Why a king's ransom is not enough for Saudi Arabia
's protesters | Comment is free | The Guardian: "No kingdom is an island, particularly when it sits in a sea of revolution. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, watching the assault on Libya's strong man Muammar Gaddafi with his monarchy's usual complacency, thinks he can buy off protests with the promise of gifts.Of course, the scale of the bribes the king offered last week to his country's alienated young generation – £22bn – is something only an oil-rich monarch could deliver. The Saudi king speaks as a father to the youthful population – after all, this is the only royal family to give its name to its people – and he expects them to obey the name al-Saud as they would their own father.
But the king has compromised his authority by combining it with the role of 'sugar daddy'. Nowhere else are subjects promised such largesse to not rock the boat."
