Christopher Davidson - After the Sheikhs - The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies

This current, unprecedented international interest in Gulf politics and the possibility of a ‘Gulf Spring’ is in many ways due to the hundreds of headline-grabbing incidents regarding political activism, human rights, and corruption that have taken place in the region over the past six months. Almost without exception, these have provided further, compelling evidence in support of the central thesis of this book. Namely that traditional monarchy as a legitimate regime type in the region is soon going to reach the end of its lifespan, especially as most of the Gulf states are now caught in a pincer movement of pressures between unsustainable wealth distribution mechanisms and increasingly powerful ‘super modernising forces’ that can no longer be controlled or co-opted by political elites. The former continue to manifest themselves in widening wealth gaps and increasing real unemployment, despite ramped-up public spending programmes and urgent public sector job creation schemes. These counter-revolutionary ‘rentier outlays’ are likely to keep spiralling, with the International Monetary Fund and other bodies having already predicted that even the wealthiest of the monarchies will be in budget deficit within a few years. Meanwhile, in the poorer states, where this strategy is now increasingly inapplicable, street protests keep growing and regimes have had little option but to openly crack down on dissidents, with ever larger numbers of political prisoners being taken.

As for ‘super modernisation,’ and especially improved communications in the form of social media, in recent months a veritable battle in cyberspace has now begun. New legislation has been introduced, or is about to be introduced, in all six monarchies, with the aim of tightly policing online dissent and meting out heavy punishments to all would-be critics. As unsustainable as the spiralling public spending, the strategy also seems likely to fail, with several of these states now having the highest social media usage rates in the world, and with massive, often well-organised, online political discussions having made Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube the region’s de facto new parliament. Detailed, substantiated criticism of governments has thus become commonplace, with exposés of ruling family corruption and public insults directed at hitherto unchallengeable elites being broadcasted and digested by millions each day. As with the clamping down on street protests, this new form of repression is already damaging — probably irreparably — the described social contracts and legitimacy resources of these monarchies. Certainly, such disparagement of rulers was almost unimaginable prior to 2011, but now it is almost fashionable for young Gulf nationals to question their autocrats.

With regards to Bahrain — still the vanguard of the region’s revolt — the past few months have witnessed only further tragedy and despair. Unsurprisingly, despite fresh promises of dialogue and some minor political concessions — including promotions for supposed moderates — the ruling family and its allies in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have firmly held the line. By refusing any significant reforms and keeping hundreds of activists behind bars, the island’s elites seem more distanced than ever from the majority of the population. The extensive public relations campaign to depict the long-running uprising, both to the Arab world and Western allies, as primarily a sectarian conflict or part of an Iran-Arab struggle, has continued unabated, albeit with declining plausibility. With a resurgence in mass protests in February 2013—marking the second anniversary of 2011’s ‘Pearl Revolution’—and with further deaths and clashes between security services and demonstrators, it seems increasingly unlikely that the Bahraini monarchy can regain a baseline position of legitimacy. As such, the Al-Khalifa family will effectively become the first of the Gulf dynasties to have been publicly rejected by the majority of its subjects.

Across the causeway in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, the protests have also continued to gather pace. While modest in size for much of 2012, not least due to continuing announcements from senior clerics and government officials that protests are ‘un-Islamic’ and illegal, by the end of the year they had become much larger. Notably, following the death of a young man at the hands of security services in December 2012—thought to be the twelfth such killing of the year — it was estimated that tens of thousands of protestors took to the streets, many chanting slogans opposing the ruling family. In some ways even more problematic for the Al-Saud have been the protests that have begun to break out in other, predominantly Sunni provinces of the kingdom. Much harder to frame as a sectarian clash, these have mainly been campaigns for the release of political prisoners, with large numbers of women and children in the northern Al-Qassim province taking to the streets. In some cases burning pictures of key ruling family members and resisting arrest, their movement is being widely discussed across the region, mostly on Twitter. Meanwhile, several other ‘trigger incidents’ have been taking place in Saudi Arabia which continue to underline how brittle the state is becoming despite its enormous and unprecedented public spending programme. These include the jailing of leading human rights activists, including some of those discussed in this book, outrage over the apparent unaccountability of various ministers, the disappearance of activists from other Arab monarchies in Saudi territory, and the seizing of numerous social media users. 2012 also witnessed the highest rate of executions in the kingdom so far, many of which were widely debated and criticised as they included beheadings and crucifixions for crimes such as blasphemy and ‘sorcery’.

Similarly in Kuwait, the alacrity with which the authorities — concerned over seemingly uncontrollable discussion of their government’s shortcomings — have been arresting online activists has alarmed many over the past few months. The crackdown has continued offline too, with key critics — including leading former parliamentarians and members of powerful tribes — having been imprisoned after what have been described as ‘show trials’. As with Bahrain and Saudi Arabia’s rulers, the Al-Sabah’s increasingly repressive tactics seem to be losing them support from significant constituencies, with continuing street protests undermining the ruler’s legitimacy and with parliamentary elections in December 2012 being largely boycotted — thus denting the Kuwaiti elite’s ability to keep employing ‘liberal autocracy’ strategies. Perhaps most worryingly for the monarchy, the previously fragmented opposition groups — ranging from youth movements, to Islamists and disaffected tribes — seem to be slowly coalescing, with a broad-based opposition coalition having been formed in March 2013. Pushing for a multi-party system with ‘democratic rotation of power,’ it is likely to become the first properly organised Gulf group to press successfully for significant political reform, with constitutional monarchy as its minimum demand.

The United Arab Emirates’ rulers, or more specifically the tight-knit group of brothers surrounding the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, also seem more resolute than before to tackle their opposition head on, effectively side-lining their late father’s well-honed social contract in favour of police state strategies. The dozens of political prisoners seized over the course of 2012 swelled to nearly one hundred by the beginning of 2013, with another ‘national security trial’—reminiscent of 2011’s ‘UAE Five’ trial — beginning in March 2013. Accused of trying to ‘seize power’, and at one point even accused of setting up a ‘military wing’, the detainees are likely to face heavy sentences. All foreign media have been banned, and foreign observers from non-governmental organisations and law firms were barred entry to the country. Despite comprising academics, lawyers, students, judges, and even a ruling family member, most of whom identify with a well-established and peaceful indigenous Islamist organisation that has been gently pushing for parliamentary elections, the authorities seem determined to forge a link between them and outside powers. Given the fairly homogenous, predominantly Sunni, makeup of the UAE’s national population, it has proven harder to present opposition groups through the sectarian, Iran-Arab lens, with the detainees instead being regularly portrayed in the local, state-affiliated media as in league with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Disturbingly for the authorities, the detainees appear to be enjoying growing support across the country, with widespread online discussion taking place, often in their favour, and with their extended families campaigning for their release. The past few months have also witnessed the UAE playing an increasingly active role in the collective securitisation of the Gulf monarchies, having joined Saudi Arabia in providing significant financial assistance to Bahrain and Oman, and having denied entry into the country to academics, journalists, and lawyers who have expressed support for the opposition in Bahrain.