Sectarianism as Counter-Revolution: Saudi Responses to the Arab Spring

The title is an article by Madawi Al-Rasheed published in the journal “Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism”, Vol. 11, No. 3, 2011. The following is the article.

Introduction

Saudi Arabia is a wealthy oil producing country with a small population not exceeding twenty-five million, one third of which are foreigners. The authoritarian Al-Saud ruling family has controlled the country since 1932 (Al-Rasheed 2010). Historically, the Saudi rentier state used economic largesse in return for loyalty to the regime (Gause 1994; Luciani and Beblawi 1987). Yet the literature on the rentier state does not highlight other strategies that are often deployed to gain loyalty and force the population into submission. Sectarianism as a regime strategy is often ignored in the literature on the rentier state especially in countries where there is religious diversity.

In response to the Arab Spring, sectarianism became a Saudi pre-emptive counter-revolutionary strategy that exaggerates religious difference and hatred and prevents the development of national non-sectarian politics. Through religious discourse and practices, sectarianism in the Saudi context involves not only politicising religious differences, but also creating a rift between the majority Sunnis and the Shia minority. At the political level, the rift means that Sunnis and Shia are unable to create joint platforms for political mobilisation. Neither essentialist arguments about the resilience of sects nor historical references to seventhcentury Sunni-Shia battles over the Caliphate (Nasr 2007) can explain the persistence of antagonism and lack of common political platforms among Sunnis and Shia in a country like Saudi Arabia. Sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shia can never be understood without taking into account the role played by an agency much more powerful than the sects themselves, namely the authoritarian regime. In addition to massive oil rents, the Saudi regime has at its disposal a potent religious ideology, commonly known as Wahhabism, that is renowned for its historical rejection of the Shia as a legitimate Islamic community (Steinberg 2001).

But it is too simplistic to reduce relations between the regime and the Shia minority to oppression alone, which in tum contributes to the consolidation of their sectarian identity. The Saudi authoritarian regime deploys multiple strategies when it comes to its religious minorities and their leadership. Wholesale systematic discrimination against the Shia may be a characteristic of one particular historical moment, but this can be reversed. A political situation may require alternatives to repression. Sometimes repression is combined with co-optation and even promotion of minority interests and rights. Furthermore, the regime may repress the Shia in order to address issues relevant to the Sunni majority, for example to appease them, respond to their grievances, or simply seek their loyalty at a time when this cannot be taken for granted. Therefore, it is important to note that there is no regular and predictable strategy deployed by Saudi authoritarianism against the Shia. Each historical moment requires a particular response towards this community, ranging from straightforward repression to co-optation and concession. The Arab Spring and its potential impact on the country pushed the regime to reinvigorate sectarian discourse against the Shia in order to renew the loyalty of the Sunni majority.

This article explains how the Saudi regime used sectarian divisions to widen the gap between the two communities during the Arab Spring. The regime claimed that external agents were determined to undermine the country's stability and security. The regime called upon Wahhabi religious interpretations - in particular sectarian discourse against the very politically active Shia minority, estimated at two million (Jones 2009)--in order to abort the development of 'national politics' that crosses sectarian, regional, ideological, and tribal boundaries. By constructing calls for demonstrations on the 'Day of Rage' on 11 March as a Shia conspiracy against the Sunni majority with the objective of spreading Iran's influence in the Sunni homeland, the regime deepened sectarian tension and undermined efforts to mobilise the youth in various cities, including those where the Shia live. The Saudi regime frightened its own Sunni majority by exaggerating the Iranian expansionist project in the region and its rising influence among the Shia of the Arab world, including Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries.

The regime propaganda succeeded in thwarting protest that by all expectations would not have amounted to an Egyptian-style fully-fledged revolution. Instead, the very minor peaceful protests that started in 2011 in Saudi cities would have marked merely the beginning of political mobilisation without amounting to a revolution. Even without the pre-conditions for a revolution in Saudi Arabia, an authoritarian regime was compelled to take pre-emptive counter-revolutionary measures in anticipation of the domino effect of the Arab Spring.

