Professor Madawi Al Rasheed

By Madawi Al-Rasheed

Globalisation refers to structured flows from above, which are led by government agencies, large corporations, and other powerful state and non-state actors.

Saudi Arabia was both an importer and an exporter of global flows, whose economic, religious and cultural flows are a product of oil wealth. Since the discovery of oil in 1933, Saudi Arabia has been integrated into the world capitalist economy. Oil drew Saudi Arabia into global flows which were mainly under the control of global actors, specifically states, oil companies, financial services groups, and other conglomerates.

The country initially exported raw material and imported labour. Later Saudi capital migrated in search of investment abroad. The country absorbed immigrant labour, technology and ideas. The export and import were both strictly controlled by the state: the flow in and out of the country was centralised under the control of princes and their clients. Even when Saudis entered the world of business, commerce, and global capital investment as independent actors, they operated under the patronage of the state. Only those close to the power network could import labour and goods as well as exporting capital, knowledge and other services.

Spiritual exports

In addition to oil, Saudi Arabia entered globalisation through exporting its own religious tradition. Oil wealth was invested in educational and charitable organisations abroad. This was an important strategy to bolster Saudi legitimacy in the Arab world, Africa, Asia and among Muslim minorities in the West. In the early 1980s Saudi Arabia became a sponsor of Jihadi activism in Afghanistan and other destinations, under the pretext of fighting atheism and the occupation of Muslim lands.

Needless to say, the liberation of Palestinian land under Israeli occupation was never high on the Saudi agenda – for obvious reasons. The Saudi regime preferred to conduct Jihad in this particular destination with donations and the rhetoric of defending the Palestinian cause and the liberation of Jerusalem from Zionist occupation. Occasionally the Saudi leadership formulated its version of a peace process, which was often announced in Arab and Islamic forums. Needless to say none of these initiatives received wide acclaim inside Saudi Arabia, nor among the people directly involved in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

When individual Saudis endorsed the Afghan Jihad as independent Jihadi actors, they needed the state’s approval and blessing. They also needed the approval of Washington. Their Jihad was boosted when state-owned Saudi Arabian Airlines offered discount trips to Pakistan, thus contributing to quasi “independent” Saudi military activism. Military activism abroad needed petrodollar, in addition of course to young men willing to die for faith. Preachers were free to recruit and mobilise under the gaze of the state.

Press barons

The Saudi regime was also active in entering the field of globalised pan-Arab media. Having lost its base in Lebanon following the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war in 1975, the Arab press searched for a new home, and found it in London. The Saudi regime took the opportunity to buy established newspapers and create its own media empire. From print media, the regime through it clients expanded into new opportunities created by satellite television. The Saudi domination of the global Arab media inaugurated a new era in the history of the Arab press, which became known as the “petrodollar press” of the Arab world.

Economic, religious and cultural expansion was predominately a form of globalisation from above, strictly controlled and under the patronage of well known personalities within the Saudi regime with a number of princes patronising one or two global expansion.

Globalisation becomes transnationalism

Globalisation Saudi-style – that is, from above – was accompanied by transnationalism from below. Transnationalism refers to activities that are initiated by non-state and non-corporate actors, and whose initiatives go beyond the confined borders of the nation state. In theory transnational flows escape systems and structures of control, especially those of states.

Oil wealth facilitated the emergence of wealthy Saudi constituencies who are now able to initiate their own transnational business, cultural interests, and other networks of importance. While initially such networks were blessed by the state, some later proved to be a direct challenge to the authority of the regime.

Dissident diasporic groups who exist outside their nation states are increasingly defining what happens in their own country of origin, thanks either to patronage by governments determined to destabilise the homelands of the diasporic opposition groups, or through their own ability to mobilise their compatriots back home.

These diasporic dissident groups are important new actors in world politics. They have funds and initiative. They tend to be more engaged in political activism than their compatriots who are left behind. They can pose a serious challenge to the nation state they belong to.

The Iraqi diaspora is the classical example in recent times. Through activism and opportunism, the nucleus of an alternative Iraqi leadership to the Ba’ath regime was nourished in centres like London, Tehran and Washington. For decades this diaspora was at worst ignored and at best tolerated in Washington and London – until it was finally indulged and pampered by the West when a common interest was forged.

The challenge to ‘Al-Saud Inc.’

The situation in Saudi Arabia, although very different from the Iraqi scene, is beginning to generate similar trajectories. The ‘Al-Saud Inc.’ is today challenged from below by other ‘Incs.’

The more globalisation became a reality in Saudi Arabia, the more people responded through activating their own networks from below. Globalisation under the umbrella of the state triggered off transnational flows from below. Saudi Arabia is particularly predisposed towards the development of transnational flows because certain sections of society are wealthy, well-connected and well-educated.

