After the Sheikhs: The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies (44 page)

With regards to Bahrain—still the vanguard of the region’s revolt – the past few months have witnessed only further tragedy and despair. Unsurprisingly, despite fresh promises of dialogue and some minor political concessions—including promotions for supposed moderates – the ruling family and its allies in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have firmly held the line. By refusing any significant reforms and keeping hundreds of activists behind bars, the island’s elites seem more distanced than ever from the majority of the population. The extensive public relations campaign to depict the long-running uprising, both to the Arab world and Western allies, as primarily a sectarian conflict or part of an Iran-Arab struggle, has continued unabated, albeit with declining plausibility. With a resurgence in mass protests in February 2013—marking the second anniversary of 2011’s ‘Pearl Revolution’—and with further deaths and clashes between security services and demonstrators, it seems increasingly unlikely that the Bahraini monarchy can regain a baseline position of legitimacy. As such, the Al-Khalifa family will effectively become the first of the Gulf dynasties to have been publicly rejected by the majority of its subjects.

Across the causeway in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, the protests have also continued to gather pace. While modest in size for much of 2012, not least due to continuing announcements from senior clerics and government officials that protests are ‘un-Islamic’ and illegal, by the end of the year they had become much larger. Notably, following the death of a young man at the hands of security services in December 2012—thought to be the twelfth such killing of the year—it was estimated that tens of thousands of protestors took to the streets, many chanting slogans opposing the ruling family. In some ways even more problematic for the Al-Saud have been the protests that have begun to break out in other, predominantly Sunni provinces of the kingdom. Much harder to frame as a sectarian clash, these have mainly been campaigns for the release of political prisoners, with large numbers of women and children in the northern Al-Qassim province taking to the streets. In some cases burning pictures of key ruling family members and resisting arrest, their movement is being widely discussed across the region, mostly on Twitter. Meanwhile, several other ‘trigger incidents’ have been taking place in
Saudi Arabia which continue to underline how brittle the state is becoming despite its enormous and unprecedented public spending programme. These include the jailing of leading human rights activists, including some of those discussed in this book, outrage over the apparent unaccountability of various ministers, the disappearance of activists from other Arab monarchies in Saudi territory, and the seizing of numerous social media users. 2012 also witnessed the highest rate of executions in the kingdom so far, many of which were widely debated and criticised as they included beheadings and crucifixions for crimes such as blasphemy and ‘sorcery’.

Similarly in Kuwait, the alacrity with which the authorities—concerned over seemingly uncontrollable discussion of their government’s shortcomings—have been arresting online activists has alarmed many over the past few months. The crackdown has continued offline too, with key critics—including leading former parliamentarians and members of powerful tribes – having been imprisoned after what have been described as ‘show trials’. As with Bahrain and Saudi Arabia’s rulers, the Al-Sabah’s increasingly repressive tactics seem to be losing them support from significant constituencies, with continuing street protests undermining the ruler’s legitimacy and with parliamentary elections in December 2012 being largely boycotted—thus denting the Kuwaiti elite’s ability to keep employing ‘liberal autocracy’ strategies. Perhaps most worryingly for the monarchy, the previously fragmented opposition groups—ranging from youth movements, to Islamists and disaffected tribes—seem to be slowly coalescing, with a broad-based opposition coalition having been formed in March 2013. Pushing for a multi-party system with ‘democratic rotation of power,’ it is likely to become the first properly organised Gulf group to press successfully for significant political reform, with constitutional monarchy as its minimum demand.

The United Arab Emirates’ rulers, or more specifically the tight-knit group of brothers surrounding the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, also seem more resolute than before to tackle their opposition head on, effectively sidelining their late father’s well-honed social contract in favour of police state strategies. The dozens of political prisoners seized over the course of 2012 swelled to nearly one hundred by the beginning of 2013, with another ‘national security trial’—reminiscent of 2011’s ‘UAE Five’ trial—beginning in March 2013. Accused of trying to ‘seize power’, and at one point even accused of setting up a ‘military wing’, the detainees are likely to face heavy sentences. All foreign media have been banned, and foreign
observers from non-governmental organisations and law firms were barred entry to the country. Despite comprising academics, lawyers, students, judges, and even a ruling family member, most of whom identify with a well-established and peaceful indigenous Islamist organisation that has been gently pushing for parliamentary elections, the authorities seem determined to forge a link between them and outside powers. Given the fairly homogenous, predominantly Sunni, makeup of the UAE’s national population, it has proven harder to present opposition groups through the sectarian, Iran-Arab lens, with the detainees instead being regularly portrayed in the local, state-affiliated media as in league with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Disturbingly for the authorities, the detainees appear to be enjoying growing support across the country, with widespread online discussion taking place, often in their favour, and with their extended families campaigning for their release. The past few months have also witnessed the UAE playing an increasingly active role in the collective securitisation of the Gulf monarchies, having joined Saudi Arabia in providing significant financial assistance to Bahrain and Oman, and having denied entry into the country to academics, journalists, and lawyers who have expressed support for the opposition in Bahrain.

While Oman has not yet seen further protests, the mood in early 2013 is perhaps best understood as being in a ‘holding pattern’. The various promises made by the government, especially regarding public sector employment, have not yet been fulfilled, and there is growing discussion about the sustainability of a system that has to rely on substantial Saudi and UAE grants. Youth groups appear more restive than ever, not least given the arrests and trial of several online activists accused of insulting the aging ruler, while intellectuals now openly talk of the vacuum that will develop in the wake of his death, and what political reforms will be needed to move the country forward. With billions of their dollars now invested in Oman’s survival, much will rest on the Riyadh-Abu Dhabi axis’ willingness to permit some kind of political opening at that stage without encouraging the same sort of repression that is being used in Bahrain or on their own populations.

