|
A lecture
delivered to the Gulf Cultural Club by * Dr John Peterson
On Thursday 1
July 2004
Chairman:
Dr Peterson has kindly agreed to talk to us on a contentious
subject that is both topical and controversial. The
modernisation of anything needs a lot of work, conviction
and seriousness. The Gulf region has been under a lot of
pressure in recent decades and in the past two years there
has been a realisation that the status quo could not be
allowed to continue forever and that new developments must
be allowed to take. If not what we saw on 9.11. 01 could be
repeated if there remain grounds for the future development
of more extremism.
One of the
causes of this extremism is thought to be the lack of
democracy and the lack of proper governance in that region.
The idea of modernisation would entail modernising systems
so they can perform in a more democratic, more up-to-date
more advanced way rather than keeping the old style of
government.
Dr Peterson
is a specialist on the region, he has consulted a lot of
documents, especially those in the Public Records Office
relating to most of the countries. He has a wonderful
collection of documents because whenever he sets foot in
this country he spends most of his time in the Public
Records Office. In recent years he has been concentrating
his work on Oman and the modernisation that has been taking
place, if any. It appears that since the 1970s there have
been some problems in that aspect and he is going to talk
about this concept of modernising the Gulf monarchies,
especially in the case of Oman with which he is more
familiar. I don’t know if he will tell us there is, there
isn’t or there shouldn’t be any modernisation.
The
Americans have been talking about modernisation and
modernising from their own perspective. We see whether he
will tackle this aspect.
Dr
Peterson:
You put lots of ideas out there and I am afraid I will
probably disappoint most of them. I will speak about Oman
because I have been told to and I did spend quite a bit of
time there. It’s a fascinating country. It is also important
because it illustrates a lot of the problems, situations and
conditions politically in most of the states of the Arabian
Peninsula. I warn you that I am not going to be very topical
in this because I want to get down to the basis of what
modernity and modernising really are within the Gulf states.
The exercise
and experience of politics in Oman pertains first of all to
the puzzle of why monarchies in the Middle East and in the
Gulf have been so resilient and the related question of
whether the continued existence of these monarchies should
be considered a case of Middle East exceptionalism.
A plethora
of theories have been advanced on why nearly all the world’s
remaining quasi absolute monarchies should exist in the
Middle East and specially in the Islamic Middle East. My
talk does not attempt to provide answers to these questions
aspects of the debate are directly relevant here. For
example Lisa Anderson rejects the explanation of Middle East
exceptionalism and cultural determinism. Instead she
proposes that the appearance of monarchies in the region
resulted from British imperial policy and at a time of the
formation of new states and the durability results from an
affinity between monarchy as regime type and the projects of
nation building and state formation.
In a later
essay, Anderson suggests that not only were monarchies
better equipped to handle the prevailing conditions at the
time of their establishment but also that they may be
better suited at the present stage to dealing with the
problems and challenges of dealing with interaction with
the outside world and in marrying domestic needs and
constituencies to international resources.
But there
are at least two long term problems with monarchies. First
there seems to be little intrinsic motivation for a monarch
to be concerned with the future development of his country
apart from securing a continual of his dynasty and ensuring
his place his history. Second the modernising ethos or
intention of Middle Eastern monarchies inevitably provokes
the emergence of cultural change, changes in social groups
and political demands that monarchies seem ill-equipped to
handle. This introduces what Samuel Huntington described as
the kings dilemma – how to accommodate social and economic
transformation and expanding political expectations with
alienating core constituencies and creating hostile forces.
These
problems seem particularly applicable to Oman where the
present ruler has no direct heir and has kept silent on the
question of succession yet where the pace of socio –economic
development continues to quicken and society grows more
complex and heterogonous.
At the same
time it should be remembered that while Gulf monarchies
have considerable similarities and common interests they
are not identical neither in the essential characteristics
of individual countries, nor in the particular methods and
means of maintaining and retaining power. Oman as
traditional monarchy or sultanate represents one of four
types of monarchies in the Middle East. While similar to its
neighbours in the Gulf, Oman is also unique for a number of
reasons.
