The problem is that the Saudi working class as a whole is pretty reactionary.
Cites?
Nitpick: The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 was not a mere coup d’etat, but neither was it a revolution made by the Russian working class as a whole. You know that, Olentzero. The Bolsheviks had some support among industrial laborers in the major cities, most of whom were favorable to socialism of one form or another, but there were several other left-wing parties competing for their support; and when a new parliament was elected after the Revolution, the Bolsheviks had only a minority bloc in it – so Lenin sent in soldiers to dissolve it.
OK, firstly the Russian Revolution is obviously not the point of this thread so I’m going to say nothing more than that it was made by the Russian working class as a whole.
Secondly, I strongly resent the tone behind “You know that”. You seem to assume that I’m making an argument purely for argument’s sake, and for no other reason than that - as if I couldn’t possibly have sources to back it up. I assure you, BrainGlutton, such is not the case. You don’t agree with my arguments, that’s one thing. To tell me to my face I’m being intellectually dishonest, that I “know” what I’m arguing is wrong simply because my position is different than yours, is another.
Knock it off.
Good point. Thank you. But please, don’t argue with apologists for communist dictators. No use.
Back on point…good debate.
In my experience with the Magic Kingdom, this is basically true. The American friends that I know still in Saudi (and are loyal to the paycheck not the company or the country)are questioning whether the Security Forces ‘let go’ some of the terrorists from the Oasis Compound. Having been to that Compound it had some of the best security in the area. I think that the Attackers were proving that they cound hit a semi-hard target, leading up to maybe going after ARAMCO.
Or those who would rather poison the well than debate.
Sigh . . . I should’ve known my nitpick would turn into a hijack. Let me put it this way: I said, "You know that, Olentzero, because any enthusiastic Marxist should know the real events of 1917. The Provisional Government of Kerensky itself was socialist – dominated by the Social Revolutionaries, a party which promised to break up the landlords’ estates into smallholdings for the peasants, without compensating the landlords. Kerensky himself flew the red flag. To the right of the SRs were the “Cadets,” or Constitutional Democrats, who wanted a British-style parliamentary monarchy, and the Oktobrists, the party of the aristocracy and richer landowners and factory owners. To the left of the SR’s were the Social Democrats, revolutionary Marxists, who by then had become split into the Mensheviks (Trotsky’s party) and the Bolsheviks (Lenin’s). Between February and October, Lenin recruited Trotsky into switching parties, General Kornilov staged an abortive and rather ridiculous attempt at a military coup, the war with Germany went worse and worse, soldiers at the front were routinely murdering their officers, the urban workers were radicalized by leftist propaganda, and finally everything fell apart and the Bolsheviks prevailed by moving at just the right time. One could say that the revolution was made by the working class as a whole, in that the industrial workers and even most of the peasants generally agreed upon the goal of sweeping away the existing system; but there was no consensus on what should replace it, and the Bolshevik ascendancy resulted more from superior organization, boldness and luck than from any popular mandate. (In some villages, the peasants, informed of the revolution, thought “Revolyutsiya” was simply the name of the new tsar.) Then there were elections to a new parliament, in which the SRs were the biggest party, and then the forcible dissolution of parliament after it met for only one day, and then the Civil War, which the Bolsheviks won. (I’m getting most of this from Comrades: 1917 – Russia in Revolution, by Brian Moynahan (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1992).)
What does this have to do with Saudi Arabia? Simply the lesson that, when a society is highly unstable and disordered, the boldest and best-organized revolutionary party has the best chance to take it over, even if its popular support is relatively small. In the case of SA, that would probably be the ultra-Wahhabists – at least, on this thread, nobody has yet mentioned any other party or faction that would have the will and the strength to seize power if the House of Saud should fall.
Which is pretty much the point Olentzero made earlier.
From which I would conclude the United States should keep its nose out of Saudi Arabian affairs if possible; and if we have to get involved at all – and we might have to, if only to protect the oil supply – then the best course would be for us to do what we can to maintain the Sauds in power at least a few years longer. It’s a disgusting prospect but preferable to any realistic alternative. Maybe in a few years some more liberal reform faction will have time to organize; but for now, no such faction is ready – is it?
[hijack]Can I just pop in here to say “Thank You” to everybody in this thread? I am getting quite an education, and I mean that seriously. Ghu, I love this Board![/hijack]
Honestly, when I brought up Russian revolution it was only in an attempt to say that the fall of the House of Saud might be an event on the scale of the fall of the House of Romanovs. I didn’t expect a comparison between “working classes” of Tsarist Russia and Saudi Arabia.
