Periodically on my Twitter feed there is mention of the new series, The Handmaid’s Tale. The New York Times has a typical positive review. The author attempts to assert its contemporary relevance, ending with ‘the new “Handmaid’s Tale” enters the culture as its own kind of Offred-like resistance, pushing back against a reality that somehow got ahead of the show’s own imagination.’
This is not the 1980s. Or the early 2000s. The President of the United States is a nominal Christian at best. Maggie Haberman, who covers Trump for The New York States had this to say about his relationship to Mike Pence:
…When Trump and Pence were first getting to know each other, the one thing that Trump had relayed to people, according to several advisers I spoke to at the time, was that he was a little uncomfortable with how frequently Pence prayed. And Pence is fairly devout about his praying. Trump is not a serious churchgoer and in an anomaly for a presidential candidate, very rarely went to church services when he was running….
We live in an age of massive secularization, even on the conservative Right. Ergo, the rise of a post-religious Right predicated on ethnic identity, whether implicitly or explicitly. Though Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress are going to rollback a few of the victories of the cultural Left, there is no likelihood of turning back the clock on the biggest win of the last generation for that camp, gay marriage.
Also, don’t watch the series, read the book. Books are usually better. While I’m recommending reading, while Atwood’s work gets a lot of attention (it’s already been made into a film back in 1990), I want to suggest Pamela Sargent’s The Shore of Women for those curious about a different take on broadly similar themes. Flipping the framework of The Handmaid’s Tale on its head Sargent depicts a far future gynocracy, as opposed to a near future patriarchy. Additionally, The Shore of Women has echoes of the bizarre 1970s film Zardoz.
I’ve always felt the Sargent is an underrated writer (also see Ruler of the Sky, a novelization of the life of Genghis Khan). Her output is not high volume, but it is high quality.
But this post is not about The Handmaid’s Tale, and the specter of an anti-feminist dystopia. Rather, it will be on the reality of an anti-feminist dystopia which exists in our world, which also happens to be religiously totalitarian and oligarchic. I am talking about the great ally of the United States of America in the Middle East, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
In its broadest sketches you know exactly what I’m alluding to. The kingdom run by and for the House of Saud is a bizarre construction, juxtaposing material modernity with an ideological empire of medieval repression and control.
If there is one regime in the world which resembles ISIS in its fidelity to brutal and anti-modern norms, and the application of violence as a method to keep a population in check, it is the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The legend of Saudi Arabia’s repression and infantilization of women is so well known that I need not repeat it here. Rather than view a depiction of the Republic of Gilead, I would suggest that one watch a documentary on the lives of Saudi women.
Many are aware that Saudi Arabia is complicit in de facto slavery. But did you know that Saudi Arabia officially outlawed slavery in 1962? An article from 1967, Saudi Arabian Slavery Persists Despite Ban by Faisal in 1962.
Saudi Arabia’s racism against Asian workers, especially, non-Muslims, has been extensively documented in the press. It’s a problem it shares with its neighbors. But Saudi Arabia is also a racist society toward its own citizens. An article in Foreign Policy mentions this in passing:
…Judges must all espouse the government-approved Salafi version of Islam. Blacks, who make up around 10 percent of the population, are banned from judgeships — as are women and Muslims who observe a different version of the faith — because the monarchy’s religious tradition still views blacks as slaves, other Muslims as heretics, and women as half human….
The concept of kufu or equality of status in Muslim marriages is apparently used to prevent marriages of Saudis with African (ergo, slave) ancestry with those of pure tribal ancestry.
Saudi Arabia has a very large Shia population in the eastern provinces near the Persian Gulf. The religious persecution of these Shia is arguably without parallel even in the Middle East, as they live under a constant state of siege and marginalization.
The crimes that the Saudi state commits against its subjects are legion. But Saudi Arabia has been waging a decades long cultural war against the rest of Islamic civilization. The government and the Salafi clerical hierarchy has encouraged active destruction of Islamic holy sites, because they consider these places as possible temptations for idolatry and veneration. Not only is that part of the cultural heritage of Muslims, but it is part of the cultural heritage of the world.
And the kingdom does not just commit crimes against its own. The vast majority of 9/11 hijackers were Saudi. The Saudi intervention in Yemen has turned out to be a humanitarian disaster. Saudis were present in the top leadership of Al-Qaeda, and they are reportedly prominent as part of the foreign fighter contingents in ISIS. They were instrumental in the suppression of the protest movement in Bahrain.
This litany is to reiterate that one of the closest allies of the United States is a very nasty regime. Women are second class citizens. Non-Muslims can not even become citizens. Shia are second class citizens. The state is run by, and for, an oligarchy of Saudi princes. It engages in acts of destruction against the collective heritage of the human race. It bankrolls military assaults on neighboring countries, and its citizens in their private capacities have been the financiers of terror international for a generation.
