Looks like the NYT/Thomas Freidman may be lurking over here for its fresh ideas
Saudi Arabia’s Arab Spring, at Last
The crown prince has big plans to bring
back a level of tolerance to his society.
"Unlike the other Arab Springs — all of which emerged bottom up and failed miserably, except in Tunisia — this one is led from the top down by the country’s 32-year-old crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman...
"And, if it succeeds, it will not only change the character of Saudi Arabia but the tone and tenor of Islam across the globe. Only a fool would predict its success — but only a fool would not root for it."
"'Our country has suffered a lot from corruption from the 1980s until today. The calculation of our experts is that roughly 10 percent of all government spending was siphoned off by corruption each year, from the top levels to the bottom.'"
“'My father saw that there is no way we can stay in the G-20 and grow with this level of corruption. In early 2015, one of his first orders to his team was to collect all the information about corruption — at the top....This team worked for two years until they collected the most accurate information, and then they came up with about 200 names ....When all the data was ready, the public prosecutor, Saud al-Mojib, took action, M.B.S. said, explaining that each suspected billionaire or prince was arrested and given two choices: 'We show them all the files that we have and as soon as they see those about 95 percent agree to a settlement,' which means signing over cash or shares of their business to the Saudi state treasury ....We have experts making sure no businesses are bankrupted in the process' — to avoid causing unemployment. "
Not a single Saudi I spoke to here over three days expressed anything other than effusive support for this anticorruption drive. The Saudi silent majority is clearly fed up with the injustice of so many princes and billionaires ripping off their country
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/...-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region