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This doco (Bitter Lake) suggests they don't want radicalisation at all: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02gyz6b/adam-curtis-bitter-lake http://www.bbc.co

by estefan 10y ago

This doco (Bitter Lake) suggests they don't want radicalisation at all: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02gyz6b/adam-curtis-bitter-lake http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02gyz6b/adam-curtis-bi... It claims the Saud family needed to appease conservative clerics to maintain power, so that's why they sponsored all these fanatical clerics. They kicked the can down the road and now their chickens are coming home to roost.

DominikR 10y ago
They are still part of the problem if they sponsor these fanatics.
- estefan 10y ago
  Yeah absolutely, but the doco argues they aren't doing it to create some parallel of Catholicism, but rather as a way to appease the extremists who could have toppled them from power 50 years ago. The trouble is, those schools have now created a load of brainwashed idiots who are now causing trouble.
  - DominikR 10y ago
    It is one thing if you spread internally crazy ideologies or if you spend considerable resources to go out there and try to subvert every society you possibly can. Saudi education literally teaches children that they must wage jihad against the infidels (to spread their faith) and that's after 9/11 when they supposedly reviewed their textbooks for children to remove all texts that might spread hate. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19/AR2006051901769.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05... I say if that's the only way the Saud family can hold onto power then it's not worth supporting them. These guys have done more to make Islam look bad than anyone else in the last decades combined.
    - tt44 10y ago
      > I say if that's the only way the Saud family can hold onto power then it's not worth supporting them. Who do you think will be in power if the Saudis aren't?
    - afarrell 10y ago
      > Who do you think will be in power if the Saudis aren't The Hashemites
  - woodpanel 10y ago
    Why I oppose this view completely (please don't take this personally, I mean what the movie conveys) apart from leaving out the question of Arabian Nationality: You don't need to spread Wahabism globally to quite some local clerics in your country. But the latter is what the Saudis spent much effort in. For decades they've flown in Clerics or Soon-To-Be-Clerics from countries all over the world, putting them in their religous universities for some years and then sending them back as a measure to spread radicalism into other countries. Boko Haram is direct descendent of this policy.
arethuza 10y ago
I can give a strong recommendation for Inside the Kingdom by Robert Lacey - someone mentioned it the last time I recommended Bitter Lake on HN. http://www.robertlacey.com/?q=book/inside-kingdom http://www.robertlacey.com/?q=book/inside-kingdom [NB Bitter Lake is awesome for both content and style].
ljf 10y ago
A most excellent documentary, well worth a viewing.
woodpanel 10y ago
As have stated other film critics [1] this documentation takes a rather one-sided approach in that it's basically the fault of the west (and of the USSR). It seem to lack fact checking and leaves out one of the main issues surrounding modern arabic history: the delayed formation of nation-states and the threat modernism posed to existing, usually aristocratic power structures. Specifically Saudi-Arabia felt threatened by movements like Pan-Arabism and Ba'athism and used religeous radicalism as an ideology to counter them. Yes, the cold-war factions quickly found their adversaries on either side but it doesn't take a grain away from the pile of guilt the Saudi Establishment has amassed. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_Lake_(film)#Reception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_Lake_(film)#Reception
- arethuza 10y ago
  From what I can see pretty much every analysis of something like the recent war in Afghanistan has its own perspective and it's only by reading different accounts that you can get any idea of what actually happened. [e.g. I've read multiple accounts of the "why can't the Paras install a washing machine in a hospital" incident - each from wildly different perspectives]. I guess this need to get different perspective might be obvious to trained historian - but my degree is in CS :-)
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
  > the delayed formation of nation-states Do you think that between the British, the French, the Russians, and the Ottomans all controlling the region, the development of nation-states may have been delayed by understandable reasons.
  - woodpanel 10y ago
    I think so. Or to put it in another perspective: Nations often (if not mostly or everytime) came into being by an outside threat. USA = the British England = The French/Catholic Church Germany = France Poland = Germany and Russia and so on. Threats make possible that people see an "us". I very much like the term "imagined communities" (Benedict Anderson) in this regard.
- 10y ago

by estefan 10y ago

DominikR 10y ago

They are still part of the problem if they sponsor these fanatics.

estefan 10y ago
Yeah absolutely, but the doco argues they aren't doing it to create some parallel of Catholicism, but rather as a way to appease the extremists who could have toppled them from power 50 years ago. The trouble is, those schools have now created a load of brainwashed idiots who are now causing trouble.
- DominikR 10y ago
  It is one thing if you spread internally crazy ideologies or if you spend considerable resources to go out there and try to subvert every society you possibly can. Saudi education literally teaches children that they must wage jihad against the infidels (to spread their faith) and that's after 9/11 when they supposedly reviewed their textbooks for children to remove all texts that might spread hate. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19/AR2006051901769.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05... I say if that's the only way the Saud family can hold onto power then it's not worth supporting them. These guys have done more to make Islam look bad than anyone else in the last decades combined.
  - tt44 10y ago
    > I say if that's the only way the Saud family can hold onto power then it's not worth supporting them. Who do you think will be in power if the Saudis aren't?
  - afarrell 10y ago
    > Who do you think will be in power if the Saudis aren't The Hashemites
- woodpanel 10y ago
  Why I oppose this view completely (please don't take this personally, I mean what the movie conveys) apart from leaving out the question of Arabian Nationality: You don't need to spread Wahabism globally to quite some local clerics in your country. But the latter is what the Saudis spent much effort in. For decades they've flown in Clerics or Soon-To-Be-Clerics from countries all over the world, putting them in their religous universities for some years and then sending them back as a measure to spread radicalism into other countries. Boko Haram is direct descendent of this policy.

arethuza 10y ago

I can give a strong recommendation for Inside the Kingdom by Robert Lacey - someone mentioned it the last time I recommended Bitter Lake on HN. http://www.robertlacey.com/?q=book/inside-kingdom http://www.robertlacey.com/?q=book/inside-kingdom [NB Bitter Lake is awesome for both content and style].

ljf 10y ago

A most excellent documentary, well worth a viewing.

woodpanel 10y ago

As have stated other film critics [1] this documentation takes a rather one-sided approach in that it's basically the fault of the west (and of the USSR). It seem to lack fact checking and leaves out one of the main issues surrounding modern arabic history: the delayed formation of nation-states and the threat modernism posed to existing, usually aristocratic power structures. Specifically Saudi-Arabia felt threatened by movements like Pan-Arabism and Ba'athism and used religeous radicalism as an ideology to counter them. Yes, the cold-war factions quickly found their adversaries on either side but it doesn't take a grain away from the pile of guilt the Saudi Establishment has amassed. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_Lake_(film)#Reception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_Lake_(film)#Reception

arethuza 10y ago
From what I can see pretty much every analysis of something like the recent war in Afghanistan has its own perspective and it's only by reading different accounts that you can get any idea of what actually happened. [e.g. I've read multiple accounts of the "why can't the Paras install a washing machine in a hospital" incident - each from wildly different perspectives]. I guess this need to get different perspective might be obvious to trained historian - but my degree is in CS :-)
GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
> the delayed formation of nation-states Do you think that between the British, the French, the Russians, and the Ottomans all controlling the region, the development of nation-states may have been delayed by understandable reasons.
- woodpanel 10y ago
  I think so. Or to put it in another perspective: Nations often (if not mostly or everytime) came into being by an outside threat. USA = the British England = The French/Catholic Church Germany = France Poland = Germany and Russia and so on. Threats make possible that people see an "us". I very much like the term "imagined communities" (Benedict Anderson) in this regard.
10y ago