Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism: Vol. 11, No.

3, 2011

Sectarianism as
Counter-Revolution: Saudi
Responses to the Arab Spring1

Madawi Al-Rasheed*
King’s College London

Saudi Arabia is a wealthy oil producing country with a small population not
exceeding twenty-five million, one third of which are foreigners. The authoritarian
Al-Saud ruling family has controlled the country since 1932 (Al-Rasheed 2010).
Historically, the Saudi rentier state used economic largesse in return for loyalty to
the regime (Gause 1994; Luciani and Beblawi 1987). Yet the literature on the
rentier state does not highlight other strategies that are often deployed to gain
loyalty and force the population into submission. Sectarianism as a regime strategy
is often ignored in the literature on the rentier state especially in countries where
there is religious diversity.
In response to the Arab Spring, sectarianism became a Saudi pre-emptive
counter-revolutionary strategy that exaggerates religious difference and hatred and
prevents the development of national non-sectarian politics. Through religious
discourse and practices, sectarianism in the Saudi context involves not only
politicising religious differences, but also creating a rift between the majority
Sunnis and the Shia minority. At the political level, the rift means that Sunnis and
Shia are unable to create joint platforms for political mobilisation. Neither essen-
tialist arguments about the resilience of sects nor historical references to seventh-
century Sunni–Shia battles over the Caliphate (Nasr 2007) can explain the
persistence of antagonism and lack of common political platforms among Sunnis
and Shia in a country like Saudi Arabia. Sectarian conflict between Sunnis and
Shia can never be understood without taking into account the role played by an
agency much more powerful than the sects themselves, namely the authoritarian
regime. In addition to massive oil rents, the Saudi regime has at its disposal a
potent religious ideology, commonly known as Wahhabism, that is renowned for
its historical rejection of the Shia as a legitimate Islamic community (Steinberg
2001).

* Madawi Al-Rasheed is Professor of Anthropology of Religion at King’s College London.

Her research focuses on history, society, religion, and politics in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.
She is the author of several books including Politics in an Arabian Oasis: The Rashidi Tribal
Dynasty (I.B. Tauris, 1991), Contesting the Saudi State: Islamic Voices from a New
Generation (Cambridge University Press, 2007), and A History of Saudi Arabia (Cambridge
University Press, 2010).

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But it is too simplistic to reduce relations between the regime and the Shia
minority to oppression alone, which in turn contributes to the consolidation of
their sectarian identity. The Saudi authoritarian regime deploys multiple strategies
when it comes to its religious minorities and their leadership. Wholesale system-
atic discrimination against the Shia may be a characteristic of one particular
historical moment, but this can be reversed. A political situation may require
alternatives to repression. Sometimes repression is combined with co-optation and
even promotion of minority interests and rights. Furthermore, the regime may
repress the Shia in order to address issues relevant to the Sunni majority, for
example to appease them, respond to their grievances, or simply seek their loyalty
at a time when this cannot be taken for granted. Therefore, it is important to note
that there is no regular and predictable strategy deployed by Saudi authoritarianism
against the Shia. Each historical moment requires a particular response towards
this community, ranging from straightforward repression to co-optation and con-
cession. The Arab Spring and its potential impact on the country pushed the regime
to reinvigorate sectarian discourse against the Shia in order to renew the loyalty of
the Sunni majority.
This article explains how the Saudi regime used sectarian divisions to widen the
gap between the two communities during the Arab Spring. The regime claimed that
external agents were determined to undermine the country’s stability and security.
The regime called upon Wahhabi religious interpretations – in particular sectarian
discourse against the very politically active Shia minority, estimated at two million
(Jones 2009) – in order to abort the development of ‘national politics’ that crosses
sectarian, regional, ideological, and tribal boundaries. By constructing calls for
demonstrations on the ‘Day of Rage’ on 11 March as a Shia conspiracy against the
Sunni majority with the objective of spreading Iran’s influence in the Sunni
homeland, the regime deepened sectarian tension and undermined efforts to
mobilise the youth in various cities, including those where the Shia live. The Saudi
regime frightened its own Sunni majority by exaggerating the Iranian expansionist
project in the region and its rising influence among the Shia of the Arab world,
including Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries.
The regime propaganda succeeded in thwarting protest that by all expectations
would not have amounted to an Egyptian-style fully-fledged revolution. Instead,
the very minor peaceful protests that started in 2011 in Saudi cities would have
marked merely the beginning of political mobilisation without amounting to a
revolution. Even without the pre-conditions for a revolution in Saudi Arabia, an
authoritarian regime was compelled to take pre-emptive counter-revolutionary
measures in anticipation of the domino effect of the Arab Spring.
Recent Saudi sectarianism must also be understood in light of events in the
neighbouring island of Bahrain, where a Sunni royal family rules over a Shia
majority (International Crisis Group 2011; Kerr and Jones 2011). Sectarian dis-
course proved to be successful in suppressing the Bahraini pro-democracy move-
ment. Saudi troops moved into Bahrain in February 2011 in support of the ruling
Al-Khalifa family against the protestors. This allowed the Saudi regime to send
strong signals not only to its own politically agitated Shia minority, many of whom
have religious, social, and kinship ties with the Bahrainis, but also more impor-