And yet this is America’s great ally. This bond goes back to 1945, when FDR and the king of Saudi Arabia met. During the Cold War the Saudis were a pro-Western regime in the great game of powers, despite the fact th
at the values which they held to be true and right were the antithesis of everything the West had become and aspired to. The Saudi-American connection remained despite disagreements over Israel and the 1970s oil crisis.
The Saudi state is not a conventional nation-state, it is a family owned corporation. Operationally the king is not an absolute monarch because the oligarchy needs to have buy-in. There are thousands of princes, though power is not equitably distributed. The personal nature of Saudi rule extends to its relationship to the United States: the Saudis have clearly ingratiated themselves with the American power elite through their financial generosity and business opportunities which are possible.
But it is not just the ruling caste, but the courtiers as well who have been captured, How Saudi Arabia captured Washington:
This contributes, they said, to a practice in Washington whereby the bad behavior of other Middle East states — particularly US adversaries such as Iran — receive heavy attention and debate. But bad behavior by Gulf allies — human rights abuses, opposition to democracy movements, foreign policy actions that often undercut US interests — while far from ignored are discussed with less frequency and vigor.
In other words, one explanation for the robustness of the American-Saudi relationship may not simply be geopolitical alignment of interests, but the powerful personal incentives that the American ruling class and intelligensia have been given by the Saudi ruling elite. This is a business opportunity that the American ruling class can’t overlook.
My own attitude is that there are cases and instances where the United States must ally with unpalatable regimes. I am not a neoconservative or liberal internationalist. Humanitarian regimes emerge through an organic process; imposition by fiat usually causes more problems than they solve. But the American rhetorical stance against their adversaries as ‘dictatorial’ or ‘illiberal’ or ‘undemocratic’ is shown to be hypocritical by the fastness of close ties to Saudi Arabia. Between “friends” some religious oppression, sexual apartheid, and familial oligarchy are clearly acceptable, they have been for over 70 years. The friendship is strong enough to withstand the reality that Saudi nationals by and large were behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and that Saudi Arabia has been funding radicalism across the world for decades.
When American politicians and public thinkers take high-toned moralistic line they seem ludicrous and absurd to well informed non-American observers. Total consistency is impossible, but when Americans inveigh as the “totalitarian mullahs” in Iran, many non-Americans just shake their heads when they observe that across the Persian Gulf is a regime of a far nastier bent in relation to what it puts its people through. And that regime is our close ally.
Unpalatable alliances do not entail one to abandon all principles, and even humanitarian rhetoric. But, they do enjoin upon one a bit more self-awareness in one’s self-righteous condemnation of the behavior of adversaries.
The regime is stubbornly durable as well. I’ve more than a few predictions over the years that the Saudi Arabian regime was not going to survive the next five years, and none of them came true (not sure if that’s unfortunate or not, since an even more overt theocracy is a likely result of the monarchy’s collapse).
Any thoughts on why some cultures and not others tend to sequester their women?
James Kalb has suggested that raiding cultures encourage women to be sequestered, with the full co-operation and support of the women. Who wants to be kidnapped?
Steve Sailer has suggested that there is a jealousy belt, where the relatively unpunishing climate, whether through culture or genetics, pushes men to be somewhat more outgoing and focused on seduction, but which isn’t quite like Africa, where women can be left to do most of the agriculture. Thus a fitful push towards sequestering women. This is most notoriously practiced in Muslim lands today, but we do have other examples, like many of the Ancient Greeks.
Any thoughts?
Atwood’s book is very well written and she knows how to tell a ripping good yarn. All the stuff about sneaking around under the nose of the authorities felt very real. But I never really bought into the book’s amateur sociology.
When the oil is gone or a more economical solution emerges then the money will be gone and then the USA will no longer overlook the abuses, or at the least Saudi Arabia will no longer be our close ally.
I was interested to hear that they turned The Handmaid’s Tale into a series. Atwood is a major literary figure here (Canada) and that book was on the reading list for high school English students in the 1990s at least.
Don’t forget that in the 1980s, Saudi Arabia spent $25 billion in support of Saddam Hussein in the Iran–Iraq War, back when $25 billion was real money 😉
Two things keep Saudi Arabia an ally of the U.S.
First, it has been a voice within OPEC for moderating price movements and trying not to harm Western economies that buy oil from the cartel.
Second, the Saudis receive several billion in military foreign aid each year despite their affluence. And the reasons behind that payment answers a lot of the paradox.
President Carter negotiated toleration for Israel by Egypt in the Camp David accords in 1979. Egypt disavowed war on Israel at the cost of a status as allies and several billion dollars a year of military aid from the U.S. But, essentially the same deal was struck with less fanfare with Saudi Arabia at about the same time. Those deals have maintained the balance of power in the region and protected Israel for four decades. (We’ve, of course, also provided far more foreign aid and status as a genuine ally to Israel.)
