----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury@aeiveos.com>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2001 9:05 PM
Subject: Re: terrorism, what it is and what should never be
.
> Also, I happened to catch part of an interview with
> the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. -- Prince Bandar bin
> Sultan bin Abdul Aziz on a PBS show last night.
> A *very* astute politician. I suspect he could
> beat most U.S. politicians in an election without
> breaking a sweat. He made a *very* interesting point
> that the al Saud family had been in power for ~300 years.
> This is *not* a "politically" incompetent group.
>
> My 2c worth for today.
> Robert
>
I'm afraid Prince Bandar is pulling your leg. The House of Saud has been
around for ~300 years but for most of that time they didn't rule anything
apart from a couple of oases in the Nejd. They only became the rulers of
what is now Saudi Arabia after the collapse of the Ottoman empire, in about
1921. Previously, most of that area was ruled by the Hashemite dynasty, in
their capacity as Sharifs of Mecca (they were basically the local clients of
the Ottomans). After the Hashemites were thrown out by Ibn Saud they went
off and became kings of Jordan (still going) and Iraq (until the Baath took
over). There are plenty of very able people among the 7,000 or so princes
but that's not the critical variable. What matters is "asibiyah" a word that
doesn't translate well into english but means something like "group
solidarity". If the ruling family loses it they've had it. Typically, once
an extended clan gets power over an extended territory it only retains that
solidarity for about a hundred years/three generations. Steve Davies
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