To the surprise and disappointment of many, the past few months have weakened Qatar’s credentials as the only significant outlier, and as such its status as the region’s last remaining liberal autocracy. The detention and trial of a well-known poet who had expressed solidarity with Arab Spring movements elsewhere in the Middle East and had implicitly criticised
the Gulf monarchies was followed closely, not least by the substantial expatriate population in Qatar’s branch campus foreign universities and Al-Jazeera’s journalistic community. Given Qatar’s media, financial, and even military support for the Arab revolutions of 2011 and 2012, most had expected a full pardon for the prisoner, probably in the form of a magnanimous gesture from the ruler. But to widespread dismay, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for insulting the ruler, later commuted to a fifteen year sentence. Unable to report properly on one of Qatar’s most important news stories, Al-Jazeera’s coverage of the incident was initially nonexistent, then poor, reflecting the reality of having to operate within the confines of a traditional Gulf monarchy still committed to regime survival. Since then a number of other Qatari activists have been arrested and detained. With most citizens continuing to enjoy an extremely high standard of living due to gas-rich Qatar’s still rising gross domestic product per capita, the possibility of protests or large rafts of political prisoners is undoubtedly still very low. However, recent events have led to discernible tension, provoking more outspoken comments from intellectuals and sections of the elite, while youth activists seem to be following the regional trend: taking their dissent online and participating in mass, often critical discussions of ruling elites.

NOTES

1
. According to International Monetary Fund data from 2010, the six Gulf monarchies had a combined GDP of $993 billion. This was more than half of the $1903 billion total GDP for all twenty-two Arab League member states at the time. Most dramatically, Saudi Arabia and the UAE together accounted for 35 per cent of the Arab League total. International Monetary Fund 2010; author calculations.

2
. For discussions of this activity see, for example, Davidson, Christopher M., ‘Arab Nationalism and British Opposition in Dubai, 1920–1966’,
Middle Eastern Studies
, Vol. 43, No. 6, 2007; Fuccaro, Nelida,
Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf: Manama since 1800
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Crystal, Jill,
Oil and Politics in the Gulf: Rulers and Merchants in Kuwait and Qatar
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

3
. For a full discussion see Kerr, Malcolm,
The Arab Cold War, 1958–1970
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971).

4
. Saudi Arabia, already an independent state, was able to join the Arab League upon its inception in 1945. Kuwait joined in 1961, and was followed by the other Gulf monarchies in 1971.

5
. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait joined OPEC upon its inception in 1960. Qatar joined in 1961, and the UAE’s principal oil-exporting emirate of Abu Dhabi joined in 1967. Bahrain, Oman, and the UAE’s other constituent members eschewed OPEC.

6
. See Calabrese, John, ‘From Flyswatters to Silkworms: The Evolution of China’s Role in West Asia’,
Asian Survey
, No. 30, 1990. Referring to Said bin Taimur Al-Said.

7
. The National Liberation Front.

8
. For a good overview see Ismael, Tareq Y.,
The Communist Movement in the Arab World
(London: Routledge, 2005).

9
. Ladwig, Walter C., ‘Supporting Allies in Counterinsurgency: Britain and the Dhofar Rebellion’,
Small Wars and Insurgencies
, Vol. 19, No. 1, 2008, p. 73. Britain’s
actions in Oman during this period were fictionalised by Ranulph Fiennes in his 1991 novel. See Fiennes, Ranulph,
The Feather Men
(London: Bloomsbury, 1991).

10
. See Halliday, Fred,
Arabia without Sultans
(London: Saqi, 1974); Halliday, Fred, ‘Arabia Without Sultans Revisited’,
Middle East Report
, Vol. 27, No. 204, 1997.

11
. Lerner, Daniel,
The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East
(New York: The Free Press, 1958); Sigelman, Lee, ‘Lerner’s Model of Modernization: A Reanalysis’,
Journal of Developing Areas
, Vol. 8, July 1974, p. 525.

12
. Lipset, Seymour Martin, ‘Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy’,
The American Political Science Review
, Vol. 53, No. 1, 1959; Lipset, Seymour Martin,
Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1960).

13
. Deutsch, Karl, ‘Social Mobilization and Political Development’,
American Political Science Review
, Vol. 55, No. 3, 1961.

14
. Huntington, Samuel P.,
Political Order in Changing Societies
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), pp. 140–142.

15
. Ibid., p. 169.

16
. Pollin, Robert, ‘Resurrection of the Rentier’,
New Left Review
, Vol. 46, July–August 2007, pp. 140–153.

17
. Ross, Michael, ‘Does Oil Hinder Democracy’,
World Politics
, Vol. 53, No. 3, 2001, p. 329.

18
. Mahdavy, Hussein, ‘The Patterns and Problems of Economic Development in Rentier States: The Case of Iran’ in Cook, M. A. (ed.),
Studies in Economic History of the Middle East
(London: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 428.

19
. Beblawi, Hazem, ‘The Rentier State in the Arab World’ in Beblawi, Hazem, and Luciani, Giacomo (eds.),
The Rentier State
(New York: Croom Helm, 1987), p. 51.

20
. Lucas, Russell E., ‘Monarchical Authoritarianism: Survival and Political Liberalization in a Middle Eastern Regime Type’,
International Journal of Middle East Studies
, Vol. 36, No. 4, 2004. As Lucas explains, small population size was previously used as a possible explanation for explaining demise of other monarchies.

21
. Hertog, Steffen,
Princes, Brokers, and Bureaucrats: Oil and State in Saudi Arabia
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010).

22
. Ross, p. 331.

23
. Ibid., p. 332.

24
. Ibid., p. 333.

25
. For a full discussion see Davidson, Christopher M.,
The United Arab Emirates: A Study in Survival
(Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2005), chapter 4.