Abstract
At the level of political international relations theorists explore how and why states act and interact, and examine what we mean by sovereignty. The foundation of western political thought about states is the Westphalian system, which is clearly understood. The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ended the Thirty Years’ War and brought about the modern European nation state system and the system of sovereign states, not just for Europe but the world. While the notions of statehood and sovereignty are applied in the Arab world, the picture is somewhat more complex, for two principal reasons. First, the oft-stated call for Arab unity, and second the role of religion in the Arab world. Pan-Arabism is understood to be at the core of regional diplomacy and interactions between the states, which if carried to its logical conclusion would override the Westphalian system of states with their self-interest and conflict, and instead lead to greater unity in the interests of pan-Arab goals. Clearly this is not the case, as pan-Arabism is stymied by the many variances within the Arab world. Likewise religion, which is often taken to be oppositional when it comes to Islam. In the case of Saudi, we have a state that is monarchical and self-interested in maintaining the house of Saud, and one that binds together the leading families with religion as a social thread running throughout the kingdom. It has many conflicts with other Arab and Islamic states on the one hand, and promotes global Islam on the other. In short, Islam overrides nationalism, and Saudi Arabia as a kingdom understands its role to be custodian of both the two holy sites and the Arabian peninsula as the home of Mohammed’s Islam and also globally as a kingdom that promotes the spirit of global Islam, which in turn eclipses any national identity or interest.
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- 1.
Morgenthau (1954, p . 10), “Realism maintains that universal moral principles cannot be applied to the actions of states in their abstract universal formulation.” In Williams (2008), Anthony F. Lang, Jr., writes “Realists are either amoral analysts of the international system who focus only on power or immoral Machiavellians who see nothing wrong with using violence and deception to advance the national interest.” p. 18, explaining at least this is the caricature.
- 2.
Morgenthau (1954, p. 11).
- 3.
Ramadan (2012, p . 15).
- 4.
- 5.
“Social solidarity with an emphasis on group consciousness, cohesiveness, and unity. Familiar in the pre-Islamic era, the term became popularized in Ibn Khaldun ‘s (d. 1406) Muqaddimah. Asabiyyah is neither necessarily nomadic nor based on blood relations. In the modern period, the term is analogous to solidarity.” Oxford Islamic Studies Online, http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e202
- 6.
Hourani (2002, p. 107).
- 7.
Ibid, p. 453.
- 8.
The secularization thesis argued that modernity and progress would make society free of religion. Building on the work of Max Weber, the thesis was chiefly advanced by sociologists Bryan Wilson (1966) and Peter Berger (1973). We have to question whether secularization is a case of excluding religion altogether or making religion independent, and thus all religions being equal in a secular society; while this is an intriguing question, it lies beyond the scope of this chapter.
- 9.
The same might be argued in the Christian context. There is not room here to discuss this, but I have looked at some of these conflicts in Cowan (2009).
- 10.
Black (2001, p. 5).
- 11.
See Allawai (2009, p. 122ff.). A website exists for the Amman Message http://ammanmessage.com/
- 12.
Ibid, p. 122.
- 13.
Matthiesen (2015, p. 10).
- 14.
Allawai (2009, p. 160).
- 15.
Update: A Brief Overview of the Saudi Arabian Legal System, Dr. Abdullah F. Ansary http://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/Saudi_Arabia1.html
- 16.
Hinnebusch (2003, pp. 54–72).
- 17.
In the West, two Femen protesters disrupted a conference in Paris, with the activists, aged 25 and 31, ripping off their Arab-style cloaks and jumped on to the stage on Saturday evening. One had the slogan “No one subjugates me” inked across her torso. The other bore the words “I am my own prophet.” The point is referenced not to trivialize feminist protest, but to highlight such protests generally aim to shock the morals and religion and in Saudi any protest is more likely to confirm to the religion rather than reject some basic precepts, such as modesty, that is subject to debates of degree rather than the binary protests so common in the West. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11862220/Topless-protesters-disrupt-Muslim-conference-on-women.html
- 18.
http://jts.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/07/12/jts.flt081. As an aside, the Rushdie quote was subsequently tweeted as a meme, prompting him to tweet “I don’t believe I ever said that. But it’s funny….”
- 19.
Lynch and Singh (2008, p. 25).
- 20.
Lynch and Singh (2008, p. 53).
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Cowan, D. (2018). No Democracy Please, We’re Saudis. In: The Coming Economic Implosion of Saudi Arabia. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74709-5_8
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