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By : Fahad Shoqiran

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:: After 31 out of 34 members of the Allegiance Council voted in favor of assigning Prince Mohammed bin Salman as crown prince, King Salman assigned the latter to succeed Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. It all seemed smooth as the predecessor pledged allegiance to his successor through the best and the worst.

This was effortlessly carried out thanks to the procedures which the Saudi system has established. Major governmental assignments are made within a legal framework that cannot be infiltrated or partially followed.

The post was thus assigned to Prince Mohammed bin Salman despite some people’s attempts to criticize the move. Some criticized assigning a young crown prince although he has gradually progressed in his work in the government and his experience is diverse.

Empowering youth

The young prince who studied law and who loves history developed a social and political personality that not many had before him. This made him the most capable prince to lead his society towards change and to confront challenges.

The royal orders included appointing more than ten young princes to several posts such as assigning Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Nayef as interior minister, Khaled bin Bandar bin Sultan as ambassador to Germany, Faisal bin Sattam bin Abdul Aziz as ambassador to Italy and Bandar bin Faisal bin Bandar as assistant to the chief of the General Intelligence Directorate.

Choosing Mohammed bin Salman as crown prince restores Saudi Arabia’s unlimited ambitions especially that he created Vision 2030 and directed the economic sector to overcome financial crises which resulted from decrease in oil prices.

Fahad Suleiman Shoqiran

All these appointments reflect the ambitious royal will to hand over the country to the young generation which realizes the aspirations of the Saudi people to keep up with modernity and be open to the future. Saudi youths look forward to seeing more young faces in the government as they are the most capable to understand their conflicts with traditions and the best to devise a plan to exit inherited crises and restraints. The young administrative generation which King Salman picked will be capable of achieving most of the Saudi youths’ wishes, dreams and hopes.

Saudi Arabia has gotten used to blames since it’s been established. The founder king governed the country and restored his fathers’ and grandfathers’ rule while he was in his 20’s. Kings assumed power when they were young and time has shown the advantages of this vitality.

Overcoming challenges

Choosing Mohammed bin Salman as crown prince restores Saudi Arabia’s unlimited ambitions especially that he created Vision 2030 and directed the economic sector to overcome financial crises which resulted from decrease in oil prices.

The crown prince contributed to taking measures that saved the Saudi economy within few months. Things thus became better than before as the causes of austerity and the crisis ended and a royal order was issued announcing the retroactive reinstatement of civil servants’ allowances.

Saudi Arabia has been through several phases and wars and many regional countries still have greedy ambitions as they try to crush the Saudi kingdom and humiliate its people. However, Saudi Arabia has fought all these plots for an entire century as it stood up for rivals during many battles.

The legacy goes on

The administrative foundation of Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman was solid and his sons and grandsons followed suit. Proof to that is how the Saudi state’s major principles are still the core and basis of governance and how the recent appointments were made by King Salman after he successfully imagined what his founder father would have done if he were in his place and acted upon this.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is well-known for his sharp intelligence and hard work. He believes the sky is the limit for the Saudi people’s ambitions. He confirms he knows the young Saudi generation well as he studied with them and suffered what they have suffered from in the field of education or in society in general or due to bureaucratic complications.

He wants his generation to enjoy the fortunes of this rich country and not to live in the past or suffer from the chains of inherited legacies.

In a famous interview with the Washington Post in April, the prince said: ““I’m young. Seventy percent of our citizens are young. We don’t want to waste our lives in this whirlpool that we were in the past 30 years (due to the Khomeini revolution which produced extremism and terrorism.) We want to end this epoch now. We want, the Saudi people, to enjoy the coming days, and concentrate on developing our society and developing ourselves as individuals and families, while retaining our religion and customs. We will not continue to be in the post 1979 era. That age is over.”

The time when history subjugated and chained the society is over. The society will kick off its work with its young manpower and endeavor into the world with all its charming and modern trends.

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Fahad Shoqiran is a Saudi writer and researcher who also founded the Riyadh philosophers group. His writings have appeared in pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, Alarabiya.net, among others. He also blogs on philosophies, cultures and arts. He tweets @shoqiran.

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Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in the Column section are their own and do not reflect RiyadhVision’s point-of-view.

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