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tantly to the Sunni majority inside Saudi Arabia. The regime compelled its Sunni
majority, long brought up on a sectarian discourse that denounces the Shia as
heretics, to consider their government as a protector against Shia conspiracies and
foreign agents allegedly acting in the name of Iran, a rival regional power. The
regime hoped that the Sunni majority would abandon calls for political change at
least at this critical moment of the Arab Spring. Under the pressures of a tense
regional context and internal virtual and real mobilisation, it seems that many
Saudis have postponed their confrontation with the regime but continue to call for
political reform. Moreover, the economic benefits distributed by the king in March
2011 seem to have satisfied the immediate economic and social grievances of the
population, without addressing political reform.

Saudi Sectarian Politics: An Historical Overview

In Saudi Arabia, deliberate, well-documented political exclusion and systematic
religious discrimination against the Shia pushed this community to rally around its
own sectarian leadership, which provides support and resources denied in the
national arena (Al-Rasheed 2010; Ibrahim 2006; Jones 2010; Louër 2008). Both
exclusion and discrimination contribute to the consolidation of Shia internal
sectarian boundaries and cohesion. Moreover, while freedom of association is
restricted and there is a ban on the formation of political parties and civil society,
the religious sphere remains relatively open. In addition to being a place of
worship, the mosque has become increasingly a platform for public mobilisation
around religious symbols and identities.
Since the 1970s, a large Sunni and Shia Islamist trend has replaced earlier
limited politicisation that invoked secular nationalist and leftist ideologies in Saudi
Arabia. This was in line with other Arab countries where secular leftists and
nationalist movements declined and Islamism was on the rise. Both Saudi Sunnis
and Shia found in Islamism inspiration for oppositional politics and mobilisation.
The two communities remained divided in their political opposition, and none was
able to cross the sectarian divide and contain the other group. The only exception
was the brief period of the 1950s and 1960s when labour mobilisation in the oil
region resulted in protest not only across the Saudi sectarian, tribal, and regional
divides, but also across nationalities since the oil industry attracted labourers
from all over the Arab world (Vitalis 2007). Following the early and short-lived
labour protests in the 1950s and 1960s, the government banned trade unions and
demonstrations.
From the 1970s onward, no labour mobilisation was possible under the
increased appeal of Sunni and Shia Islamism (ibid.). This was a product of a
combination of factors. The Iranian revolution of 1979, after which Islamism
triumphed in Iran, and the Saudi regime’s promotion of Islamism as a counter
ideology to nationalism and leftist political trends, led to the strengthening of
political Islam not only in Saudi Arabia but also across the Arab world. National
politics and mobilisation across the Sunni–Shia divide became impossible with
the rise of Islamism and the weakening of the nationalist and leftist opposition
groups.

