Who “Was” Jamal Khashoggi: Tragedy of the Vocal Insider

Jamal Khashoggi’s grandfather, Muhammad Khashoggi was King Abdulaziz Al Saud’s personal doctor. His uncle, Adnan Khashoggi was a notorious billionaire, and arms dealer implicated in the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostage affair. Jamal was also a cousin of Dodi Fayed, Princess Diana’s lover at the time the two died in the infamous car accident. Jamal Khashoggi was evidently born in to a family in the inner circle. However, Jamal chose to be a wordsmith.

After graduating from Indiana State University with a bachelor’s in business administration in 1982, he took a position in management for Tihama, a Saudi company with a bookstore chain. Later, he would begin his journalism career as a correspondent for the Saudi Gazette, an English language newspaper, and continue to become one of Saudi Arabia’s leading figure in journalism.

In the 1980s-90s, Khashoggi had several interviews with Osama bin Laden, and is reported to have befriended Osama, but later ended contact after 9/11. He continued his career as a journalist in Saudi Arabia despite being forced to resign from his positions, and pressured to curb his outspokenness about the monarchy’s oppression of human rights.

 

According to an article for Independent, in 2016, Jamal Khashoggi was banned from writing in newspapers, making TV appearances and attending conferences by Saudi authorities for criticizing US president Donald Trump.

As a result, Khashoggi relocated to the United States in June 2017, and began writing for the Washington Post. While writing for the Washington Post, he continued to criticized Saudi Arabia, from the Saudi-led blockade against Qatar, its dispute with Lebanon, the Saudi diplomatic dispute with Canada, and the Arab kingdom’s crackdown on dissent, and freedom of press.

 

On October 2nd, 2018, Jamal entered the consulate of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul, Turkey. He was there to attain papers confirming his divorce so he could marry his fiancee. His wife to be was waiting outside. Khashoggi never came out.

CNN reports: “On Oct. 10, Turkish officials claimed that the “highest levels of the royal court” in Saudi Arabia ordered Khashoggi’s assassination and dismemberment by a 15-man team”.

The Saudi government has been reported to be discussing the possibility of accepting the allegations that Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi consulate by an interrogation that gone wrong.

 

After a call with king Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, US president Donald Trump suggested that Khashoggi’s death was a result of the actions of a rogue agent, and not a direct order from Riyadh. Other world leaders are demanding for transparency in explaining the incident, with leaders of the UK, France, and Germany calling for “credible investigations” in to the matter.

 

The business world has reacted with dismay to the Saudi’s after reports of Khashoggi’s disappearance and pending murder investigations. In an article by CNN Business, Executive Exodus, Global business leaders and firms have been dropping out as speakers and cancelling their trips to the Riyadh conference nicknamed as “the Davos in the Desert”. The conference, officially titled the Future Investment Initiative, is an important event in Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s efforts to diversify the kingdom’s economy away from dependence on its oil business.

 

The head of JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon, is one of the latest high-profile executives to pull out. Ford chairman Bill Ford, and Uber chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi are also among those who will not be attending the conference. Sir Richard Branson, has also halted talks over a $1bn Saudi investment in Virgin space firms. x

According to the BBC Softbank’s share price tumbled about 7% in Tokyo as the fallout from Mr Khashoggi’s disappearance spread. The Japanese conglomerate’s $100bn Vision Fund is almost half-financed by Saudi Arabia. SoftBank (SFTBF) CEO Masayoshi Son was listed as a speaker at the investment conference, as were the head of SoftBank’s international business, and the CEO of the SoftBank Vision Fund. The online program was stripped of all names later in the day, and the speaker list was removed entirely from the website.

CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other main western media sources have decidedly backed away from covering the business conference that will take place from the 23rd – 25th this month.

 

Jamal Khashoggi is a person that every patriot, and everyone that aspires for equality and freedom should hope for in the journalistic field of their countries. A person that every human that subscribes to the integrity of human virtues should wish to share existence with.

 

“…women today should have the same rights as men. And all citizens should have the right to speak their minds without fear of imprisonment.” Jamal Khashoggi wrote in his Op-ed: “By blaming 1979 for Saudi Arabia’s problems, the crown prince is peddling revisionist history”.

Few Saudis dare criticize the Saudi royal family so openly, especially the crown prince Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MbS, who is seen as the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia. Earlier in 2018, Khashoggi established a new political party called Democracy for the Arab World Now, posing a political threat to Crown Prince Mohammed.

 

Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance, and being presumed dead, will either make the number of forthright journalists and thinkers in Saudi Arabia much fewer, or trigger a proliferation of Saudi Arabian freedom. Let’s hope the latter is the case, for we will surely fall into darkness without the light that is the freedom to share and express criticism.

 

The Washington Post has posted a collection of Jamal Khashoggi’s contribution while at the Post here.