JEDDAH, 7 March — On reading Thomas Friedman’s article “One Country, Two Futures” in the New York Times on Feb. 27, I realized that this article deepens Friedman’s conviction and our own that our understanding of reality is irreconcilable. The feeling of depression which he experienced at the end of his recent visit to Saudi Arabia was because his view of the role of Saudi Arabia, in the aftermath of Sept. 11, didn’t match public opinion in the Kingdom.
His article translates the confusion of Friedman’s perception of a reality which he had to face and which he wasn’t able to comprehend, either intentionally or otherwise, nor subsequently to interpret, because it simply failed to fit into his “models”. He expresses this dearly in his opening statement by claiming that Saudi Arabia’s future is a “very inexact science.” He then proceeds naively to compare the future of Saudi Arabia to two other countries, China and Russia, which do not share any similarities, neither in their origins nor their economic foundations, nor their stability, religious or geographical location. Furthermore, he defeats his own argument before he ever embarks on his inaccurate and scientifically (logically) invalid assumptions.
Saudi Arabia has its own specificity which can be studied and compared to other Arab and Muslim countries that share a common heritage, but which developed in different directions according to various variables (e.g. geography, colonial occupation, social, economic and political factors). These attributed to the formation of the “modern state” with Western institutions.
The Saudi Arabian model followed neither the Western social science model which was applied to other Arab countries nor the Marxist model which was adopted by Russia and China and reached the Arab world in a mutilated form.
Saudi Arabia emerged at a time when the Western world was not really paying attention to its development. They were mostly preoccupied with their own economic interests in the region, maintaining the steady flow of oil to their countries and the security of Israel.
Although the concept and institution of the state is new to Saudi Arabia (because the country itself is new), nevertheless, it succeeded in preserving this newly established “state” and in expanding the state machinery in both size and functional scope. Saudi Arabia did not inherit a colonial legacy which is why it retained its identity and its role as an Islamic state, which is the very core of its foundation and the basis of its leadership in the Muslim world. This has given the Kingdom an additional responsibility and a mission which is inseparable from its survival.
The failure of Friedman’s two models “China and Russia” was due to their breaking away from their natural growth as societies of their own socio-economic history and their intellectual traditions by adopting foreign dogmas into their societies and borrowing from the ideology of Marxism and Communism, which were mostly alien to their cultural roots and traditions.
Saudi Arabia will survive as a united Muslim-Arab country as long as the models of China and Russia are vivid in the minds of its leadership and society. The collapse of these two giants was due to their relinquishing of their own faiths and identities. Saudi Arabia will always maintain and defend to the best of its ability its faith and identity with whatever means are at its disposal, in order to ensure its survival amongst the polity of nations.
