new king, Salman, who ascended in 2015 with Abdullah’s death, has named a nephew, rather than yet another brother, as crown prince, seemingly having settled the question of succession, if not larger questions of rule and reform.

So what next? As wealthy as the country is, it nonetheless seems like a time bomb, as those under 20s reach adulthood, and expect the same degree of prosperity as their parents had, with less weath per person as the population grows.

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