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Inspired by the success of the revolution in Iran in 1979, Saudi Shia mobilised
themselves as a repressed and discriminated against religious minority. They were
highly active in demanding religious, political, and economic rights and an end to
discrimination in employment and education. For a long time, they were denied
religious freedom and access to a wide range of professions in education and the
military. Their religious jurisprudence was not represented at the level of the
judiciary. They had greater experience in staging demonstrations than the Sunni
majority, as some of their activists had been involved in leftist and nationalist
agitations in the Eastern Province in the 1950s and 1960s. Encouraged by the
success of the Iranian revolution and the establishment of the Islamic republic in
1979, Saudi Shia started an uprising that was brutally suppressed (Al-Rasheed
2010; Ibrahim 2006; Jones 2010). Many of their opposition leaders went into exile
following a wave of repression in the Eastern Province where they lived.
In 1993, there was reconciliation with the government, followed by the return of
the main exiled Shia opposition figures (Al-Rasheed 1998). The reconciliation
took place after the government promised to allow the Shia more religious freedom
and increase their economic integration. There remained, however, a group of Shia
activists abroad who continued to mobilise their followers inside Saudi Arabia.
Inspired by the Arab Spring, the exiled Shia opposition, together with religious
scholars and activists inside the country, called for demonstrations demanding the
release of political prisoners. They also called for supporting the Bahraini pro-
democracy movement in its struggle against the Bahraini Sunni regime and the
withdrawal of Saudi troops from Bahrain. While the Shia are a minority in Saudi
Arabia, they are a majority in Bahrain.
The Saudi Sunni Islamist opposition (Al-Rasheed 2010; Lacroix 2011), known
since the 1990s as al-Sahwa, remained grounded in Salafi discourse especially that
which demonises the Shia as a heretic group, thus endorsing official religious
teachings. While Saudi Islamists denounce the official religious scholars for their
dependence on the state and their loss of autonomy, they agree with them on the
Shia question. They believe that the Shia enjoy sufficient religious freedoms and
employment in the oil region. According to one Salafi scholar associated with the
al-Sahwa Islamist camp, the Shia are not the worst off in the country. Sunnis in the
marginalised southwestern area of Asir are worse off in their poor villages (Al-
Rasheed 2007). Some Islamists think that Shia political prisoners are often
released under internal and external pressure while Sunni Islamists remain in jail
for long periods. This Sunni resentment resurfaces whenever the regime releases
Shia political prisoners, a step understood as a concession to a heretical minority.
In this respect, the state, the official religious establishment, and the Islamists
remain in agreement over the Shia question. While only a small minority of
Islamists prefer not to discuss the Shia question openly, the majority would not
hesitate to denounce them in public.

Timid Protest
In light of the 2011 Arab Spring that brought down autocratic regimes in Tunisia
and Egypt and is currently threatening Bahrain, Libya, Syria, and Yemen, Saudi

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virtual activists called for a Day of Rage on 11 March.2 New youth groups
appeared on the internet under names such as the National Youth Movement and
the Free Youth Movement. Both called for demonstrations against the regime.3
Their demands centred on freedom, fighting corruption, oppression, injustice,
unemployment, release of political prisoners, and other grievances, all of which
are non-sectarian in nature.4 Many of these virtual forums attracted supporters
without any evidence of whether they had real followers on the ground. Nobody
inside Saudi Arabia could openly claim authorship of virtual anti-regime state-
ments without risking arrest. Muhammad al-Wadani, a young activist, posted a
video clip of himself denouncing the regime and announcing his intention to
demonstrate on 11 March. He was arrested as he prematurely participated in a
minor protest after Friday prayers on 7 March.5
Only two real Sunni opposition groups supported the Day of Rage. The Move-
ment of Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA) and the newly founded Sunni Umma
Party issued statements endorsing the call for demonstrations.6 Since 2005, MIRA
occasionally called upon its supporters to stage minor protests after Friday prayers
in various cities. On rare occasions, such calls materialised in very small crowds
who would emerge from the weekly prayer chanting ‘God is Great’. On 11 March,
MIRA and the Umma Party hoped that a spontaneous youth protest movement
would spread to all Saudi cities.
Among the Shia, the exiled opposition abroad – mainly Khalas (Deliverance)
led by personalities such as London-based Shia opposition veterans Hamza
al-Hasan and Fuad Ibrahim – called upon their followers to respond to the call for
demonstrations on 11 March.7 However, the main impetus came from Shia activ-
ists inside the country. Before 11 March, these activists mobilised their community
to demonstrate regularly after the peaceful protests in Bahrain were heavily
repressed with the help of Saudi troops.
Before the Day of Rage, Saudi Sunni and Shia groups used YouTube, Facebook,
and Twitter to spread the message that they supported the virtual protest. This was
the first time for Sunni and Shia opposition groups to call for demonstrations on
the same day.
On 11 March, the Day of Rage failed utterly, thus pointing to the limitations of
so-called Facebook and Twitter revolutions in the absence of real organisation and
civil society willing to engage in protest (Morozov 2011). Al-Sahwa, the important
and much larger Sunni Islamist movement inside the country referred to earlier, as
well as other recently founded political groups, distanced themselves from the call
for protest. As the slogan for the demonstration was ‘the people want the overthrow
of the regime’, made famous in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, no Saudi could declare his
support without being arrested. In fact, many Sunni Islamist activists inside the
country renewed their loyalty to the regime and denounced the chaos associated
with demonstrations. They pointed to the need for reform but not the overthrow of
the regime. With the al-Sahwa Islamist movement withholding its support, the
demonstrations did not materialise.
Despite the total failure of the national Day of Rage, in the oil rich Eastern
Province, the Shia minority continued to stage their own demonstrations demand-
ing equality and an end to discrimination against their community. The Shia

