BFF   

“But the general trend is toward a hardening of rules. Prince Nayef, the crown prince and power behind the throne, believes this is no time to show weakness. Dissidents are detained or given travel bans, a favourite tactic of the regime in Syria until it started to use harsher methods in the past year. Media rules have also become tighter. No fly appears too small to warrant swatting. Hamza Kashgari, a young blogger, fled to Malaysia after posting provocative comments about the Prophet Muhammad. The government applied all available diplomatic pressure to have him returned. Emboldened senior clerics are asking for Mr Kashgari to be executed for blasphemy. Religion is at the heart of many conflicts. The volatile but oil-rich Eastern Province, home to many of the Sunni kingdom’s sizeable Shia minority, has witnessed frequent bouts of violent unrest in the past year. Two men were killed and several injured when police opened fire on a demonstration in February. In Qatif, the provincial capital, the walls of the main street are covered with graffiti insulting members of the royal family and asking, “Where is the oil money?”…………”


That graffiti question was rhetorical, no doubt. For whoever wrote it on that wall knows as well as I do where most of the oil money goes. The oil comes from the Eastern Province, Qatif and other areas, from the belly of the ancestral land of the same people who are treated like third or fourth class citizens in the Wahhabi ‘kingdom without magic’. But the money goes mostly to Riyadh, to a few thousand princes and their retainers and tribal sycophant. If in doubt as to who gets the oil money, this link here will clarify matter.
Cheers
mhg


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