The King of Arabia died

[Zed]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/01/22/world/middleeast/ap-ml-obit-king-abdullah.html?_r=0

So, one of the most powerful people on this planet has passed out. But somehow, I doubt anything will change.

Discuss.

[NiTROACTiVE]

I wasn't too fond of Abdullah ibn Abdilazīz because of his dictatorship in Saudi Arabia. With some of the crap he pulled, I don't think he'll be missed too much. When I became aware of his age, I thought he looked a bit too young to be 90 years old as I first thought he was around the age 50-65, but I just assumed that about his age because of his looks. Now that Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud is now king, I wonder how he'll rule Saudi Arabia. Will he be a better ruler, or a worse ruler? Or will he be just the same as King Abdullah was? We'll have to see.

[Technician]

Zed said:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/01/22/world/middleeast/ap-ml-obit-king-abdullah.html?_r=0

So, one of the most powerful people on this planet has passed out. But somehow, I doubt anything will change.

Discuss.

Actually the Saudi dynasty is in it's death throes, IMO.

[Waffenak]

Okay, I doubt anything will change, same hyperconservative bullshit will continue

[Gez]

NiTROACTiVE said:

Now that Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud is now king, I wonder how he'll rule Saudi Arabia. Will he be a better ruler, or a worse ruler? Or will he be just the same as King Abdullah was? We'll have to see.

Salman is rumored to suffer from either Alzheimer's or dementia, so he's probably just going to be a figurehead while the real decisions are taken by others. So it's going to be just the same, really.

Now the fun thing will be to watch all the world leaders eulogize the dead king. "What a great guy he was, how progressive and liberal!" Heh.

[snapshot]

I Don't even remember he helped the Arabic world,only Saudi Arabia

[geo]

Is that the guy that made Obama and GW Bush hold his hand as they walked through his palace? I remember seeing video footage of it years ago. Maybe that was some other elderly Arabian leader.

His death means nothing. Maybe if he was assassinated his death would mean something.

[FireFish]

According to the news here, the man that passed away attempted to modernize at a rate his people could handle. Things like slowly giving woman more rights, etc.

Different cultures and societies, i cant judge or blatantly criticize.

[dew]

Gez said:

Now the fun thing will be to watch all the world leaders eulogize the dead king. "What a great guy he was, how progressive and liberal!" Heh.

FireFish said:

According to the news here, the man that passed away attempted to modernize at a rate his people could handle. Things like slowly giving woman more rights, etc.

I chuckled. The whitewashing of an ultraconservative despot begins. What rights were women given exactly under his rule? Saudi Arabia's society is stuck in medieval times, except now with smartphones, jets and air conditioning.

[snapshot]

He's just another bad guy ,Arabic world had bad memories with him ..

[Gez]

dew said:

I chuckled. The whitewashing of an ultraconservative despot begins. What rights were women given exactly under his rule? Saudi Arabia's society is stuck in medieval times, except now with smartphones, jets and air conditioning.

If you jump into a time machine and go back to Saudi Arabia in, say, 1978, you'll discover an Arabian society a lot more liberal, progressive, and westernized than the Saudi Arabia of today.

Same deal for Iran by the way.

1979 was marked by two different events that set Islam in the Middle East on a self-destructive, regressive trajectory:
1. Iranian Revolution -- the Shah, puppet king of the British and American interests, who had been put back on the throne after the CIA organized a coup ("Operation Ajax") against Mosaddegh at the behest of the Brits, is evicted and Iran becomes an Islamic Republic under the dictatorial control of Ayatollah Khomeini.
2. Grand Mosque Seizure -- a bunch of Islamic terrorists take control of the holiest place in Saudi Arabia, and demand a much harsher, stricter application of sharia law in the kingdom. They get shot down, but the Saudi government, to avoid a repeat of the incident, comply with the terrorists' demands.

Since then, both Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have sponsored groups of Islamic terrorists -- various Shia militia such as the Hezbollah for Iran; and Salafist integrists for KSA.

[Maes]

NiTROACTiVE said:

When I became aware of his age, I thought he looked a bit too young to be 90 years old as I first thought he was around the age 50-65, but I just assumed that about his age because of his looks

Powerful/rich people looking young for their age is nothing new: the very least they can afford much better/expensive cures, and in the case of people who also have a lot of political power/influence in their hands, they may have connections and access to cures that "oi polloi" do not even know they exist, and may even be much more willing to risk with experimental/dubious cures, if that will help them functioning lucidly and running their business/empire for longer. It's kinda like being ruled by an undead lord.

dew said:

What rights were women given exactly under his rule?

Well, they can drive a car....provided of course they somehow manage to get driver's license from abroad, and someone else buys them the car, as nobody sane in his mind (and wishing to keep his head on his shoulders) would ever issue a driver's license or sell a car to a woman inside Saudi Arabia.

They can also ride horses in competitive show jumping for Saudi Arabia, as long as they are not actually Saudi citizens themselves, and as long as the competition is not held on Saudi Arabian soil. Hey, they don't even have to wear a nihab outside of Saudi Arabia if they are not actually Saudi Arabian (the athlete in the photo obviously is)!