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demonstrations gathered hundreds of supporters who called for the release of their
political prisoners. Women joined the protest and marched with candles over
several nights to draw attention to the plight of prisoners. They called for the
release of political activists held for more than sixteen years under a campaign to
support the ‘forgotten prisoners’. They also called for the withdrawal of Saudi
troops sent to Bahrain to suppress the Bahraini pro-democracy uprising that started
on 14 February. In Shia areas, repression was more obvious in response to the size
of the demonstrations. The Shia were able to mobilise their own people in support
of their own demands, thus adopting a narrow Shia agenda, and in sympathy with
their co-religionists in Bahrain, only sixteen miles away from Saudi Arabia across
a causeway. The security forces were swift in repressing the demonstrators.
After 11 March, in Sunni majority areas, Saudi men and women regularly
gathered on special days around the Ministry of Interior demanding the release of
political prisoners. Unemployed graduates assembled around relevant ministries
expressing economic grievances and calling upon government officials to honour
the king’s promises to increase employment opportunities and speed up the
placement of graduates in public sector jobs. The king made these promises in
February when he returned to the country after receiving medical treatment in the
United States. Although none of these local protests amounted to real demonstra-
tions, they were a novelty in a country where demonstrations are totally banned.
With the exception of the Sunni protest in support of political prisoners, the regime
allowed these minor assemblies to take place. But between February and March, it
was reported that the security forces made more than 160 arrests, two of them were
lonely demonstrators who responded to the call for the Day of Rage and there was
one well-known political activist involved in human rights issues. In July, two
women were held by the Ministry of Interior because of their participation in and
organisation of a demonstration in support of political prisoners. Demonstrations
in the Shia Eastern Province were more brutally suppressed. The government
allowed small protests around economic grievances but was very swift with
demonstrators who expressed political demands or criticised the regime’s repres-
sion (Human Rights Watch 2011).
The constitutional monarchy movement, since 2003 notorious for sending
regular petitions to the leadership demanding political reform, refrained from
endorsing the demonstrations, thus preferring to respect the government ban on
mass peaceful protest in the country. Saudi Sunni activists within this group
expressed their political demands in on-line petitions calling for a constitutional
monarchy.8 Both Islamists and liberals within this movement signed several peti-
tions renewing their allegiance to the regime before they presented their political
reform agenda. By June 2011, three petitions were proposed to the leadership. All
focused on political, economic, and social reform. The petitions were highly
critical of the Ministry of Interior whose head, Prince Nayif, is the king’s brother.
As the day of the demonstrations approached, several supporters of the consti-
tutional monarchy movement distanced themselves from the Day of Rage and
confirmed their loyalty to the regime.9 The constitutional monarchists proved to be
a loyal opposition whose declared objective is to reform the regime rather than
overthrow it. While there is no clear proof, it is assumed that this loyal opposition

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operates under the patronage of certain Saudi princes who have been calling for
constitutional monarchy since the 1960s. The constitutional monarchy movement
should therefore be seen in the context of power struggles within the Saudi royal
family (Al-Rasheed 2005). Their mode of operation is restricted to circulating
petitions, mainly praising the king and denouncing the severe and harsh policing
methods of his brother in the Ministry of Interior. Several activists within this
movement had been jailed following the circulation of several petitions in 2003–
2004. While the constitutional monarchists include Sunni and Shia personalities
known to have been associated with nationalist, leftist, and liberal trends, it also
includes moderate Islamists. It seems that the constitutional monarchy movement
is caught in the power struggle between members of the royal family, mainly the
king, and his rival brothers. The movement continues to praise the king and urge
him to intervene now before he dies. There is a sense of urgency as the current king
is eighty-seven years old. The desired intervention focuses on curbing the powers
of the Minister of Interior, who may become king after the death of King Abdullah
given the deteriorating health of the current crown prince.
Reports on Saudi cities on 11 March portrayed deserted neighbourhoods where
only security agents and vehicles roamed the streets (BBC 2011). The regime’s
overreaction to the virtual call for demonstrations may have been an expression of
a deep fear of the spread of the euphoria of the Arab Spring to this oil rich kingdom.
It was also a show of force. Despite the generous economic package announced by
the king in March 2011, estimated at £36 billion, the leadership knows that there
are serious unmet political demands and economic grievances related to unem-
ployment, low wages, high inflation, lack of housing, and rising food prices. The
regime perhaps was not entirely confident that economic handouts, in the form of
additional monthly salaries, one year unemployment benefits, more health centres,
housing projects and loans, jobs in the security sector (Ministry of Interior), and
expansion of the religious bureaucracy would absorb widespread dissatisfaction
among a very young population with very few employment opportunities. The
king’s handouts were meant to appease the population by addressing some of its
urgent specific economic grievances. But political reform remained out of reach.
While security measures may have intimidated many Saudis, they cannot solely
explain why the demonstrations failed to materialise; this failure reflects the
limitations of Facebook and Twitter mobilisation. It had underlying causes. Saudis
did not have a consensus over the overthrow of the regime. As mentioned earlier,
the mainstream Islamists inside the country, such as al-Sahwa, did not lend their
support to the protest. They are still in a position to benefit from state largesse,
spent on religious and educational institutions dominated by their activists.
Moreover, tribal and economic elites in the country are still tied to the regime
through networks of patronage (Hertog 2010). They both fear populist politics that
would threaten their historical links with individual princes and their patron–client
relations with important figures in the regime.
The euphoria surrounding the new communication technology, social network-
ing, and virtual connectivity proved its limitations in the Saudi context. On a
practical level, it seems that the state was able to manipulate such electronic
networks and control the outcome. Several Facebook pages emerged prior to the 11