The ‘Al-Saudi Inc’ witnessed the mushrooming of other ‘Incs.’, the most famous of which was that of Bin Laden. Bin Laden was the ultimate transnational world actor. Financially he initially depended on the Saudi state but later freed himself from this dependency. In Afghanistan, Bin Laden initially worked under official Saudi, Western and Pakistani patronage. Later he developed his own patronage network. After his abrupt break with the Saudi regime in 1994, it became clear that he was engaged in forging transnational links from below, with one of his objectives being to destabilise his early sponsor – the Saudi regime.

Imagining the umma

The more the nation state is undermined by the forces of globalisation, the more people will either retreat into the security of primordial identities or embrace meta narratives such as the discourse about the imaginary global Islamic umma, of which Bin Laden has become the main propagator. The logic of this imaginary entity rests on creating de-territorialised Muslims whose allegiance is to an Islam that exists outside time, space and culture.

It is this discourse that is today capable of mobilising people from London to Washington, and from Jakarta to Lagos. Its supporters are not only found in the Muslim world but are also in Western capitals, especially among Muslim minorities. The propagators of this kind of imaginary umma are not fossilised Muslims immersed in a nostalgia for a pristine past, but are modern men and women whose appearance on the Muslim scene is a consequence of their immersion in Western modernity. They are literate, technology oriented, and cultured; they reject traditional and primordial identities that revolve around kin, tribe, sect and region; they are highly mobile and knowledgeable. Amongst them are wealthy individuals who are prepared to put their fortunes at the service of the materialisation of the imaginary global umma.

The al-Saud Inc obviously did not anticipate that some of its own citizens would use their wealth – mostly acquired under its patronage – to challenge and subvert its own influence all over the world.

The heart of the problem lies in the nature of the wealthy rentier state.

Opposition to such states is often founded on ideological rather than economic bases. Through patronage networks, such states create wealthy constituencies whose wealth is above all dependent on a close relationship with those in power. Their wealth is often a product of selling services to the state. The oil boom of the 1970s – as well as the current one – are bound to increase the number of beneficiaries, who amass wealth and prestige, but yield no real political power inside the country because the oil monarchies such as the Saudi one remain closed to open and wide political representation.

The newly created wealthy constituencies must thus search for alternative channels to transform their material capital into a symbolic capital, in the absence of legitimate channels for political participation which eventually would accrue to them some power.

As long as avenues of participation remain shut, wealthy constituencies are bound to search for ways to bolster their prestige. Some may engage in charitable work, but this is increasingly being watched and curbed by the state in the post 9/11 period. Others may turn their attention to cultural projects, for example investment in the arts, education and intellectual enterprises.

However, some wealthy constituencies will endeavour to subvert the system that was initially responsible for their wealth. They cannot simply oppose the system on economic grounds, and they have no sympathy for slogans such as ‘equal distribution of wealth’, ‘transparency’ or other clichés that oppositions in the past raised as slogans to conduct their political activism.

Therefore, what is left for such wealthy constituencies is to engage in ideological politics, thus opposing their state on the grounds of its moral bankruptcy, foreign relations, religious laxity, corruption, and other non-economic factors.

Wealth without power

Such groups are bound to ‘migrate’ and benefit from their engagement in transnational flows. They are well-disposed to play the role of transnational actors capable of thwarting their own regimes, simply because they tend to be wealthy, educated, well-connected, and cosmopolitan. They use their wealth to appeal to a wider audience than the one accorded them in their own homeland. They are transnational actors par excellence.

The ‘Bin laden Inc.’ is but one example that has challenged Saudi hegemony abroad and continues to haunt the regime inside the country.

The longer the wealthy constituencies remain unrepresented and excluded from power, the more they are likely to engage in transnational subversive activities. The old mechanisms of absorbing such constituencies through traditional mechanism – for example royal patronage, marital alliances with those in power, and co-optation – do not seem to be sufficient for containing the ambitions of such groups. After amassing incredible wealth, wealthy constituencies search for something else. They eventually want power. At first they may be content with limited political representation. But gradually they aspire to seizing power. In the intermediary phase, they will migrate and watch from afar the development of their homeland. Soon they will come back to haunt those who had initially bought them with lavish contracts, facilities and favouritism.

As long as Saudi Arabia is affluent, it will continue to generate affluent constituencies in search of recognition different from the one generated by economic fortune alone. Also as long as the Saudi regime remains closed, more affluent constituencies will engage in ideological politics.

The search for recognition may lead many to convert wealth into profound altruistic projects. But we cannot rule out that some will be predisposed to seek power. The ‘Bin Laden Inc.’ – itself a product of the earlier oil boom of the 1970s – will no doubt be followed by similar ‘Incs’ that are now in the process of crystallising.