What’s a few beheadings between friends?
Flags in the UK and Australia were flown at half-mast last week to commemorate the death of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah. The ABC described him as a man with “reforming zeal”. The liberal New York Times valorised his attempts to “nudge” society forward. The managing director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, suggested he was a staunch advocate for women’s rights. Barack Obama mourned a double loss – of Abdullah’s political perspective and his “genuine and warm friendship”.
The only thing missing is the hashtag, #JeSuisKingAbdullah.
The truth is that King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz was a vicious and cruel leader who used very few carrots and a whole bunch of sticks, whips and torture chambers to crush democratic impulses at home and throughout the Arab world. He was despised throughout the Middle East as a symbol of wealth, corruption and the brutal authoritarianism of the old order.
He had been de facto ruler since 1995, after his half-brother had a stroke, and took over in his own right in 2005.
His time in power saw Saudi Arabia develop into an economic power on the backs of the hyper-exploitation of foreign workers who continue to be denied the most basic rights and protections, including the right to own a house or even be a citizen.
Women also suffer from extreme discrimination in Saudi Arabia, where they are banned from driving, or even talking to a man from another family. Women are banned from working with or around men, and cannot travel to work without a male family member – hence just 6 percent of Saudi women have jobs.
During King Abdullah’s reign Saudi Arabia adopted a more aggressive approach to foreign policy. It has spent years pushing for an EU-style monetary union and currency for the oil-rich Gulf States, a means to cement its growing power and undermine rivals.
It has used its foreign aid and investment to encourage neoliberal economic policies in its poorer neighbours. The King was particularly fond of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, and the Hariri clan in Lebanon. In return, these countries privatised basic services, attacked workers’ rights and cut social spending.
And when revolutions swept much of the Arab world in 2011, Saudi Arabia was one of the most proactive agents of counter-revolution – propping up allies where possible, funding reactionary Salafi groups to hijack popular struggles and, tragically in the case of Bahrain, crushing a popular uprising using physical force.
So while cynical world leaders shed tears for a man who spent his last year beheading more people than ISIS, I am celebrating the death of a tyrant, hoping that there will be more such deaths to come.
