The British newspaper The Times recently revealed that the only way to achieve business success in Saudi Arabia is through two means: the first is getting ‘wasta’ and the second is hailing the Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman (MBS) and his policies.
Remarkably, some European countries are currently behaving, in accordance with the Trump doctrine, toward the Saudi Crown Prince as if he were a cash cow, prepared to expedite economic work if their government’s efforts are impeded or postponed in return for political concessions that do not gain any benefit.
Major international corporations also came to this realization and stopped relying as much on competition and experience. In fact, a few of them started to quote MBS’s media claims, presenting him as a real reformer.
Certain nations that had previously praised human rights also altered their policies, particularly in the wake of the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey. This shift resulted from the financial contracts and incentives that the Kingdom offered to the businesses of some of those nations. These contracts included billion-dollar projects to build roads, bridges, cities, green energy, and banks.
The Times newspaper kept an eye on the shift in religious conditions and the tightening of security measures in the Kingdom. It reported that while the Saudi religious police no longer patrol the squares and roads of the Kingdom as they once did, the nation is still subject to the harsh police rule of the Crown Prince, with the potential for imprisonment for any remarks made about him or his policies on social media or even inadvertent ones.
It is noteworthy that many citizens of the Kingdom have been forced to hide behind false accounts in order to criticize the modesty of the conditions in the Kingdom for fear of persecution due to the ongoing repression in the country. The only way for entrepreneurs to make money in this kind of environment is if they are part of Bin Salman’s inner circle or if they know someone who can put them in contact with the Saudi Crown Prince. If not, your company will close, you will be kicked out of the nation, and there will be limitations on your ability to return to the Kingdom. Maybe because of the severity of the punishments, some people do not think this could be real and instead think it is a joke.
