This piece appeared in the Washington Post Outlook Section on Sunday, November 16, 2003.
It was entirely predictable that the Arab world would respond with skepticism and derision to President Bush's appeal for democratic reform in the Middle East. In the culture of cynicism that has crippled political development in Arab countries for decades, the president's vision was easy to dismiss as meddlesome or naive, especially coming from a leader who sent troops to occupy an Arab country and -- as every Arab knows -- has described Ariel Sharon as a "man of peace."
Yet Bush was right to say that the people of the Middle East harbor democratic aspirations and that democracy is compatible with Islam. "Religion rejects government by one individual," the Egyptian liberal Khaled Muhammad Khaled proclaimed as long ago as 1962, "and the world is even firmer in its rejection. The same applies to the one-party state, another form of evil and despotism." Such views are widely held, even if individuals often fear to express them publicly.
In his Nov. 6 speech, the president cited encouraging developments in several Arab countries, including Yemen, Kuwait and Jordan. Even Saudi Arabia, he said, "is taking first steps toward reform, including a plan for gradual introduction of elections." He was referring to the Saudis' recent announcement that some municipal councils will be elected rather than appointed, beginning in a year or two.
Americans tend to equate democracy with elections, and thus Riyadh's announcement about municipal elections was welcomed here as a progressive innovation. But as is often true in the Arab world, reality is murkier than official statements. It won't be the first time that Saudi Arabia, a monarchy in which all major public offices are filled by royal appointment, will have let people vote. It conducted elections for municipal councils in several cities and towns in the 1950s and early '60s, but then abandoned that flirtation with democracy. Little has been written about these elections in English and many Saudis have never heard about them.
Saudi officials say that this time the elections are part of a broader reform in response to the country's exploding population, declining oil wealth and growing terrorist problem. Revulsion over the lethal car bombing of a Riyadh housing compound two weekends ago has stimulated rather than stifled popular support for change, Saudi officials say.
But it remains to be seen whether this experiment with democracy proves more enduring than the last, which apparently ended when a new royal took power. Most of the available information in English about those earlier contests comes from the archives of the Arabian American Oil Co., or Aramco, the consortium of four U.S. companies that developed the Saudi Arabian oil industry. Aramco -- now nationalized and known as Saudi Aramco -- has not made its files public, but copies of thousands of its documents are at Georgetown University's library among papers donated by William E. Mulligan, a longtime Aramco official.
Aramco was more than an oil company. In the backward Saudi Arabia of the 1940s and '50s , it was the principal provider of public services in the kingdom's vast Eastern Province where the oil fields lie. Aramco built schools and roads, operated medical clinics, constructed housing and supplied electricity to Arab communities.
Aramco made it its business to know as much as possible about the inner workings of the Saudi government -- no easy task when all important decisions were made by the king and a handful of senior princes and advisers. The oil company created an entire department of Arabic-speaking scholars and political reporters. One of them was Phebe Marr, now a renowned authority on Iraq. She monitored several elections and copies of her typed reports -- on yellow onionskin paper -- are included in the Mulligan papers.
According to her accounts and other documents in the Aramco files, the practice of choosing municipal councils by vote instead of by appointment of the king's regional governor, or emir, began as early as 1954 and continued at least into the early 1960s. The time frame coincides roughly with the reign of King Saud ibn Abdul Aziz, suggesting that the elections may have been instituted as part of Saud's response to criticism from Egypt's populist leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser.
Real political power in Saudi Arabia derived from the king and from royal connections, just as it does today, but the municipal councils did have some authority. The councils allocated road-building money supplied by the central government and could acquire routes by eminent domain. In some towns they also controlled electricity hookups that could make or break a local business.
Election issues varied from town to town. In one contest a slate of young, educated businessmen challenged an incumbent council of conservative landowners. (The old-timers won.) Another election pitted candidates of the Sunni Muslim majority against minority Shiites. The Shiites, political and social outcasts, protested that the election rules were stacked against them; the local emir canceled the voting and scheduled a new election. But the Shiites boycotted it, demanding that seats be allocated by percentage of the population.
The protest was not surprising. That election, unlike others recounted in the Aramco files, was conducted under a system in which the only voters were "electors" chosen by the emir as representative of the community. This was as if the members of the U.S. electoral college were appointed by the White House chief of staff. In a district of some 20,000 inhabitants, only 50 or so were designated as electors, "all known and respected figures," meaning they were not Shiites.
In other communities, the elections seem to have been relatively open, and the results accepted as legitimate. All candidates and all voters were male. (The Saudis have not said whether women will be permitted to vote in the new elections.) The minimum voting age was 21 in some districts, 18 in others. Candidates were required to be literate but voters were not. In some districts candidates nominated themselves; in others, candidate lists were issued by the emir. Campaigning was done face to face, in markets and coffee houses. Voting was by secret ballot.
So new Saudi elections would not be unprecedented. The Saudis of the 1950s and early '60s had no trouble understanding the electoral process and the power of citizen participation. In fact, Saudi understanding of the power of the ballot box is the reason many Saudis caution against U.S. pressure to institute elections for a national government. In the current climate of Arab rage against the United States, if the people of Saudi Arabia were given the freedom to choose their own leaders, we Americans might not like the outcome.
Thomas Lippman, a former Middle East correspondent for The Washington Post, is an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute. His book "Inside the Mirage: America's Fragile Partnership with Saudi Arabia" is to be published in January by Westview.
Disclaimer: Assertions and opinions in this Commentary are solely those of the above-mentioned author(s) and do not reflect necessarily the views of the Middle East Institute, which expressly does not take positions on Middle East policy.
