What kind of weird medieval fantasy is King Abdullah trying to create?

[Synnical]

OP Subject above quoted from comments at:

http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/09/can-saudi-arabi.html

Can Saudi Arabia Build an MIT? $10 Billion Says "Yes" as Desert School Opens


September 23, 2009
Can Saudi Arabia Build an MIT? $10 Billion Says "Yes" as Desert School Opens

by Jeffrey Mervis

THUWAL, SAUDI ARABIA—King Abdullah opened the kingdom of Saudi Arabia today to a throng of foreign dignitaries, government officials, scientists, and guests to show off his new King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).

The multi-billion dollar project is a graduate institution with designs on crashing a list of the world's top 20 research universities. It's a tall order for a school that sits on a 32 sq. km. slab of desert that hugs the Red Sea north of Jeddah, the country's second largest city. But the 70-odd scientists that form the founding faculty—along with 400 students who began classes on 5 September—won't be lacking for money or equipment.

The king has put his considerable power and authority behind the university, a message reinforced by holding the inaugural ceremony on the country's National Day holiday. He's hoping that KAUST will help to move the country from an oil-based to a knowledge-based economy, a task that the university's president, Choon Fong Shih, expresses with a simple formula: "Hire the best minds and find practical applications for their discoveries."

In addition to tapping $1.5 billion in core facilities that include the first supercomputer in the region, an industrial-class a nofabrication lab, a top-rated visualization center, and a dozen state-of-the-art nuclear magnetic resonance machines, faculty members will get from $400,000 to $800,000 apiece per year for 5 years to outfit and staff their labs.

[onager]

1. This line is interesting...

In addition the being the first university in the country to allow the mixing of men and women in both the classroom and the lab, KAUST has abandoned the usual departments in favor of interdisciplinary research centers.

Some of my usual blathering, since I lived there for 2 years (in Jeddah):

1. Abdullah vs. the Sudairi Seven: until King Fahd died a few years ago, Abdullah was famous for being anti-western with close ties to Islamic fundamentalist groups.

This really makes me wonder what he is up to. I'm trying to figure out if this is a serious effort, an attempt at window dressing for the liberal West, or the Mother Of All terrorist research labs. Or all the above.

Or maybe Abdullah and his family are just working on their famous inferiority complex.

Abdullah is one of the many sons of King Abdul-Aziz, who seized the country in 1932 (with a lot of help from the religiously fanatical Ikhwan Army, Wahhabist soldierss who later turned against the King and Came To A Bad End.)

The problem was Abdullah's Mom. She didn't come from the Sudairi tribe, like the King's favorite wife. That wife spawned seven sons who have ruled Saudi Arabia ever since - the "Sudairi Seven."

One is Sultan, who likes military hardware and runs the Ministry of Defence. His son is the infamous "Bandar Bush," former Ambassador to the U.S. who was reportedly arrested for treason recently.

2. Location, location, location: Also interesting - this center will be located in Jeddah (on the Red Sea), not the Saudi capital of Riyadh (in the middle of the desert).

The Saudis put most of their "prestige projects" in Riyadh and enjoy forcing foreigners to live there. e.g., back in the Eighties, they forced the USA to move its embassy from Jeddah to Riyadh .

Jeddah has a reputation as one of the most liberal/cosmopolitan cities in Saudi Arabia.

Of course, that isn't saying a lot in The Magic Kingdom. But since its founding 800 years ago, Jeddah has been a major trade port and so wide open to evil outside influences.

This has always caused some tension, since Jeddah is not far from Mecca. It's the international port of entry for Muslim pilgrims. (And during Desert Storm, was turned into a massive military air base for the Heathen Crusaders. Which nobody was supposed to talk about.)

When I lived there, the government used to clamp down on "modernism" in Jeddah during the pilgrimage season. The Religious Police were really let off the leash and harassed people even more than usual.

It will be interesting to see if this works out. Saudi Arabia also has a reputation for launching these kinds of projects with great fanfare, pouring in millions of dollars, then abandoning them.

e.g., Jeddah and Riyadh both have massive neighborhoods of empty, never-used apartment buildings. At one time, the Saudi government had great plans to move Bedouin tribes into the cities from the deserts.

You have to wonder WTF they were thinking. The Bedouins flat refused to move and the buildings stand (mostly) empty. Though the government did force Saudia Airlines and some other captive companies to use the apartments as employee housing.