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March demonstrations confusing potential protestors, spreading rumours about

outside agents, and promoting the government propaganda messages against
exiled activists. Shia activists who had more cohesion and contact with their
followers in the real world instigated the minor frequent protests that were reported
in the Eastern Province. There were known Shia religious scholars and activists
who led the protest on the ground while the exiled opposition gave organisational
and logistical electronic support from abroad. But the Shia demonstrations failed
to spread to other cities. As such, they remained a Shia protest that resembled their
previous uprisings, especially that of 1979.
The regime, its religious establishment, and the majority Sunni population
denounced Shia demonstrations. The fragmentation of the opposition, a strong
sense of regionalism around three main provinces (Najd, Hijaz, and Hasa), and
Sunni–Shia schisms prevent any cooperation. More importantly, it seems that
many Saudis have not reached that critical phase to call for the overthrow of the
regime. While there are serious economic inequalities and political exclusion of
the population coupled with serious repression, for the moment most Saudis prefer
security and the promise of economic prosperity at the expense of political liberty.

Sectarianism as Counter-Revolution
Although old well-known exiled Sunni Islamists such as the Movement for Islamic
Reform in Arabia (MIRA), the new Islamist party (the Umma Party), and Shia
activists called for protest on 11 March, the regime identified such calls as a Shia
conspiracy and uprising backed by outside agents, mainly Iran. The state strategy
aimed to achieve two objectives. First, it allowed the state security agencies to
move quickly into Shia areas to suppress early signs of protest, which was
described as a Shia group revolt, totally isolated from other national groups and
opposition trends calling for political reform. The fact that the majority of the Shia
live in the Eastern Province and their demonstrations have in the past taken place
in predominately Shia cities like al-Qatif, Seyhat, and Awamiyyah made it easy for
government discourse to appear plausible. This allowed the security agencies to
consider the Shia as the initiators of the call to demonstrate.
Second, by invoking the discourse of an Iranian-backed Shia regional revolt in
the oil rich province, the state rallied the Sunni majority, including those who had
serious grievances and had called for political reform. The state propaganda
machine described calls for protest as a foreign attempt to cause chaos, divide the
country, and undermine its security. The population was led to believe that any
protest would result in the fragmentation of Saudi Arabia and the resurgence of
regionalism, sectarianism, and tribalism. This response was not unique to the
Saudi state. During the Arab Spring, other Arab regimes resorted to the same
rhetoric when they faced mass protest, as Salwa Ismail’s article in this volume
demonstrates.
Saudi official religion was the main strategy to be deployed against the possi-
bility of protest. The regime mobilised its main religious figures to support it at the
critical moment of the Arab Spring in two different ways. First, Wahhabi religious
scholars used the minarets to warn against the wrath of God, inflicted on the pious