The first
order of business here is to explain my terminology of
traditional, neo-traditional and post-traditional states. To
begin with let me define traditional rulers in the Arabian
Peninsula. My conception of traditional here is very loosely
defined, essentially meaning the situation before modernist
impulses began to have an impact on Oman and the Arabian
Peninsula states. I do not intend to give a single,
embracing definition to the terms - that could be counter
productive. One could argue that the Portuguese conquest of
Muscat and other Omani coastal towns during the 15th
and 16th centuries contributed a strong impact on
modernisation.
The dynasty
that was successful in ousting the Portuguese utilised
Portuguese military and technological principles in creating
one of the largest naval fleets in the Western Indian Ocean
and following the Portuguese down the coast of Africa to
Mozambique, ousting them from their strongholds.
I would also
note the impossibility of defining traditional as a static
condition fixed in a particular time and I quote South-East
Asian scholar, J Tanbir, on this point. “Tradition is used
most of the time in an uncritical, a historical sense to
denote some kind of collective heritage that has supposedly
been transmitted, relatively unchanged from the past. By
conceiving of tradition in this way two things seem to be
forgotten : that the past was perhaps as open and dynamic to
the actors of that time as our own age appears to us and
that the norms, rules and orientations of the past were not
necessarily as consistent, unified and coherent as we tend
to imagine”.
Indeed in a
fundamental way my application of the term traditional to
Abu Saeed state of the early 20th century is
something of a misnomer. Following Isen Jasenstatts
conception the traditional regimes legitimation of the
rulers have been couched in basically traditional religious
terms. By this distinction, the traditional state in Oman
would be that of the Ibadi Immamate. The Abu Saeed state,
despite its initial election as iman would be an innovation.
Nevertheless
I believe it is useful to term the Abu Saeed state as
traditional in order to contrast it with the succeeding
phase of the neo-traditional state. Whilst Abu Saeed. Rulers
surrendered pretention to rulers imams relatively early ,
their subsequent rule depended on their claim to traditional
legitimacy based on such factors as their general adherence
to the requirements of a just and legitimate rule according
to the tenants of Islam, their place in the Omani tribal
system, their competence in providing order in the country,
their role in maintaining and utilising relations with the
outside world (especially Britain) and, perhaps most
importantly, their eventual historical record as the
principla rulers of Oman for several centuries.
This should
not obscure the subtle transformation of the terms of Abu
Saeed authority from imam, that is religious contemporary
leader to saeed a purely temporal ruler based on transitory
powers akin to the term hakim used by aspiring tribal
sheikhs elsewhere in the Gulf, to sultan, the term first
applied to the Abu Saeed by the British. In its basic Arabic
sense it means power and was first applied to the Seljik
powers behind the Abbasid throne. Only later did it acquire
major usage as a major title roughly equivalent to king.
This
transformation of authority undoubtedly best explains why
the Abu Saeed dynasts acquiesced in acceptance of a
designation as sultans, a term that relevant with antipathy
in their body thought. It also explains why the Abu Saeed
family adopted the honorific saeed to provide themselves
with a descriptive rank in a context in which the Ibadi
imamate describes titles for relatives of the iman and
sheikh refers to tribal leadership.
Not
withstanding these caveats, my important definition of the
traditional state for the purposes of this talk is the Abu
Saeed era until the abdication of Sultan Timour bin Faisal
in late 1931. I do this because sultan Timour and his
immediate predecessor ruled in much the same manner as their
forebearers had done with a minimalist government and they
assumed or demanded a traditional legitimacy. This
definition of traditional state also applies to other
Arabian rulers of the 19th and early 20th
century.
But the
first half of the twentieth century, in some cases extending
into the second half of the century, saw the emergence of a
new type of ruler seeking to create new means of control in
order to preserve their conception of the traditional order
to things. These leaders and the states they constructed,
may be termed neo traditional. As I have written elsewhere,
these leaders sought to preserve the traditional society,
values and goals by enhancing or enlarging the capability to
control the state. In so doing however, the altered the
nature of the de-centralised political system transforming
the basis of authority from traditional to neo-traditional.
But neo-traditional rulers were fighting a loosing battle.
Neo traditional states were not able to cope with the deep
seated nature of emerging challenges to their legitimacy.
