Saudi crown prince shifts into high gear on multiple fronts
By James M. Dorsey
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Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is simultaneously speed dating and playing on multiple diplomatic, religious, and economic chessboards.
The latest
feather in his crown, his appointment as prime minister, aims to ensure that he can continue to do so with as
little collateral damage as possible.
The
appointment shields him from legal proceedings in the United States, France, and potentially elsewhere,
including the International Criminal Court in the Hague, in which plaintiffs
assert that Mr. Bin Salman was responsible for the 2018 killing of Saudi
journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
As a head of
government, Mr. Bin Salman enjoys sovereign immunity, a status he could not
claim as heir-apparent.
While the
legal manoeuvre is certain to succeed, it is unlikely to significantly improve
his image tarnished by the killing and his domestic crackdown on dissent that
in recent weeks produced outlandish sentences to decades in prison for little
more than a tweet.
Reputational
issues have not stopped Mr. Bin Salman from shifting into high gear as he pushes
ahead with efforts to diversify Saudi Arabia’s oil-dependent economy; replace
regional competitors like the United Arab Emirates and Qatar as the center of
gravity at the intersection of Asia, Africa, and Europe; demonstrate his
diplomatic clout and relevance beyond oil to the international community; and
position himself and the kingdom as the beacon of a moderate, albeit an
autocratic, form of Islam.
Mr. Bin
Salman's multi-pronged dash has produced mixed results.
In his
latest foray onto the international stage, Mr. Bin Salman sought to display his
diplomatic skills and relevance to the international community by securing the
release by Russia of ten foreign nationals captured while fighting for Ukraine.
The foreigners’ release was part of a Ukrainian-Russian prisoner swap
negotiated by Turkey.
Although
Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan al Saud rejected as “very
cynical”
assertions that Mr. Bin Salman was seeking to shore up his image by associating
himself with the swap, it seems likely that Russian President Vladimir Putin
was happy to give him a helping hand.
In a similar
vein, people close to Mr. Bin Salman see mileage in asserting that the crown
prince's lifting of a ban on women’s driving and enhancement of women’s rights
and professional opportunities is what inspired women-led protests in Iran that
have entered their third week as well as Iran’s recent relaxing of its
prohibition on women attending men’s soccer matches.
Ali Shihabi,
an analyst who often echoes official Saudi thinking, claimed in a tweet that “Saudi
reforms for women have had a big impact on the world of Islam. As the previous
upholder of ultra orthodoxy #MBS’s dramatic changes have sent a powerful signal that has undermined Uber conservatives across the
region like the Mullahs in Iran.” Mr. Shihabi was referring to Mr. Bin Salman by his
initials.
The nationwide
protests were sparked by the death of a young woman while in the custody of
Iran's morality police. The police had arrested 22-year-old Mahsa Amini for what authorities described as
sporting an “improper” hijab.
By contrast,
Mr. Bin Salman’s economic diversification efforts appear to be producing more unambiguous
results. For example, the Saudi industry and mineral resources ministry issued
over 500 industrial licenses in the first six months of this year, primarily in
the food, steel, and chemicals sectors.
The ministry
reported that the number of factories that commenced
operations doubled, from 303 to 721. Buoyed by massive oil export revenues, Mr. Bin Salman
hopes to brand a ‘Made
in Saudi’ label
as part of his non-oil export drive.
Even so, foreign
investment in manufacturing has been slow to take off, particularly in Mr. Bin
Salman's, at times, futuristic mega projects like his US$500 billion city of Neom on the Red Sea. New Jersey-based Lucid Group broke
the mold when it announced in February that it would build its first overseas electrical vehicle production facility in the kingdom.
More
controversial are plans for a beach in Neom scheduled to open next year that
envision a wine bar, a separate cocktail bar, and a bar for "champagne and
desserts" in a country that bans alcohol.
The plans
seem out of sync with religious sentiment among a significant segment of Gulf
youth if a recent opinion poll is to be believed,
Forty-one
per cent of young Gulf Arabs, including Saudis, said religion was the most
important element of their identity, with nationality, family and/or tribe,
Arab heritage, and gender lagging far behind.
More than
half of those surveyed, 56 per cent, said their country’s legal system should
be based on the Shariah or Islamic law. Seventy per cent expressed concern
about the loss of traditional values and culture.
