The King Versus The Radicals

Saudi Arabia's monarch is using Aramco—the crack state oil company—to build a Western-style university in a bid to outflank the repressive clergy.

By Zvika Krieger | NEWSWEEK

From the magazine issue dated May 26, 2008

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The main street of Dhahran Hills passes by perfectly manicured baseball diamonds and football fields. Prefab houses—complete with freshly mown lawns and tire swings hanging from elm trees—overlook golden desert vistas. Women in shorts and tank tops jog down Miller Street and Lilac Road while kids play basketball on bougainvillea-lined cul-de-sacs. Teenagers congregate at the movie theater and bowling alley; their parents grab dinner at the Olive Garden.

This could be Phoenix or Palm Springs. But Dhahran Hills is located in Dammam, in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province. It is the main compound of Aramco: the country's hugely successful national oil company, which turns 75 this month. Yet Dhahran Hills seems a world away from Riyadh or other Saudi cities, where men in white robes and traditional headdresses loiter aimlessly along clogged thoroughfares lined by dilapidated high-rises. Women—if they're seen outside at all in those towns—go about in black full-body coverings.

But Aramco has always been different. Since it was created by Standard Oil in 1933, and continuing through the company's takeover by the Saudi government in the '70s, Aramco has functioned as a state within a state, operating by its own set of laws and standards and maintaining a remarkable level of freedom from the fundamentalist Wahhabi clergy that dominates the rest of Saudi society. This freedom, and Aramco's impressive managerial efficiency, have helped it become the richest company in the world: a new study by McKinsey and the Financial Times put its net worth at $781 billion.

But the company's splendid isolation may be about to end. Saudi Arabia's reformist King Abdullah recently thrust Aramco into the spotlight by charging it with building a $10 billion Western-style university on the country's western coast.

It's a high-risk gamble. The project is part of Abdullah's attempt to wrest control of his country from the repressive clerics, using the one Saudi institution that's free of their influence. If the university succeeds, Aramco may become a key ally in the king's struggle and will likely be called on for other similar reform projects. But the company's involvement could also prove its undoing. For the school could turn Aramco—already suspect in many Saudis' eyes—into a prime target of the country's extremist factions, perhaps even ending its protected status. The implications will be profound for Saudi Arabia—and indeed, for the world, since the company supplies 26 percent of the world's oil.

The differences between Aramco and the rest of Saudi Arabia run deep. The corporation has its own print and broadcast media, as well as its own intelligence services and security force. It maintains its own lobbyists in foreign capitals, and its employees often act as intermediaries between the king and Western leaders. The company also sends thousands of Saudis to the United States every year for education—creating an elite that, on their return home, have formed a progressive (if tiny) core within Saudi society.

Despite the many errors in this article, the underlying premise is relatively accurate. Saudi Aramco is still called "Aramco" throughout Saudi Arabia and enjoys a certain "separate state" status within the country.. However, with Saudiation, its independent status has alteredsignificantly over the past 20 years, becoming less open and more vulnerable to extremeist incursions (decorative wreaths stolen from doors, holiday figurines stolen or desecrated, women joggers harrassed by bearded men - the dreaded Mutaween - in passing cars). However, the Dhahran compound (NOT Dammam) remaines the residence of choice for Western-educated Saudis with Western-educated wives. True, women are permitted to work, but the opportunities are increasingly limited to select positions within the company. Nearly all women working in the medical clinic are all veiled in the extreme: eyes only are visible. The "face" of the clinic is a vision of flowing black hostility.

Abdullah is too aware that, like Bush, he is a lame duck; he is the last of the absolute rulters. His successor must change the image of the Royal Family withint the country AND modernize the nation. a task that could result in his assassination.

It is worth remembering that the "Western" KFUPM - also built by and sited just outside Aramco - banned engineering classes in "Probability" because Allah controls all and it is not permissible to postulate what Allah will do. The Aramco television stations cease broadcasting during prayer breaks; the radio station censors music (imagine a C&W song with all mention of booze or broads bleeped!!) Sattelite TV became available only AFTER the establishment of the All-Islam channels; efforts to limit incoming "heathen" transmissions has failed, but effort is still underway to put that genie back in the bottle.

