Inside the Saudi Arabia of MBS

“Don’t let yourself be taken in,” warns Kamille Al Saud. “Everything looks flashy and dazzling, but it’s an illusion. We don’t have real freedom in this country.” It is a stiflingly hot evening in Diriyah, on the outskirts of Riyadh. Between the palm trees, families chat beneath machines spraying cool mist. Kamille is an activist and the ex-wife of a Saudi prince. For her own safety, she criticizes the country only under a self-chosen alias. “Look over there, the show is about to begin.”

On the walls of the mud-brick fort, enormous dancing Saudi warriors appear, clad in white robes. They leap, beat drums, and brandish swords. Thumping electronic music blares from the speakers. “We thank our wise leaders,” a deep male voice says in Arabic. “Thanks to them, we have free healthcare.” The faces of King Salman and his son Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) loom large on the fort. “Just be careful he doesn’t spot you,” Kamille jokes. “MBS sees everything.”

Kamille wears her long black hair uncovered, above a mint-green abaya. The UNESCO site around the fort was renovated at the initiative of MBS, at a cost of a staggering €60 billion. As she climbs through the narrow alleys around the fort, Kamille tells how, at nineteen, she fell in love with a wandering scion of the House of Al Saud. Her husband, a distant cousin of MBS, took her to the kingdom, where they had several children together. “I was young and naïve; I fell for his intellect. He read a different book every week.”

When she arrived in Riyadh, she was surprised not to have to go through security. “That’s when I realized how important the family was.” Kamille was taken to a palace in the desert. “Tall Ethiopian women moved around carrying basins of water they could barely lift, so the men could wash their feet. It felt as though I had stepped into another era.”

READ ON (Dutch, paywall): https://www.standaard.be/buitenland/saudi-arabie-waar-alles-en-iedereen-moet-wijken-voor-de-toekomst/73235970.html