28 September 2011 Balancing Act in Saudi Arabia By Gwynne Dyer It’s amazing how much sub-text you can pack into a single word. Consider this recent announcement by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia: “Women will be able to run as candidates in the municipal elections and will EVEN have the right to vote.” Well, hurray. …
30 May 2004 If Saudi Arabia Falls…. By Gwynne Dyer If you drew up a list of Royal Families That Were Long Overdue To Be Overthrown, the al-Saud family would rank right up there with the Bourbons and the Romanovs. The latest terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia, in which twenty-two people, almost all foreigners, were …
10 January 2003 Al-Jazeera and Arab Democracy By Gwynne Dyer Given that well over two-thirds of the countries on the planet are now democracies, how come none of the 18 Arabic-speaking countries is genuinely democratic? There are a number of sham democracies like Egypt where the elections are always rigged, a couple of half-way democracies …