“We are not going to waste thirty years attacking radical ideas, we are going to destroy them today, right away.” This was how Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, spoke in 2018 during a conference on investment in Saudi Arabia. A few weeks earlier, the international press was shocked by the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Several investigations have accused MBS of being behind this massacre committed against the journalist who opposed the royal family.
The crown prince’s speech focused on the evolution of his oil country. And the changes in recent years have indeed been as rapid as they are surprising. At the same time, the data on freedom of expression encourages pessimism. Is Saudi Arabia really freeing itself from its totalitarian past, or is it just a mirage?
In the early 2000s, you had to be careful when walking the streets of the capital Riyadh. At any time, a white car, belonging to the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, could overtake you. Bearded men, white djellaba mid-calf and keffiyeh on their heads, monitored the application of sharia law. The Mutawa, or religious police, had the right to imprison a man accused of looking at women, all masked. His henchmen could arrest a person opening his store at prayer time.
Their power over society, greater than that of the royal family, dates back to the 18th century, following the agreement between Mohammed ibn Saud, founder of the Al-Saud dynasty, and the literalist theologian Mohammed ibn Abdelwahhab, whose descends from the family of religious leaders Al ash-Sheikh. The Al-Saud retain political, economic and military power, the Al ach-Cheick direct society according to Salafist principles, following the life of the Prophet Muhammad on a daily basis.
Nightclubs and museums
MBS is at the origin of a historic event: the sidelining of the moral police, who must now content themselves with advising people to follow public orders, without any authority to arrest anyone. Dating from 2016, this change marked the start of a remarkable evolution. The following year, women were allowed, for the first time, to drive their cars. In 2018, the mask was no longer compulsory, women only had to wear the veil, and they could travel without a man. We began to see cinemas, mixed concerts and nightclubs appear.
MBS created a new commission: the General Entertainment Authority, which has the mission of encouraging tourism around historical heritage, and investors to allocate land to establish cultural projects such as libraries and museums, a step towards economic and social openness.
Since then, it has become normal to listen to music broadcast from halal bars without alcohol. Saudis saw, for the first time, festivals and sporting competitions featuring international stars, from footballer Ronaldo to rapper and model Iggy Azalea. Girls in bikinis and boys dance on the beaches of Jeddah, a city on the banks of the Red Sea, 100 kilometers from Mecca. The objective: to destroy the conservative image of the country.
An unprecedented development
This spectacular development is part of Vision 2030. Launched by MBS in 2016, this part of global and sustainable development is based on three axes: a dynamic society, a prosperous economy and an ambitious nation. The Saudi economy experienced the fastest growth among the G20 states in 2022. The participation of women in the world of work increased from 17% to 37% in 2023. The most ambitious project of Vision 2030 is called Neom , a futuristic metropolis in the desert intended to accommodate businessmen and project managers, with an ecological lifestyle. MBS describes it as “a city for dreamers, run entirely by artificial intelligence, an example of the new world.”
But the most striking in these developments is Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy, particularly in relation to Israel. In 2020, she encouraged the normalization of several Arab countries (United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Bahrain) with the Jewish state. Officially, the Abraham Accords are still not extended to Saudi Arabia, home to the holiest place for Muslims, but there are many signs that this scenario is possible. In 2020, former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid announced that Saudi Arabia approved the first direct flights from Israel for the Hajj pilgrimage. Threats from Iran, enemy No. 1 for the two most powerful states in the Middle East, are pushing them to collaborate on security matters.
We must also remember that Hamas is not welcome in Saudi Arabia. Historically, the Muslim Brotherhood, founders of the Palestinian Islamist organization, have always been considered a terrorist movement by the Saudis. This is the main reason why Qatar, which hosts the Brotherhood, experienced a suspension of its diplomatic relations with Riyadh between 2017 and 2021. Following the attack of October 7, 2023, the Saudi regime kept its blood -cold, confirming that Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state was the condition for developing relations between the two countries. In other words: the doors are always open.
A Europe without democracy?
In the same 2018 investment conference, MBS declared: “The Middle East will be the Europe of the future.” If this hypothesis is imaginable given current economic and social progress, this is not the case in terms of the Saudi prince’s domestic policy. In 2017, he brutally confined numerous emirs, ministers, and businessmen to a hotel in Riyadh, accusing them of corruption and money laundering. After months of detention, each of them had to hand over part of their fortune to be released. But according to the Guardian, the real reason behind this event was to make MBS the sole leader of the country. The detainees were tortured, threatened and humiliated. Among them, Mohammed bin Nayef, until then heir to King Salman. A few months later, he was dismissed from all his functions in favor of MBS.
Today, Saudi Arabia seems condemned to a total dictatorship. Historically, since the creation of the third Saudi state in 1932, the regime was based on a family system, in which members of the royal family met to make important decisions. The first and second heirs were the king’s brothers, they shared the ministries of Defense and that of the Interior. But since 2017, MBS has become the sole decision-maker of Saudi policies. His arrival in power allowed him to implement his modernizing projects, but also to control the country with an iron fist.
The figures confirm the worrying situation in terms of human rights. Khashoggi’s murder is not the only crime committed by the regime. Saudi Arabia has seen widespread arrest campaigns of activists and political opponents. Lawyer Loujain al-Hathloul, a women’s rights activist, was sentenced to five years in prison in 2020, under the pretext of “attacking religious and national values”. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and Amnesty International confirmed that the Saudi state had arrested her and six other people for their activities defending the rights of their compatriots.
The case that made the most noise was the imprisonment of blogger Raif Badawi, creator of the website Free Saudi Liberals. Arrested in 2012 for having “humiliated” Islam, he was sentenced to ten years in prison in 2014, as well as 600 lashes. Although released in 2023, he is still prohibited from contacting media or traveling. In a country where the press is heavily censored, there is no detailed investigation into repressive practices.
According to the opponent Sa’ad al-Faqih, a refugee in London since the 1990s, there are today “around 1,000 prisoners of conscience, including emirs”. The death penalty is still applied for political activists. This is the case of Mohammed al-Ghamdi, sentenced to death in 2023 for his criticism of the royal family on X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube. Joey Shea, researcher at Human Rights Watch, considers that “repression in Saudi Arabia has reached a terrifying new stage, where courts can impose the death penalty for purely peaceful tweets.”
Since the start of the year, the Saudi Interior Ministry has announced the implementation of 55 executions, an increase of 189% compared to the number of executions in the first third of 2023.
The only corrupt
By following MBS’s policies, we understand that the young man, aged 38 and passionate about video games, does not only want to be the only “modern” leader of his country, but also the only corrupt one. In 2015, when his father Salman came to the throne, MBS bought according to the New York Times the most expensive residence in the world for 300 million dollars: the Château Louis XIV in Louveciennes, near Paris. He also acquired the painting The Redeemer by Leonardo da Vinci for 450 million dollars. Not to mention a yacht worth $550 million in 2016, during a short vacation in the south of France. He later spent $50 million on a special ceremony on a private island in the Maldives to mark his appointment as heir. According to Wall Street Journalboats transported 150 prostitutes there from Brazil, Russia and other countries for MBS and his guests.
Saudi Arabia has changed a lot socially, culturally and economically. But today it is a pipe dream to believe that it could become freer, giving its citizens the right to participate in political life. The Europe of the future still seems far away…
* Writer and poet born in Damascus, Omar Youssef Souleimane participated in demonstrations against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, but had to flee Syria in 2012. Refugee in France, he published with Flammarion The Little Terrorist, The Last Syrian, A room in exile, and recently Being French.
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