Muhammed Bin Salman The Ultimate Supervillain
“You can figure out what the villain fears by his choice of weapons.”
― Connie Brockway
Muhammed Bin Salman, The Ultimate Supervillain
They only exist in comic books they say but here is one in real life.
We have all seen supervillains in cartoons and movies. The supervillain shares his/her plans and then lets out an evil laugh as he issues some version of the line “At the stroke of midnight my evil plan will be complete”. Unlike many other villains, he started his come to power with the most masterful coup anyone has seen in modern times. Like all good mob bosses, he didn’t pull his potential rivals out of their beds in the middle of the night, no he simply summoned them a meet and then locked them all in the Ritz Carrolton in 2017. There was no getting out. Their options were - Give up everything you have and swear to disappear and be loyal or else. In a masterful stroke, he took control of everything inside the kingdom, where shall he go next? Supervillain plan one is complete. Downgrade any other royal with a claim to the succession, take away anyone with the financial power to rise up against you or anyone that had sensitive information and secure the army.
Now he is employing techniques of mass propaganda to sustain public support inside and outside the kingdom. Deep down however we can see the signs of how vulnerable he is. There is danger all around him since no dictator is ever safe not for a second. The reason being is that if he can take the thrown it too could be taken from him if he is not careful. Although he is the crown prince, the royal family could still replace him if he brings too much shame to the reputation of Saudi Arabia. Reputation, after all, is often more important to tribal life than actual human life. If he brings shame to the tribe, he will be eliminated. So, he lays his plans.
As we have seen in the new Tik Tok show called Effect put out by the Saudi Regime to highlight the consequences of dissident of any kind. At the end of the video made about Salma al-Shehab the female doctoral student sentenced to 34 years in prison and another 34 years on a travel ban once she is released (If she is ever released) for tweeting they used a catchphrase in Arabic “صغيرا كان أو كبير، إذا أخطأت فتحمل نتائج أخطائك” “Big or small, if you make a mistake, bear the consequences of your mistakes”. Which really sounds like something you would hear from the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland “If I lose my temper, you lose your head.” Which is not unrealistic since one of the most famous phrases used every day by Saudis when angry at someone is “حقطع رأسه” “Cut his head off”.
Then we move on to the fact that he himself in an interview said that Machiavelli was his role model. What an amazing role model for a ruler in the 21st century. Machiavelli was a 16th century Florentine philosopher known primarily for his political ideas. One of Machiavelli’s biggest questions was is it better for a prince to be loved or feared and MBS has clearly chosen the former. It is not surprising that he chose Machiavelli as a role model since Wahabi’s in general spend their lives driving using only a rear-view mirror, moving constantly into the future but only seeing the past. It is also not surprising that he chose to be feared by those around him since in the world of former nomadic tribesmen if you look like a lamb, you are for the slaughter and if you look like a lion, you will have the perception of dominance.
At the same time with the media being so far and wide-reaching MBS and his reforms must at least appear to be loved on the grand stage. With the lack of free speech, arbitrary arrests, torture, constant disappearances, and the propaganda regime videos he pumps out to his people constantly, the appearance of love is easy to manufacture. After all what investor wants to invest in a project like NEOM if there is a possibility that the people rise up, the tourist’s and expat workers will be too afraid to go to Saudi Arabia and their return on investment is then lost. NEOM is not the Field of Dreams, where “If you build it, they will come”.
Satisfy the crowd! And therein we see his underlining diabolical plan. 70% of the Saudi population is under the age of 30. When we think of such a young population we must think in terms of a new mindset. Many of them have already traveled abroad seen and experienced much more than the previous generation ever did. Their mothers and grandmothers were very much a member of the old tribal ways. What do you do when you have a country full of young people and you want to change their whole world? You distract them with bread and circuses.
