Interesting news from Saudi Arabia...

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6. Desperation? Echoes of the Arab Spring?

Being an ignorant kwaji*, I can only guess.

(*Arabic for "foreigner" or "enemy." Usually both.)

Argh! Sorry for all the edits. I keep trying to make things more clear and failing. But since they only use a few names in Saudi Arabia, I thought it might be helpful to describe the cast of characters a little.

The prince being quoted here is Mohammed bin-Salman. He's Crown Prince, meaning the eldest son of the current king, King Salman. ("bin" in Arabic means "son of." And since Arabic is gendered, the female equivalent is "bint," "daughter of.&quot

King Salman is one of the "Sudairi Seven" - the seven sons born to the favorite wife of Saudi Arabia's founder, King Abdul-Aziz bin Saud. The Sudairi Seven have run Saudi Arabia since Abdul-Aziz died in 1953 and their offspring will probably run it indefinitely, barring a revolution or something similar.

The Magic Kingdom is currently being hammered by falling oil prices and demographics. The royal family currently includes about 4,000 princes, many of them corrupt slackers and party-boys.

Mohammed bin Salman's father, King Salman, often had the unenviable job of mediating the squabbles between all those useless princes.

One interesting thing Salman did when he became king - he shit-canned "Bandar Bush." i.e., Prince Bandar bin Sultan, former Saudi ambassador to the U.S. and notorious Bu$h brown-noser. At the time Bandar was on the Kingdom's Security Council.

Besides all these social changes, Prince Mohammed is talking major economic changes.

Here's an interesting interview with him on Al-Arabiya. He doesn't seem afraid of change, that's for sure. It will be interesting to see if he lives up to his promises:

Turki Al-Dakhil: In your statements, Your Highness Prince Mohammed, you reiterated that governmental support, be it in water, electricity or oil derivatives, benefit rich people who are not supposed to benefit from it. Don't you fear that this rich category will be angered by this policy?

Prince Mohammed: I will apply it to myself, and those who fail to accept are free to clash with people in the streets.

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/media/inside-the-newsroom/2016/04/25/Full-Transcript-of-Prince-Mohammed-bin-Salman-s-Al-Arabiya-interview.html