Most important, perhaps, were the growing pressures on the
state to allow socio-economic change and even to promote it
through systematic development efforts. States were unable
to erect thorough barriers against the intrusions of the
modern world. Facing increasing opposition, the neo
traditional rulers moved increasingly towards paternalism
and eventually stark authoritarianism thereby largely
forfeiting claims to legitimacy.
This brings
us to the present status of the states of the Arabian
peninsula. All seven regimes proclaim themselves as
modernising, particularly in terms of socio-economic
development, yet they are not modern. To quote Isenstat:
“Modern societies contrasted with more traditional systems,
continuously face the crucial problem of the ability of
their central frameworks to expand. The demand or
expectation of such expansion can develop in several
different directions: aspirations for the creation of
maintenance of new wider political frameworks for economic
or administrative development of modernisation for greater
societal responsiveness for re-definition of the boundaries
and symbols of the collectivity for more direct access to
the centre. The oft repeated claims of these regimes that
they wish to provide for economic development without
changing or transforming the traditions of society and
culture is another example of the situation somewhere
between neo-traditional and post-traditional. Ipso facto
these cannot be modern states because they are monarchies
whose monarchs are recruited exclusively from dynastic
families and who exercise unbridled authority. Rulers and
ruling families are assisted in the process of ruling by a
combination of traditional elites. On the one hand ulama,
other high status allied families, sheikhly families and
established merchant families and on the other hand by newly
emerged elites including senior government officials,
novueaux riche merchants, many of whom have based their
ascendancy on privileged access in the government and the
education. If not traditional, but no longer neo
traditional, if not yet modern than what are these states?
They can best be described as post-traditional states. That
is to say they are states that seek modernisation as a goal
but continue to insist on and are hampered by many
traditional values and structures”.
As Isenstat
points out the attempts to create a post-traditional order
creates problems, conflicts and tensions unparalleled in
other situations of change. The transition to a modern,
post-traditional order constitutes a focus around which
severe conflicts and t struggles tend to develop borne most
visibly from social movements, political elites and groups
and different social and political coalitions. Obviously the
establishment of such an order does not necessarily
obliterate traditional forces in general or arrest the
continuity of traditional cultural models in particular.
Now that I
have set the stage, let me turn our attention to Oman
specifically. I will begin by contrasting the vastly
different outlooks of Oman’s last two rulers. First Sultan
Saeed bin Timour was an archtype of the neo traditional
ruler. He continued the patriarchy of his ancestors, relied
on minimalist government and employing direct contact with
and control of his subordinates. He was a true fiscal
conservative who believed fully in the maxium that you
should not spend you absolutely must and that you should not
spend on an item unless you have all the funds required in
hand already and unless you are sure that it will not
require future expenditures that you cannot meet.
Saeed bin
Timour kept his country as closed off and as inaccessible as
possible. He displayed strict personal adherence to
traditional social values and religious requirements and
sought to enforce his outlook on his subjects in the best,
paternalistic manner. In part these traits can be seen as
the outlook of a traditionalist, not much different from his
father, Timour and his grandfather Faisal. But from the
early or mid-1950s Saeed bin Timour began to appear more
clearly as a neo-traditionalist. His need for more income
led him to permit the oil companies entry into the heart of
the country. The requirement that the oil expedition be
accompanied by an armed force eventually resulted in the
restoration of sultanate authority over the interior. Abu
Saeed’s control over the interior was restored but not in
such a way that could have been done by a traditional
leader.
The sultan
was forced to accept British military and financial
assistance. Thus the sultan’s armed forces were born in
1958. This turned out to be a pivotal event in a number of
ways. The armed forces clearly established the sultan’s
authority over northern Oman. All sheikhs and tribes found
themselves subject to the rule of the sultan as enforced by
SAAF and beyond strictly military duties carried out small
civil development projects.
Sultan Saeed
maintained his aloofness and inaccessibility from his
subjects most notably by his permanent retreat to Salalah in
the southern part of the country in 1958 and his failure to
return to Muscat ever again. Furthermore he ruled as a
strong nationalist, consolidating political authority and
control in his own hands. He did not represent himself as an
Abadi imam as this would have limited his authority. He
worked through a minimum of officials who were personally
responsible only to him and did not represent independent
power bases. It is perhaps not coincidental that these
officials were either family members or expatriates, neither
of whom possessed either the capability or sufficient
reasons to challenge the sultan. In order to maintain the
traditional character of the state and society, Sultan Saeed
was forced increasingly to maintain and expand his direct
control of the state apparatus. This was done through the
myriad of restrictions on the life of his subjects and
partly through his acceptance of larger and more capable
security forces to counter the rebellion in Dhofar and the
rising dissident threats to northern Oman.
