'Kingdom of Silence': How Jamal Khashoggi went from a Saudi nationalist to a dissident supporting Arab Spring
In October 2018, Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent Saudi Arabian dissident, and journalist-in-exile was reported missing after his visit to the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Over the next few days, horrifying details of his disappearance and death began to emerge. Khashoggi had been lured to the consulate on the pretext of providing him with papers for his upcoming nuptials. A 15-member squad of Saudi Arabian assassins had been waiting for Khashoggi at the consulate. They killed him and then dismembered his body to remove all traces of the murder from the consulate.
Showtime's latest documentary, 'Kingdom of Silence' — the title of which comes from one of Khashoggi's quotes — examines Jamal Khashoggi's life in the context of diplomatic relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia. Khashoggi's grandfather, Muhammad Khashoggi, was a doctor to the Saudi royal family, and his uncle Adnan Khashoggi was a weapons broker for former King Fahd. Khashoggi himself had earlier enjoyed the protections provided by the royal family. However, those relations began to sour after Khashoggi began to support reform of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, earning the ire of the royal family to the extent that they were willing to carry out an assassination on foreign soil.
So how did it get there? At the time of the 9/11 attacks, when the Saudi royal family's ties to Al-Qaeda were under the lens, Khashoggi was still a nationalist, traveling to the United States to defend the Saudi monarchy. In 2005, he moved to Washington and worked at the Saudi Embassy as a key adviser to the ambassador. It was in 2015 that two key events began to sever what had become a fragile relationship. First, in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, the Saudi royal family had sanctioned the establishment of an independent news channel called Al Arab, which is said to be Khashoggi's last big passion project before his death. At the same time, King Abdullah died, leading to King Salman taking over the Saudi Arabian throne. On the very day of Al Arab beginning operations, it aired an interview with a government critic. Within six hours, the station was shut down.
Khashoggi was a supporter of the Arab Spring and wanted to see reform throughout the Middle East. With King Salman and the Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman cracking down on dissent within the country, Khashoggi was one among many being silenced, with the country even banning his Twitter account.
In 2017, Khashoggi moved to Washington after a self-imposed exile. He was forced to leave behind his wife, Alaa Nassif, who was not allowed to travel. After his move to the United States, Khashoggi continued to be critical of the Saudi government and is said in the documentary to have known extensively about the Saudi royal family's ties to Al-Qaeda.
'Kingdom of Silence' aired on Showtime on Friday, October 2.