Saudi awakening
Andrew Faulds
Saudi Arabia has woken from its long mediaeval sleep. Its princes intend to lug it into next century's push-button technology. Twenty years ago their subjects hired camels to the Haj pilgrims who cross Saudi Arabia from the Gulf on the journey to Mecca. Today their sons pilot the jet that takes them swiftly across the country and sets them down for their circuit of the Kaabah, the Black Stone. A lifetime has spanned the extraordinary transformation of this uniquely endowed land with its enormous impact on the world's economy.
There can be few communities which are so conservative in social and religious observance. Women still walk in the veil. They are never introduced, though the scuffling of children sounds from the closed recesses of hospitable houses. Government ministers, among whom the many princes of the blood royal hold pride of place, declare categorically that certain fields of work are closed to women. Good mothers create the good citizens of tomorrow. Woman's role is the old Scots one of hearth, bed and board. And with our declining social disciplines, who is to decry that? Even girls training in the same subjects at universities are segregated from the men. The added cost is thought worth it to keep the girls unsullied from the probing ideas and eyes of the vulgar male. Mecca is still so holy to the Moslem that no Christian step can defile its sanctity. Planes circumvent it and a special Christian bypass has been built round Mecca up into the hills where Taif, the royal summer capital, lies. And it was in Taif by chance on a Friday on the stroke of one that we were witness among some thousands to the rigours of Saudi law. Justice is meted out to the strict code of a life for a life—an old Testament tenet and once the required forfeit of our judicial process. A murderer was shuffled on to the square before the mosque, his keffieh wound off his shaven head and his abaya slipped back off his shoulders. A man in white Arabic robes with a long arab sword walked up from behind his bound and kneeling figure—and with one stroke clinically beheaded him. There wasn't a sound from the crowd. The crime rate in Saudi Arabia, not surprisingly, is pretty low. When we visited the deputy Governor of Riyadh in his splendid town hall offices he ordered the crime sheets to be brought. For seventy-two hours there had been no incident, apart from nineteen car accidents (and Saudi driving is courageous rather than courteous). But then the day's sheet was handed to him and with some regret he reported that the last twenty-four hours had produced one fire—and a drunk. Alcohol, of course, is totally forbidden in this strictest of all countries in the physical heart of Islam. Visitors return with livers rested. And tongues hanging out.
The country, a third the size of the United States, is abustle with activities. A five-year plan has been launched which entails the outlay of about seventy thousand million pounds: massive expenditure on electricity, desalination of water, roads, ports and airports, iron and steel and aluminium works, telephone and telex, and of course health and housing, education and social projects. Ministers argue, surely with justification, that Saudi Arabia is the natural centre for the world's petro-chemical production, and should churn out all the products of that vast range of industry. They boast, again justifiably, that they spend ten per cent of their GNP on aid activities, and not only within the Arab and Islamic countries: a record to put the developed countries of the West to shame.
By 1985 Saudi Arabia will hold two-thirds of the world's monetary resources. Finance is no obstacle to the completion of the plan : the problem will be gathering the manpower to carry it out. It is admitted somewhat ruefully that there are two layers of excellence in Saudi public life: the top brass in administration, trained at universities in Europe and America, men of considerable ability ; and the skilled tea-makers ubiquitously about at every appointment. Middle management and skills of all sorts are in chronically short supply.
The Saudi population—and a recent census is still confidential—is anything between four and seven million. But to sustain the requirements of its five-year plan the Saudi Government intends to attract another half-million to add to the 315,000 immigrant workers already there. The logistics alone are daunting. And these foreigners can only add to the social problems of a country with a very strait-laced code. The ministerial expectations are that it will be about eighteen months before the plan is set for `take-off'. It seems inevitable that the shortages and delays of supplies and skills must slow the speed of things. But even if only a third of the plan is realised it will still be a remarkable achievement. The able Minister for Planning, Hisham Nazer, told us that he was recently in Paris and came down one morning in his hotel to find a headline splashed across the Herald Tribune that the Saudis had abandoned the plan. He wondered momentarily whether his deputy had taken leave of his senses—and then he remembered the Zionist orientation of the American press. So whatever degree of success the plan achieves, any shortfall will be jeered at as failure. But the Saudis needn't
worry. Oil is going to last a long time and many countries are eager to bite a bit of the cake it bakes. Early indications of mineralogical surveys are that the earth is a repository of other valuable minerals. And there are abundant water supplies, including fossil water of Brown Windsor consistency, waiting to be tapped.
The Saudis feel they have long and traditional ties with Britain, regardless of the paucity of historical contact and the previous poverty of British policy. There is enormous goodwill towards Britain and a genuine desire to do each other a power of mutual good. Appreciation is readily granted of our Government's efforts to get things going. And indeed Healey, Callaghan and Castle have all been out there and created a favourable impression. But one little-noticed result of Harold Wilson's resignation is that he will never have to set his foot on the road to Mecca. The Saudis had been promised a visit in the next two months (which would have included Egypt where an earlier visit in December had already been postponed). The Prime Minister remained faithful to his old Israeli friends.
Toyota must be the commonest foreign word throughout Saudi Arabia. Saudi ministers bemoan the fact that it is no advertisement for British drive. The laggardliness of our businessmen is much deplored. The opportunities are literally limitless. But one of the main problems is the Saudi Government's insistence on ten per cent performance bonds. Most British companies find it difficult to raise such sums (on projects varying from single to four-figure millions) and British banks are understandably too conservative to lend monies which may be called in though no default occurs. There is an urgent need for government to government arrangements to guarantee such bonds if British companies are to leap in.
The Saudis are very keen on joint ventures, particularly in establishing and running small industries. The Minister of Industry, Dr Ghazi al-Qusaibi, reeled off a list : soap, table salt, matches, toys, fans, air conditioning units, among many others. Land in industrial zones is available free, fifty per cent of capital is granted on soft loan and there is a tax holiday of five years. That can't be bad for business! The two governments have recently set up a joint commission to promote commercial and industrial co-operation, and the Saudi members were in London last week. The Saudis are keen it should show results. And so should we be, if Britain is to pick up some of the business that the Saudis want to push our way. Political dividends flow from such involvements. One minister, only half jocularly, warned us that our place at fourth in the trade tables may soon fall to the South Koreans who are coming in in appreciable numbers with trade and technical skills. A hive of activities, with obvious enjoyment of its wealth, and nationalities in dozens at work, Saudi Arabia has become the Babylon of the millennium. And we should be shouting the odds out there.
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