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believers if they participated in the peaceful demonstrations planned immediately

after the midday prayers of 11 March. On 7 March, the Council of Higher Ulama,
the highest official religious authority, issued a fatwa (religious opinion) against
demonstrations.10 The old opinions of famous Sheikhs Abdul Aziz Ibn Baz and
Muhammad al-Uthaymin (Al-Rasheed 2007) regarding obedience to rulers were
resurrected to give impetus to recent religious opinions against demonstrations.
All local newspapers favourably reported on the current fatwa against peaceful
protest. Thousands of hard copies were distributed in mosques and neighbour-
hoods, in addition to dissemination on the internet.11 Saudi intelligence services
infiltrated internet discussion boards and posted the fatwa on many discussion
forums with several supporting statements. My observations of several internet
discussion boards during the period of the Day of Rage clearly indicated height-
ened official propaganda.12 The fatwa against demonstrations was a political rather
than a religious statement in support of the regime and against those who call for
protest.
Second, Saudi official religious scholars warned of an Iranian-Safavid-Shia
conspiracy directed by Saudi Shia and Sunni exiles in London and Washington to
cause fitna (chaos) and divide Saudi Arabia. They relied on sectarian religious
opinions against the Shia, historically depicted as heretics and more recently as a
fifth column acting as agents of Iran. They reminded the believers of the need for
ijma, consensus around the pious rulers of the country, and warned that fragmen-
tation, tribal warfare, civil war, and bloodbaths were to be expected if people
responded to calls for demonstrations. Wahhabi scholars who are not directly
associated with the official Council of Higher Ulama, and dubbed as the neo-
Wahhabis, for example Muhammad al-Urayfi and Yusif al-Ahmad, had more
freedom to denounce the Shia in local mosques, lectures, and sermons, recorded
and publicised onYouTube. Old al-Sahwa veteran Sheikh Nasir al-Omar joined the
battle against the Shia, thus giving an added force to the opinions of the young
ulama (religious scholars) generation. While many of those scholars are critical of
the king regarding new gender policies that relax the laws on mixing between the
sexes in education and the workplace, they are supportive against the Shia, who are
seen as alien, heretic, and loyal to Iran. Depicting local protest as a foreign
conspiracy had already been tried during the Arab Spring.
The Saudi regime and its ulama echoed well-rehearsed rhetoric of other Arab
autocrats such as Zein al-Abdin Bin Ali in Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt,
Hamad al-Khalifa in Bahrain, Muamar al-Qadhafi in Libya, Bashar al-Assad in
Syria, and Ali Abdullah Salih in Yemen. The Saudi regime mobilised its digital
intelligence services to spread rumours that the Iranians were behind the demon-
strations and, if the Sunnis wanted victory, they should not respond to suspicious
outside calls for protest. My observation of several internet discussion boards,
such as al-Saha and the Saudi Liberal Network, clearly demonstrated unusual
pro-regime postings that demonised the Shia and warned against foreign conspira-
cies. The Saudi religious strategy consisted of enlisting divine wrath and invoking
sectarian difference and hatred to thwart the prospect of peaceful protest demand-
ing real political reforms. So-called independent religious scholars served the
regime’s interest as much as the official bureaucracy. While official ulama played

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a role, other preachers found an opportunity on the internet to denounce the Shia
and boost their popularity among a young population. Facebook, YouTube, and
Twitter became the new digital battlefield against the heretical Shia and their
Iranian backers.
While the double religious strategy of obedience to rulers and sectarianism was
unfolding, the Saudi-controlled so-called liberal press published articles denounc-
ing sectarianism. Liberal authors attacked those so-called sectarian hate preachers
and many journalists and activists celebrated national unity, wataniyya, that is,
belonging to a nation rather than a sect or tribe. The pages of the official local press
such as al-Riyadh, al-Jazeera, and al-Watan, together with pan-Arab al-Hayat and
al-Sharq al-Awsat, became platforms to launch attacks on those backward forces
who undermine national unity.13 This, however, does not mean that those liberal
authors were in favour of close ties with the Shia or in support of real political
protest as a means to political reform. They were simply defending the regime in
another way, mainly by dividing and confusing Saudi public opinion, an important
strategy in aborting a national consensus in favour of mobilisation and protest.
During the Arab Spring, Saudis were exposed to two contradictory discourses
both sponsored by the state: a religious one in support of Sunni unity against Shia
heretics, and a so-called liberal discourse denouncing religious scholars and their
sectarianism. Saudis are confused and torn between those two contradictory
interpretations of the crisis. The confusion can only serve regime interests by
delaying the need to make political concessions. The strategy maintains divisions
in society between so-called liberal intellectuals and the hate preachers, and
between Sunnis and Shia. In this confusion, the regime confirms in the minds of
people that it alone can mediate between the various camps, reining in the excesses
of liberals, Islamists, Shia, and Sunnis. The regime fosters the impression that,
without its intervention, the country will enter a Hobbesian state of nature where
tribes, sects, and regions unleash their fanaticism and violence on each other and
undermine the security of all Saudis, possibly inviting foreign military interven-
tion to secure the energy sources that are so important not only to Saudis but also
to the rest of the world.
In a country where there is weak nationalism and strong Islamism and sectarian
tension, state strategy to depict protests as a Shia conspiracy was successful in
pushing the Sunnis to renew their allegiance to the regime. Because Saudi Arabia
does not have an organised national civil society such as trade unions, professional
associations, or political parties, its opposition groups have never worked across
the sectarian divide in recent times. The Shia opposition worked on its own
since the 1970s while Sunni Islamism never appealed to non-Sunni groups, for
example the Ismailis in the southwest and the Shia in the east. If Saudi Sunni
Islamists had their own Islamic awakening, the Shia also developed their political
opposition around their own religious scholars and political activists.
Saudi authoritarianism’s main concern is to control both the Sunni and Shia
population and prevent them from pursuing political rights that would eventually
lead to the overthrow of authoritarian rule. For the foreseeable future, the Saudi
regime will continue to frighten the majority with the Shia/Iranian threat to delay
political reform. The real threat to Saudi authoritarianism is the development of a

