Page 154 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

Tribal Rebellion, Marxist Revolution 151

assorted folies des grandeurs. At irregular intervals new plans were unveiled

with elaborate flourishes by the sultan’s government, most of which were fated
to moulder thereafter in their pigeon-holes. As with much governmental activ­
ity elsewhere in Arabia, the promulgation of intentions was held to be
synonymous with their accomplishment. To sift fact from fantasy in estimating
what has been achieved in any of the oil states of Arabia is no easy task, and it is
not made easier by the plethora of uncritical reporting of these achievements by
Western newspapers, which have made a minor industry out of the issuing of

endless special supplements in which the feats of development and vast finan­
cial expenditures of these states are fulsomely catalogued.
Thus we are told of Oman in the years since Qabus ibn Said came to power
that whereas in 1970 there were only three primary schools in the country with
900 pupils, by 1977 210 primary schools and forty-five secondary schools had
been built, and 61,500 pupils (a quarter of them girls) enrolled in them. In 1970
there was only one hospital, the American Mission Hospital at Matrah. Now
there are thirteen hospitals, eleven health centres and forty-two dispensaries
and clinics. Where before there were only dusty tracks straggling through the

mountains and plains, now there are hundreds of miles of tar-sealed highways —
from Muscat up the Batinah coast to Sauhar, from Sauhar through the Wadi
al-Jizzi to the Buraimi oasis, from Buraimi to Ibri, and from Nizwa through the
Wadi Samail to Muscat. A new deep-water harbour, Mina Qabus, has been
built at Matrah and an international airport a few miles up the coast at Sib. A
new town, Madinat Qabus, has been created in the Ruwi valley, next door to

Matrah, and the sultan has acquired a couple of splendid new palaces, one at
Muscat and the other at Sib. An elaborate electricity generating system and
desalination plant have been constructed to supply Muscat, Matrah and
adjacent areas.
Where perhaps the largest expenditures have occurred has been in the
expansion and equipment of the armed forces and the police. By one of the
numerous ironies in which the modern Gulf abounds, Oman, with fewer oil
revenues than most of the oil states, has been the only one that has had to
expend its revenues in suppressing insurrection. Yet the type and nature of

Oman’s military expenditure have not been entirely dictated by operational
necessities, or by the particular demands of the Dhufar campaign. There are
also requirements of face which have had to be satisfied. Qabus ibn Said, after
all, enjoys the style and dignity of ‘sultan’ in his own and the world’s eyes. He
is, by this token, a cut above the shaikhs and amirs of the lesser Gulf states,
more of the company, if not exactly the equal, of the king of Saudi Arabia and
me former shah of Persia. While his resources might fall short of theirs, he has
y his lights a royal obligation to make a passable show of armed might. To
these considerations must be added the fact that Qabus has been heavily

importuned by the Western powers, and by Britain in particular, to purchase
the trappings of modern military power. So, in addition to small arms