[snapshot]

And that's Another reason why Many people of the Arabic world hate him ..

[Fulgrim]

Gez said:

If you jump into a time machine and go back to Saudi Arabia in, say, 1978, you'll discover an Arabian society a lot more liberal, progressive, and westernized than the Saudi Arabia of today.

Same deal for Iran by the way.

Very true. Lets also not forget that the US gov and several others helped guys like Arabia gain power in the first place. Hence the reason so many people in the government are quick to praise Arabia after his death and ignore what he was doing to his own people while he was in power. Let alone ignore that fact that Many members of Saudi royalty have been pumping money and arms into groups like Al qaeda and IS for years.

[Reisal]

All I can say is good, another bad person dead. His half brother Salman (age 79) won't last long. I cannot wait to see an actual younger member of their family (40-50 years old) actually change a lot of the strict bullcrap (Women's rights, for example) so it's more in line with say, Turkey or some western European countries.

[Maes]

Glaice said:

I cannot wait to see an actual younger member of their family (40-50 years old) actually change a lot of the strict bullcrap (Women's rights, for example) so it's more in line with say, Turkey or some western European countries.

LMAO. Even becoming like Turkey would be nothing short of a quantum leap for Saudi Arabia. At most it can become like some of the -slightly- more relaxed Emirates, which however are still a pretty strict place to live (ask any foreign contractor living there about the zillion petty rules for locals and foreigners and a "tolerance" for Westerners achieved mainly through segregation/isolation of the two communities). And yet they are considered "cosmopolitan".

[Technician]

Glaice said:

All I can say is good, another bad person dead. His half brother Salman (age 79) won't last long. I cannot wait to see an actual younger member of their family (40-50 years old) actually change a lot of the strict bullcrap (Women's rights, for example) so it's more in line with say, Turkey or some western European countries.

You won't. They can't. The Saudi dynasty is as conservative as it is to help shield themselves from homeland terrorism. The Arabs are great at keeping their nations devoid of terrorist activity. But that comes at a coast of keeping their societies back and sponsoring terrorist groups abroad. Turkey and prominent Arab nations don't fund terrorist groups to bring about global sharia, they simply do it to keep radicals constantly fighting outside their boarders.

Maes said:

LMAO. Even becoming like Turkey would be nothing short of a quantum leap for Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia is in luck. In a couple more decades Erdogan should have Turkey at a point where a quantum leap is but a couple of steps.

[snapshot]

There will still be other kings from his Familly ..

[Technician]

DMGUYDZ64 said:

There will still be other kings from his Familly ..

Was there ever a monarchy as big as the Saudis? It was a genius way of uniting all the Arabian tribes.

[Gez]

Technician said:

Saudi Arabia is in luck. In a couple more decades Erdogan should have Turkey at a point where a quantum leap is but a couple of steps.

Exactly. Great Islamic Sultan Erdogan of the Islamic Ottoman Empire of Islamic Islam is very busy shitting all over Atatürk's secular republic of Turkey and making sure Turkey becomes as regressive and repressive as possible.

[Maes]

Gez said:

Exactly. Great Islamic Sultan Erdogan of the Islamic Ottoman Empire of Islamic Islam is very busy shitting all over Atatürk's secular republic of Turkey and making sure Turkey becomes as regressive and repressive as possible.

He's certainly trying, but it's kinda hard for Turks to accept going back to a level and type of Islam that was never actually seen in the Ottoman Empire, at least not in its late/modern history.

[FireFish]

dew said:

I chuckled. The whitewashing of an ultraconservative despot begins. What rights were women given exactly under his rule? Saudi Arabia's society is stuck in medieval times, except now with smartphones, jets and air conditioning.

Well, Maes answered it a few posts up with added picture. It's the thought which seems to count when you know what else he did along very other (less western) lines beyond what most western people would even accept.

[Cupboard]

Saudi Arabia is a gerontocracy. Nothing substantial is going to change, after all, it has been know that the now deceased king was ailing for an extended amount of time. As far as the western world is concerned, oil will remain around $50.00 a barrel and women will probably not be allowed to drive cars. Something might change 10 years from now but no one will care because their kingdom will become increasingly irrelevant and many other alternatives to civil society in the middle east will become increasingly available. #futurism.

[myk]

Gez said:
1979 was marked by two different events that set Islam in the Middle East on a self-destructive, regressive trajectory:

In the West, the conservative Thatcher was elected as prime minister of the empire in decadence and the next year Reagan got elected in the rising empire, backed by a campaign that now relied partially on radical religious supporters. By 1979, most of the new wave of (US-backed) dictatorships in Latin America were fully entrenched and at their climax, after bloody campaigns to eliminate and torture guerrillas and political dissidents or activists. The year 1979 was a consolidation in policies or side-effects of a reactionary drive started at the beginning of the 70s. The year 1973, for example, contains both the oil crisis used to blame Keynesianism as useless and the coup in Chile where Milton Friedman's (neoliberal) economic policies were applied by the book.

[Holering]

Why didn't he give us money? RIP.