Until the
very late 1960s Sultan Saeed’s essential goal was to retain
control over Oman by keeping affairs as unchanged as
possible. Was his fundamental altered by the receipt of oil
revenues, first received in 1968? On the one hand it can be
argued that yes his outlook did change as he began to
institute a number of modest development programmes. On the
other hand it can also be argued that it did not alter his
outlook as these programmes were not intended to change the
character of the country but to simply offer basic
improvements and it is impossible to assess any long term
changes in his outlook because he was never given the
opportunity.
I now turn
to Qaboos bin Saeed as a post traditional ruler. Evidence of
the modernising intentions of Sultan Qaboos are ample. To
start with there is his educational background in this
country. In addition and early on Qaboos authoritatively
stamped his personality on the new regime making a clean
break with the past of his father. One of his first
declarations upon acceding as sultan concerned his intention
to develop the country. “I promise to dedicate myself to the
speedy establishment of a modern government. My people, I
shall work as promptly as possible to ensure a better life
and better future. Yesterday we were completely in the dark
but tomorrow, with the aid of God, a new dawn will arise
for Muscat, and Oman and its people”.
Clearly many
characteristics mark him as a post traditional ruler. This
includes his clear determination to retain all ultimate
authority in his own hands. This conviction surfaced early
in his reign during the struggle over the conflicting goals
of his uncle and Prime Minister, Tariq bin Timour. The
sultan sold himself as a benevolent monarch, retaining all
authority while Saeed Tariq pushed for his conception of a
constitutional monarchy. Tariq lasted little more in office
before he felt himself obliged to resign and there has
never been another prime minister.
Other
evidence of post-traditionalism in the sultan includes his
adoption and extension of royal trappings. Indeed the
adjective sultani in Arabic is inevitably officially
translated as royal. At one point early in his reign it was
even consideration of a change in title from sultan to king.
In this context of royal appearance it is also noteworthy
that Sultan Qaboos and his forebearers dispensed with the
key symbolic act of traditional legitimacy – the baya or
oath of allegiance. In the Abadi Imamate an iman was not
recognised as such until the notables and ulema had given
him their baya and this is confirmed by the people.
Sultan
Qaboos is the ruler simply because he overthrew the previous
ruler, his father and thereupon seized the reigns of power.
In addition the sultan has encouraged the cult of
personality. Nearly everything new in the country is named
after him: Mina Qaboos, the country’s principal port, tariq
Qaboos the country’s main thoroughfare, Madinat Qaboos, the
country’s first modern housing project, Sultan Qaboos sports
complex, the new Qaboos mosques which dominate most major
towns.
Todate the
only edifice with the previous sultan’s name is the Saeed
bin Timour Mosque in Al Huwair suburb of Muscat. Indeed the
appearance of this striking Ottoman style mosque is a bit of
surprise given the present sultan’s apparent ambivalence
towards his father and the obvious intention of denigrating
everything pre 1970 and celebrating only post 1970
accomplishments. It might conjectured that part of Sultan’s
Qaboos ambivalence is a strong similarity in habits and
characteristics shared by father and son. They share a
shyness that most closely translates into an aloofness from
family and general population alike. Both have kept the
essential reigns of power very much in their own hands and
have been loathed to delegate responsibility to others
including senior members of their own family. Similarly
both have refused to name or groom an heir.
It is also
significant that both have evinced a special attraction to
Dofar in the southern region – one through adoption and the
other through birth. Both have tended to spend large periods
of their time and to have been largely inaccessible there.
The
establishment of the post –traditional state in Oman. We
return again to the meaning of post-traditional or to put it
another way why is Oman post-traditional and not modern? The
first piece of evidence is the patriarchal nature of the
state which in turn is built on the foundation of the
patriarchal nature of society. The ruler, like the sheikh of
the tribe, like the father of a family is the father of his
country. He demands respect, obedience and total loyalty.