Recent Saudi sectarianism must also be understood in light of events in the neighbouring island of Bahrain, where a Sunni royal family rules over a Shia majority (International Crisis Group 2011; Kerr and Jones 2011 ). Sectarian discourse proved to be successful in suppressing the Bahraini pro-democracy movement. Saudi troops moved into Bahrain in February 2011 in support of the ruling Al-Khalifa family against the protestors. This allowed the Saudi regime to send strong signals not only to its own politically agitated Shia minority, many of whom have religious, social, and kinship ties with the Bahrainis, but also more importantly to the Sunni majority inside Saudi Arabia. The regime compelled its Sunni majority, long brought up on a sectarian discourse that denounces the Shia as heretics, to consider their government as a protector against Shia conspiracies and foreign agents allegedly acting in the name of Iran, a rival regional power. The regime hoped that the Sunni majority would abandon calls for political change at least at this critical moment of the Arab Spring. Under the pressures of a tense regional context and internal virtual and real mobilisation, it seems that many Saudis have postponed their confrontation with the regime but continue to call for political reform. Moreover, the economic benefits distributed by the king in March 2011 seem to have satisfied the immediate economic and social grievances of the population, without addressing political reform.

Saudi Sectarian Politics: An Historical Overview

In Saudi Arabia, deliberate, well-documented political exclusion and systematic religious discrimination against the Shia pushed this community to rally around its own sectarian leadership, which provides support and resources denied in the national arena (Al-Rasheed 2010; Ibrahim 2006; Jones 2010; Louer 2008). Both exclusion and discrimination contribute to the consolidation of Shia internal sectarian boundaries and cohesion. Moreover, while freedom of association is restricted and there is a ban on the formation of political parties and civil society, the religious sphere remains relatively open. In addition to being a place of worship, the mosque has become increasingly a platform for public mobilisation around religious symbols and identities.

Since the 1970s, a large Sunni and Shia Islamist trend has replaced earlier limited politicisation that invoked secular nationalist and leftist ideologies in Saudi Arabia. This was in line with other Arab countries where secular leftists and nationalist movements declined and Islamism was on the rise. Both Saudi Sunnis and Shia found in Islamism inspiration for oppositional politics and mobilisation. The two communities remained divided in their political opposition, and none was able to cross the sectarian divide and contain the other group. The only exception was the brief period of the 1950s and 1960s when labour mobilisation in the oil region resulted in protest not only across the Saudi sectarian, tribal, and regional divides, but also across nationalities since the oil industry attracted labourers from all over the Arab world (Vitalis 2007). Following the early and short-lived labour protests in the 1950s and 1960s, the government banned trade unions and demonstrations.

From the 1970s onward, no labour mobilisation was possible under the increased appeal of Sunni and Shia Islamism (ibid.). This was a product of a combination of factors. The Iranian revolution of 1979, after which Islamism triumphed in Iran, and the Saudi regime's promotion of Islamism as a counter ideology to nationalism and leftist political trends, led to the strengthening of political Islam not only in Saudi Arabia but also across the Arab world. National politics and mobilisation across the Sunni-Shia divide became impossible with the rise of Islamism and the weakening of the nationalist and leftist opposition groups.

Inspired by the success of the revolution in Iran in 1979, Saudi Shia mobilised themselves as a repressed and discriminated against religious minority. They were highly active in demanding religious, political, and economic rights and an end to discrimination in employment and education. For a long time, they were denied religious freedom and access to a wide range of professions in education and the military. Their religious jurisprudence was not represented at the level of the judiciary. They had greater experience in staging demonstrations than the Sunni majority, as some of their activists had been involved in leftist and nationalist agitations in the Eastern Province in the 1950s and 1960s. Encouraged by the success of the Iranian revolution and the establishment of the Islamic republic in1979, Saudi Shia started an uprising that was brutally suppressed (Al-Rasheed 2010; Ibrahim 2006; Jones 2010). Many of their opposition leaders went into exile following a wave of repression in the Eastern Province where they lived.

