单选题
Oil and Islam continue to define Saudi Arabia's room
for maneuver. With global demand unlikely to wane in the foreseeable future and
reserves elsewhere diminishing, oil will continue to keep the kingdom rich for
decades to come. At the same time, the Saudis' attachment to their faith is not
diminishing; it may even be growing stronger. But the faith itself is changing
in subtle ways. Having gone through waves of progress and
retrenchment during its 73 years as a unified kingdom, Saudi Arabia is now well
into another period of rapid change. This time, however, the well-oiled
complacency of the previous big boom, in the 1970s, is largely gone. Four years
ago, a survey in this newspaper argued that it might require internal shocks to
jolt the Saudis into taking reform seriously. Those shocks have now
arrived. Since May 2003, when suicide bombers attacked a
housing compound in Riyadh, terrorist violence has touched every corner of the
kingdom, claiming some 200 lives. Saudi nationals, the most famous being Osama
bin Laden, continue to be implicated in terrorist attacks abroad, most notably
in Iraq. Yet far from rallying Saudis, terrorism has made them identify more
closely with the state. More importantly, the violence has brought intense
introspection and debate. Long accustomed to blaming outside
influences for all ills, Saudis now accept that the fixing needs to start at
home. Aside from extremism, the problems of unemployment, poverty and the abuse
of human rights have moved to the top of the national agenda. Even the most
absolute of previous taboos, political reform, is being widely debated. In
dozens of interviews with Saudis of all stripes, one phrase kept coming up: the
question is no longer whether to reform/restructure/change, but how fast to do
it. The government's answer, to date, has been slow, and not
very sure. But this survey will argue that far from being a dinosaur nation,
lumbering to extinction, Saudi Arabia is capable of rapid evolution. On some
important issues, such as the rules governing business, it is already far down
the right track. On others, such as the ways it educates its youth and excludes
women, the kingdom is only just beginning to shift course. Most
Saudis reckon it is premature to speak of democracy in their country; but there
are myriad ways to emancipate citizens, from upholding the rule of law to making
budgets more transparent and loosening the grip of security agencies over
universities and the press. Instead of their old tactics of prevarication, slow
consensus-building and co-optation, the A1Sauds should try a new one: putting
trust in their people.
单选题
What can we learn about Saudi Arabia from Paragraph 1 ?
A. Saudi Arabia will be as rich as before and their people will believe in
their faith firmly.
B. Saudi Arabian will not believe in their faith as firmly as before.
C. The oil produced in Saudi Arabia will diminish.
D. Saudi Arabia will no longer be a kingdom, and their people pursue
democracy.