Okay, because this post is suffering from late-night blogging issues, I've edited a few things. I've also expanded on some of the ideas now that I'm conscious enough to know what I really wanted to say. The only post is in green, the new black.
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When I first started in this odd business, I had the impression from listening to IC and policy folks that Saudi Arabia was a place in a time warp, albeit a well-appointed time warp. Somehow the events of September 11th may be "changing" things in the Magic Kingdom, but it didn't matter as long as they kept on pumping oil. Well it does matter. Saudi Arabia isn't just the world's oil reserve. It's the heart of the Muslim world. Its people and ideas matter just as much, if not more, than its oil in a wider world where ideas and people regularly change the course of history. The social changes reported on at Crossroads Arabia and a few other sites, are pretty tame to Western standards, but they are encouraging signs.
However, as Crossroads Arabia noted last week, the "inspiration" for the country's social changes may not be what you think:
While 9/11 may have opened some eyes, it was the fire at the girls’ school in Mecca in 2002 and the attacks on residential compounds in 2003 that made it clear to (nearly) all, that the Kingdom needed to change course.
The 2002 fire may have been quickly dismissed in the West as just another example of Arab barbarity, but it sent shock waves through Saudi society. How certain segments of Saudi society contextualize and respond to that event should be a topic of study, because it may give us useful insights into how change is taking place there.
During a recent trip to the Library of Congress I researched newspaper reports on the Siege of Mecca, looking for telling minor details that could have been left out of more recent analysis of those events. I got lost, however, in the 70s-era newspaper and magazine reporting on the Kingdom. Most articles were filled with the usual condescending cliches regarding veils and the inevitable lifting of them, usually accompanied by a photo of camels and cars juxtaposed in a desert landscape, a la Lawrence of Arabia. If you want to understand why we never saw the next twenty years coming - particularly in Saudi Arabia -- consider how very little we knew about it, and how very little we cared.