In exchange he assumes responsibility for the protection and
welfare of his constituents.
This
tradition of patriarchy has been reinforced in Oman as well
as to an even greater degree in the other Gulf states by the
accrual of oil revenues to the state and thus to the ruler
as the guardian of the state. The consequence of oil has
been and continues to remain the dependence of the economy
and especially the state on oil revenues. If Oman is not
completely a rentier state, it certainly is not a self
sustaining economy in the absence of oil. This leads not
only to economic dependence on the state as the engine of
growth as well as the maintainer of an orderly economy. It
also makes the state an employer, a provider of social
welfare programmes, definer of propriety and acceptability
and social and political values.
Just as the
members of a patriarchial family depend on the father to
take care of them, so Omanis display an expectation that the
state must initiate and supervise action I nearly all
spheres and guarantee the results. The construction of the
new Omani state also inevitable displayed a combination of
the neo-traditional and post traditional characteristics.
From the beginning there was the question of finding
suitable government personnel. In time honoured fashion many
of the earlier personnel were expatriates – primarily
British. A few senior members of the old sultan’s
government found it expedient to retire on news of the coup.
A selection process for the first Omani officials of the new
government was based on several factors. One was
practicality – embracing those who had a least a modicum of
education or experience and knew some English.
But equally
appointments were made on the basis of representation and
important constituencies and personal ties. Take for example
the four men named to the first cabinet – two are members of
a larger Abu Said family from which the sultans come. Their
appointments were of course in addition to the prominent
positions of the two members of the sultan’s immediate
family – that is his uncle Saeed Tariq bin Timour as prime
minister and his cousin Tweini bin Shehab as the sultan’s
representative.
Of the two
remaining portfolios health went to a competent and
respected medical doctor who at the same time was an old and
close friend of Saeed Tariq, the Prime Minister. The choice
of the Minister of Education may have been seen as
surprising since the individual concerned possessed only
traditional education. More to the point however, he was a
nephew to the last indisputably legitimate Abadi Imam and a
member of the sheikhly family of one of the largest and most
important tribes of Oman.
By these
and other appointments it can be seen that the new regime
worked carefully to modify and not replace traditional
centered periphery relations. Through the next two decades
the Qaboos regime could be seen to display a number of
enduring characteristics. One of these was the retention of
the old methods of interaction of governing. Even into the
new millennium, ministerial appointments and ousters as
well, were announced without explanation or justification.
During such reshuffles Muscat and the country would be alive
with rumours about why and so and so had been appointed or
dismissed. Once enconscensed in a ministry the encumbent
minister would tend to make it his fiefdom, secure in the
knowledge that as long as he did not displease the sultan he
could be ensured of a lengthy tenure which in a few cases
encompassed several decades.
Although
under-secretaries were in theory the highest civil service
ranks it is striking how many under-secretaries, office
directors or directors general seemed to hail from the same
region, or even the same tribe as their ministers. Even in
later years when more and more educated technically
competent candidates for high office were appointed a
pattern of regional and tribal mixes continued to prevail.
At its
foundations the Omani regime continues to display a highly
patrimonial nature, exentuated by the solitary and absolute
figure of Sultan Qaboos. That is not to say that the post
1970 regime has not registered major accomplishments nor has
become stagnant in its operation and direction. The
government administration is quite often functional and
effective. The foundations of a proper civil service have
been laid. The regime has done much to create a
socio-economic infrastructure that has notably improved its
peoples standard of living. The rights and position of women
have been vastly improved. The oil income has been harnessed
with relatively minimal wastage or diversion to private
interests. In recent years emphasis has been laid on the
encouragement and expansion of the private sector. In the
political realm, Sultan Qaboos introduced in 1996 a basic
law that codified the outline and purpose of the state and
its organs.
But in spite
of all the progress that has been made Oman remains bound by
its post-traditional constraints. An extreme view of Oman’s
situation as a microcosm of the situation prevailing
throughout the Arab world, is Hisham Shehabi’s perception of
neo patriarchy – a hybrid society in a culture representing
a fusion of traditional patriarchy with a ‘deformed
modernisation’ wooded in dependency relations with the West.
Legally the sultan rules by decree, politically he reigns by
fear. There is no court of appeal against his decisions and
justice in Oman depends in large part on the sultan’s
inherent sense of fairness and his diligence to duty.