Related Resources
Countries
Regional Issues
This piece appeared in the Washington Post Outlook Section on Sunday, November 16, 2003.
It was entirely predictable that the Arab world would respond with skepticism and derision to President Bush's appeal for democratic reform in the Middle East. In the culture of cynicism that has crippled political development in Arab countries for decades, the president's vision was easy to dismiss as meddlesome or naive, especially coming from a leader who sent troops to occupy an Arab country and -- as every Arab knows -- has described Ariel Sharon as a "man of peace."
Yet Bush was right to say that the people of the Middle East harbor democratic aspirations and that democracy is compatible with Islam. "Religion rejects government by one individual," the Egyptian liberal Khaled Muhammad Khaled proclaimed as long ago as 1962, "and the world is even firmer in its rejection. The same applies to the one-party state, another form of evil and despotism." Such views are widely held, even if individuals often fear to express them publicly.
In his Nov. 6 speech, the president cited encouraging developments in several Arab countries, including Yemen, Kuwait and Jordan. Even Saudi Arabia, he said, "is taking first steps toward reform, including a plan for gradual introduction of elections." He was referring to the Saudis' recent announcement that some municipal councils will be elected rather than appointed, beginning in a year or two.
Americans tend to equate democracy with elections, and thus Riyadh's announcement about municipal elections was welcomed here as a progressive innovation. But as is often true in the Arab world, reality is murkier than official statements. It won't be the first time that Saudi Arabia, a monarchy in which all major public offices are filled by royal appointment, will have let people vote. It conducted elections for municipal councils in several cities and towns in the 1950s and early '60s, but then abandoned that flirtation with democracy. Little has been written about these elections in English and many Saudis have never heard about them.
Saudi officials say that this time the elections are part of a broader reform in response to the country's exploding population, declining oil wealth and growing terrorist problem. Revulsion over the lethal car bombing of a Riyadh housing compound two weekends ago has stimulated rather than stifled popular support for change, Saudi officials say.
But it remains to be seen whether this experiment with democracy proves more enduring than the last, which apparently ended when a new royal took power. Most of the available information in English about those earlier contests comes from the archives of the Arabian American Oil Co., or Aramco, the consortium of four U.S. companies that developed the Saudi Arabian oil industry. Aramco -- now nationalized and known as Saudi Aramco -- has not made its files public, but copies of thousands of its documents are at Georgetown University's library among papers donated by William E. Mulligan, a longtime Aramco official.
Aramco was more than an oil company. In the backward Saudi Arabia of the 1940s and '50s , it was the principal provider of public services in the kingdom's vast Eastern Province where the oil fields lie. Aramco built schools and roads, operated medical clinics, constructed housing and supplied electricity to Arab communities.
Aramco made it its business to know as much as possible about the inner workings of the Saudi government -- no easy task when all important decisions were made by the king and a handful of senior princes and advisers. The oil company created an entire department of Arabic-speaking scholars and political reporters. One of them was Phebe Marr, now a renowned authority on Iraq. She monitored several elections and copies of her typed reports -- on yellow onionskin paper -- are included in the Mulligan papers.
According to her accounts and other documents in the Aramco files, the practice of choosing municipal councils by vote instead of by appointment of the king's regional governor, or emir, began as early as 1954 and continued at least into the early 1960s. The time frame coincides roughly with the reign of King Saud ibn Abdul Aziz, suggesting that the elections may have been instituted as part of Saud's response to criticism from Egypt's populist leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser.
Real political power in Saudi Arabia derived from the king and from royal connections, just as it does today, but the municipal councils did have some authority. The councils allocated road-building money supplied by the central government and could acquire routes by eminent domain. In some towns they also controlled electricity hookups that could make or break a local business.
Election issues varied from town to town. In one contest a slate of young, educated businessmen challenged an incumbent council of conservative landowners. (The old-timers won.) Another election pitted candidates of the Sunni Muslim majority against minority Shiites. The Shiites, political and social outcasts, protested that the election rules were stacked against them; the local emir canceled the voting and scheduled a new election. But the Shiites boycotted it, demanding that seats be allocated by percentage of the population.
The protest was not surprising. That election, unlike others recounted in the Aramco files, was conducted under a system in which the only voters were "electors" chosen by the emir as representative of the community. This was as if the members of the U.S. electoral college were appointed by the White House chief of staff. In a district of some 20,000 inhabitants, only 50 or so were designated as electors, "all known and respected figures," meaning they were not Shiites.
In other communities, the elections seem to have been relatively open, and the results accepted as legitimate. All candidates and all voters were male. (The Saudis have not said whether women will be permitted to vote in the new elections.) The minimum voting age was 21 in some districts, 18 in others. Candidates were required to be literate but voters were not. In some districts candidates nominated themselves; in others, candidate lists were issued by the emir. Campaigning was done face to face, in markets and coffee houses. Voting was by secret ballot.
So new Saudi elections would not be unprecedented. The Saudis of the 1950s and early '60s had no trouble understanding the electoral process and the power of citizen participation. In fact, Saudi understanding of the power of the ballot box is the reason many Saudis caution against U.S. pressure to institute elections for a national government. In the current climate of Arab rage against the United States, if the people of Saudi Arabia were given the freedom to choose their own leaders, we Americans might not like the outcome.
Thomas Lippman, a former Middle East correspondent for The Washington Post, is an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute. His book "Inside the Mirage: America's Fragile Partnership with Saudi Arabia" is to be published in January by Westview.