contents
While the world is in crisis, Saudi Arabia recommends itself as a modern great power. The monarchy ordered change.
With the Ukraine war, the price of oil has risen and Saudi Arabia is more in demand than ever as an energy supplier. Even the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was forgotten in the war year. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is said to have been involved, has been rehabilitated.
At the same time, the country is opening up to investors and tourism. The king and his heir are giving the people freedoms unthinkable in decades of religious self-isolation.
The commanded opening
The younger generation in particular enjoys the openness, after life had been so incredibly bland and boring, says the journalist Susanne Koelbl, who has been traveling the country for twelve years: “Until three to four years ago, concerts, parties and cinemas were unthinkable, also that men and women sit together in one room.»
No less significant: the kingdom is now developing a real economy for itself. That has never happened before. Instead, a kind of “Saudi socialism” – with a monarch who demanded absolute political obedience. With oil prices falling again and reserves that were once dwindling, the Saudis are now looking for alternatives. “Only a few are fabulously rich, the rest live middle-class as in Europe.”
Criticism still forbidden
“You can’t imagine at all what that triggered in people’s minds, even if there was no public discussion apart from the celebrations ordered,” says Koelbl. Because there was great resistance among the religious and those who had benefited from the old system. But the absolute monarchy cracked down and many clerics and other people with critical potential ended up in prison.
Saudi Arabia has never cared about human rights. “However, the former king still allowed a certain amount of criticism in order to take the pulse of the people. That’s no longer conceivable with the new king and his son,” Koelbl continues.
Record-breaking major projects
Among the G20 countries, Saudi Arabia is currently also growing the most in the tourism sector. A visa is easily obtainable today. There is massive investment, for example in the tallest building in the world in Jeddah, higher than the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. “The Line” is also planned, an entire climate-neutral city in the desert with a 170-kilometer-long building.
Legend:
Illustrious round: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and China’s President Xi Jinping on December 9, 2022 in the Saudi capital Riyadh. The Chinese ruler signed contracts worth billions and spoke of a “new era” of cooperation.
imago images
Will the young crown prince succeed in positioning Saudi Arabia as an important nation in the world? Even after the Ukraine war, in a world without oil? That can be doubted, estimates Koelbl. The country still lives on oil as the only good whose reserves will last for a while.
How realistic is the ruler’s dream?
The country is now using the oil profits for the transformation in order to later live without the raw material. In any case, that will not work with tourism. And as a potentially interesting financial location, the country tends to arouse uneasy feelings because of its legal system. In addition, according to Koelbl, climate change is a massive challenge for this region. Even if the chances are good that oil will one day be replaced by green hydrogen and solar energy.