Jay GW
11-17-2004, 03:37 PM
This past summer, far from the political unrest and terrorist threats, far from a faltering economy where one out of three men is unemployed, far from a country under strict Islamic law, some of the richest and most powerful Saudi royals were buying jewels, flying on private jets, and dining at the finest restaurants on the French Riviera.
"When I see this I think of the saying that they fiddle while Rome burns," said Mai Yamani, author of "Cradle of Islam: the Hijaz and the Quest for an Arabian Identity." Yamani is a former Saudi native now living in exile in London and a research fellow with the Middle East Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
Until he became too sick to travel, Saudi King Fahd would arrive every August in his personal 747 aircraft with a huge entourage to spend the summer at a palace he had built outside Marbella, Spain, used, at most, just one month a year.
The south of France is also a popular vacation destination for the Saudi royal family, including Saudi Prince al Walid bin Talal, the king's nephew, who has summered in Cannes for the past 30 years.
"We're just vacationing like any other vacationers," said Saudi Prince al Walid, 47, from on board his 281-foot yacht, "The Kingdom," in Cannes this past August. Formerly owned by Donald Trump, the yacht comes complete with its own disco studio and helicopter. "I am with my daughter and my son here. They're jet skiing right now. You know, it's like any other family."
According to clerks in the luxury stores in Cannes, one Saudi prince bought a $1.2 million emerald and diamond necklace, while a Saudi princess purchased a $10,000 Christian Lacroix outfit with pink and purple raccoon boas.
"The princes are sleeping. They are spending in Europe," Yamani said. "This spending is happening while the terrorists on the Web sites are threatening guerrilla war."
"Conspicuous consumption. All the waste and the style of life that they are living," she said. "And I think of the anger and the rage of those young men, the Saudis, who are reading about all this and discussing it on the Web sites."
Perhaps the most immediate threat to the Saudi royal family is that of Osama bin Laden, who comes from a wealthy Saudi family and has urged his al Qaeda followers to end the royal family's reign.
In a 1998 interview with John Miller of ABC News, bin Laden said, "They sin and do not value God's gift. We predict their destruction and dispersal."
In May and November of last year alone, suicide bombings at housing compounds in the capital city of Riyadh accounted for more than 50 deaths. Recent months have seen a rash of Americans being kidnapped and subsequently killed in Saudi Arabia, shown in gruesome details in videos posted on the Web. Groups affiliated with al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Many young Saudi men with college degrees say finding a job is nearly impossible if you don't know the right people.
And Yamani said the lack of recreational outlets for young people causes additional problems. There are no venues," she said. "There are no restaurants where they can sit as men and women, there are no cinemas. There're no clubs."
Other critics take offense at what they say is the royal family's blatant mockery of the Islamic religion.
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/News/story?id=169246&page=3
"When I see this I think of the saying that they fiddle while Rome burns," said Mai Yamani, author of "Cradle of Islam: the Hijaz and the Quest for an Arabian Identity." Yamani is a former Saudi native now living in exile in London and a research fellow with the Middle East Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
Until he became too sick to travel, Saudi King Fahd would arrive every August in his personal 747 aircraft with a huge entourage to spend the summer at a palace he had built outside Marbella, Spain, used, at most, just one month a year.
The south of France is also a popular vacation destination for the Saudi royal family, including Saudi Prince al Walid bin Talal, the king's nephew, who has summered in Cannes for the past 30 years.
"We're just vacationing like any other vacationers," said Saudi Prince al Walid, 47, from on board his 281-foot yacht, "The Kingdom," in Cannes this past August. Formerly owned by Donald Trump, the yacht comes complete with its own disco studio and helicopter. "I am with my daughter and my son here. They're jet skiing right now. You know, it's like any other family."
According to clerks in the luxury stores in Cannes, one Saudi prince bought a $1.2 million emerald and diamond necklace, while a Saudi princess purchased a $10,000 Christian Lacroix outfit with pink and purple raccoon boas.
"The princes are sleeping. They are spending in Europe," Yamani said. "This spending is happening while the terrorists on the Web sites are threatening guerrilla war."
"Conspicuous consumption. All the waste and the style of life that they are living," she said. "And I think of the anger and the rage of those young men, the Saudis, who are reading about all this and discussing it on the Web sites."
Perhaps the most immediate threat to the Saudi royal family is that of Osama bin Laden, who comes from a wealthy Saudi family and has urged his al Qaeda followers to end the royal family's reign.
In a 1998 interview with John Miller of ABC News, bin Laden said, "They sin and do not value God's gift. We predict their destruction and dispersal."
In May and November of last year alone, suicide bombings at housing compounds in the capital city of Riyadh accounted for more than 50 deaths. Recent months have seen a rash of Americans being kidnapped and subsequently killed in Saudi Arabia, shown in gruesome details in videos posted on the Web. Groups affiliated with al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Many young Saudi men with college degrees say finding a job is nearly impossible if you don't know the right people.
And Yamani said the lack of recreational outlets for young people causes additional problems. There are no venues," she said. "There are no restaurants where they can sit as men and women, there are no cinemas. There're no clubs."
Other critics take offense at what they say is the royal family's blatant mockery of the Islamic religion.
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/News/story?id=169246&page=3