Cronyism, certainly at higher levels, persists and
corruption is not only widespread but punishment for it is
haphazard. Tribal, regional and communal identities persist
on a level of intensity nearly equal to national identity.
While the animosities of previous eras has declined the sub
national identities are often utilised to tweak the system
and to procure favours, jobs and money. Representative
institutions such as the majlis al sharuah (consultative
council) remain extremely restrictive and freedoms of
speech, the arts and the media are severely circumscribed.
The
emergence of Oman as a nation-state: There has long existed
the sense of an Omani nation but the emergence of Oman as a
nation-state in the modern context has been hampered by the
post-traditionalism of the regime and society. I return to
the writings of Esenstadt as particularly instructive,
especially his examination of the development of democracies
as modern states. In this context Esenstadt notes that
:”like all modern regimes constitutional democratic regimes
developed within the framework of the formation in Europe of
modern territorial states with the evolution of new
state-society relations most fully manifest in the emergence
of civil society with the concomitant transformation of
political processes and finally with the rise of modern
market capitalist political economies”.
He goes on
to observe that the transformation of the basic premise of
the social and political order became interwoven with the
parallel transformation and instituitonalisation of the
conceptions of sovereignty, citizenship of representative
institutions and of accountability of rulers. The core of
this transformation was the transfer of the locus of
sovereignty to the people and the related concept of popular
sovereignty. Citizenship was changed from an acclamatory or
ratifying act into a participatory act. Representation was
transformed from virtual to actual”.
Where then
does the sultan of Oman and the other states of the
peninsula exist in political terms in relation to
Esenstadt’s conception of modern democracies? Sovereignty is
unambiguously vested in the sultan: he delegates authority
on his terms to his ministers and other officials and
permits comment within the limits he sets by the citizenary.
In fundamental terms, the status of the sultan, equates to
the divine legitimation of earlier European kings.
Notwithstanding the basic laws and definition of Oman as an
Islamic state and the shariah as the source of legislation,
the state is determinanely secular in its source of
sovereignty and application of its authority.
There seems
little dispute over the sultan of Oman’s existence as some
sort of nation-state. The composition of the Omani nation is
universally agreed, particularly since the integration of
Dofar into Oman from the 1970s onwards. A sense of Omani
identity has existed for centuries, perhaps for a
millennium. At most some sectors of the community
essentially defined as Arab, tribal and Ibadi or Sunni may
contest the Omaniness of certain minority groups. This is
not a serious issue. Further more the boundaries of the
state have existed virtually unchanged in the course of at
least a century despite the contestation by the imamate in
northern Oman and by the Dofari insurgents in southern
Oman.
But in most
other ways Oman does not fit the criteria accepted of a
modern nation-state yet alone obviously that of democracy.
Even as set out in the basic law there is little
accountability of the rulers. Article 7 states that the
sultan, before exercising his authority shall hold a joint
session of the Oman Council and the Defense Council take the
following oath: “I swear to God almighty to respect the
state’s charter and the laws and to safeguard the interests
of the citizens and their rights and to defend the
sovereignty and integrity of its territories.”
The
sultanate as it exists today would seem to fit most closely
to Esenstadt’s description of absolutest authority as
existed in pre-revolutionary France that attempted to
present itself as a central locust of authority by virtue of
its being the bearer of rational enlightenment. The other
two sources of authority in pre-revolutionary France do not
exist to any significant degree in Oman. Representative
institutions are in an extremely nascent state and remain
gifts of the sultan. The establishment of popular will as a
foundation of sovereignty has yet to find acceptance by the
state or even by much of the citizenary.
Indeed the
closest to popular representation as entertained officially
in the sultanate is in article 9 of the basic law which
states that citizens according to this law and its charter
and its provisions and other legal enactments have the right
to participate in general affairs.
There is no
evidence of any partnership or reciprocity yet alone
acceptable channels of protest between authority and
citizenary. A nascent middle class is an emerging force in
economic terms but carries not corresponding political
influence. Indeed apart from some educated elements
agitation for a more substantial political role seems to be
limited as most of the middle class, as is true elsewhere in
the Gulf, remains pre-occupied with materialism. Just as
important, it should be remembered that the state and
ultimately the person, of the sultan, is not only the source
of all power but oil remains the engine of the state and
thus the economy. Traditional economic sectors such as
fishing, farming and herding have declined and add marginal
value apart from providing significant employment. The
principle contribution of the private sector has been in
providing imported goods and local supplemented by some
import substitution industries.
