What major issues does Saudi Arabia have right now?

Answer 1

Answer 1

AIDS

Answer 2

There are an extensive myriad of problems that exist in Saudi Arabia, including but not limited to:

Corrupt Rulers and No Infrastructure: Saudi rulers are content to deprive their people of modern infrastructure and development. They prefer to hoard the money their people give them to build palaces and repressive armies to protect those palaces. As a result, many of the necessary infrastructural and developmental changes which should have happened never occurred. This leads to immense poverty, even though oil resources make the country very wealthy.

Regional Disunity: Muslims have gone to war with each other at numerous times and in numerous places. Nearly every border in the Arab World has played host to a military engagement of some type. The Arab World has never had anything even close to the European Union or the Schengen Border Agreement (forget the Muslim World). (The Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Conference are much more like the United Nations and have no superstate components.) Although Muslims, as individuals, may feel connected across borders, like those between Morocco and Algeria or those between Syria and Lebanon or those between Egypt, Sudan, and Libya, their governments do not.

Anti-Educational: There is a strong and pervasive attitude in Saudi Arabia that a Western-style education, seeking a high degree of literacy and scientific knowledge is undesirable. Instead, there is a strong pull towards a religious education. This leads to minimal technological innovation in Muslim-majority countries like Saudi Arabia today. No Saudi has ever won a Nobel Prize.

Lack of Human Rights: Saudi Arabian subjects are denied fundamental human rights such as equality before the law, freedom to express their opinions (even if they are unpopular), freedom of assembly, equality for women in education and marriage rights, freedom of movement, an end to the unofficial slave trade, and other infringements. Statistics have shown a high-level of correlation between the presence of human rights and economic and political affluence.

Foreign Policy Over Domestic Concerns: Many Saudis are concerned about irrelevant foreign policy issues among Muslims and Non-Muslims in other countries. The Cypriot situation and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict are wholly irrelevant to Saudis, but people in those countries spend an inordinate amount of time discussing those issues. That time comes out of discussions about what to do about serious problems in those countries such as women's education or the lack of infrastructure. If there is no clamor for these domestic improvements, they will not happen.

Failure to Compromise: Unlike Western Societies which see public debates and elections as a fair mechanism for deciding which opinions should get the Right of Way, many in the Middle East prefer to staunchly advocate their position by whatever means are necessary because they are assured of their correctness (either by God or personal conviction). This means that both domestic and international policy issues that produce gridlock have the potential to erupt in conflict and extreme measures as opposed to a general consensus that people can agree to even if they are not in love with it.

Tribal Conflicts: There are numerous tribes that have long-standing feuds with one another and threaten to disturb the peace. Creating a national identity is critical for making the state safe enough for domestic commerce.

Lack of Women's Rights: In Saudi Arabia, women have been increasingly unable to get an education. Women cannot drive nor can they vote in the municipal elections where men can vote. Muslim-majority countries have typically been behind Western States in the proliferation of women's rights, but this is more typical third world countries in Africa and Asia than just the Islamic ones. In many cases, women in Muslim countries are afraid to go to the police out of fear of being raped by the police as well, being honor-murdered by someone in her family, or being charged as criminally liable for getting raped. Since Western law protects rape victims against rapists, rape victims are more willing to seek government help.