Page 227 - Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf_Neat

City and countryside in modern Bahrain 207

20 Aerial view of northeast Manama with modern districts being
developed on reclaimed land, 1970

1940s and 1950s unfolded in parallel with the consolidation of the nation-
alist movement. As after 1937 the right to own land became conditional
on the acquisition of Bahraini nationality, the historic communities of
Manama viewed Bahraini passports as the new prize of modernity.
Immigrants from neighbouring Arab countries and from Iran had similar
aspirations, attracted to the town by the almost mythological lure of oil
wealth. Throughout the Gulf, Bahrain acquired the reputation of the
27
place where ‘all streets are paved with gold’.
With the advent of the reforms and of oil, Manama was no longer the
open town of the pearl boom. Soon after the reorganisation of the customs
administration in 1923, immigration started to be regulated by a system of
visas and passports which were under the control of the port and the
municipal authorities. Following the expansion of oil production on the
eve of World War II, the government started to encourage the migration

27
Quote from Belgrave, Personal Column, p. 103.