OPINION - 'Saudi Spring' by royal decree

The New York Times' Thomas Friedman came under fire for reporting that Saudi Arabia is undergoing a "Saudi Spring". Middle East wonks blamed Friedman for his "spin", accusing him of producing a "puff piece" to win favor with the Saudi royal court.

Despite his fame, Friedman rarely produces in-depth analyses. He often presents reports with easy-to-remember phrases, and adds color from his past experience as a reporter in the Middle East.

When reporting on his dinner with Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MBS) and his aides, Friedman compares his age, 64, to that of his host, 32, and says that while MBS carried the conversation into late hours, Friedman could not keep up and had to call it a night.

The American columnist then quotes a Saudi bureaucrat as saying that since MBS came to power, the bureaucracy has been working overtime, with a sense of urgency that change -- as envisioned at the top -- must happen fast.

Results of Saudi change have so far been, according to Friedman, theaters in Saudi Arabia, gender-segregated concerts, and women driving and watching sports in stadiums. MBS is restoring Saudi Arabia to pre-1979, the year everyone identifies as marking the turn toward Islamism in the region, with the occupation of the holy shrine in Mecca and the Iranian revolution.

Friedman correctly reports that after 1979, Saudi royals started endorsing a more austere interpretation of Islam, in order to keep up with a population that they deemed was growing increasingly conservative.

What Friedman misses, however, is two other major turns that followed 1979: Iraqi Saddam Hussein's occupation of Kuwait, and its liberation in 1991, and the downfall of Saddam in 2003. The year 1991 marked the first attempt at reconfiguring the Middle East in the post-Cold War era.

States, including Saudi Arabia, started drafting constitutions and liberalizing their economies along the lines of what came to be known as the "Washington Consensus".

The year 2003 marked the end of a decade that saw America as the world’s only superpower, and perhaps the whole "American Century". The Iraqi quagmire bruised America, while the toppling of Saddam removed a barrier that had kept Iran in check since 1979.

The return of Russia as a spoiling power further eroded the "Washington Consensus" as states started reverting to the old-style rentier economy, coupled with an iron grip on power. Where rentier economies failed and old regimes collapsed, they were replaced with new young dictatorships such as in Egypt, or dysfunctional states like in Iraq and Syria.

Friedman should have explained this regional backdrop before trying to place the "Saudi Spring" within the Middle Eastern context.

Change is always welcome, especially one that sidelines extremists and replaces them with moderates, which seems to be MBS’s pitch.

Change is not Saudi Arabia's problem, though. What might prove to be problematic is the effect of forcing change on Saudis, instead of leading them to it. Forced change risks backlash and possible overcorrection in the future. Instead of ordering change by royal decree, the young and promising MBS might consider building a coalition that endorses change, thus making it more durable.

Had Saudi leaders examined change in other countries, they might have considered campaigning for change and building popular support for it. It took Turkey, for example, several popular referenda to amend the constitutional role of the president.

In the U.S., it took former President Barack Obama and a Democratic majority in Congress much debate and talks to pass the Affordable Care Act. And even then, this American health law was repeatedly contested before courts, which scrapped some of its stipulations while keeping others.

Change requires more than ambitious young leaders and long working hours. If MBS is depicting himself as the new founder of Saudi Arabia, then maybe he should put the whole Saudi social contract on the table for debate.

If MBS seeks to limit the role of religion in government, then he might want to revisit the country's "Basic Law" promulgated in 1992.

Saudi Arabia considers its constitution to be the Quran and the Sunna (and hence calls its constitution the Basic Law). Sovereignty is not vested in the people, but in the king, who receives "pledges of allegiance" from Saudis. Unlike other states with Muslim majorities like Turkey, Indonesia and Egypt -- all of which put sovereignty in the hands of their peoples -- the Saudi Arabian system is built around the king.

Such top-down model makes change stick as long as its agent, the king, rules, which means a conservative king in the future can reverse whatever reforms MBS institutes today. Tying change to one person makes it less genuine, and much less durable.

"At the time of Prophet Muhammad," MBS told Friedman, "there was respect for Christians and Jews in Arabia". While it is commendable that MBS understands the importance of tolerance in his kingdom, it is even more important that -- being the moderate Muslim that he is -- realizes that non-Muslims, including Christians and Jews, do not seek respect, but rather seek equal rights with Saudi Muslims.

It is true that one should learn how to walk before learning how to ride a bike, but if change in Saudi Arabia is going at the dizzying pace that MBS is proposing, it makes little sense to keep equal rights for non-Muslim Saudis and expats on the back burner.

If Friedman is right that a tight circle of yes-men surrounds MBS, these people might be filtering his access to opinions that are different than his. If this is the case, then one can only hope that the Saudi Crown Prince is keeping an eye, not only on Friedman's praise of him, but also on the debate that the New York Times interview has steered.

Saudi Arabia is marching toward change. But how durable is change from above? The jury is still out, with many arguing that change by convincing Saudis might be better than change by dragging them forward, or as the saying goes: "You can always drive a horse to the river, but you can never make it drink."