“Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia is touring Asia since no Western nation will invite him. He desperately needs something positive about his regime to make headlines,” executive vice-president for Global Centers and Global Development at Columbia University Prof Safwan M Masri told DNA on Friday evening soon after his public lecture at Mumbai's Columbia Global Centre. “He's chosen Pakistan, India and China since he knows no Western country will want to accord him a state welcome while the killing and dismembering of Jamal Khashoggi is still fresh in people's minds,” he added.
He admitted the Khashoggi incident was being kept alive only because the deceased was a columnist of The Washington Post. “If it was anyone else it would hardly become such a big issue or be kept alive for so long,” and added, “Turkey is also keen on keeping the case simmering as it gives them a rather powerful bargaining chip when their currency has been devalued and both the economy and the country were staring at tough times.”
The senior research scholar at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) and expert on education and contemporary geopolitics and society in the Arab world was delivering a lecture on ‘Shifting Power Dynamics in the Middle East: Prospects for Democracy and Pluralism.’ He reminded DNA that MBS (as the Saudi Prince is colloquially called) was only following his father's footsteps in using travel to divert attention from troubling domestic issues.
Earlier during his talk too, the geostrategist whose work focuses on understanding the historic, postcolonial dynamics among religion, education, society, and politics in the Arabian world mentioned the irony inherent in MBS' tour. Without mentioning India or the PM Narendra Modi's special personal welcome he said: “Let's not forget that this man who is being welcomed across the world has on his watch allowed 300 executions, most of which are extra-constitutional beheadings!”
Prof Masri laughed at how much the liberal world makes of MBS' acceptance of women driving. “Women in that country still have to be either accompanied by a male 'guardian' (father, brother, husband, son, etc) or have an authorisation for something as basic as boarding a flight and a big deal is being made of women getting to drive?” He pointed out how several women who were at the forefront of the campaign for women's rights in the country have been picked up by the police and have disappeared. “Nobody has heard from or of them since.”
He also called Saudi Arabia “a historically corrupt country” and said: “It exists only to serve interests of the ruling family for who there is no difference between public and private funds.”
According to him most of the ugly dynamics playing out in the form of coups and counter-coups in the Middle East are the result of long-standing problems created by the British and French when they arbitrarily carved out nation-state states. “Outside interference and sectarianism are the banes of this region,” he said and added, “Many of these countries still don't think of themselves as nation-states but as tribes. And they only know how to assert their identities in one way: exclusionary rhetoric.”
He lamented how religion is used to arm-twist so that one tribe or kingdom can show suzerainty over the other in the region and underlined how the current Qatar-Saudi Arabia standoff has roots in this rivalry. “While Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have joined hands with Saudi Arabia to sever all ties with Qatar, Oman and Kuwait have decided to stay neutral,” he pointed out and explained, “The latter two know that if they join the Saudis against the Qataris now it could soon be their turn next.”
In the end, this author of seminal Tunisia: An Arab Anomaly (Columbia University Press, 2017) also explained why Tunisia has been able to stay aloof from all the trouble unfolding in the Arabian world because it is a democracy. “It helps that it is located far from all the trouble zones and hot spots in the region but it also helps that the rulers in Tunisia have been progressive and ahead of their times.”
Despite being the centre of major slave trade from Africa to Europe because of its location Tunisia abolished slavery a whole 19 years before the Americans and two years before France in 1846, he reminded the gathering and said: “In fact Tunisia established a covenant of safety to protect all non-Muslim minorities as early as 1857.” He also pointed out how Tunisian women have been free and equal since 1956. “No compulsion on the niquab, access to abortion and the outlawing of polygamy has helped immensely,” he said and added, “Two years ago it became the first Arab country to outlaw domestic violence against women, which was previously not illegal. Also, the law allowing rapists to escape punishment by marrying the victim was abolished.”
He pointed out how these measures have made Tunisia a much-reviled state across the hardline Arab world. “Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Manama and Cairo hate Tunisia because in it they see a threat to their own regimes. They fear that their own citizens may rise in revolt demanding similar freedom, democracy and gender equality.”