Perhaps for the sake of this debate you can explain what “working class” there is in Saudi Arabia. I think practically all the work there is done by migrant workers, who don’t have any roots or any prospect of ever becoming as much as legal residents even.
By itself, the fall of the House of Saud would not be an event on the scale of the fall of the House of Romanov, because Saudia Arabia is a much smaller and less important country than Russia – now or in 1917. But the fall of the House of Saud might lead to events in neighboring countries that would set the whole region aflame. I mean, even more aflame than it is now.
We can take any debate on the nature of the Russian Revolution to another thread entirely, BrainGlutton, if you so wish. I’m not going to address it further here and further tangentialize.
A party that moves to put itself at the political forefront in a bid for power, successful or otherwise, during a time of social upheaval is not necessarily revolutionary. The ultra-Wahhabists are profoundly reactionary by any reasonable assessment and their victory in the event of the fall of the house of Saud should not be an event welcomed by the left. A real revolution entails the overthrow of a class-based society in toto, not just the replacement of one part of the current ruling class by another.
‘Protect’ the oil supply from whom? For whom? I think you’ve laid it out rather plainly here - prop up a highly undemocratic monarchy for the sake of maintaing some control on oil prices, and nothing more.
And how.
Preferable for whom?
And it is therefore the mission of the United States to help maintain a regime under which it’s so far been impossible to actually build a liberal reform faction, in the hopes that such a faction may someday, somehow, actually organize? Firstly, I don’t see the connection between the premise (no liberal, progressive, or revolutionary organizations in Saudi Arabia) and the conclusion (maintain direct US military presence and prop up the monarchy). The only logical connection between the two would be the unstated (and thus obviously unquestioned) premise that the US has the right to intervene militarily, wherever and whenever it chooses, in order to maintain even a slim advantage in its favor. In other words, US imperialism remains unchallenged. And so we get bizarre situations like justifying propping up undemocratic regimes by claiming defense of democracy. It’s freakishly stupid.
Well, let’s start with a quick simple analysis courtesy of the CIA World Factbook. According to the July 2003 population estimate, there are 24.3 million people living in Saudi Arabia, of whom 5.6 million are ‘non-nationals’ - presumably the migrant workers you spoke of. The International Federation of Human Rights confirms this, saying that there are some 6 million migrant workers of varying professions in Saudi Arabia, and that they make up over 50% of the workforce. Which means there are another 5 to 6 million native-born Saudis who also make up part of the workforce, at least as defined by FIDH. I have no idea how they classify the remaining 12 million, but I sincerely doubt they’re all members of the Saudi royal family.
So, which are the Arab working class? All of them. They have to sell their ability to perform work, whether skilled or unskilled, to earn enough to keep food in the fridge, a roof over their heads, and clothes on their back. They’d be part of the US working class if they were over here, part of the German working class if they were in Berlin, part of the Australian working class if they were in Sydney, and so on and so forth. Their interests as a class don’t change depending on whose borders they find themselves within. Their social roles are the same as those filled by workers native to Saudi Arabia and there is no justifiable reason to draw a line between the two simply because of the country of their birth. It is in the interests of all the workers in Saudi Arabia to overthrow the House of Saud with the goal of establishing democracy and that goal is best served when they fight for it side by side instead of separately, or worse against each other.
(Bolding was mine)
An otherwise great post, however, the bolding part is the part I’d strongly disagree with. And here’s why… Iran in 1979. Whether historians agree or not, the Shah of Iran was seen as a direct puppet of the United States, and when the revolution came, the United States paid the piper. And it wasn’t nice.
The same logic exists within Saudi Arabia today. But to be fair, it’s not the fault of the United States, or Britain, or the Western World in general that the House of Saud is a corrupt little fiefdom. That, ultimately, is a situation which the Saudi’s have brought upon themselves. Nonetheless, the fact remains that the United States consumes more oil per capita by fucking light years compared to any other country on earth. And by any yardstick, the capacity for the United States to blatantly squander hydrocarbons all the while suggesting that the rest of us “should eat cake” (metaphorically speaking) is, well, it’s just plain obscene.
Ergo, it seems to me that singularly, the smartest thing in the world that the United States could do, right here, right now, is to drastically reduce her squanderous energy wastage - which in turn, would drastically reduce her reliance upon suppliers like Saudi Arabia - which in turn, would drastically reduce her need to be seen to be propping up the House of Saud. Not to mention that it would remove the USA from the top of another invidious pedestal - namely, being the world’s largest producer of airborne pollution.