But for the role of Saudi Arabia as a guarantor of Israel’s security, and its role in preventing a recurrence of the Arab Oil Embargo that crippled President Carter, we would almost surely have turned on Saudi Arabia much sooner. But, the time to disengage from our Saudi alliance, for the reasons that you have identified, has come.
Eventually, the Saudis will run out of oil. It will almost surely do so before the world as a whole does as its estimated oil reserves have been essentially unchanged since the 1970s. And, anything that lowers the price of oil weakens the regime as well.
The Saudi regime can be undemocratic under the no representation with no taxation approach. But, once it needs taxes to maintain the regime, it will need to offer representation and the regime will fall. Until then, however, which could easily be a couple of decades in the future, it is sitting pretty.
The intimate connection between US and Saudi Arabia built its strength during the cold war when security interests dominated cultural ones.
It’s possible that The Blob’s (military industrial complex) main goal is prevent situations like North Korea. Viewed through that lens, their FP could make more sense. You either create chaos or make allies where you can – anything to prevent any one state from becoming too strong or too much of a danger.
I think their oil revenues will dry up before the reserves do. Consider these facts:
-The price per kilowatt hour on the batteries used in electric vehicles is dropping 7-10% a year. Right now the industry is at about $200/kWh, and based on consumer surveys a vehicle needs about 50 or 60 kilowatts to be usable without “range anxiety.” Therefore we only have to wait about 5-10 years before reaching parity *before* tax incentives.
-A lot of transportation might be self-driving in the near future, which may help accelerate the transition (electric vehicles get better $/mi over the lifespan of a car, since they don’t use gas — for the Tesla, 20 miles worth of energy stored in batteries is something like 50 cents of electricity at current prices — and last about twice as many miles, being a simpler machine.)
-The transition will happen faster than you think. China’s car market exploded out of nowhere, and they’re looking to use this transition as a way to dominate the industry.
-As oil demand peaks and falls, say 10-15 years from now, OPEC will fall apart fairly quickly. No one wants to stick to quotas right as the demand disappears. (Time for some game theory)
-The regime right now requires prices per barrel to maintain current social spending. But even without the electric vehicle transition, the cost curve for American producers has dropped and flattened, meaning that we may never see $75 barrels again, let alone $100.
The future is not bright for the Saudis.
There was a great 90s Outer Limits episode that imagined a future where women ruled, and men were no longer in existence, except as (bad) memories. A man then awakens from cryogenic sleep and all hell gradually breaks loose: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0667918/
[i saw that. some of that goes on in *the shore of women* -Razib]
Regarding gay marriage, that was the result of a 5-4 Supreme Court vote in 2015. Any Trump appointee replacing any of the 5 will put that decision in jeopardy. I agree that in the vast majority of US states (and eventually all of them) gay marriage would still prevail, but some of the former Confederate states would ban gay marriage if given the chance in the next few years, and would take even longer to reverse their decision and relegitimize gay marriage.
a solid majority of americans support gay marriage. and the direction of support is toward favoring it. so i doubt the court would want to undermine its legitimacy on that.
OTOH, re: abortion, the public is as split down the middle as it was 30 years ago. i can see them overturning roe vs. wade. but honestly the impact of this would probably be far less than if they overturned gay marriage, because states that would ban abortion already made it de facto extremely hard to get one.
Your comment about The Shore of Women has me wondering if you ever read The Gate to Women’s Country (by Sheri S. Tepper) in your youth? It came out at almost exactly the same time, and was pretty controversial at the time, from what I can gather, because the post-apocalyptic ecofeminist culture ultimately is found to be engaging in eugenics in order to eliminate male violence. My understanding is this embracing of biological determinism (to a degree) made her very unpopular among her peers in feminist science fiction at the time. Sometimes I think her later choice to have a book with conjoined twin protagonists of opposite genders was due to the heat she received from this book.
[i read a lot of tepper back in the day, but not that one. it’s not that shocking of a premise; in glory season david brin explores similar topics -Razib]
As if on cue:
U.N. Council Votes to Put Saudi Arabia on a Women’s-Rights Commission
Calling the Saudi government a family corporation gives it a bit too much credit. It is just a family. If you want to understand what families in power can be like read/watch Shakespeare’s history plays.
There are new movie/vidieos of the major ones:
Henry IV (1&2) and Henry V: Shakespeare: King & Country by the Royal Shakespeare Company https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01C4B84E6/
Henry VI (1,2&3) and Richard III: The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses with Sophie Okonedo & Benedict Cumberbatch https://www.amazon.com/Hollow-Crown-Wars-Roses/dp/B01DLVAHQ6
The latter may be available for streaming.
Final note. It is now clear that the US had the fossil fuel sources to ignore the Saudis. Why did it take so long to develop them. There was a lot of resistance from so-called “environmentalists”. Were they acting out of ideological blindness? or had they been bought?
“a solid majority of americans support gay marriage.”
Why do you say that? Do you believe it?