THE GUARDIAN: Unrest will be seen as destabilising for western governments too until our dependency on Riyadh's tap is curbedDid you hear it? The clamour from western governments for democracy in Saudi Arabia? The howls of outrage from the White House and No 10 about the shootings on Thursday, the suppression of protests on Friday, the arrival of Saudi troops in Bahrain on Monday? No? Nor did I.
Did we miss it, or do they believe that change is less necessary in Saudi Arabia than it is in Libya? If so, on what grounds? The democracy index published by the Economist Intelligence Unit places Libya 158th out of 167, and Saudi Arabia 160th. At least in Libya, for all the cruelties of that regime, women are not officially treated as lepers were in medieval Europe.
Last week, while explaining why protests in the kingdom is unnecessary, the foreign minister, Prince Saud Al-Faisal, charmingly promised to "cut off the fingers of those who try to interfere in our internal matters". In other parts of the world this threat would have been figurative; he probably meant it. If mass protests have not yet materialised in Saudi Arabia, it's because the monarchy maintains a regime of terror, enforced with the help of torture, mutilation and execution.
Yet our leaders are even more at ease among the Saudi autocracy than they were in the court of Colonel Gaddafi. The number of export licences granted by the UK government for arms sales to the kingdom has risen roughly fourfold since 2003. The last government was so determined to preserve its special relationship with the Saudi despots that it derailed British justice by forcing the Serious Fraud Office to drop its inquiry into corruption in the al-Yamamah deals.
Why? Future weapons sales doubtless play a role. But there's an even stronger imperative. A few days ago the French bank Société Générale warned that unrest in Saudi Arabia could push the oil price to $200 a barrel.
Abdullah's kingdom is the world's last "swing producer": the only nation capable of raising crude oil production if it falls elsewhere, or if demand outstrips supply. As a result, political disruption there is as threatening to the stability of western governments as it is to the Saudi regime. Probably more so, as our leaders wouldn't get away with gunning us down in the street. Continue reading and comment » | George Monbiot | Tuesday, March 15, 2011
My comment on this article:
Excellent article! Thank you, Mr. Monbiot.
Western leaders, including British politicians and captains of industry, perhaps more especially the British trolls, have been a-scraping, brown-nosing in the Gulf for as long as I can remember. They don’t give a-you-know-what for the well-being of the British expats that work in the Kingdom. Nor do they care about democracy. They care only for their order books. Anybody and anything that comes in the way of a good order just gets trampled on. The British establishment’s behaviour is quite disgusting and despicable in this regard. They are all self-aggrandizing, self-serving, unprincipled hypocrites, almost to a man. They couldn’t give a damn about principles; they care only about lining their own pockets. It’s a case of ‘Yes, Sir! Yes, Sir! Three bags full, Sir!’ – © Mark
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