Five
years ago, crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman popped up on the Arabian Peninsula,
raging across the earth sowing conflict, slashing the jugular of free speech,
stoning freedom of expression, and filling prisons with those having different
opinions. He plays many roles at once: militarist, politician, and economist,
all with the mind of a policeman. He is even the champion of entertainment and
charity. He has been bestowed with all the awards of the land one can possibly
receive, and even let some of them go to his brothers. And he surrounds himself
with a new, unreservedly devoted, oligarchy.
One
evening, his subjects could be heard whispering in cafés that their young
prince has drained the people’s resources on a catastrophic and devastating
war, creating armed conflicts in neighbouring nations, and that he obviously
doesn’t give a shit that his people have been affected by rising prices and fat
rents and swelling electricity and water bills.
Citizens
began paying for all services. They whispered that normal people now pay half
their salaries for austerity politics and that the migrant workers have become
sacrificial lambs suffering the consequences of the regime’s mistakes, forced
to pay huge sums to stay in the kingdom of the two holy mosques. The people
must pay unjust taxes while this youngster wastes their millions on fairy tale
castles, fine art, and luxury yachts.
One
subject whispered: that youngster lacks the experience to lead. His capricious
and absolutist decisions will only lead to disaster. But the only choice we
have is to applaud him, emigrate, or be jailed—and in the worst case, have our
throats slashed.
One
beautiful day, a dubious consultancy firm arrived to give advice to the
government and the king. These firm travels across the world to sell illusions,
claiming that only the prudent and wise can truly understand their magnanimous
plans and big ideas. The youngster had heard about them and ordered his court
to invite them. The meeting took place, and without hesitation he showered them
with huge sums of cash. The firm promised the new autocratic regime magnificent
visions about which everyone else would be jealous. The consultants emphasize
that only the wise and savvy have the capacity to comprehend the end results of
the plans they mean to propose. Those who cannot see the advantages in their
way of thinking belong those less intelligent ranks.
After
a while, the young prince sent his minister to check out how the work with the
visions of the future was going. The minister was scared that he would fail to
understand these grand visions. The consultants explained the amazing changes
the nation’s economy would experience, which had been damaged by sinking oil
prices long before the new visions even began to take form. But the minister really
couldn’t see those changes, and also didn’t understand what the visions were
supposed to be built upon in the first place. He anyway asserted to the prince
that the visions were very nice. He said they contained powerfully beautiful
images of neoliberalism.
The
people applauded. The newspapers wrote that they had never before seen such a
lovely economy as this, and that the young prince was a fantastic and
revolutionary reformer who will cure the people of their oil addiction.
The
young price allowed himself to be interviewed by the international media and
was depicted clothed in his new visions. The people again applauded and looked
forward to finding out more about them. A great carnival was arranged to
display the new visions. His majesty’s portrait was raised across the city. His
underlings cheered, not in delight, but rather in fear. No sooner had the young
prince captured the nation’s heart, then a voice rang out: “But this vision is
bare!” Another cried: “Why were we not allowed to take part in crafting these
visions?” After a while, his subjects saw that these visions were nothing more
than pretty words, lacking any content or realistic solutions. The number of
those in poverty rose, while the rich got richer. They saw that there were no
checks and balances in the young price’s decision. They saw how the middle
class had been left behind for the whimsy of the market and monopoly. They saw
that there was no civil society that could protect the individual, and that the
regime had remade the economic system without any corresponding political or
democratic changes.
A
bold writer and expert of the economy raised his voice, criticizing the
visions. He pointed out all the mistakes and vagaries they contained. He warned
the nation was selling out its natural resources. The king arrested him. Many
others criticized the autocratic regime and its conflicts with bordering
nations. They too were arrested, and some were forced to flee.
When
the visions failed to achieve their promised changes, the prince realized that
his advisers had lied about the magical powers the visions were supposed to
have. He saw that his cousins had a malicious hidden agenda. He arrested them
and held them in luxury prisons, forcing them to pay dearly for his freedom to
ease his own economic burden. He
demanded from them total, unhesitating loyalty.
To
dampen the people’s anger, he opened the nation to circuses, cinemas, wrestling
matches, and concerts. He handed out breadcrumbs, reinstating the bonuses and
small privileges enjoyed by social servants and the military. Meanwhile, he led
campaigns for silencing critical voices. Writers drowned in silence and filled
the nation’s prisons, while the world hailed the young tyrant for allowing
women to drive—while taking from them the right to speak. He gave women
necklaces and better careers at the same time as he held his own mother under
house arrest, so she could not rebel against him.
The
world is occupied with the elegant young prince’s decrees, while the free word
hides itself in fear, the free word that is stoned and whipped. There is no
solace for women, who he keeps under his political mantle, so they cannot be
heard. There is no comfort for the true reformers forced into silence in the
prisons of the prince—the naked king.
