They laughed at the desert, but the desert has a memory — Che Ran

MAY 5 — They called it a mirage. A fever dream in the sand. A trillion-dollar illusion cooked up in a Bedouin tent by a bored crown prince with too much oil money and not enough sense.

“Neom will never happen,” they scoffed. “The Line? A glorified laser pointer across dunes.”

But something strange is happening in Riyadh.

The desert isn’t backing down.

Instead, the Kingdom is doubling down — burning through billions, running a planned US$27 billion budget deficit in 2025, and carrying on as if the markets, the media, and the West don’t matter.

Because they don’t.

Not to Saudi Arabia. Not anymore.

While Western governments are drowning in debt they pretend not to have, cutting social safety nets to keep their triple-A ratings from crumbling, Saudi Arabia is choosing to spend. To build. To transform.

And here’s the part that terrifies them: it’s not reckless.

It’s revolutionary.

The deficit is the message

When Saudi Arabia says it can live with oil prices below US$70 and still plough forward with trillion-riyal projects, it’s not lying. It’s flexing. This is a Kingdom that’s flipped the economic playbook — on purpose.

Oxford Analytica says Riyadh needs oil to stay above US$100 to break even. But that’s applying Western logic to an Eastern world. And the Saudi leadership isn’t playing that game. They’re not trying to break even.

They’re trying to break out.

The deficit isn’t a flaw — it’s a feature. It’s a weapon. A deliberate tactic to buy time, buy attention, and buy freedom from the very system designed to keep them subordinate.

It’s hard to overstate this: Saudi Arabia is building a future that doesn’t ask permission.

Neom and the audacity of belief

Yes, Neom is wild. The Line is wild. A mirror-glass vertical city running 170 kilometres across the desert is something out of a sci-fi novel. But the Western ridicule misses something fundamental: it is belief that moves civilisations.

The pyramids were ridiculous. So was the Great Wall. So was the Petronas Twin Towers in 1997, when Malaysia was mocked for building skyscrapers during the Asian Financial Crisis. But vision matters. Audacity matters. And Saudi Arabia has both.

Neom isn’t just a city. It’s a declaration: We’re not just oil merchants anymore.

That’s what terrifies the West.

Because if Saudi Arabia — land of Bedouins and black gold — can build a tech and tourism economy that thrives in the post-oil era, then the entire global order begins to shift.

No more dancing to Wall Street’s tune. No more kissing the IMF’s ring.

Just independence. Just power.

The western gaze and the brown ceiling

Make no mistake: if Neom were announced by Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, it would be hailed as the future of civilisation. But because it’s a Muslim prince in a keffiyeh dreaming beyond his “station”, it’s mocked.

This is the colonial gaze in 4K.

Brown nations aren’t supposed to innovate — they’re supposed to execute. To assemble. To build the dreams of others.

So when a Gulf state says, “We’ll chart our own path,” the instinctive response from the West isn’t curiosity. It’s condescension. “Can they even pull it off?”

It’s the same tone used on Malaysia. On Indonesia. On every Muslim-majority country that ever dared to dream bigger than the development handouts tossed their way like breadcrumbs.

Debt, hypocrisy, and the economics of empire

Let’s talk about debt. The US is carrying over US$34 trillion in debt. Japan is above 250 per cent of GDP. The UK is scraping its welfare system to keep its fiscal books looking semi-respectable.

But when Saudi Arabia runs a 2.3 per cent fiscal deficit? Suddenly it’s a crisis.

Let’s not kid ourselves. The outrage isn’t about fiscal sustainability. It’s about control. It’s about keeping Muslim-majority nations in their place, economically neutered and perpetually “developing”.

The West used deficits for empire. For Marshall Plans. For oil wars. For space races. But when Saudi Arabia spends to diversify, to build tech cities and develop AI ecosystems in the middle of the desert? It’s reckless.

What they really mean is: “We didn’t approve this.”

The PIF strategy: Sovereignty as strategy

The Public Investment Fund (PIF) is often misunderstood. It’s not a fund. It’s a battering ram. A sovereign instrument of economic warfare designed to buy Saudi Arabia relevance in a world where oil is no longer enough.

When PIF buys into electric car companies, esports, Hollywood, football, and tourism infrastructure — it’s doing more than diversifying. It’s buying legitimacy. It’s forcing the world to say “please” to a country that used to just be a source of crude.

This is what soft power looks like in 2025.

And the West hates it.

Because this isn’t the script they wrote for us.

Why South-east Asia should be watching closely

This isn’t just about Saudi Arabia. It’s about the Global South. It’s about Malaysia. Indonesia. Pakistan. Egypt. Bangladesh.

We’ve all internalised a fear of deficits, of “overspending”, of “living beyond our means” — as if colonisation didn’t already take what was ours.

We wait for green lights from Moody’s, Fitch, or Bloomberg before we fund our dreams. We drown our vision in white papers and PowerPoint decks waiting for foreign direct investment that never comes without a pound of flesh.

Saudi Arabia is reminding us: you don’t need their approval.

If you have reserves, use them. If you have people, back them. If you have debt capacity, leverage it for infrastructure — not just roads, but imagination. If you want a different future, build it.

Even if they laugh.

Especially if they laugh.

The desert has a memory

What Western commentators forget is that Mecca rose from this very desert. Before there was oil, there was commerce. Culture. Knowledge. Navigation. The House of Saud is simply reclaiming that legacy — with fibre optics, bullet trains, and tourism zones instead of camel caravans.

You think they won’t make it?

They already have.

Because they’ve done what most nations are too scared to do: decouple national destiny from global validation.

That’s power. Real power.

And no spreadsheet can measure it.

Closing thoughts: They want you to doubt. Don’t.

They will keep mocking Neom. They’ll write op-eds about failed megaprojects. They’ll whisper to investors about risk, about optics, about regime stability.

But here’s what they won’t say out loud: Saudi Arabia is playing the long game — and winning.

It is time for the rest of us to stop asking for permission and start asking ourselves: When did we stop believing we could build something that lasts?

Because if a nation of sand and sun can carve out a future with its own hands — against the grain, against the odds — then so can we.

Let them laugh.

We remember Mecca.

We remember Malacca.

And we know how to rise.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.