In 1993, there was reconciliation with the government, followed by the return of the main exiled Shia opposition figures (Al-Rasheed 1998). The reconciliation took place after the government promised to allow the Shia more religious freedom and increase their economic integration. There remained, however, a group of Shia activists abroad who continued to mobilise their followers inside Saudi Arabia. Inspired by the Arab Spring, the exiled Shia opposition, together with religious scholars and activists inside the country, called for demonstrations demanding the release of political prisoners. They also called for supporting the Bahraini prodemocracy movement in its struggle against the Bahraini Sunni regime and the withdrawal of Saudi troops from Bahrain. While the Shia are a minority in Saudi Arabia, they are a majority in Bahrain.

The Saudi Sunni Islamist opposition (Al-Rasheed 2010; Lacroix 2011), known since the 1990s as al-Sahwa, remained grounded in Salafi discourse especially that which demonises the Shia as a heretic group, thus endorsing official religious teachings. While Saudi Islamists denounce the official religious scholars for their dependence on the state and their loss of autonomy, they agree with them on the Shia question. They believe that the Shia enjoy sufficient religious freedoms and employment in the oil region. According to one Salafi scholar associated with the al-Sahwa Islamist camp, the Shia are not the worst off in the country. Sunnis in the marginalised southwestern area of Asir are worse off in their poor villages (AlRasheed 2007). Some Islamists think that Shia political prisoners are often released under internal and external pressure while Sunni Islamists remain in jail for long periods. This Sunni resentment resurfaces whenever the regime releases Shia political prisoners, a step understood as a concession to a heretical minority. In this respect, the state, the official religious establishment, and the Islamists remain in agreement over the Shia question. While only a small minority of Islamists prefer not to discuss the Shia question openly, the majority would not hesitate to denounce them in public.

Timid Protest

In light of the 2011 Arab Spring that brought down autocratic regimes in Tunisia and Egypt and is currently threatening Bahrain, Libya, Syria, and Yemen, Saudi virtual activists called for a Day of Rage on 11 March.2 New youth groups appeared on the internet under names such as the National Youth Movement and the Free Youth Movement. Both called for demonstrations against the regime. 3

Their demands centred on freedom, fighting corruption, oppression, injustice, unemployment, release of political prisoners, and other grievances, all of which are non-sectarian in nature.4 Many of these virtual forums attracted supporters without any evidence of whether they had real followers on the ground. Nobody inside Saudi Arabia could openly claim authorship of virtual anti-regime statements without risking arrest. Muhammad al-Wadani, a young activist, posted a video clip of himself denouncing the regime and announcing his intention to demonstrate on 11 March. He was arrested as he prematurely participated in a minor protest after Friday prayers on 7 March.5

Only two real Sunni opposition groups supported the Day of Rage. The Movement of Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA) and the newly founded Sunni Umma Party issued statements endorsing the call for demonstrations. 6 Since 2005, MIRA occasionally called upon its supporters to stage minor protests after Friday prayers in various cities. On rare occasions, such calls materialised in very small crowds who would emerge from the weekly prayer chanting 'God is Great'. On 11 March, MIRA and the Umma Party hoped that a spontaneous youth protest movement would spread to all Saudi cities.

Among the Shia, the exiled opposition abroad mainly Khalas (Deliverance) led by personalities such as London-based Shia opposition veterans Hamza al-Hasan and Fuad Ibrahim - called upon their followers to respond to the call for demonstrations on 11 March.7 However, the main impetus came from Shia activists inside the country. Before 11 March, these activists mobilised their community to demonstrate regularly after the peaceful protests in Bahrain were heavily repressed with the help of Saudi troops.

Before the Day of Rage, Saudi Sunni and Shi a groups used YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter to spread the message that they supported the virtual protest. This was the first time for Sunni and Shia opposition groups to call for demonstrations on the same day.

