Saudi Council Considers Important Issues
On Saturday in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a 150-men council met to discuss important issues such as water, real estate investment, adoption of international agreement on oil pollution, infrastructure development, and employment issues. The council heard from the Water and Electricity Minister, among other officials of the Saudi bureaucracy.
Replace ‘the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’ with, for instance, the State of Connecticut, and the paragraph above would still read just fine, which is remarkable. Okay, I concede that the decisions of the council are no more than recommendations to His Highness and must be implemented by feet-dragging bureaucrats. However, with the Kingdom growing ever more complex and an independent judicial system in place, the council is well poised to take on a much larger role in Saudi politics.
Called Majlis al-Shura, which translates roughly to the Consultative Council, the quasi-legislature was formed in 1992 and is in its fourth term. The representatives are all commoners rather than royals; they include tribal representation from the likes of Rashid, which is quite the equivalent of a Cherokee seat in the US House. What’s more, members also include Shi’ites, who enjoy(ed) similar political legitimacy as Communists during the Red Scare.
Skeptics will hurry to point out that the members of the Majlis are all appointed by King Abdullah. But considering His Highness is actually older than the Kingdom itself, appointing “rebels” and “heretics” to give him advice is progressive to say the very least. I am among the optimists who believe the Majlis holds great potentials for representation for groups traditionally marginalized in the Kingdom. You know the word I’m alluding to.
Bo-yun Liu
