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

While Oman has not yet seen further protests, the mood in early 2013 is perhaps best understood as being in a ‘holding pattern’. The various promises made by the government, especially regarding public sector employment, have not yet been fulfilled, and there is growing discussion about the sustainability of a system that has to rely on substantial Saudi and UAE grants. Youth groups appear more restive than ever, not least given the arrests and trial of several online activists accused of insulting the aging ruler, while intellectuals now openly talk of the vacuum that will develop in the wake of his death, and what political reforms will be needed to move the country forward. With billions of their dollars now invested in Oman’s survival, much will rest on the Riyadh-Abu Dhabi axis’ willingness to permit some kind of political opening at that stage without encouraging the same sort of repression that is being used in Bahrain or on their own populations.

To the surprise and disappointment of many, the past few months have weakened Qatar’s credentials as the only significant outlier, and as such its status as the region’s last remaining liberal autocracy. The detention and trial of a well-known poet who had expressed solidarity with Arab Spring movements elsewhere in the Middle East and had implicitly criticised the Gulf monarchies was followed closely, not least by the substantial expatriate population in Qatar’s branch campus foreign universities and Al-Jazeera’s journalistic community. Given Qatar’s media, financial, and even military support for the Arab revolutions of 2011 and 2012, most had expected a full pardon for the prisoner, probably in the form of a magnanimous gesture from the ruler. But to widespread dismay, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for insulting the ruler, later commuted to a fifteen year sentence. Unable to report properly on one of Qatar’s most important news stories, Al-Jazeera’s coverage of the incident was initially non-existent, then poor, reflecting the reality of having to operate within the confines of a traditional Gulf monarchy still committed to regime survival. Since then a number of other Qatari activists have been arrested and detained. With most citizens continuing to enjoy an extremely high standard of living due to gas-rich Qatar’s still rising gross domestic product per capita, the possibility of protests or large rafts of political prisoners is undoubtedly still very low. However, recent events have led to discernible tension, provoking more outspoken comments from intellectuals and sections of the elite, while youth activists seem to be following the regional trend: taking their dissent online and participating in mass, often critical discussions of ruling elites.

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