What most of Oman must have looked like before 1970
What Muscat looks like today
Again, this was the level of development in Oman prior to 1970
This is what Oman looks like today.
Before we leave Oman, I wanted to share with you some more amazing factoids about the Sultanate.
At the time the current leader, Sultan Qaboos, seized control from his father in a coup in 1970, Oman was one of the world's most backward countries. As a Washington Post reporter,
Chris Kutschera, wrote at the time, in Oman "the clock of history was stopped somewhere in the Middle Ages." This was because in spite of Oman's already vast oil wealth, the long-reigning Sultan's ruling theory had essentially been, “Keep the dogs hungry, [and] they will follow you,” according to the Post report.
Kutschera described what life was like back in 1970:
Everything, it seemed was forbidden. The inhabitants of the coast were forbideen to travel inland, and those of the inland valleys could not go to the coast, or even from one valley to another. No one was allowed to go to Dhofar, in the extreme southwest.
There were, in all Oman and Dhofar, three primary schools and not a single secondary school. Students who wanted to pursue their studies had to leave their country illegally and start a long life of exile in the Persian Gulf or Kuwait. It was forbidden to build new houses, or to repair the old ones; forbidden to install a lavatory or a gas stove; forbidden to cultivate new land, or to buy a car without the Sultan’s permission.
No one could smoke in the streets, go to movies or beat drums; the army used to have a band, but one day the Sultan had the instruments thrown into the sea. A few foreigners opened a club: he had it shut, “probably because it was a place where one could have fun”, says one of his former victims. Three hours after sunset, the city gates were closed.
Anyone caught outside after curfew was shot upon sight unless they were carrying a lantern as opposed to a flashlight so the Sultan's guards could see who was out after sunset. The Sultan also discouraged anyone from wearing eyeglasses and routinely threw people in prison who had appeared to him in his dreams.
(For those readers born after 1970, who think we were all still living in the Middle Ages back then, realize that by then air travel was routine elsewhere in the world, and an American astronaut had already taken that "one small step for mankind" on the moon.)
Not surprisingly, there were several attempts to overthrow this Sultan Said. The person who finally succeeded was, ironically, his own son, who was at the time of the coup, a 30-year-old who had been living under house arrest next door to his father's palace for some six years, since his return from England where he had gone to pursue his studies at Sandhurst, the elite British military academy.
Just after Qaboos seized control of the Sultanate, he described himself this way to the Washington Post reporter: "I am a man with one foot in my country -- backwards as it is, with its tribal customs, its life dominated by Islam -- and the other in the 20th century. I must be very careful to keep my balance.
“You cannot run before you walk,” he went on to say. “Most of the population that lives in the interior of the country still does not live with its time. What these people want before anything else is education and health. As long as we provide them with these fast enough, there will not be any problem”.
In response to whether he would begin the process of writing of a constitution or empowering a legislature, he was reportedly "blunt" in his response:
“It would be a mistake, a big mistake," he told the reporter. "Most of the people do not even know what a vote is... In these conditions to draft a constitution, to set up a parliament would be like building a huge dome without either walls or foundations. It might perhaps give a nice impression to the outside world, but it would be nothing but a big show. Look how people vote in Egypt. They are driven to the polls in army trucks. If there were a parliament now, I would have to choose its members among the sheikhs and a few others. What would be the significance of such a body”?
Thirty-six years later we can examine what type of leader Sultan Qaboos became.
In 1970, there were only three primary schools in Oman, now there are 1,000 government schools, 150 private schools, as well as colleges, technical and vocational institutes, and a university.
One missionary hospital has now been replaced by some 47 hospitals, 1,800 public health clinics, and a number of private hospitals. Average life expectancy has increased from 47 to 74 years.
Ten kilometers of paved roads have been expanded and there are now more than 8,000 kilometers of paved roads, not to mention international airports and seaports.
Foreigners are now welcome. And in an effort to develop tourism in order to wean the country away from an excessive dependence on oil revenues, in 1996 the Islamic ban on pork and alcohol products was lifted to accomodate non-Muslim guests of the Sultanate.
There were no printed materials published in Oman when Sultan Qaboos took over, and of course, no television or radio stations either. Now Oman has over 35 national newspapers and magazines, radio and television stations, and was one of the first Gulf states to introduce satellite television. While it is still illegal to criticize the Sultan or Islam, and the press cannot be categorized as free, one has to acknowledge the progress that has been made.
The Sultan still has absolute power but he did create an elected consultative council in 1991 to advise him on legislation and in 2003 granted universal suffrage rights to all Omanis over the age of 21.
To appreciate that this was enlightened on the Sultan's part, note that the United Arab Emirates did not hold its first national elections of this sort until 2006. Saudi Arabia has yet to hold national elections for its Majlis ash-Shura or consultative legislative body, not to mention that it has yet to extend voting rights of any significant kind to women.
(Then again, maybe this is a good thing with respect to Saudi Arabia - or so I'm told.)
Photo from BBC News (thank you, BBC)
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