At 22/09/01 00:15 -0500, you wrote:
>http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=24615
The article says
>The Saudi royal family has long been concerned about the
> rise of Islamic radicalism within its own kingdom.
However the politics are much more complicated, and sections of the very
large royal family undoubtedly have connections with the islamic radicals,
(as if Saudi Arabia was not radical enough, in terms of strict law.)
Reasonable-sounding commentators observe that there is an unwritten
compact, that the islamic radicals will not challenge the constitution
internally in return for a relative free hand externally.
The recent strange case of some white anglo saxon Britons confessing after
"interrogation" on Saudi television to placing bombs, is very arguably best
interpreted as a cover up of the smouldering possibilities of revolution in
that state.
The significance of this well-spotted report, I suggest is twofold:
1) If God blesses America in its holy crusade for revenge, and carries
through the logic that most of the highjackers, and bin Laden himself were
Saudi (the aliases were still similar) then the US will flatten every oil
installation in the state, and a fundamentalist but impoverished primitive
islamic communist movement can come to power in a revolution.
2) Just possibly the USA may not do this. In which case ...
any more considered policy strategy should regard the introduction of at
least basic bourgeois democratic rights and freedoms in SA absolutely
essential, at least to allow some sort of civil society to develop. THe USA
and the West should regard it as urgent to forego some of SA's oil supplies
(why not during the global recession) and insist King Fahd settles
permanently in Switzerland accompanied by many of the most despotic members
of his family. Meanwhile there is a constitutional conference which moves
towards some sort of representative structure which compromises with islam,
but at least does not depend on the murky court politics of a monarchy.
Quite apart from the claims for democratic civil rights, which many on this
list would in any case support, the "Coalition against Terrorism" from the
point of view of its own interests absolutely must sort out Saudi Arabia.
Any serious real politik would recognise that this is far more important
than Afghanistan. Certainly bin Laden's money does not come from
Afghanistan. It comes from Saudi Arabia, and so do many of his supporters.
Afghanistan is just an inaccessible place.
Progressive people should not be misled into thinking from this superficial
news report that the Saudi royal family are somehow minor players and
enemies of islamic fundamentalism. They need to be very high on the list
for radical reform.
Chris Burford
London
