Markets are looking good today. Obama’s puppy was looking good yesterday – could there be a connection between the cute little Portugese canine (a gift from Sentor Kennedy to the Obama girls, who were promised one during the election) and the positive earnings emanating from the financial sector? Bankers have recently been all-too-often-described as “dogs” after all.
Asian markets have been mixed today after the strong rally in the US earlier this week on the back of the financials – but with short-term profit taking kicking in on the S&P in yesterday’s session (Goldman’s, JP and MS all down, Citi up!) Japan was unable to follow-through on some of the euphoria created with the stimulus package over the long-weekend. Hong Kong struggled to return positive but other exporters retreated slightly
Europe is currently trading broadly slightly negative, and US futures are a little up (DJIA +11pts, S&P +0.6pts.
Oil is holding above $50/brl, Gold is still just below $900/oz and the BDIY is up for the third day in a row!
On currencies, cable has re-topped the 1.50 level for the first time this year, as some sterling strength returns, and the Euro remains strong despite being off recent highs.
Saudi’s Shifting Sands? – some observations following a recent visit to Riyadh.
Saudi is a strange and wonderful place. Some of the richest people in the world are to be found, and some of the poorest. Some of the most liberal lifestyles (in the compounds) and some of the most restrictive within any Islamic state – at times even more stifling than those living under the oppressive Islamic leaders in Iran.
Recent headlines such as the endorsement of a marriage of an 8yr old girl to a man 20 years her senior have obvious negative impacts on a Kingdom often rocked by scandal and disdain from the point of view of an all too hostile Western and liberal press. Of course, it does not do itself any favours by creating headlines such as the “stoning of a woman to protect her honour” – what they were apparently “protecting” was nothing more than her attempt to exchange innocent girlish glances at a boy across a room – something of course stringent in its effect and negative in its implication for a youth struggling to deal with an ever freer world through technological change and innovation and a clerical oversight committee doing all it can to prevent many natural adolescent urges to flourish. Whatever your personal view, restricting the most basic of human behavioural development cannot make for a very happy and easy-going population. Let alone a demographic that boasts 80% of the total number of 27m living in the country between the ages of 18-30yrs.
Things are certainly changing though. In the last 5 years in particular, the slow-moving yet definitely reform-minded King Abdullah has put into place a long-term plan of changes to plant the seeds of a powerful youth movement that will bring about inevitable changes. These changes are sometimes subtle to the point of not being noticed by the outside world, but significant in the context of the Kingdom.
Anyone that has visited Saudi in the last 10 years will be amazed at the differences they will notice when taking a trip there now. Women walking around the gleaming shopping malls with their heads uncovered and hair flowing over their tight-fitting and lavishly decorated abiyas, many of them only loosely wearing them around their western clothing underneath, their coloured hair and sometimes even tattoos on brave display for those moments where there do not appear to be any religiously strict Saudis walking around. Groups of girls and boys walk around with only a few feet separating them (something that would not have been allowed merely several years ago) and some establishments (where single men must sit in the non-family section) have no real physical barrier between the sections where men and women sit anymore. Small and insignificant observations in any given day, but monumental and attitude-shifting developments in this tightly-controlled and ruled city.
King Abdullah has made two very important and significant changes to the political landscape in the last month or so. First, he unceremoniously removed the sitting head of the religious police. An extremely powerful position when considered that at any point you can be whisked away by forces of the religious police for any misdemeanour they may think you have committed, no proof necessary – naturally. He was replaced by a far more reform-minded and less conservative head – someone in fact that King Abdullah had been preparing and nurturing for a long time – to ensure he was fully briefed in the long-term strategic plan for the Kingdom.
The second important development came on the eve of the G20 summit – faced with a vacuum at home with the now no-longer-a-secret terminal illness of the Deputy Prime Minister Crown Prince Sultan Abdul-Aziz (86yrs old), the King appointed a second Deputy Prime Minister, Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz, the former interior minister (not exactly a spring chicken at the age of 76 himself). The perception that there must be a clear answer to who will rule (and “rule” the King does in Saudi, one of the clearest forms of monarchy anywhere in the world where royal decree is absolutely final and binding) has troubled some senior Saudis. This has now been resolved. King Abdullah is now free to continue his reforms at a pace the religious clerics have no choice but to be happy with – the concession is that the naturally disruptive force of a young western-educated population are being asked to delay their hankering for an open lifestyle where it is not taboo to meet with a member of the opposite sex unless she is your relative or wife.
An example of the potentially country changing force you will find all around you in the capital is the widespread use of Bluetooth. In a country where communication is controlled between the sexes, this technological advance has provided the perfect outlet for many to continue “covert” communication across a separated family section in a popular restaurant and/or food court in a mall.
Cable television and the internet have of course been catalysts for a number of changes amongst the young and restless population (what do you do when you have no cinemas, no bars, no clubs, no social hang-outs and no arcades or anywhere else the young are able to gather and live out their rights of passage?). It is bad enough for the religious conservatives that the younger population are fully aware of all that life has to offer outside of the Saudi religious borders via information being piped straight into any home with a phone connection and a little tech-know-how – you have to circumvent the barriers imposed on internet sites to obtain certain content.
More than the outside world coming into the Kingdom through technology is the pressure of a nation that sends the majority of its young students abroad (the US and UK in particular) to study at universities and other higher education institutions. The lifestyles that these young Saudis enjoy and become accustomed to during their informative years naturally creates a desire for a similar lifestyle when they all of a sudden return home to their infinitely more restrictive family households – this is totally normal, but exceptionally disorderly for those that like things the “old-way”.
Saudi remains the sleeping-giant in the region that all are hoping will soon awake from its slumber. The relatively highly industrialised nature of the nation makes for an attractive prospect, and the huge riches that can be spread and serviced further throughout the GCC are mouth-watering when viewed as a reflection of the potential importance of the region as a whole. Once the powerful engine that is Saudi is revved up and put into gear, there will be seismic changes developing in each of the constituent nations that at present only slightly ripple on the back of its idle-rumbling.
A story to highlight some of the frictions prevalent – on entering a lift with a colleague and three young Saudi women (in Riyadh’s Kingdom Tower) covered in their abiyas from head to toe, the doors shutting to the outside world as it descended the tallest tower in the city (a good 70 second ride), the three of them un-wrapped their black clothing to reveal beneath very normal and attractive examples of female attire – mid-riff exposing t-shirts and tight jeans (normal almost everywhere except in Saudi of course). They giggled and joked in perfect American-accented English how they were going to spend their evening and which boys they were going to text having recently obtained their numbers via “bluetoothing” – totally oblivious to my (Western) colleague and I standing in the corner in our business suits – clearly not Saudi locals nor religious police-force members. A few seconds before the lift arrived at the lobby-level they all re-adjusted their clothing to ensure nothing was unduly exposed, apart from some fetching high-heels, and glanced over in our direction with total confidence and a sense of delicious irony to say “we’re like any other girls, you know”.
Saudi will one day soon be like any other country, you know.
No comments:
Post a Comment