The Saudi Crown Prince, as I know him – Part 1 Ever since Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz became the Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, I have been reading in the Western press comments and reports written by people who have never seen him, sat with him or heard him speak in their entire lives. While some sought hard to be objective, others wrote according to their own whims. As such, I read a view that was echoed throughout many editorials, which is that King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz is a reformist – and he indeed is – while Prince Nayef is a conservative and is close to the religious establishment – and again this is true. But it was also claimed that if the Crown Prince ascends to the throne, he would abolish the reforms enacted by King Abdullah, and would send Saudi women back to their homes, while following a more belligerent policy with the United States and the West, unlike the late Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, who was a friend of the United States. I say that this is impossible. Prince Nayef will not abolish any decision made by King Abdullah, and I will leave it to the future to prove the truthfulness of my words or otherwise. All I want to say today is that the rule in Saudi Arabia is not individual. Rather, it reflects the consensus of its leadership. Perhaps the best commentary I read by a foreign contributor in explaining this was the piece ran by the L.A. Times, quoting U.S. officials and experts as saying that the death of Prince Sultan would not harm relations with the United States, including a statement by John Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who is also a moderate expert that I always found to be well informed and rather erudite. Alterman said, “The problem is not one of individuals, it's that the Saudis look at what they care about - Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran the upheaval in the Arab world- and they feel U.S. policy has been both ineffective and harmful to Saudi interests." All these readings thus motivated me to go back to my own archives. After searching through thousands of them, I finally arrived at an eureka moment, when I found handwritten transcripts of interviews I had conducted with prince Nayef, one occupying 18 small size pages on a yellow notebook dated 11-12/20/2003, and another written on light blue papers, also of the small size, with the letterhead “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia/Ministry of Interior/Office of the Minister”. First let me explain this. I used to ask Prince Nayef for papers to write down what I heard from him, and both the yellow and blue papers are used by the Minister. As for the date 11-12, this mean that the interview, like nearly all my sessions with the Prince, took place at night, often beginning before midnight and ending around five in the morning, when the Prince would make his Fajr prayer before going to sleep. There were many other papers, some dating back as far as 2006 and 2008, and others that were not dated- and probably date back to 2009-, when Prince Nayef was appointed as Second Deputy Prime Minister. Also, what I published from them back then was only a very small part. I put this on the record so that the reader can trust that I write about a subject that I know well, and rather directly. Further, my information is all documented, in contrast with the pieces that I read, and which were written by commentators and “experts” that actually ended up exposing their ignorance or otherwise their whims. I will start today with the Saudi part of the Crown Prince's stances as I heard them directly from him, because these interest the Saudi and Arab readers more than other matters, and then I continue tomorrow with the other important issues being raised. In the meeting of the Allegiance Authority, I noticed that Prince Nayef endorsed all the policies of King Abdullah without reservation, and said that with the post of Crown Prince comes great responsibility that he hoped he was apt to carry out. I quote from the interview that I conducted with him the following: Our doors are open, and we are aware of the people's problems. In the West, ordinary citizens can meet administrators. But here, they meet princes every day. I consider meeting people more important than my official function. I never say no to any citizen. While one might see their problems as being simple, they are never simple for the people concerned, but rather a priority. And by God I mean it when I say that we are the citizens' employees. I say that this is a strong statement but one that would remain that, a statement, were it not for the funny story I have that proves its sincerity: Prince Nayef had told me one night that he was going to undergo a surgical procedure for his eyes that the Russians had invented, at the visiting Russian hospital in Riyadh. But when I came back months later I found out that he did not go through with the surgery. I joked with them and said that he must have been afraid of the procedure. But he told me that the Russian hospital's arrival coincided with the trip of his deputy Prince Ahmed bin Abdul Aziz to Singapore, and that the ministry could not function without the minister or his deputy, as that would bring the citizens' affairs to a halt. I will not exaggerate here and say that the Prince had placed the interests of the citizens before his own eyes, but I only want to say that he is indeed aware of the magnitude of the responsibility, both as minister and as Crown Prince. I shall continue tomorrow. [email protected]
