Saudi Arabia’s Journey from Banning Music to Organising Rave Concerts Reveals MBS’ Bigger Ambitions

The world welcomes every new year with festivities, pomp and joy. Parties, music, dance and drinks make up some essential components of a new year celebration. Does everyone celebrate this way? Not really. Take Saudi Arabia for example. The mere idea of celebrating a new year would invite offences in the kingdom a decade ago. However, Saudi Arabia is changing. It is changing fast, and the change is being headed by one man - Mohammed Bin Salman. He’s the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, and his father King Salman now plays a mere nominal role. The day-to-day aspects of Saudi governance are now handled by MBS, and he is the man leading the mission to modernise Saudi society.

In Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah, a crowd of 25,000 people – mostly youngsters raved to electronic music, flashed glow sticks and unapologetically flashed their not-so-traditional attire just days ago. The recent musical festival in Jeddah’s Al-Balad neighbourhood saw the streets turning into an open-air concert. The festival, called Balad Beast featured some musicians from abroad including the American rapper Busta Rhymes. But the focus was on local talent. Rappers enthralled the audience with performances in Arabic. The festival has stoked a vigorous debate across Saudi Arabia. Is the kingdom opening up too much, too fast? Prince Mohammed said in 2018 that women aren’t required to wear abayas – a traditional cloak meant to be worn by women. Women are now allowed to drive, work almost all the jobs that men work – including in the military, and are allowed to party. All of this was unimaginable in Saudi Arabia only a few years ago. Even for men, the mere thought of taking part in a rave party was a non-starter. In fact, music was prohibited in public spaces – and playing anything would severely offend the kingdom’s morality police. Rave concerts and public celebrations are now frequent, and have the wholehearted support of Saudi Arabia’s most powerful man – the crown prince and Prime Minister, MBS. In fact, a once formidable morality police force has now been turned defunct as MBS tries to accord the people a wide array of liberties. Is the change sweeping all of Saudi Arabia? Not really. Rural Saudi Arabia – areas far from urban centres are mostly retaining a sense of traditional rigidity – for now at least. Gender segregation, for example, still remains rampant in non-urbanised regions of Saudi Arabia. MBS thinks big. MBS represents a new generation. He sees little to no merit in the way Saudi citizens led their lives before he started his campaign to grant basic liberties to the people. MBS knows that we all live in a cosmopolitan world. The modern way of life has a lot to offer, and the kind of orthodoxy which Saudi Arabia was practising not very long ago could, in fact, become an impediment for the country’s larger goals. What are these goals? Economic diversification. Oil will not always be a global craze. Especially with climate change becoming a major concern, oil will eventually lose its appeal. The world will move away from oil in the coming decades. What will Saudi Arabia do then? Saudi Arabia has an oil economy. If oil loses appeal, Saudi Arabia’s economy would land in massive trouble. That’s something which the Saudis want to avoid. Here comes in Vision 2030. Saudi Vision 2030 is a strategic framework to reduce Saudi Arabia’s dependence on oil, diversify its economy, and develop public service sectors such as health, education, infrastructure, recreation, and tourism. In simpler terms, it’s MBS’ intervention to shed the Saudi economy’s dependence on oil. MBS plans to open up Saudi Arabia for the world. He wants foreigners, multinational companies and tourists to make Saudi Arabia one of their favourite destinations. The megacity of NEOM is an endeavour in that direction. MBS wants to make Saudi Arabia a leader in new technologies in the region. But none of what MBS aims for will happen unless Saudi society is reformed. That society needs to be liberated from the shackles of an extremist reading of religion is something MBS understood pretty early in the game. After all, who would want to come to a country where women are treated as second-class citizens, where music and entertainment are banned, and where there is no recreation whatsoever? MBS’s push for modernisation has come at a cost. He has antagonised many within the royal family. Once powerful princes have seen their power and influence getting snatched away. Islamic clerics are shocked by how dramatically society has changed in just a few years. You see, with more modernisation comes the threat of the clergy losing their hold over the people. Saudi Arabia also covets the title of being the leader of the Muslim world. MBS is not keen to yield that title to any other nation. But the opening up of Saudi Arabia creates challenges for MBS in the realm of Islamic geopolitics. The recent rave concert in Jeddah has ruffled many feathers in Saudi Arabia. While many support MBS’s liberalisation efforts, many view it as being too much and too fast. Ordinary people, especially in their middle ages, are getting uncomfortable. The youth, though, is happy. They are rallying behind MBS. This supporter base is who MBS is trying to cater to the most. They are the future of Saudi Arabia, much like the crown prince himself. A generational shift is underway in Saudi Arabia. Will MBS double down on his liberalisation push, or will he take a step back to ease concerns among the older and more religious Saudi crowd? Only time will tell. 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