The Saudis are a tribal, hyper-religious, hypocritical populace that resist even 19th century norms within their tight boundaries. Muslims forbidden to drink will party happily outside the country but would be outraged to find a legal bar or nightclub in the Kingdom. Saudi men oogle women at in modest street clothes, drool over women in swimsuits, cover their ample girths with overstretched Speedos but keep "their women" literally under wraps. Saudi people will never permit the freedom of information, interaction, and social exchange common in classrooms even in the Islamic world; the concept of a Western university on Saudi terrirory is beyond comprehension.

Abdullah may found it and fund it, but will he or his successors be permitted to maintain it?

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Posted By: sebinns @ 05/27/2008 2:05:21 AM

I am a professor at KFUPM in the mathematics department studying Randomness. We also have an active teaching program in Probability. I don't know where GrayKat gets his information. KFUPM is a great university with an active research base and bright motivated students. I have taught at large state universities in the USA and KFUPM is comparible in the teaching load given to faculty and support for research.
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Posted By: GrayKat @ 05/23/2008 4:37:22 PM

Despite the many errors in this article, the underlying premise is relatively accurate. Saudi Aramco is still called "Aramco" throughout Saudi Arabia and enjoys a certain "separate state" status within the country.. However, with Saudiation, its independent status has alteredsignificantly over the past 20 years, becoming less open and more vulnerable to extremeist incursions (decorative wreaths stolen from doors, holiday figurines stolen or desecrated, women joggers harrassed by bearded men - the dreaded Mutaween - in passing cars). However, the Dhahran compound (NOT Dammam) remaines the residence of choice for Western-educated Saudis with Western-educated wives. True, women are permitted to work, but the opportunities are increasingly limited to select positions within the company. Nearly all women working in the medical clinic are all veiled in the extreme: eyes only are visible. The "face" of the clinic is a vision of flowing black hostility.

Abdullah is too aware that, like Bush, he is a lame duck; he is the last of the absolute rulters. His successor must change the image of the Royal Family withint the country AND modernize the nation. a task that could result in his assassination.

It is worth remembering that the "Western" KFUPM - also built by and sited just outside Aramco - banned engineering classes in "Probability" because Allah controls all and it is not permissible to postulate what Allah will do. The Aramco television stations cease broadcasting during prayer breaks; the radio station censors music (imagine a C&W song with all mention of booze or broads bleeped!!) Sattelite TV became available only AFTER the establishment of the All-Islam channels; efforts to limit incoming "heathen" transmissions has failed, but effort is still underway to put that genie back in the bottle.

The Saudis are a tribal, hyper-religious, hypocritical populace that resist even 19th century norms within their tight boundaries. Muslims forbidden to drink will party happily outside the country but would be outraged to find a legal bar or nightclub in the Kingdom. Saudi men oogle women at in modest street clothes, drool over women in swimsuits, cover their ample girths with overstretched Speedos but keep "their women" literally under wraps. Saudi people will never permit the freedom of information, interaction, and social exchange common in classrooms even in the Islamic world; the concept of a Western university on Saudi terrirory is beyond comprehension.

Abdullah may found it and fund it, but will he or his successors be permitted to maintain it?
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Posted By: British Bloke @ 05/22/2008 10:16:22 AM

Several more corrections. 1) Almost all expatriates and most middle class Saudis have access to satelite TV. 2) Although there is some censorship, most websites can be accessed from within the Kingdom. 3) The correct term for the replacement of expatriaes by nationals is "Sauization", not "Sauify". 4) Far from hiding in a small enclave in the Eastern Province, Aramco and subsequently Saudi Aramco have built major facilties in most regions of the Kingdom and have been supervising the construction of schools on behalf of the government for 30-40 years. You should get someone who has spent time in the country to vet your articles before you print.