The Crisis Within

It is not like Vietnam in 1963, where the National Liberation Front could claim to represent legitimate nationalist aspirations. It bears no resemblance to the Lebanon of 1975, where a weak state collapsed in the face of a Muslim-Christian conflict. Never having been colonized, Saudi Arabia offers the insurgents no veneer of anti-colonial motivation.

That is why the militants have gained little if any political traction among the majority of Saudis; on the contrary, their brutality appears to have rallied the population around the government, according to Saudi journalists and independent analysts, both Saudi and foreign. Even Saudis critical of the monarchy and hostile to the United States say they do not want the religious totalitarianism promised by bin Laden's brownshirts.

There is indeed a revolution taking place in Saudi Arabia, but so far at least it is not the kind that unfolds at gunpoint. More and more, and with increasing openness, Saudis are demanding reform, and the country's rulers are responding. A wave of collective introspection, which began with the realization that 15 of the 19 hijackers responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks were Saudi, has prompted their countrymen to question their traditions, their laws and their attitudes; the result is change at an accelerating pace.

Self-styled "reformers" and advocates of greater political openness are sending petitions to the crown prince and agitating for change in the increasingly vocal press, often risking arrest. Even these activists, however, seek change within the existing structure, acknowledging that the monarchy is the glue that holds together a fractious society.

During a visit last month, I heard for the first time Saudis talking openly about societal ills that were taboo subjects in the past -- child abuse, wife-beating, drug addiction among women and birth deformities attributable to intermarriage. No longer do the Saudis smugly assume that theirs is a perfect society, in harmony with God's directives and Islam's traditions.

Much of this change appears to be inspired by the new generation of educated women clamoring for a larger place in the country's economic -- and even its political -- life. New areas of employment, even in factories, are being opened to women, and Saudi officials say women will be permitted to vote in the upcoming municipal elections, the country's first since the 1960s. Laws are being rewritten to encourage women to start businesses and invest their considerable capital. In April, the government abolished a rule requiring women who wished to enter business to be represented by male guardians when dealing with officials, and two weeks ago the government directed that land in industrial zones be set aside for operations run and staffed by women.

Of course, opening new areas of employment to women may compound unemployment among Saudi men, but the government has committed itself at least on paper to addressing that problem by expanding the private-sector economy and restricting the use of foreign workers in some workplaces, such as travel agencies. Saudi business executives, government officials, members of the appointed consultative assembly and prominent journalists talk optimistically about the reformist tide rippling through the society. They say it is now inevitable that the political system will become more inclusive, women will have greater rights, school curriculums will be modified to eliminate hatred and fanaticism, and the economy will be opened up. The only argument, they say, is about pace and timing.

Yet pace and timing are crucial, because each step toward modernizing the society provokes a backlash, sometimes violent, among the extremists of doctrinaire Islam known as Wahhabis, who even now are permitted to spread their fascist-style message through the country's mosques and schools. As Muqtedar Khan, a professor at Adrian College in Michigan, wrote after visiting the kingdom in April, "Wahhabi ideas are now so deeply embedded that neither the ruling elite, who had abdicated their normative responsibilities until now, nor the religious elite, who are afraid of what they have created, can rein it in. Any attempts at sudden reforms may upset the delicate balance within the society and empower" the terrorists.

Saudi forces will win their gun battles with the terrorists. The greater challenge before the House of Saud is to satisfy the aspirations of the majority -- and maintain their security and economic ties with the United States -- without further inciting the religious extremists whose rhetoric gives cover to the terrorists. The task is especially difficult because the royal family's sole claim to legitimacy is its role as the upholder of Islam. To the extent that the regime embraces social progress that can be depicted as un-Islamic, and especially if it appears to do so at the behest of the United States, the backlash could elevate the violence of the past year into a full-scale insurrection.

Author's e-mail: twl22@columbia.edu

Thomas Lippman, a former Washington Post correspondent in the Middle East, is an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute and author of "Inside the Mirage: America's Fragile Partnership With Saudi Arabia" (Westview Press). He has just returned from a week-long visit to the kingdom.