On 11 March, the Day of Rage failed utterly, thus pointing to the limitations of so-called Facebook and Twitter revolutions in the absence ofreal organisation and civil society willing to engage in protest (Morozov 2011 ). Al-Sahwa, the important and much larger Sunni Islamist movement inside the country referred to earlier, as well as other recently founded political groups, distanced themselves from the call for protest. As the slogan for the demonstration was 'the people want the overthrow of the regime', made famous in Cairo's Tahrir Square, no Saudi could declare his support without being arrested. In fact, many Sunni Islamist activists inside the country renewed their loyalty to the regime and denounced the chaos associated with demonstrations. They pointed to the need for reform but not the overthrow of the regime. With the al-Sahwa Islamist movement withholding its support, the demonstrations did not materialise.

Despite the total failure of the national Day of Rage, in the oil rich Eastern Province, the Shia minority continued to stage their own demonstrations demanding equality and an end to discrimination against their community. The Shia demonstrations gathered hundreds of supporters who called for the release of their political prisoners. Women joined the protest and marched with candles over several nights to draw attention to the plight of prisoners. They called for the release of political activists held for more than sixteen years under a campaign to support the 'forgotten prisoners'. They also called for the withdrawal of Saudi troops sent to Bahrain to suppress the Bahraini pro-democracy uprising that started on 14 February. In Shia areas, repression was more obvious in response to the size of the demonstrations. The Shia were able to mobilise their own people in support of their own demands, thus adopting a narrow Shia agenda, and in sympathy with their co-religionists in Bahrain, only sixteen miles away from Saudi Arabia across a causeway. The security forces were swift in repressing the demonstrators.

After 11 March, in Sunni majority areas, Saudi men and women regularly gathered on special days around the Ministry of Interior demanding the release of political prisoners. Unemployed graduates assembled around relevant ministries expressing economic grievances and calling upon government officials to honour the king's promises to increase employment opportunities and speed up the placement of graduates in public sector jobs. The king made these promises in February when he returned to the country after receiving medical treatment in the United States. Although none of these local protests amounted to real demonstrations, they were a novelty in a country where demonstrations are totally banned. With the exception of the Sunni protest in support of political prisoners, the regime allowed these minor assemblies to take place. But between February and March, it was reported that the security forces made more than 160 arrests, two ofthem were lonely demonstrators who responded to the call for the Day of Rage and there was one well-known political activist involved in human rights issues. In July, two women were held by the Ministry of Interior because of their participation in and organisation of a demonstration in support of political prisoners. Demonstrations in the Shia Eastern Province were more brutally suppressed. The government allowed small protests around economic grievances but was very swift with demonstrators who expressed political demands or criticised the regime's repression (Human Rights Watch 2011).

The constitutional monarchy movement, since 2003 notorious for sending regular petitions to the leadership demanding political reform, refrained from endorsing the demonstrations, thus preferring to respect the government ban on mass peaceful protest in the country. Saudi Sunni activists within this group expressed their political demands in on-line petitions calling for a constitutional monarchy.8 Both Islamists and liberals within this movement signed several petitions renewing their allegiance to the regime before they presented their political reform agenda. By June 2011, three petitions were proposed to the leadership. All focused on political, economic, and social reform. The petitions were highly critical of the Ministry oflnterior whose head, Prince Nayif, is the king's brother.

As the day of the demonstrations approached, several supporters of the constitutional monarchy movement distanced themselves from the Day of Rage and confirmed their loyalty to the regime.9 The constitutional monarchists proved to be a loyal opposition whose declared objective is to reform the regime rather than overthrow it. While there is no clear proof, it is assumed that this loyal opposition operates under the patronage of certain Saudi princes who have been calling for constitutional monarchy since the 1960s. The constitutional monarchy movement should therefore be seen in the context of power struggles within the Saudi royal family (Al-Rasheed 2005). Their mode of operation is restricted to circulating petitions, mainly praising the king and denouncing the severe and harsh policing methods of his brother in the Ministry of Interior. Several activists within this movement had been jailed following the circulation of several petitions in 2003- 2004. While the constitutional monarchists include Sunni and Shia personalities known to have been associated with nationalist, leftist, and liberal trends, it also includes moderate Islamists. It seems that the constitutional monarchy movement is caught in the power struggle between members of the royal family, mainly the king, and his rival brothers. The movement continues to praise the king and urge him to intervene now before he dies. There is a sense of urgency as the current king is eighty-seven years old. The desired intervention focuses on curbing the powers of the Minister oflnterior, who may become king after the death of King Abdullah given the deteriorating health of the current crown prince.

