Talking About a Revolution in Saudi Arabia - Newspaper - Mail & Guardian Online
“Let us strangle the last king with the guts of the last priest,” the philosopher Denis Diderot said. The same phrase is now widely repeated across Arabia — or Saudi Arabia, as it is named under the dynastic autocracy. It is only a matter of time before the revolutions that have swept the Arab world reach the Saudi kingdom.
In the past few months one anonymous Twitter account, @mujtahidd, has attracted more than 220 000 followers thanks to its ability to expose corruption in a detailed, accurate manner. @mujtahidd has already published thousands of remarkably well-informed tweets about several royal family members, including King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz.
The popularity of @mujtahidd has gone beyond Twitter. It has become the talk of the nation, so much so that blocking the account inside the kingdom did nothing to stop its number of followers escalating.
So, apparently this Tweeter has been causing a lot of consternation amongst the Wahhabi ruling elite.
I have not previously heard of him (her?), but anybody who is willing to run the risk of criticizing the House of Saud deserves a hat tip, and a click through. Don’t forget to install a translation programme, though: Mujtahidd tweets in Arabic.