Saudi prince pledges ‘moderate’ kingdom

RIYADH: Powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman pledged a “moderate, open” Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, breaking with ultraconservative clerics in favour of an image catering to foreign investors and Saudi youth.

The Saudi strongman, 32, did not mince words in declaring a new reality for the kingdom, hours after announcing the launch of an independent $500 billion megacity — with “separate regulation” — along the Red Sea coastline.

“We want to live a normal life. A life in which our religion translates to tolerance, to our traditions of kindness,” he told international investors gathered at an economic forum in Riyadh.

“Seventy percent of the Saudi population is under 30, and honestly we will not spend the next 30 years of our lives dealing with destructive ideas. We will destroy them today and at once,” the crown prince said.

Prince Mohammed, known by his initials MBS, said he would see to it his country moved past 1979, a reference to the rise of political Islam in the years following the assassination of King Faisal in 1975.

The early 1970s ushered major change into the oil-rich kingdom, including the introduction of television and schools for girls.

But that came to a halt as the Al-sheikh family, which controls religious and social regulation in the kingdom, and the ruling Al-saud family slowly reinforced the conservative policies Riyadh is known for.

Prince Mohammed’s statement is the most direct attack by a Saudi official on the country’s influential conservative religious circles, whose stranglehold on Saudi society now appears to face serious challenges.

“We are returning to what we were before -- a country of moderate Islam that is open to all religions, traditions and people around the globe,” he said.