Reports on Saudi cities on 11 March portrayed deserted neighbourhoods where only security agents and vehicles roamed the streets (BBC 2011). The regime's overreaction to the virtual call for demonstrations may have been an expression of a deep fear of the spread of the euphoria ofthe Arab Spring to this oil rich kingdom. It was also a show of force. Despite the generous economic package announced by the king in March 2011, estimated at £36 billion, the leadership knows that there are serious unmet political demands and economic grievances related to unemployment, low wages, high inflation, lack of housing, and rising food prices. The regime perhaps was not entirely confident that economic handouts, in the form of additional monthly salaries, one year unemployment benefits, more health centres, housing projects and loans, jobs in the security sector (Ministry of Interior), and expansion of the religious bureaucracy would absorb widespread dissatisfaction among a very young population with very few employment opportunities. The king's handouts were meant to appease the population by addressing some of its urgent specific economic grievances. But political reform remained out of reach.

While security measures may have intimidated many Saudis, they cannot solely explain why the demonstrations failed to materialise; this failure reflects the limitations ofFacebook and Twitter mobilisation. It had underlying causes. Saudis did not have a consensus over the overthrow of the regime. As mentioned earlier, the mainstream Islamists inside the country, such as al-Sahwa, did not lend their support to the protest. They are still in a position to benefit from state largesse, spent on religious and educational institutions dominated by their activists. Moreover, tribal and economic elites in the country are still tied to the regime through networks ofpatronage (Hertog 2010). They both fear populist politics that would threaten their historical links with individual princes and their patron-client relations with important figures in the regime.

The euphoria surrounding the new communication technology, social networking, and virtual connectivity proved its limitations in the Saudi context. On a practical level, it seems that the state was able to manipulate such electronic networks and control the outcome. Several Facebook pages emerged prior to the 11 March demonstrations confusing potential protestors, spreading rumours about outside agents, and promoting the government propaganda messages against exiled activists. Shia activists who had more cohesion and contact with their followers in the real world instigated the minor frequent protests that were reported in the Eastern Province. There were known Shia religious scholars and activists who led the protest on the ground while the exiled opposition gave organisational and logistical electronic support from abroad. But the Shia demonstrations failed to spread to other cities. As such, they remained a Shia protest that resembled their previous uprisings, especially that of 1979. The regime, its religious establishment, and the majority Sunni population denounced Shia demonstrations. The fragmentation of the opposition, a strong sense of regionalism around three main provinces (Najd, Hijaz, and Hasa), and Sunni-Shia schisms prevent any cooperation. More importantly, it seems that many Saudis have not reached that critical phase to call for the overthrow of the regime. While there are serious economic inequalities and political exclusion of the population coupled with serious repression, for the moment most Saudis prefer security and the promise of economic prosperity at the expense of political liberty.

Although old well-known exiled Sunni Islamists such as the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA), the new Islamist party (the Umma Party), and Shia activists called for protest on 11 March, the regime identified such calls as a Shia conspiracy and uprising backed by outside agents, mainly Iran. The state strategy aimed to achieve two objectives. First, it allowed the state security agencies to move quickly into Shia areas to suppress early signs of protest, which was described as a Shia group revolt, totally isolated from other national groups and opposition trends calling for political reform. The fact that the majority of the Shia live in the Eastern Province and their demonstrations have in the past taken place in predominately Shia cities like al-Qatif, Seyhat, andAwamiyyah made it easy for government discourse to appear plausible. This allowed the security agencies to consider the Shia as the initiators of the call to demonstrate.