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national opposition composed of both Sunnis and Shia, and Islamists and secular-
ists. This has already begun to appear in limited forums, prompting the govern-
ment to clamp down on virtual Sunni protest and the minor but real Shia
demonstrations. If the new constitutional monarchy movement, which brings
together Sunni and Shia liberals, develops further and become a force to be
reckoned with, the sectarian discourse will be confined to hard-line official Salafi
circles, which so far have remained loyal to the regime. A national opposition that
rejects sectarianism will be difficult to suppress, despite decades of sectarian
discourse under the patronage of the authoritarian state.
Without a student movement, women’s movement, and professional associa-
tions, a Saudi revolution is unlikely to move out of the virtual world into reality.
While students who are on generous government subsidies and scholarships await
employment, the women’s movement regards the state as its main patron and is
unlikely to withdraw its support of the current king. Many Saudi women activists
consider the state as the only agent capable of checking the power of the ulama.
The weak professional associations, such as the Chambers of Commerce and
journalist associations, remain loyal to the state, which protects them against
populist politics. The economic and technocratic elite is tied in to the public sector
and enjoys great rewards for its loyalty. Moreover, the main tribal groups are
beneficiaries of the regime through employment in the military sector and regular
subsidies and handouts. Many tribal groups are linked to the regime through
marriage networks. Only drastic and prolonged economic decline would trigger
mass protest. If ever there are signs of a Saudi mass protest, counter-revolutionary
strategies other than sectarianism may have to be deployed to suppress a wide
national movement calling for serious and real political change.

Notes
1
This article draws on discussions with various Saudi activists since January 2011,
statements of opposition groups and government agencies with respect to the events in the
Arab world and inside the country, a survey of local and international media, and analysis of
various Saudi internet webpages including Islamist and liberal discussion boards, Face-
book, Twitter, and YouTube.
2
The Saudi Day of Rage was advertised on many web pages. The Saudi authorities tried to
block them, but activists would quickly set up alternative Facebook pages. One page that
was still accessible on 21 April 2011 is http://www.facebook.com/Saudis.Revolution.
3
Information is based on communications and electronic messages between March and
April 2011 with Fuad Ibrahim (Khalas Shia opposition), Saad al-Faqih (Movement for
Islamic Reform in Arabia), Muhammad al-Masari (al-Tajdid), and Muhammad al-Mufarih
(Islamic Ummah Party). In Saudi Arabia, communication with many activists who prefer to
remain anonymous provided much of the assessment in this article. In addition, it was
surprising that many Saudi students studying abroad on government scholarships are active
net-citizens. Many students used their time abroad to escape internet censorship. Their
various communications and email messages provided valuable insight on their dreams and
aspirations.
4
Several web pages appeared and were claimed by the Free Youth Movement and National
Youth Movement. See http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=130993796971053