Now, maybe I’m joining dots which shouldn’t be joined here. Or maybe they seem like they should be joined, and the message isn’t a particularly popular one - nonetheless, from a purely wise point of view, the sooner the United States returns to being a totally self sufficient energy supplier and consumer, the sooner we’ll see a diminution in oil-doped terrorist shit fights the world over. Nigeria is a country which instantly comes to mind as another crap fest in the making.
In short, it’s high time the USA started to take a lower profile and stopped letting her love of energy consumption prop up corrupt little shitholes all over the joint. It’s definitely in her interests, that’s for sure. Let China become the new oil squanderer. And let the Arabs, and the Iranians go terrorise them instead of us here in the Western World. And mark my words, they will.
This article, The Fall of the House of Saud argues that the House of Saud is on the verge of collapse. It covers a number of points brought up in this thread and some other ones.
Some of the points that I thought were interesting are:
- The oil pipelines are extermely suseptible to terrorist attacks.
- A large part of the millitary is side-lined performing security duty for the royal family.
- The rate at which the royal family spends money and, even worse, the rate at which the royal family is growing places a huge financial burden that can only be met through corruption.
- The majority of jobs are done by foreigners and that the only focused, motivated people are the religous extermists.
I dug up this article for another semi-related thread a few months back. It takes a somewhat more Middle-of-the-road view:
http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/2004/feb/gauseFeb04.asp
- Tamerlane
Well, according to that report, total labor force is 7 million, with “roughly 4 million foreign workers”. Thanks for the cite.
There are other interesting statistics, such as:
- 25% unemployment;
- 42.3% population are under 15 years old;
- looks like almost all women in 15-64 years group don’t work.
[QUOTE=New Iskander]
Well, according to that report, total labor force is 7 million, with “roughly 4 million foreign workers”. Thanks for the cite.QUOTE]OK, so we have two cites that differ in the numbers. How does that negatively affect my arguments about what constitutes the Arab working class?
I used your own cite and I thank you for providing it. Total number of non-nationals is 5,576,076, 35% in 15-64 years group are non-nationals, which is 0.35 x (7,700,121 + 5,622,099) = 4,662,777 people. Migrant labor force is roughly 4 million, which means about 600,000 are their spouses and adult relatives that don’t work, and about 900,000 under the age of 15 or over 64. The number of Arabs in the labor force is about 3 millions. IFHR gives about 6 million non-native workforce (probably confusing it with the total number of non-natives), comprising over 50% of total workforce. Thus all the numbers are in agreement.
In US, out of every 4 adults roughly 3 are in the workforce. In SA, out of every 4 adults roughly 2 are in the workforce (and roughly every second worker is a migrant). Considering this, US would make a proper ground for proletarian revolution, not SA. That is exactly what Marx was saying all along, btw.
Leftists do not have any copyright on the word "revolution, Olentzero. A right-wing or reactionary revolution is still a revolution. Iran went through a revolution in 1979.
No, Olentzero, we do not have the right to prop up undemocratic regimes, or do other unpalatable things, to defend the oil supply. We have the need to do so. There is no alternative. A sudden and drastic rise in the price of imported oil would do more than inconvenience us, like it did in the '70s; it would bring our national economy to a screeching halt. I’m talking about serious danger of mass starvation. What we should do, of course, is try to develop electric or hydrogen-powered cars, and at the same time de-suburbanize our country, build more walkable neighborhoods that are much closer to our places of work and centers of production, build a network of light-rail and streetcar lines covering every metropolitan area with a fine enough web that everybody lives and works within walking distance of a stop, etc., etc. But all this would take time – decades, probably – and except for some research on hydrogen-powered cars, the process hasn’t even started yet and nobody in public life is even talking about these solutions – not even Ralph Nader, so far as I’ve heard.
Marxists have been trying for 150 years now to teach working-class people of different nationalities that they have more in common with each other than with ruling-class people of their own nationalities. But people just don’t think that way. For the most part, not even socialists think that way, when it comes down to it – in 1914 the socialist members of both the German and French parliaments voted for war credits, even though, in their theory, a war between France and Germany would just be the workers of both countries fighting each other to protect their respective ruling classes’ interests. In SA, how can we expect the native-born Saudis to accept the guest-workers as comrades in the struggle against the monarchy? They are much more likely to view the foreigners as part of the problem.
I don’t see why we would have to intervene in Saudi Arabia when the 101st Airborne is currently sitting on top of the second-largest oil reserve in the world.