For 62 years, Saudi Arabia has been ruled by sons of the founder of the Kingdom, Abdul Aziz. The new king is a part of this generation, as is the crown prince he has named. But eventually the monarchy will have to pass to the next generation, which is made up of thousands of princes. Robert Siegel talks to Middle East specialist Joseph Braude about Saudi succession.
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Transcript
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
From NPR News this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
And I'm Robert Siegel. The Saudi king who just died and the king who succeeds him are both sons of the founder of Saudi Arabia, Abdul Aziz, who was born sometime around 1880. Abdul Aziz had 22 wives and 45 sons. And since his death in 1953, all of the country's kings have been his sons. Upon assuming the throne today, Salman named as his crown prince his half-brother Muqrin, who is 69 years old, another so-called second-generation prince. And perhaps just as interesting is Salman's choice of a deputy crown prince, 55-year-old Mohammed bin Nayef, who is a grandson of the founder, one of the so-called third-generation princes. Mind you, it could be another 20 years before that generation takes the throne. But we're going to ask Middle East specialist Joseph Braude about that prospect. Now, he's an adviser to the Dubai-based Al-Mesbar Center for Research and Studies.
Welcome to the program.
JOSEPH BRAUDE: Thank you.
SIEGEL: Tell us about Mohammed bin Nayef, this 55-year-old deputy crown prince who would represent the first of his generation to ascend to the throne.
BRAUDE: Well, he's the son of the late interior minister and the present serving interior minister. He took the responsibility for interior and has introduced formidable expertise in the field of counterterrorism and also new approaches to the rehabilitation of jihadis. He has started something called the Mohammed bin Nayef Center for Counseling and Advice which creates a kind of a carrot and stick. So on the one hand, he's cracking down hard on jihadists. But on the other hand, he's giving them an opportunity through largess and marrying them off and retraining them to re-enter society as peaceful working men. It's also significant that Mohammed bin Nayef has no sons, he has only daughters. And in the cultural context of Saudi Arabia, that means he enjoys more trust to be less self-interested because he isn't trying to groom a son to be king. And that's part of why Mohammed bin Nayef, not a son of the former king or the present one, enjoys the support of the sons of the late King Abdullah.
SIEGEL: Do you have any sense of whether the Saudi people feel the same degree of allegiance to the younger princes, and the same tolerance of non-representative government for that matter, when the younger princes begin to take charge as they do to the sons of Abdul Aziz?
BRAUDE: In terms of popularity, I'd say again, Mohammed bin Nayef enjoys much of it. But more broadly, Robert, I think that for Saudi watchers in the West, the new generation of royals also coincides with a new and different Saudi Arabia, a monarchy less absolute for which the traditional Kremlinology-style focus on court intrigue is no longer enough to explain the future because pressures on the leadership are being brought to bear by ever more complex social forces in the country that do themselves influence top-level decisions more than in the past, and regardless of who emerges at the helm.
SIEGEL: Joseph Braude, thank you very much for talking with us about it.
BRAUDE: Thank you, Robert, my pleasure.
SIEGEL: Middle East specialist Joseph Braude spoke to us from Berkeley, California. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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