Sports in Saudi Arabia have always been a major pastime for Saudis especially Soccer. With so much influence even if they do wonder about things all he needs to do with so much influence is making a call the Saudi team wins a match and boom cheering from his young population for his reign as the ultimate supervillain. Saudi Arabia defeated Argentina in the last FIFA World Cup which was described by the New York Times as an outcome that ranks as one of the greatest shocks in the tournament's 92-year history. The utter implausibility of a vastly inferior Saudi team defeating a vastly superior Argentinean team whom have won three world cups and reached the finals six times. Makes me seriously wonder if there are large sums of money involved. He who has the gold makes the rules.
He needs to fix the reputation of the country by altering the verbiage and the narrative. Male Guardianship for example got codified into the Personal Status Law (Has a better ring to it doesn’t it) since in the past the women seemed to be the ones fussing the most. Abayas were permitted to not be worn, they are allowed to apply for their own passport now once they are 21 and travel without permission they say. That is of course unless they step out of line. Travel bans are easier to inflict now that technology has been added to the equation. With a click of a button, you can find yourself trapped. Is it really freedom when you must surrender fundamental human rights to obtain the essentials needed to get a job, feed your children, drive a car, obtain a passport, and open a bank account. Reema bint Bandar Al Saud was appointed as ambassador to the US. A great idea let’s give them a puppet princess, a woman to spread our scripted propaganda. In a video released she notes on how women’s rights are at the forefront. She mentioned opening bank accounts, being declared an adult at the age of 21 and being able to apply get a passport and travel freely. But what she did not comment on is that they release one law make one promise and add to it a caveat law. If we look at the Personal Status Law, we see that disobedience to your husband is a crime so even if you are granted all the liberties in the world the disobedience laws will relieve you on those liberties as easily as they were given.
Despite modern-day posters displaying freedoms we have never seen on the ground in Saudi Arabia they are just that, an image, not actual internal change. MBS does not care about his people he only cares about his image and ultimate plans. Like all supervillains he is trapped in a mental arrogant bubble of me me me. Basically - Let the peasants die as I build my skyscraper! A testament to his manhood. But pacifying within and without is complex which is why we see so many fun toys popping up to distract his people from the unemployment problems, the fact that foreigners not of the driver and maid variety are making more than your average Saudi citizen. That roads are not repaired causing loss of life, that drainage systems are not installed properly in Jeddah so that every time it rains the cars literally float down the street (This has always been the case). We are seeing forcible displacement of people from their homes because he decided he wanted a given plot of land for this project or that. That the price of food in the markets has risen so high that some people are unable to provide for their families as they used to. That the population that received degrees can't find work with their degrees this is especially true for women which is concerning since according to the State Foreign Minister for Saudi Arabia 55 percent of college students in Saudi Arabia are women & more than 60 percent of graduate students in Saudi Arabia are women.
If we break it down, they took the young population educated them abroad, and now they are back unemployed and idle. If you have no concern for the people below you then you pacify them, so they don't look around and start asking the big questions. Things he does not care to fix or is incapable of fixing because who cares about things that have always been when you give them things that have never been?
When I was growing up, I never heard the words human rights, Free Speech, or Equal Rights in my Saudi school, why? Because if you teach a concept that is not present in a given society, the mind will naturally start to question their surroundings and that can never be allowed to happen for a supervillain. The minions must stay in their designed sphere that is the only way he keeps ultimate control. I urge you dear to reader to always look beyond what they say and remember that a regime that has covered up, lied, arbitrarily arrested, tortured, held people without due process and chopped up a journalist then denied any involvement cannot be washed clean by a sky scrapper, a soccer team, a night club, Halloween or promises of grandeur. He can only be washed clean by actually making a shift in his mindset and sweeping genuine reforms.
As I said before the ultimate supervillain will always be distracted by his own erections of grandeur. He is running out of time, he promised 2030 and if he fails to pull it off, he could find himself in a right pickle not just with the other princes who seek his seat but the world. If he fails to fix the counties reputation foreign investment will not come in, if he fails to fix their reputation on the global stage tourism money won’t come in and when the oil runs out he could find the country slipping back into its pre-oil era.
Additional reading:
New York Times Article: Even the Saudi Team Is Stunned After Victory Over Argentina
Elise Evans Martin
