Chapter Three - Saudi Arabia

CHAPTER THREE

Saudi Arabia

THE GILDED CAGE

You’ve heard the phrase “money can’t buy happiness.”
In Saudi Arabia, it also can’t buy freedom.

This is a kingdom built on oil, powered by obedience, and glossed over with PR campaigns slicker than the desert pipelines that fund them.

They’ll let you visit.
They’ll let you take selfies at luxury malls and Formula 1 races.
Just don’t say anything… ever.

Saudi Arabia isn’t a country with a king.
It’s a kingdom. Full stop.

Founded in 1932 by Ibn Saud, the modern state fused tribal monarchy with religious absolutism, powered by a hardline version of Islam called Wahhabism. It’s not just conservative. It’s theocratic fundamentalism built into law.

No separation of church and state.
No elections that actually matter.
No freedom to interpret religion your own way.
No freedom… period.

You don’t get to vote.
You get to obey.

Saudi Arabia still conducts public beheadings.
Yes. Beheadings.
In public squares.
With swords.
In 2022 alone, they announced the execution of 81 people in a single day.

What for?

Apostasy.
Drug trafficking.
Protesting.
Talking too loud.
Breathing in the wrong direction.

And let’s not forget:
Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist, dismembered in a consulate with tools investigators later described as bone saws.
Why? Because he said words.
About the regime.
From outside the country.

Until 2018, women couldn’t legally drive in Saudi Arabia.
That’s not a joke. That’s real.

Before that?
No concerts.
No public gyms.
No movie theaters.

Women were (and in many ways still are) bound by male guardianship laws, meaning a man can still control where they go, what they do, and whether they leave.

You can buy a Gucci handbag in Riyadh, but not your own passport without male approval.

Enter: Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the Crown Prince with a Vision™.

He launched Vision 2030, hosted raves, opened cinemas, and let women drive. The world applauded.

Meanwhile, journalists vanish.
Activists rot in prison.
Surveillance intensifies.
Political parties are illegal.
LGBTQ existence is a crime.
The death penalty stays.
The royal family owns the courts, the cops, and the oil.

Reform isn’t freedom. It’s facelift fascism.

Saudi Arabia wants to be seen as the future. Tech, neon cities, and luxury.
But it rules with a medieval heart.

Say the wrong thing? Prison.
Kiss the wrong person? Flogging.
Protest publicly? Torture.

They built a palace in the sand.
Then barred the doors from the inside.