The surprisingly benign opinions of Jamal Khashoggi
In his last-ever message to Saudi dissident Yahya Assiri, journalist Jamal Khashoggi told him to use more polite language in how he addresses the regime. When Assiri fired back that the regime doesn’t deserve polite language, Khashoggi replied “it doesn’t matter.”
Within weeks, Khashoggi would be dead; murdered and dismembered in an Istanbul consulate, the Turkish government said, for the apparent crime of criticizing the Saudi regime.
But Khashoggi was far from a dissident; his immense body of work reveals a Saudi patriot with only the most respectful criticisms of his home country. He never called for regime change, he never questioned the central role of Islam in Saudi Arabia and he certainly never called for violence.
Below, a look at the markedly benign opinions that caused Saudi Arabia to mark a man for death.
‘I’M NOT ASKING FOR DEMOCRACY’
Although many Westerners had not heard the name Jamal Khashoggi before what appears to be his brutal Oct. 2 murder, he was considered one of the most famous and influential Arab journalists. In March, the decidedly anti-Saudi network Al Jazeera had Khashoggi on and touted him as the man “who dared to criticize the Saudi royal leadership.” But Khashoggi defended the social reforms of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto autocrat of Saudi Arabia and the same man now suspected to have ordered his execution. “Allowing for women to drive, allowing for women to be empowered, limiting the power of the religious establishment … he is doing the right things,” said the exiled writer. Instead, Khashoggi’s quarrel with his government is their sudden crackdown on anyone with even a modicum of perceived disloyalty. “I’m not asking for democracy, I’m asking for people being allowed to speak,” he said.
‘I AM NOT AGAINST THE SYSTEM, PER SE’
Unlike most Saudi critics quoted in Western media, Khashoggi was a former insider of sorts, having spent several years as the media adviser to Prince Turki bin Faisal, the former head of Saudi intelligence. In May, Khashoggi sat for an interview with the podcast Arab Tyrant Manual. As the name suggests, hosts Iyad El-Baghdadi and Ahmed Gatnash do not care for much of the Arab world’s leadership, including Saudi Arabia. Here again, Khashoggi was a defender of the existing Saudi order of absolute monarchy. “I still don’t want to see myself as opposed to the system,” he said. “I am not against the system, per se, but if I can push for reform I would not hesitate to.”
‘I BEGAN TO FEEL WHATEVER NARROW SPACE I HAD IN SAUDI ARABIA WAS GETTING NARROWER’
Khashoggi had been in self-imposed exile in Washington since mid-2017. The reason, ironically, was because he criticized American authorities. At a U.S. conference only days after Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, Khashoggi criticized the presidentelect’s perceived ties to Russia, warning that it could lead to Iranian domination of the Middle East. In response, Saudi authorities released a statement disavowing Khashoggi and banning him from appearing on television, writing in Saudi newspapers or even posting to social media. “I was ordered silent,” Khashoggi later told Vanity Fair, adding, “I began to feel whatever narrow space I had in Saudi Arabia was getting narrower. I thought it would be better to get out and be safe.”
‘YET WE ARE THE ENEMY’
His first column for The Washington Post in September, 2017, was about Khashoggi’s utter bafflement at the “climate of fear and intimidation” that had suddenly overtaken his home country. He described Mohammed bin Salman as a “young, charismatic leader” who was instituting popular and badly needed reforms. Regardless, even known reform-supporters such as Khashoggi were being “rounded up in the middle of the night.” “My friends and I living abroad feel helpless,” wrote Khashoggi. “We are not opposed to our government and care deeply about Saudi Arabia. It is the only home we know or want. Yet we are the enemy.”
‘SHOULDN’T WE ASK WHY PEACE-LOVING CANADA HAS TURNED AGAINST US?’
In August, Canadian Foreign Affairs Mminister Chrystia Freeland posted a tweet calling on Saudi Arabia to free jailed activists Raif and Samar Badawi. The response from Riyadh was an all-out diplomatic war. For Khashoggi, Saudi Arabia’s Canadian freakout was a familiar version of the regime mood swings that had driven him from the country. “Saudi citizens no longer understand the rationale behind the relentless wave of arrests,” he wrote in a Washington Post piece. Khashoggi wasn’t entirely on Canada’s side, noting that it could also be directing its human rights criticisms at Egypt, Syria and Yemen. Nevertheless, he questioned the Saudi government’s willingness to make an enemy out of a former ally for seemingly no reason.
“Instead of lashing out at Canada, shouldn’t we ask why peace-loving Canada has turned against us? … Surely, we cannot arbitrarily arrest female activists and expect the world to turn a blind eye,” he wrote.