Saudi Crown prince on A Trump-like tantrum
Innocuous tweet by Freeland seized upon by a draconian, totalitarian regime
For the second time in as many months, Canada finds itself the target of bullying on the world stage.
This week, Saudi Arabia took umbrage at a seemingly innocuous tweet by Global Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, denouncing the detention of women’s rights activists Samar Badawi and Nassima al- Sada. Echoed by the Twitter account of the Global Affairs Canada department, it was the kind of fare that is usually simply ignored by authoritarian regimes that routinely run roughshod over the rights of their own citizens.
This time, however, Saudi Arabia reacted with fury at what it called interference in its domestic affairs. It has expelled the Canadian ambassador, nixed future trade deals, cancelled flights to Toronto by its national airline and announced it will uproot all Saudi students studying in Canada on government scholarships.
What in normal times would have been a tempest in a teapot, if that, turned into a full-fledged tantrum by the oil-rich Persian Gulf state. And many foreign observers are pointing the finger at Mohammed bin Salman, commonly referred to as MbS, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince. Though his aging father is officially in charge of the kingdom, he is the heir apparent. For the last year, he has been asserting his power in the absolute monarchy by allegedly taking the prime minister of Lebanon hostage, detaining various oligarchs (and relatives) in the Riyadh Ritz, comparing arch-enemy Iran’s supreme leader to Hitler, waging a war in Yemen and maintaining a punishing land, air and sea blockade on Qatar.
He may have undertaken reforms like opening cinemas for the first time in decades and finally allowing women to drive, but he also imprisoned the human rights activists who had long been pushing for such freedoms, such as Samar Badawi.
With MbS flexing some muscle, Saudi Arabia’s dramatic rebuke to Canada is eerily reminiscent of U.S. President Donald Trump’s Twitter tirade against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after the G7 Summit in the Charlevoix, ostensibly because Trudeau had reiterated Canada’s objections to being pushed around on trade.
Trump managed in a few hundred characters to weaken the historic and special relationship that has long existed between two stalwart allies and neighbours — an alarming prospect. The Saudi backlash merely underscores what we already know, but too often ignore, for trade and diplomatic reasons.
This is a merciless totalitarian regime with draconian laws that suppresses free speech, brooks no dissent, treats women like second-class citizens, abuses prisoners and has a history of sponsoring terrorism.
Foreign policy experts have read Saudi Arabia’s outburst as: MbS trying to distract from his own foreign policy blunders at home (professor Bessma Momani writes in the Globe and Mail); an attempt to “intimidate critics into silence” (according to the New York Times editorial board); and an effort to make the kingdom appear more fearsome and important than it actually is (professor Daniel W. Drezner in The Washington Post). Or maybe all of the above.
Canada isn’t backing down — nor should it.
Economically, we do only about $4 billion a year in trade with Saudi Arabia. (It accounts for less than a per cent of Quebec’s annual exports.) And many Canadians were never comfortable with the deal to sell light armoured vehicles to the country, brokered by the previous Conservative government.
Saudi Arabia’s below-the-belt punches — like a now-deleted meme suggesting a 9/11-style airliner attack on the CN Tower and all kinds of troll accounts promoting Quebec sovereignty on social media — are mere glancing blows that only expose the kingdom’s true colours.
But that doesn’t mean no one is being hurt.
Weep for Ensaf Haidar and her three children. Residents of Sherbrooke, who officially became citizens on Canada Day, she has fought for six long years on behalf of her husband, Raif Badawi. He has been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia on charges of insulting Islam since 2012 and was flogged in 2015, prompting an international outcry. His plight is only likely to get more perilous now that Canada’s ambassador has been kicked out and other world powers have been shown the cost of even the mildest criticism.
Worry for Samar Badawi, Raif ’s sister and an activist in her own right. How long will she now be detained to placate the ego of a rising strongman?
Spare some sympathy for thousands of Saudi foreign students who now face abrupt relocation to other countries weeks before courses are set to resume. Once again, Saudi Arabia demonstrates that the rights and interests of its own people are subservient to the interests of its ruling elite.
Fear for the next political prisoner, in the next rogue state or totalitarian regime, whose case countries might henceforth be more reluctant to champion — at risk of prompting similar hysterics.
Mostly, be alarmed for the international order based on law, reason and diplomacy, which was already in the process of unravelling. Canada’s allies may be equally disturbed, but they haven’t exactly rushed to our defence, perhaps fearing becoming the next lightning rod. The bullies, thugs and dictators of the world now have another unfortunate example to follow in Saudi Arabia’s belligerence.