Why a king's ransom is not enough for Saudi Arabia's protesters

[bemildred]

No kingdom is an island, particularly when it sits in a sea of revolution. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, watching the assault on Libya's strong man Muammar Gaddafi with his monarchy's usual complacency, thinks he can buy off protests with the promise of gifts.

Of course, the scale of the bribes the king offered last week to his country's alienated young generation – £22bn – is something only an oil-rich monarch could deliver. The Saudi king speaks as a father to the youthful population – after all, this is the only royal family to give its name to its people – and he expects them to obey the name al-Saud as they would their own father.

---

The demands now being made by the country's youth are of an entirely different type. What Saudi youth are boldly expressing on their websites and on Facebook is the quest for real citizenship rights, and to be treated by their government with dignity. Many have announced 11 March as the day for "revolution". Should such public protests take place, they will constitute a sign of ultimate defiance, because all political demonstrations are illegal in Saudi Arabia, punishable by lashing and imprisonment.

In 1979, indeed, the kingdom's ground and air forces shot at protesting Shia in the eastern province, killing dozens and wounding hundreds.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/27/king-saudi-arabia-protesters