The Economist magazine published a detailed report on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, titled “MBS: A Tyrant in the Desert,” in which he wrote: “Bin Salman is a millennial because he is a shaky figure with absolute authority in Saudi Arabia. But what will he do next? did?”
“No one wanted to play with Mohammed bin Salman. The boy was a member of the Saudi ruling family, and so were 15,000 of them. His classmates preferred to play with his cousins,” said Nicholas Blam, the author of the report. It is the caliphate. He says. Childhood knowledge.
He added: “For the isolated child who will become the crown prince, a family friend has heard that he called him “little Saddam”.
This magazine wrote: Life at home was difficult for Mohammed bin Salman. His father Salman had five children from his first wife. “
When Muhammad met his relatives in the palace where his father lived with his first wife, his older brothers called him Ibn al-Baddawi, and at one point he sent his older brothers to study in American and English universities and stayed in Riyadh to study in King Saud University
As teenagers, the princes would go on luxury yacht trips together as Mohammed Cold ran errands and was sent ashore to buy cigarettes for them. In a photo from those trips, the 16 princes stand on a yacht in their shorts and sunglasses, with the hills of the French Riviera looming behind them.
At the center is Prince Mohammed’s cousin Alwaleed bin Talal, the Saudi billionaire Warren Buffett. As for Prince Mohammed, tall and broad, he appeared at the far end of the picture.
If we fast forward to today, Mohammed bin Salman has moved to the center of the frame and has become the biggest decision maker in Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, but King Salman, 86, is rarely seen.
A Saudi intelligence official told the author: King Salman is no longer the king. At first glance, the 36-year-old prince looks like the ruler that young Saudis aspire to, because he is his age compared to other kings. 70% of Saudis are under thirty years old.
This magazine adds: Hazare’s tyrant is obsessed with video games and the game “Call of Duty”, because he rushes from the inside and advantages of the mosque and the royal court like those who fight with virtual opponents. His lack of patience and lack of respect for customs helped him push through reforms that many thought would not happen for several generations.
The only manifestation of a woman’s transformation in public life is either absent or seen by her husband or father, in the past there were not many places to spend time except the mosque, but today you can go to a Justin Bieber concert or watch a Formula One race.
A few months ago I went to a loud party in a hotel. Saudis and foreigners danced barefoot on the sand until dawn, their husbands kissed, women stripped to their underwear, and liquor was served in an open bar.
But accepting Western consumer culture doesn’t mean accepting Western democratic values, and it’s easy to support an eminently censorious government, the magazine says. “On my recent trips to Saudi Arabia, many people from all walks of life expressed themselves,” the author noted. Their fear of listening to their conversations in which they expressed disrespect or criticism. Something I’ve never seen before.”
“I was living in the shadow of the four kings,” said a veteran analyst who asked not to be named or to explain why Jeddah was further destroyed.
Blum explained that the West was deceived by its promises and dependence on Saudi oil and ignored the excesses of Mohammed bin Salman, and at the end of 2018, Saudi authorities assassinated and dismembered Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. He even saw the most supportive Saudi leaders and drove them away.
The magazine noted that credit today belongs to another tyrant, Vladimir Putin, as demand for the Saudi prince has returned. Oil prices rose after Putin invaded Ukraine at the end of February.
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was on a plane within weeks. Then came Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his archenemy, who embraced bin Salman in April.
The war even forced US President Joseph Biden into a humiliating retreat. In his 2020 presidential campaign, he pledged to make Saudi Arabia a “mahram” state, but he met on July 15 with Mohammed Bin Salman reconciled and in an attempt to avoid losing, he punched the crown prince, because they appeared as close friends.
Even critics in Saudi Arabia acknowledged Mohammed bin Salman’s victory, with one columnist in Jeddah saying, “He made Biden look weak” and “he stood up to a superpower and won against the world.”
For Mohammed bin Salman, it was a moment of triumph, as his journey from the margins of the picture to the center of power was complete, and he may have ruled for decades.
During this period, the world will need his country’s oil to quench its thirst for energy, and in a kingdom that depends entirely on his personality, there is hope that Mohammed bin Salman, once he has established his position, will take revenge and the intolerance that Khashoggi created. bring, put aside Murder.
But the magazine says: “Some, including his classmates, fear the dark days and remember former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, a once modernist man who became addicted to accumulating power and became reckless and dangerous.”
A former Western intelligence official said: “In the beginning, power is great, but after others have usurped what it has, it becomes lonely, suspicious and fearful.”
Balam said: “He was aware in the years when Muhammad bin Salman ascended, even though he was weak, and he is only one of the princes, and if I didn’t know anyone, I might not have paid attention to him.” while to join his crew.”