Second, by invoking the discourse of an Iranian-backed Shia regional revolt in the oil rich province, the state rallied the Sunni majority, including those who had serious grievances and had called for political reform. The state propaganda machine described calls for protest as a foreign attempt to cause chaos, divide the country, and undermine its security. The population was led to believe that any protest would result in the fragmentation of Saudi Arabia and the resurgence of regionalism, sectarianism, and tribalism. This response was not unique to the Saudi state. During the Arab Spring, other Arab regimes resorted to the same rhetoric when they faced mass protest, as Salwa Ismail's article in this volume demonstrates.

Saudi official religion was the main strategy to be deployed against the possibility of protest. The regime mobilised its main religious figures to support it at the critical moment of the Arab Spring in two different ways. First, Wahhabi religious scholars used the minarets to warn against the wrath of God, inflicted on the pious believers if they participated in the peaceful demonstrations planned immediately after the midday prayers of 11 March. On 7 March, the Council of Higher Ulama, the highest official religious authority, issued afatwa (religious opinion) against demonstrations." The old opinions of famous Sheikhs Abdul Aziz Ibn Baz and Muhammad al-Uthaymin (Al-Rasheed 2007) regarding obedience to rulers were resurrected to give impetus to recent religious opinions against demonstrations. All local newspapers favourably reported on the current fatwa against peaceful protest. Thousands of hard copies were distributed in mosques and neighbourhoods, in addition to dissemination on the internet. Saudi intelligence services infiltrated internet discussion boards and posted the fatwa on many discussion forums with several supporting statements. My observations of several internet discussion boards during the period of the Day of Rage clearly indicated heightened official propaganda.' Thefatwa against demonstrations was a political rather than a religious statement in support of the regime and against those who call for protest.

Second, Saudi official religious scholars warned of an Iranian-Safavid-Shia conspiracy directed by Saudi Shia and Sunni exiles in London and Washington to cause fitna (chaos) and divide Saudi Arabia. They relied on sectarian religious opinions against the Shia, historically depicted as heretics and more recently as a fifth column acting as agents of Iran. They reminded the believers of the need for ijma, consensus around the pious rulers of the country, and warned that fragmentation, tribal warfare, civil war, and bloodbaths were to be expected if people responded to calls for demonstrations. Wahhabi scholars who are not directly associated with the official Council of Higher Ulama, and dubbed as the neoWahhabis, for example Muhammad al-Urayfi and Yusif al-Ahmad, had more freedom to denounce the Shia in local mosques, lectures, and sermons, recorded and publicised on YouTube. Old al-Sahwa veteran Sheikh Nasir al-Omar joined the battle against the Shia, thus giving an added force to the opinions of the young ulama (religious scholars) generation. While many of those scholars are critical of the king regarding new gender policies that relax the laws on mixing between the sexes in education and the workplace, they are supportive against the Shia, who are seen as alien, heretic, and loyal to Iran. Depicting local protest as a foreign conspiracy had already been tried during the Arab Spring.

The Saudi regime and its ulama echoed well-rehearsed rhetoric of other Arab autocrats such as Zein al-Abdin Bin Ali in Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Hamad al-Khalifa in Bahrain, Muamar al-Qadhafi in Libya, Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and Ali Abdullah Salih in Yemen. The Saudi regime mobilised its digital intelligence services to spread rumours that the Iranians were behind the demonstrations and, if the Sunnis wanted victory, they should not respond to suspicious outside calls for protest. My observation of several internet discussion boards, such as al-Saha and the Saudi Liberal Network, clearly demonstrated unusual pro-regime postings that demonised the Shia and warned against foreign conspiracies. The Saudi religious strategy consisted of enlisting divine wrath and invoking sectarian difference and hatred to thwart the prospect of peaceful protest demanding real political reforms. So-called independent religious scholars served the regime's interest as much as the official bureaucracy. While official ulama played a role, other preachers found an opportunity on the internet to denounce the Shia and boost their popularity among a young population. Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter became the new digital battlefield against the heretical Shia and their Iranian backers.

