NEOM: Construction of Futuristic Saudi Arabian City “Continues to Court Controversy” (Part 2)

The month of May became even more con­tro­ver­sial for NEOM after the BBC, a pil­lar of the West­ern estab­lish­ment, refused to be out­done by its U.S media coun­ter­parts, and decid­ed to go all-in with an extra­or­di­nary claim. Its head­line: “Sau­di Forces ‘Told to Kill’ to Clear Land for Eco-City.” To offer cre­dence to the arti­cle, not two but three jour­nal­ists had con­tributed to this “British Broad­cast­ing scoop.”

The BBC’s alle­ga­tion relied on a dis­graced ex-intel­li­gence offi­cer who has defect­ed to the UK caused, some sug­gest, by his obses­sive vendet­ta against Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Sau­di Ara­bia.

The “dis­si­dent,” Colonel Rab­bi Alenezi, “was ordered to evict vil­lagers from a tribe in the Gulf state to make way for The Line.” One was alleged­ly shot and killed for protest­ing against the evic­tion.

The BBC says that while bin Salman has described the con­struc­tion area as “the per­fect back can­vas”, sup­pos­ed­ly more than 6,000 peo­ple so far have been evict­ed and moved to make way for The Line.

Of course, these claims fit snug­ly with the West’s stereo­typ­ing of the Mid­dle East, where all women are chat­tels; homo­sex­u­als are incar­cer­at­ed and cas­trat­ed; and thieves have their hands chopped off. In fact, the Mid East’s rul­ing class are lit­tle more than medieval feu­dal Barons and the only ele­ment present­ly lack­ing are the country’s “bas­ket of deplorables” being forced into stocks and hav­ing camel dung thrown at them.

Colonel Rab­bi Alenezi (Cred­it: BBC)

Col Alenezi is a folk hero amongst his peo­ple. Instead of rob­bing from the rich and giv­ing to the poor, he dares to crit­i­cise the Sheikh over­lords. He is fund­ed by his fol­low­ers and present­ly lives some­where in the UK, con­tin­u­al­ly look­ing behind his shoul­der. The Colonel even says he gets up to “50 death threats a week!” and the Sau­di Gov­ern­ment alleged­ly “has a USD250,000 boun­ty on his head.” Cyn­i­cism aside, that is an inte­gral part of being a folk hero. 

He says the clear­ance order was for al-Khu­ray­bah, 4.5km south of The Line. The vil­lages were most­ly pop­u­lat­ed by the Huwai­t­at tribe, who have inhab­it­ed the Tabuk region in the coun­try’s north-west for gen­er­a­tions.

Alenezi told the BBC that the April 2020 order char­ac­terised the Huwai­t­at “as rebels” and “who­ev­er con­tin­ues to resist [evic­tion] should be killed.” He went on to say that he’d dodged the mis­sion on fab­ri­cat­ed med­ical grounds, but it still went ahead.

The prob­lem being with this claim is that the West’s stereo­typ­ing of the region makes it believ­able.  

The BBC writes, “One tribesman, Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti, refused to allow a land reg­istry com­mit­tee to val­ue his prop­er­ty, and was shot dead by Sau­di author­i­ties a day lat­er, dur­ing the clear­ance mis­sion. He had pre­vi­ous­ly post­ed mul­ti­ple videos on social media protest­ing against the evic­tions.”

A state­ment issued by Sau­di state secu­ri­ty, at the time, said al-Huwaiti had opened fire on secu­ri­ty forces and they had been forced to retal­i­ate. Mean­while, the BBC admit­ted it was not able to inde­pen­dent­ly ver­i­fy Alenez­i’s con­tro­ver­sial com­ments about “lethal force.” Sau­di author­i­ties did com­pen­sate those required to move from their homes, but crit­ics claim the finan­cial amount was not suf­fi­cient.

Mean­while, Sau­di activists remain ever vig­i­lant and high­ly crit­i­cal of the country’s rul­ing class. Arrest­ing those who stand up against their evic­tion, they say, is not rare, although gain­ing sol­id evi­dence is chal­leng­ing. The Human Rights organ­i­sa­tion, ALQST, sur­veyed 35 evict­ed peo­ple from the Jed­dah neigh­bour­hoods. None say they had received com­pen­sa­tion or suf­fi­cient warn­ing, in accor­dance with local law, and more than half com­ment­ed they’d been forced out of their homes under threat of arrest.

Again, how much of this can be believed?

Col Alenezi told the BBC, “Mohamed Bin Salman will let noth­ing stand in the way of NEOM. It is his pet project.”

Any West­ern eVTOL or drone car­go com­pa­ny sign­ing deals with the Mid­dle East coun­tries should be aware of such claims. Yet, do you turn a blind eye or sim­ply accept the region’s polit­i­cal sta­tus quo? No coun­try is per­fect. Although, it is impor­tant to be aware of each region’s fail­ings.

Human rights is a vital issue and one, today, which the West prides itself on. Yet, his­to­ry paints a very dif­fer­ent pic­ture. 

Over the years, the UK has seen a num­ber of vil­lages drowned by reser­voirs and the local inhab­i­tants evict­ed. This “dis­place­ment of peo­ple” due to “tech­no­log­i­cal progress” is a reg­u­lar past fea­ture in the West. Yet, it is Amer­i­ca who has been the worst offend­er.

The UK Guardian news­pa­per wrote a fas­ci­nat­ing fea­ture last year point­ing out that recent research shows at least 1.13 mil­lion acres of trib­al land – an area larg­er than the state of Rhode Island – have been flood­ed by dams, after the con­struc­tion of 7,900 major exam­ples. This com­pounds cen­turies of land seizures and forced dis­place­ment by set­tler colo­nials and the U.S gov­ern­ment. 

The Hoover Dam Being Con­struct­ed

The cre­ation of such huge bar­rages like the Hoover which formed Lake Mead, pro­lif­er­at­ed in the mid-20th cen­tu­ry with mul­ti­ple func­tions like flood con­trol, elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion and divert­ing water sup­plies for irri­ga­tion.

World­wide, as many as 80 mil­lion peo­ple have been dis­placed by dams, while an addi­tion­al 472 mil­lion liv­ing down­stream have had their fam­i­ly lives and liveli­hood dis­rupt­ed, includ­ing many Indige­nous Amer­i­cans in Ore­gon, Okla­homa, Min­neso­ta, the Dako­tas and Ari­zona.

The fea­ture is well worth a read:-

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/09/indigenous-land-flooded-dams-study-colonial-settler

Agreed, these fig­ures are his­tor­i­cal, but the present crit­i­cism being made by the West­ern media against Sau­di Ara­bia is lit­tle more than hyp­o­crit­i­cal and at worst sanc­ti­mo­nious. 

(News Source: www.bbc.co.uk)

(Top image: NEOM — Cred­it: Shut­ter­stock)

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