Gulf Reactions to the Saudi Reform Package

King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia recently announced a fairly extensive liberalizing reform package, including the first appointment of a woman as a deputy minister, the firing of Sheikh Saleh Luhaidan as the head of the country’s courts system, and removing the head of the Wahhabi religious police. Luhaidan ruffled quite a few feathers last year when he said that owners of satellite stations who broadcast “indecent programming” are subject to execution. For a quick roundup of the reforms check out Simon Henderson writing here.

I wanted to highlight a few reactions from around the Gulf. An article in Iran’s main state news agency, IRNA, begins by calling the changes, a “sidelining of opponents of strengthened relations with Israel” and “an effort to strengthened relations with the west and the Zionist regime.” The article continues with a standard analysis of the move as an effort to “reduce internal pressures” and sees the measures as more evidence of competition between the liberalizing Prince Faysal and the Wahhabi establishment. Engaged in a full fledged media war with Saudi Arabia, Iranian state media waste no chance to pick at rifts in the Al Saud, speculate on the health of the king, or otherwise attempt to embarrass.

An opinion piece in yesterday’s National, on the other hand, welcomed the measures and downplayed internal splits:

These days, though, family dynamics are well managed by King Abdullah. There are certainly differences of opinion among the senior princes, which is often the case in the consultative systems of the region, but there is no obvious paralysis in the decision-making process and no flagrant obstruction of the King’s decisions. Rather the gradual opening guided from the King’s diwan is gathering momentum and support, not only among elites but also average citizens….

And the religious establishment is being tamed. The interfaith initiative of King Abdullah is certainly aimed at reassuring the world that Islam and other faiths can coexist peacefully, but it is as much a message to his own people that they have everything to gain from opening up to other cultures…

But my favorite reaction by far comes from a reader claiming to be from Minneapolis, who comments below the National article:

God bless King Abdullah! Beneath his crown lies a very wise and intelligent man. He is a role model the scholars of the Golden Age would celebrate.

So we are left with a familiar pattern where coverage breaks down along lines of friendship (or not) with Saudi Arabia. The main caution I would give is that this type of media coverage is largely driven by the political scene, not the other way around. The Saudi-Qatari rapprochement of the last few years clearly demonstrates how a political mending of fences can quickly put a stop to the type of hostile media coverage seen in Iran’s media. The factionalization of Saudi Arabia’s royal family is not news to anyone who follows these issues, and the Iranian coverage really adds nothing new to our knowledge of the complex and opaque system that governs the kingdom. For a more subtle analysis, I’d point you to Andrew Hammond’s recent article in Arab Media & Society, that tracked the tensions between Abdallah and Luhaidan over media and judicial issues over the past year.