While the double religious strategy of obedience to rulers and sectarianism was unfolding, the Saudi-controlled so-called liberal press published articles denouncing sectarianism. Liberal authors attacked those so-called sectarian hate preachers and many journalists and activists celebrated national unity, wataniyya, that is, belonging to a nation rather than a sect or tribe. The pages ofthe official local press such as al-Riyadh, al-Jazeera, and al-Watan, together with pan-Arab al-Hayat and al-Sharq al-Awsat, became platforms to launch attacks on those backward forces who undermine national unity.13 This, however, does not mean that those liberal authors were in favour of close ties with the Shia or in support of real political protest as a means to political reform. They were simply defending the regime in another way, mainly by dividing and confusing Saudi public opinion, an important strategy in aborting a national consensus in favour of mobilisation and protest.

During the Arab Spring, Saudis were exposed to two contradictory discourses both sponsored by the state: a religious one in support of Sunni unity against Shia heretics, and a so-called liberal discourse denouncing religious scholars and their sectarianism. Saudis are confused and tom between those two contradictory interpretations of the crisis. The confusion can only serve regime interests by delaying the need to make political concessions. The strategy maintains divisions in society between so-called liberal intellectuals and the hate preachers, and between Sunnis and Shia. In this confusion, the regime confirms in the minds of people that it alone can mediate between the various camps, reining in the excesses of liberals, Islamists, Shia, and Sunnis. The regime fosters the impression that, without its intervention, the country will enter a Hobbesian state of nature where tribes, sects, and regions unleash their fanaticism and violence on each other and undermine the security of all Saudis, possibly inviting foreign military intervention to secure the energy sources that are so important not only to Saudis but also to the rest of the world.

In a country where there is weak nationalism and strong Islamism and sectarian tension, state strategy to depict protests as a Shia conspiracy was successful in pushing the Sunnis to renew their allegiance to the regime. Because Saudi Arabia does not have an organised national civil society such as trade unions, professional associations, or political parties, its opposition groups have never worked across the sectarian divide in recent times. The Shia opposition worked on its own since the 1970s while Sunni Islamism never appealed to non-Sunni groups, for example the Ismailis in the southwest and the Shia in the east. If Saudi Sunni Islamists had their own Islamic awakening, the Shia also developed their political opposition around their own religious scholars and political activists.

Saudi authoritarianism's main concern is to control both the Sunni and Shia population and prevent them from pursuing political rights that would eventually lead to the overthrow of authoritarian rule. For the foreseeable future, the Saudi regime will continue to frighten the majority with the Shia/Iranian threat to delay political reform. The real threat to Saudi authoritarianism is the development of a national opposition composed of both Sunnis and Shia, and Islamists and secularists. This has already begun to appear in limited forums, prompting the government to clamp down on virtual Sunni protest and the minor but real Shia demonstrations. If the new constitutional monarchy movement, which brings together Sunni and Shia liberals, develops further and become a force to be reckoned with, the sectarian discourse will be confined to hard-line official Salafi circles, which so far have remained loyal to the regime. A national opposition that rejects sectarianism will be difficult to suppress, despite decades of sectarian discourse under the patronage of the authoritarian state.

Without a student movement, women's movement, and professional associations, a Saudi revolution is unlikely to move out of the virtual world into reality. While students who are on generous government subsidies and scholarships await employment, the women's movement regards the state as its main patron and is unlikely to withdraw its support of the current king. Many Saudi women activists consider the state as the only agent capable of checking the power of the ulama. The weak professional associations, such as the Chambers of Commerce and journalist associations, remain loyal to the state, which protects them against populist politics. The economic and technocratic elite is tied in to the public sector and enjoys great rewards for its loyalty. Moreover, the main tribal groups are beneficiaries of the regime through employment in the military sector and regular subsidies and handouts. Many tribal groups are linked to the regime through marriage networks. Only drastic and prolonged economic decline would trigger mass protest. If ever there are signs of a Saudi mass protest, counter-revolutionary strategies other than sectarianism may have to be deployed to suppress a wide national movement calling for serious and real political change.

Reference

References are available on the URL address of the areticle.