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(accessed 11 March 2011). The site has become a platform to follow up on the cases of
political prisoners, while continuing to press for political reform. While it is very difficult to
know who set up the page, I had confirmation from several Saudi activists that they
participated in posting opposition messages and drew my attention to their statements.
5
Muhammad al-Wadani called for the overthrow of the monarchy on the internet using a
YouTube posting. See http://www.youtube.com/user/Edr3aan#p/a/u/2/iOeqTN2bRa8. He
posted this video before he was arrested on 7 March. In this video, he calls for jumat
al-hashd, the Friday of Mobilisation to precede the Day of Rage on 11 March. After his
arrest, his friends posted a video of the actual arrest in which a civilian assisted by several
other men surrounded al-Wadani and drove him away in a car. I received the video by email
only an hour after his arrest.
6
MIRA endorsed the demonstrations on its webpage. See http://www.islah.info/
index.php?/1684/. The newly founded Islamic Ummah Party also supported the
demonstration on their party webpage. See the party’s communiqués at http://www.
islamicommaparty.com/Portals/default/. All sites were accessible in April–June 2011. In
addition to consulting these internet-based sources of information, I relied on interviews
and communication with activists affiliated with the two Islamist movements during April
and June. My discussion with the spokesman of the Islamic Ummah Party was conducted
through Skype, as the spokesman was in hiding after the arrest of five founding members of
the party.
7
As early as 2009 and following clashes between Shia pilgrims and Saudi authorities in
Madina, a group called Khalas emerged to defend Shia rights for free worship and, more
importantly, equality. The group adopted the name Khalas to distinguish themselves from
the early Shia opposition groups who reconciled with the government in 1993 (Al-Rasheed
1998). On the emergence of Khalas, see Qudaihi (2009). This new Shia opposition estab-
lished its own website to post opinions and commentaries, regarded by the old Shia
opposition inside Saudi Arabia as too radical. The group associated with Hasan al-Safar, a
Shia scholar who returned to Saudi Arabia in 1994 after reconciling with the regime,
remains loyal to the government at least in its public statements. As such, al-Safar distances
himself from Khalas and another Shia opposition group under the name Hizbullah al-Hijaz
(Matthiesen 2010). For more details on Khalas’s opinions, see http://www.moltaqaa.com/.
8
The first petition and the names of signatories are posted at http://www.saudireform.com/
?p=petintion (accessed 20 April 2011). A second petition was posted at http://dawlaty.com/
services.html (accessed 20 April 2011). These calls for reform were reported by CNN (see
http://arabic.cnn.com/2011/middle_ea...ase/index.html). The third petition during the Arab
Spring was the most radical in its condemnation of the regime, in particular the Ministry of
Interior for its continuous detention of political prisoners. The jamiyyat al-huquq
al-madaniyya wa al-siyasiyya (Committee for Civil and Political Rights at http://
www.acpra15.org/index.php), associated with Professor Abdullah al-Hamid and other
activists inside Saudi Arabia, endorsed the petition. The petition circulated on the internet,
without it being reported in the official Saudi press. Only London-based newspaper al-Quds
al-Arabi reproduced the text of the petition in Arabic (see the newspaper from 6 June 2011).
I received all three petitions from Saudi activists by email. The content of the petitions was
later checked against several internet web pages where they appeared and international
media reporting on the three calls for reform. The author has also interviewed several
activists who were involved in drafting versions of the petitions before they were released to
the public on the internet. Many activists who are in Saudi Arabia prefer to remain
anonymous for fear of arrest.
9
A supporter of the constitutional movement wrote a scathing attack on those who called
for demonstrations on 11 March, especially Islamists associated with the Movement for

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Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA), which operates from London (see Ahmad Adnan at
http://www.al-akhbar.com/node/14044).
10
For the text of the fatwa, see the official web page of the Saudi Ifta Council at
http://www.alifta.net/. The fatwa was later reported in the local Saudi press (see al-Riyadh
newspaper, ‘Demonstrations are Forbidden’, 7 March 2011).
11
Personal communication with political activist who sent me a copy of the fatwa that he
collected after Friday noon prayers on 11 March 2011 in Riyadh.
12
Two internet discussion boards clearly reflected attempts by intelligence services to
infiltrate these sites as new members under pseudonyms joined to defend the regime and
spread the message that demonstrations are forbidden in Islam (see al-Saha at http://
www.alsaha.com/ and The Saudi Liberal Network at http://humanf.org, which were both
accessible on 11 March 2011).
13
In al-Riyadh newspaper, journalist Muhammad al-Mahfud posted several articles
calling for promoting citizenship at the expense of divisive sectarianism (see http://
www.rasid.com/artc.php?id=45168; http://www.rasid.com/artc.php?id=44415). Abdul
Rahman al-Rashid, the ex-editor of al-Sharq al-Awsat, highlighted the dangers of sectarian
politics (see http://www.rasid.com/artc.php?id=45051); in al-Watan newspaper, Osama
al-Qahtani praised Sunni–Shia coexistence (see http://www.rasid.com/artc.php?id=44883).

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