A true battle unfolds in the Saudi heat. By the time this week finishes, Saudi Arabia will have hosted another 'Davos in the Desert' summit as part of its Future Investment Initiatives (FII) to reform a post-oil economy, and get to know the size and shape of the Jamal Khashoggi fallout. To be sure, Khashoggi's murder was cold, brutal, a violation of diplomatic immunity, and a bloody stain on Islam's leading country. That is quite an indictment for a country whose maverick Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MBS) has unleashed a war against Saudi traditionalism: opening pathways for women, converting desert sand into primetime sea-beaches, reining in religious zeal, and embarking on a belligerent foreign policy, if Yemeni bombing (especially of children) is any guide.
Building upon US President Donald J. Trump's well choreographed visit, highlighted by a gigantic military deal, and last year's 'Davos in the Desert', this year's extravaganza expected about 150 high-profile speakers, representing 140 corporations and countries. Almost one-third of the top-notch speakers declined to go, dispatching lower-level official of their organisation instead. Among the absentees: Steve Mnuchin, the US Treasury Secretary (though his Saudi visit still went on), Liam Fox, Britain's Trade Secretary (but Britain's Saudi ambassador attended); Christine Lagarde, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director; as well as the top executives of Blackrock, Credit Suisse, E.D.F. (the French utility), HSBC, JP Morgan, Siemens (Germany has stopped arms sales to Saudi Arabia), Standard Chartered, and Uber, among others; while Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Airlines suspended Saudi discussions over a $1.0 billion investment.
A brief survey of the immediate casualties suggest the battle between money and morals only thickened after the pre-planned October 02 murder of a dissident Saudi inside Istanbul consulate of the Saudi Monarchy. There has been increasing Saudi Arabia culpability about its role: after first denying any knowledge, let alone explaining Khashoggi's sudden disappearance from inside the Saudi consulate or murder, it turned to a 'rogue killer' alibi by October 15, before officially shifting towards 'murder' itself through a 'brawl and a fist fight' attribution on the 20th before the murder admission the next day. Turkey had all along been pointing at such an outcome, while the United States also got drawn in, prompting Secretary of State Mark Pompeo's visit to see both the king and the crown prince. Satisfied with the talks, Pompeo stopped in Istanbul, while Trump's harder original stance gradually softened up. This unfolding US cover-up had less to do with the 'Davos in the Desert' event, since it is still a minuscule event compared to the size and weight of the US economy, but a lot more connected to strategic US interests.
In fact, Saudi Arabia may be too indispensable to overall western interests to be punished too heavily, that is, through sanctions, trade restrictions, or investment withdrawals. It is pivotal to the United States for several reasons: (a) as a front-line platform to any hard-line policy measure against Iran, against which Trump's administration carries more than a grudge; (b) as a wedge in the Arab community's hostile stance against Israel, given the background diplomacy between the region's two pro-US countries; (c) a source of significant trade income at a time when the United States needs that money; and (d) to pre-empt any Saudi shift towards China from western alienation.
As during the Cold War, we notice the shift away from moral considerations, legal precepts, and all the other noble aspirations and declarations countries, companies, and citizens make towards self-interests defined in terms of material possessions or safety precautions. As defined by the 1941 Atlantic Charter, then incorporated into the United Nations, democracy illustrates. It was thrown into the winds to contain communism: military dictators such as Ayub Khan, Ferdinand Marcos, the Shah of Iran, and so forth, were seen as better 'Cold Warriors' than democracy promoters, of whom, the likes of Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran (1953), and Salvadore Allende in Chile (1973), paid with their lives. Yet, the power of democracy was such that when the Cold War ended, and one reason why it had to end, was because democratic aspirations began spiralling up the list of global interests. All the third, fourth, and ostensible fifth 'democratic waves' from the late 1970s, as well as institutionalised democratic agents, like the National Endowment for Democracy, and its flagship, the Journal of Democracy, from the early 1980s, testify to this. Since the 1990s, the peak point of democracy, another battle between liberal forces and those representing authoritarian regimes has been slowly unleashed. Often couched under the war on terrorism, implicitly targeting Muslims, it has permitted many autocratic leaders without any religious consciousness to proliferate. Saudi Arabia is one of them, and it is one that has weathered all democratic movements through very cosy relations across the very western world preaching democracy. It had clout because it had oil; and it cultivated key friends because it had oil-based clout. Without oil, that clout is endangered. 'Davos in the Desert' is meant to address that problem, but its temporary derailing may have profound long-term consequences.
Past instincts, tendencies, and actions predict Saudi Arabia will come out of this crisis exactly where it was before: with the same western interests, and without any enhanced democratic claims. Its religious leadership role delays alienation within the Islamic world. Imran Khan, the new Pakistan prime minister, for instance, will be at the FII gathering, currying Saudi favours. His monetary needs to bail his country out speak for many other leaders and countries dependent on Saudi cash, regardless of democratic cultivation: they cannot but stand beside Saudi Arabia to either send migrants to work in the Saudi desert or have Saudi Arabia invest in their country. China stands by, as it always does, to capitalise on any intra-western dissension: for instance, it built Bangladesh's Padma Bridge when the World Bank refused to.
Similarly in the west, particularly now that the petroleum energy is being challenged by shale oil and solar energy. Saudi global energy monopoly was threatened 2-3 years through the price collapse, prompting the MBS reforms.
Yet, it cannot shake off some of its medieval practices, no matter how heinous. Murder is atop that list. As the media is widely reporting in the wake of the Khashoggi murder, Saudi Arabia has a history of helping prominent opponents disappear. So we are back to the basic question: will these medieval practices overtake the elements of progress that underpins civilisations. Will money have the last say in an age of growing non-material interests?
Eventually, this feeds into the Syrian imbroglio in which Saudi Arabia and Turkey are at loggerheads, opening another window to revive outrageous medieval practices. Somehow it is hard to see developments such as this as not having some sinister cause, breeding in typical Middle-East fashion, a tit-for-tat set of diabolic consequences. Religious leaders turning satanic is antithetical to building morally conscious citizens.
Dr. Imtiaz A. Hussain is Professor & Head of the Department of Global Studies & Governance at Independent University, Bangladesh.