Oman’s
participation the global economy is mostly restricted to the
export of oil and gas and the import of finished goods and
labour. Thus both Oman’s politics and economy remain
solidly post-traditional.
Oman has
always been remarkably free from pronounced social
stratification. There have always been wealthy and poor and
some communities were traditionally regarded as inferior.
The changes put in train in 1970 have done little to further
differentiate society as a whole. They have created however,
two largely, new inter-related classes: senior government
officials or a bureaucratic elite and a new capitalist
merchant class. It can be argued that the continued strength
and durability of the post-traditional state is due in
large part to both old and new elites who derive
considerable benefit from the status quo and conversely who
have the most to fear from modernity because it threatens
their status and privilege.
It is
undoubtedly superfluous to add that there is no
corresponding proletariat or industrial working class apart
from expatriates from various Asian countries. While most
Omanis have benefited in one or more ways from the country’s
one-third century of prosperity the benefit to the majority
of people has been in the provision of basic social welfare
system, acquisition of minimal education and securing
employment with the government.
A great
balance of personal wealth has acured to the new elites
along with existing merchant families and there have been
few if any conscious efforts to re-distribute the resources.
Implications
for modernity and legitimacy: A pertinent and indeed
central question that must be asked here is whether Oman
needs to be transformed into a democracy, Western-style or
otherwise in order to be modern. The scale of traditional,
neo traditional, post traditional and modern statuses
explicated earlier in this talk implies a linear
progression. But is this necessarily the case? Such a
concept is fraught by being tarred with charges of
ethnocentricity as were raised during the debate regarding
modernisation theory as advanced during the 1950s and 60s.
One response
to the short comings has been the introduction of the
concept of multiple modernities suggesting that Western
patterns of modernity are not the only authentic modernity
even though they enjoy historical precedence and continue to
be a basic reference point for others.
With this in
mind it is thus reasonable to assume that the emergence of a
modern Oman, should that be the case, may well follow from
the unique path deriving from the still potent traditional
foundations and that the tolerance and equanimity for
which the country is noted. Still the envisaging of such a
future rests upon resolution of a number of salient points.
Prime among these is what is the extent or the prospects for
continued loyalty or legitimacy. Loyalty in this context may
have several objects: it may be represented in terms of
personal loyalty to Sultan Qaboos. In the early days of his
rule most Omanis, when questioned about their feelings for
their sultan almost invariably replied that before him there
was nothing and with him there was everything.
For the Far
East the sultan is one of them. He has been their champion
in the uncertain integration into larger sultanate. For the
jebalis or the people of the Dhofar mountains he is also one
of them and is responsible for bringing the war of the 1960s
and 70s to a close. But the exhilaration of the early days
of the regime and the ending of the Dhofar war have long
since past and dependence on volatile oil prices to finance
the country’s growth and development has taken its toll.
No other
member of the ruling family has such close links with Dhofar.
More than 80 percent of all Omanis were not born in 1970.
The sultan’s lavish spending on palaces and recently on the
huge new congregational mosque on the outskirts of Muscat,
in a country where the Ibadi tradition had no requirement
for such mosques, his continued aloofness and other factors
may have brought his personal legitimacy into doubt.
Beyond the
personage of the sultan, lies the question of loyalty to the
Al Saeed monarchy. It is a small weak family and there are
few members who command loyalty. The sultan’s refusal to
indicate an heir apparent and the studied indifference with
which he receives family members make any assessment of
loyalty to the family difficult to asses.
At an even
deeper level there must be some question of loyalty to the
sultanate presently constituted. Three decades of
reinforcement have left a probable sense of Omani national
identity but there are fissures beneath the surface. The UAE
continues to draw Omanis like a magnet to work in the civil
service and security forces alike. Once settled in Abu Dhabi
or Ras Al Khaeimeh these Omanis are pressurised to take up
UAE citizenship. To the south, although Dhofar has been
strongly integrated into the sultanate there will always
probably remain at least a potential for the parting of the
ways.