He added: “His boss is serious about moving things along and he arranged a meeting in an old brick village, and when the Economist and my colleague approached Mohammed bin Salman’s compound, the gates suddenly opened like a den in a Bond movie. ” And he was sitting in the inner room of Bin Salman.
“The Saudis have always promised reform, often as a response from their kings to American demands, but successive kings have lacked the tools to push for it,” he continued. When Al Saud invaded the island in the 1920s, it allied itself. With Wahhabism, a radical religious group.
He added: In 1979, a group of extremists occupied Mecca’s shrine, and Al Saud decided to strengthen its religion in order to prevent an Islamic revolution like the one that won in Iran.
He continued: The Wahhabi sheikhs were given the authority to run the society as they wanted, and they exercised their control through the commission of enjoining good and forbidding evil, and they beat the feet of women whose hair was visible. The Wahhabis control society and legitimize the Saudi government, leaving the princes to enjoy the oil wealth in the more open spaces of London and Paris or behind the gates of their palaces.
He noted: “I hate to admit it now, but this prince spoke in Riyadh about his plans to modernize society and the economy, and I was impressed by his passion, vision and ability to provide details. provided detailed answers on how and when to achieve reform.” “Although he was not yet the crown prince, he referred to Saudi Arabia as my country.”
He noted: We arrived at nine o’clock in the evening and at two o’clock in the morning Muhammad bin Salman was at the height of his speech and he was kind, confident and smiling, and his assistants were calm and only spoke automatically to repeat the words of their master, and when the prince He took the case out of the room, they started talking excitedly, and when he returned, silence prevailed.
“Like everyone else, I was curious in these early years about what Mohammed bin Salman could do, and when I returned to Saudi Arabia and saw men wearing shorts, I looked back for fear of the religious police,” says Blam. I did not see anyone, they took away the power to arrest people.”
He said: He is the crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman presented a law that conforms the judicial verdict to the government guidelines and not to the judges’ interpretation of the Quran, and criminalized stoning and forced marriage. A major clear change in the role of women was his attack on the Guardianship of Women Act, which prevented women from working, obtaining passports, receiving hospital treatment, or divorcing without the consent of a family member.
In practice, many Saudi women found it difficult to obtain these rights in a patriarchal society where men would file their disobedience complaints in court, but these reforms were not pretty. Bin Salman is very into breaking religious taboos, his TV channel has covered the issue of homosexuality.
In September, the ban on the dating app Tinder was lifted, and the following year a campus imam was drawn to the time-wasting card game, bringing many sports to the kingdom: wrestling, boxing, Monster Cup.
This writer quotes one of the Americans as saying: Watch the applause and for many foreigners, Riyadh is no longer an enemy these days. “I’m afraid I’ll get arrested for not drinking,” said one businessman, and another said, “There’s cocaine, booze, prostitutes, and I’ve never seen anything like that in Southern California.”
“It’s very expensive,” said a senior Saudi official. An Eastern European hooker can earn $3,000 for a party and $10,000 for a night out.
When Mohammed bin Salman entered public life, he had a reputation as a hardliner like his father, a rare trait among princes, the report said. But that changed quickly.
Many of those interviewed for this report believe that bin Salman has used drugs, which he denies.
In 2015, one courtier said: “His friends said they needed some relaxation and entertainment in the Maldives. According to research by journalists Bradley Hope and Justin Schick in Money and Oil, 150 models were hired to attend the gathering. Along the Wheel Golfers were taken to a medical facility to ensure they were free of STDs, a number of music stars were taken, including Afrojack, a Dutch DJ, and then the press revealed Mohammed bin Salman’s secret.
He added: That is why the prince decided to entertain himself on the Red Sea coast, and at the end of the week his friends formed a fleet of yachts around his huge yacht “Syrine”, which includes a driving range and a cinema and He also bought a palace in France for 230 million dollars.
The report states: “These actions reflect the decline of social norms and values of many of his young peers in Saudi Arabia. However, despite the social revolution, the emir is no more eager than the Wahhabis to allow the Saudis Shortly before the lifting of the ban on women driving in 2018, she was arrested.
His family says: “His captors practiced water games on him and one of Mohammed bin Salman’s advisers was present during his torture and threatened to rape him. In the UN investigation, it found convincing reasons to believe that Saud al-Qahtani was involved in this torture. from female activists”.
Al-Qahtani is reported to have told one of the women: “I will do whatever I want with you, then I will melt you and push you into the bathroom.”
Source: Lebanon Debate
