Daily Times

After tacit retreat from the initial misadventure of attacking Yemen, instigated by the new defence minister, Prince Mohammad, King Salman’s youngest son, the veteran strategists of the despotic regime are now trying to calm down and bring bin Salman to some degree of sanity. The despotic regime is now wavering. This new generation of royals is in a severe hangover after the initial euphoria of blind power and spouts of grandeur. Not only is the regime pensively trying to find an escape route from this blunder but is implicitly manoeuvring to negotiate with the Iranian mullah oligarchy. If it is conceived, power has waned internally and the Kingdom’s devoted allies in the region are not that subservient as they used to be. The recent reshuffling of the hierarchy also lays bare the internal conflicts within the House of Saud.
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman named his nephew and powerful interior minister, Mohammed bin Nayef, as the heir to the throne and his son, Mohammad, second in line under a shakeup that also saw the world’s longest-serving foreign minister replaced. The appointment of bin Nayef further solidifies control of the Sudayri branch of the House of Saud in this ongoing rivalry between kinships in the dynasty. The executive director for the Arab Centre of Washington, Khalil Jahshan, told Al Jazeera that the reshuffle constitutes a “political earthquake of the greatest magnitude. The Saudi Arabia we knew a few hours ago is no longer…these are serious changes that will have repercussions not only domestically but also internationally.”
With oil constituting 80 percent of its earnings and 45 percent of its GDP, the drastic decline in oil prices is exacerbating the kingdom’s economic crisis. The surpluses built during the high oil prices have already been eaten up by the world economic recession of 2008 and, according to the IMF’s 2009 report, Saudi Arabia has a fiscal deficit of up to 3.1 percent of GDP, a marked decline from surpluses of 22.8 percent of GDP in 2008. Similarly, the growth in GDP has reduced from 5.5 percent in 2008 to 0.8 percent in 2009. The ongoing economic crisis in advanced capitalist countries has continued to have a negative impact on the Saudi economy, leading to growing unrest within the country, including migrant workers who are forced into virtual slavery and face forced deportations. Saudi Arabia’s total labour force amounts to 6.922 million, of which more than 80 percent are immigrant workers.
The Arab Spring, starting with the 2011 Tunisian revolution, initially influenced the protests in Saudi Arabia with a self-immolation in Samta followed by street protests in Jeddah in February 2011 and Qatif, Riyadh and other cities and towns of the Kingdom in early March. There were also demonstrations and protests against the Saudi military’s brutal repression by the Peninsula Shield Force of the mass uprising against Bahrain’s ruling elite.
These protests saw the youth chanting slogans of “downfall of the House of Saud”. In subsequent period there have been simmering revolts, protests and strikes that have been censored or sparsely reported by the western media. The strikes of oil workers in Dammam and along the eastern coast where most of the oil reserves are located were brutally crushed. The predominantly Shia people here faced tyranny from the Wahhabi ruling elite. The so-called Islamic justice invariably ends up beheading ordinary people, particularly migrant workers. It is a despicable and cruel exhibition like the slaughter of slaves by gladiators in the ancient Roman Colosseum. This internal repression will only worsen with this harsh change.
The internal repression and the macho posturing in the region expose the internal decay and conflicts of the absolute monarchy. Its regional hegemony has also eroded. The reluctance of Pakistan’s Saudi-subservient leaders and the state to send troops overtly came as a shock for the Saudi monarchs. Although it was not due to any lack of loyalty on the reactionary Pakistani rulers’ part, it lays bare the catastrophic crisis and weakening of the Pakistani state and the regime. The Saudi monarchs sent the Imam of the Kaaba to whip up Sunni chauvinism and retrieve waning support for the custodians of the Kaaba and Medina in Pakistan.
Addressing the Friday congregation in Lahore, the Imam, Al-Sheikh Khalid al Ghamidi, said, “The people of Saudi Arabia have great love for Pakistan and are proud of their Pakistani brethren. The security of the haramain sharifain (holy places) is the collective responsibility of the ummah (Muslim nation). Saudi Arabia has initiated action against Yemen’s rebels, not on its own but on the appeal of the lawful Yemeni ruler.” He conveniently skipped the barbaric cruelty meted out to these brethren who are forced into drudgery in the scorching heat of the Saudi desert. His visit was to mobilise the leaders of the various pro-Saudi, Sunni sects to whip up reactionary support and the allegiance of the Pakistani state for the Saudi monarchy. He praised these mullahs publicly while scolding them behind the scenes for their failure to garner support. Two ministers of Sharif’s cabinet were also part of these parleys. No doubt the cash and payroll to the Pakistani bosses of the Wahhabi, Deobandi, Salafi and other most bigoted Sunni sects was doled out to these Saudi stooges. The leader of Pakistan’s bastion of black reaction, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Sirajul Haq, publicly declared, “In the presence of the Imam-e-Kaaba, we reaffirm our commitment to continue our struggle for establishing the Islamic system in this country and we would lay down our lives for this noble cause.” However, the Saudi Imam did not include the relatively liberal Sunni sect, Barelvis, in these deliberations, despite their yearnings.
The fundamentalist scourge perpetuated by these Saudi despots in Syria, Afghanistan and other countries has now boomeranged. Their Frankenstein monsters like Islamic State (IS) and al Qaeda are now threatening the US and Saudi bosses who tailored them. The palace coup within the Saudi regime has brought the most brutal, arrogant and merciless elements within the House of Saud in the shape of Bin Nayef and Mohammad. Military adventures only point to the desperation, frustration and impotence on the part of the monarchy. This will only lead to further erosion and disintegration of the House of Saud. In the period ahead even more instability and mayhem impends. However, one factor that is missed out of the whole equation in the region by mainstream analysts is the role of the workers and youth of the region. If and when this reactionary edifice of the House of Saud collapses due to internal explosion or mass revolt, a period of huge social upheavals shall open up on a monumental scale. In such a scenario a socioeconomic transformation in the Middle East and West Asia will be on the agenda. The artificial lines drawn in the sand by imperialist masters will be wiped out by the rising storm of revolutionary movements that will spread across the region.

The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and international secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at ptudc@hotmail.com