Another
source of concern is the extent to which demands have been
or are being articulated to reform this system or its
modification or its replacement. Demands for the latter have
not been present since the Dhofar war and associated
activities in northern Oman three decades ago. Fortunately
Oman has been largely free from being sucked in into the
malestorm of Islamist currents currently sweeping the
region.
But there are
voices calling for reform of the system and these voices
seem to be growing. Educated Omanis at least articulate in
private demands for a greater say in decision making and for
some attention to be paid to expertise. Oman is notable for
the absence for any forum for debate and dialogue. The
majlis al shurah, although evolving, is all too often seen
as ineffectual and little more than a tool of the state.
There are also very real restrictions on the growth of civil
society.
What then is
the future role for what is in many respects a relatively
strong state within an essentially unified society. Perhaps
it may not be too far afield to look to the Turkish
experience for enlightenment on Oman. At first glance,
Turkey may seem like an odd choice for comparison. The
country has been a strongly secular republic since the
1920s, it has had a representative democracy that has in
times of crises been suspended by a politically
interventionalist military apparatus. Nevertheless there are
useful parallels as the Turkish scholar Metan Hepper has
noted political conduct is shaped, inter alia, by the
presence or absence of a generalising, integrating or
legitimasing state, and if such a state does exist by the
degree to which state values and norms are intrinsically
concentrated or defused.
The existence
of such a state in the Ottoman-Turkish polity constituted
the qualitative difference between Turkey and most new
countries as compared to European state societies Turkey’s
state values and norms have remained concentrated rather
than diffused. My intention here is not to suggest that the
Omani military will intervene in times of perceived crisis
although this cannot be discounted entirely in terms of the
possible succession crisis following the death of Sultan
Qaboos. I wish to suggest that Oman represents a strong
state structure, at least on the surface, with an equally
strong sense of national identity. While not an avowedly
secular regime the state acts in a largely secular manner.
There is
nothing to confirm Charles Tulley thesis that there is no
reliable sense in which modernisation breeds revolution.
The key to peaceful transformation may lie in the particular
nature of the impact of Oman’s increasing urbanisation,
which as elsewhere may bring completely new types of demands
from the periphery to the urban centres.
Alienation
lies at the root of Arab malaise contends Salim Barakat. He
seems this as the direct result of prevailing Arab politics
:”Arab citizens have been rendered powerless because they
have been excluded from the political process, marginalised
and isolated from the human and material resources civil
society should place at their disposal the people of the
area suffer from state tyranny over society. The most vital
functions of society in the most progressive as well as
conservative Arab states have been constantly undermined by
authoritarian rule. Citizens of Arab countries have been
denied the basic right to participate in the political
process”.
It can be
argued convincingly that passivity as much if not more than
alienation defines public attitude in Oman today. It is
surprising and something to be admired how well Omanis have
adjusted to the enormous changes of the past 34 years. It
can also be argued that the regime under Qaboos has been on
balance benevolent and concerned about the welfare of the
Omani people . Nevertheless the existing constraints and
limitations as outlined above mean that the country cannot
realise its full potential until it escapes its
post-traditional predicament.
This talk
began by noting two contemporary themes of thinking about
the Middle East and its monarchies: their resilience and the
argument for Middle Eastern exceptionalism. The preceding
analysis should have made clear the reasons for the
resilience of the current regime in Oman – whether those
reasons constitute an exception to the argument that the
emergence of modernity in Oman means the authentic
constitutionalisation of the monarchy or even its demise is
a matter for future consideration.
Dr J.E.
Peterson is a historian and political scientist specialising
in the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf. He has taught at
various universities in the United States, has been a fellow
at a number of research institutes in the US and United
Kingdom and is affiliated with the Center for Middle Eastern
Studies at the University of Arizona. Until 1999 he served
in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for Security and
Defence in Muscat, Sultanate of Oman. He has been most
recently the Sir William Luce Fellow at the University of
Durham. He is the author of a dozen books and more than 40
full-length articles on the Arabian Peninsula and the
Gulf. His current writing concentrates on Oman with the
publication in 2004 of two articles in the Middle East
Journal and another in Middle East Policy, and
he is completing two books on Oman. | 