In contrast
to economics, the going in turning the kingdom into a sports and esports hub
has been rougher.
In his
latest move, Mr. Bin Salman launched a US$38 billion “National
Gaming and Esports Strategy” to make
Saudi Arabia an esports leader by 2030. The budget includes US$13 billion for the
acquisition of "a leading game publisher."
The kingdom has already invested in Capcom, Nexon, Nintendo, ESL
Gaming,
SNK, and Embracer Group.
In addition, Saudi music entertainment company MDLBEAST saw
a business opportunity in the 2022 Qatar World Cup that would also help project
the once secretive kingdom as a forward-looking modern state. MDLBEAST has
invited 56 top international and
regional performers to entertain soccer fans on a custom-built stage in Doha
during the 28 days of the tournament.
On an even grander scale, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, two of the
world's more notorious human rights violators, together with Greece, are
considering bidding to host the 2030
World Cup --a move that sounds like an
invitation to a perfect public relations fiasco, if Qatar's experience is an
indicator.
The potential bid did not stop soccer icon Cristiano Ronaldo from dashing initial Saudi hopes to attract a superstar to the
kingdom’s top football league when he turned down a US$258 million offer to
play for Al Hilal, one of Saudi Arabia’s top clubs.
Similarly,
Saudi Arabia’s endeavour to bankroll Liv Golf, a challenger to PGA Tour, the organizer of North America’s main
professional men's golf tournaments, has turned into a public relations fiasco
amid allegations that the kingdom was seeking to launder its reputation.
A refusal by
major broadcasters to secure the rights to air the League's tours exemplifies
its problems.
Religion has
proven to be the arena in which Saudi Arabia may have scored its most prominent
public relations fete.
The Muslim
World League, Mr. Bin Salman's primary vehicle to garner religious soft power
and propagate an autocratic version of Islam that is socially liberal but
demands absolute obedience to the ruler, achieved a public relations coup when
it forged an unlikely alliance with Nahdlatul Ulama. Nahdlatul Ulama.
Nahdlatul
Ulama is arguably the world's only mass movement propagating a genuinely
moderate and pluralistic form of Islam.
Moreover, as
the world's largest Muslim civil society movement in the world's most populous
Muslim-majority country and democracy, Nahdlatul Ulama's words and actions have an impact.
As
a result, the League counted its blessings when Nahdlatul Ulama' recognised it
as a non-governmental organization rather than a de facto extension of Mr. Bin Salman's
rule.
The
recognition opens doors for the League, which has so far traded on Saudi
Arabia's custodianship of Mecca and Medina, Islam's two holiest cities; lofty
statements and conferences that produced little, if any, real change; and
funding of emergency and development aid in various parts of the world.
It allowed
Nahdlatul Ulama to invite the League, a major promoter of Saudi
ultra-conservatism before Mr. Bin Salman's rise, to co-organize the newly
established Religion 20 (R20), a summit of religious leaders under the auspices
of the Group of 20 that brings together the world’s largest economies.
The first
R20 summit, scheduled for early November in Bali, is part of the run-up to the meeting of G20 leaders later that month hosted by Indonesia, the group’s chairman for the year.
The R20, the G20's latest official engagement group, aims to "position
religion as a source of solutions rather than problems across the globe.”
The limits
of Saudi tolerance were evident last month when authorities arrested a pilgrim
to Mecca for dedicating his pilgrimage to Britain's Queen Elizabeth, a non-Muslim who had just died.
Nahdlatul's
outreach to the League is part of a bold and risky strategy. However, Nahdlatul
Ulama believes that engagement creates an opportunity to persuade the League to
embrace a more genuine and holistic vision of moderate Islam rather than one
that is self-serving.
That may be
a long shot, but it also may be a way of launching Saudi Arabia on a path that
would help it repair its badly tarnished image. That is if Mr. Bin Salman pairs
genuine religious moderation and pluralism with a rollback of domestic
repression and greater political pluralism. So far, that appears to be one
thing the crown prince is unwilling to consider.
Dr. James M. Dorsey is an award-winning
journalist and scholar, an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological
University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of
the syndicated column and blog, The Turbulent World of
Middle East Soccer.
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