Page 158 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

Tribal Rebellion, Marxist Revolution 155

For trouble will come not just from the hill tribesmen deprived of their
subsidies and other benefits but even more, perhaps, from the rootless, urban
proletariat, whose expectations have grown with the advent of transient pros­
perity, expectations which in the case of the younger townsmen will be further
swollen by the smattering of education they have received and the inevitable
pretensions and ambitions it has aroused. Said ibn Taimur s prophecy, in

short, is all too likely to be fulfilled.
A new and potentially disturbing element was introduced into Omani
society after 1970 with the return to the country of numbers of exiles, attracted
back by the more liberal regime of Qabus ibn Said and by the opportunities for
advancement offered by the country’s lack of educated and technically
qualified citizens. The largest influx of immigrants, however, was not of
returning expatriates but of Zanzibaris, who had either left Zanzibar for the

East African mainland before the island became independent in 1962 or who
fled after the massacre of its Arab population in 1964.
While Said ibn Taimur lived he refused to grant the Zanzibaris refuge in
Oman, though he did allow back into the country most of the Omani tribesmen
(some 400 of them) who had fled after the collapse of the imamate revolt in
T957-9- Since the accession of Qabus ibn Said anything from 3,000 to 5,000

Zanzibaris have been permitted to enter Oman, the great majority of whom
have settled in Muscat and Matrah. Few if any of them speak Arabic: their
native languages are Swahili and English. They are not liked by the Omanis,
less perhaps for their origins and their unfamiliarity with Omani ways than for
their quick wits and possession of skills the Omanis do not have. These have
enabled them to thrive in the conditions created by the economic expansion
that has been going on in the capital and its vicinity over the past few years.

Prosperity has sharpened rather than blunted their sense of superiority and
increased their scorn for the illiterate and unskilled Omani, and the bad blood
between the two is further poisoned by the Zanzibaris’ lofty references to their
ancestral homes and estates in the Sharqiyah, to which, so they say, they intend
one day to return. These alleged patrimonies, as they are very well aware, are

nothing but figments of their imagination, which is why none of them has been
so foolish as actually to set foot in the Sharqiyah.
Among the Omani emigres who have returned are a number who have
adopted nationalist, socialist, Baathist or even Marxist ideas and attitudes
during their years away from Oman. Some are adherents or former adherents
of the Arab Nationalists’ Movement, while others have been educated at
technical institutions in the Soviet Union or in other countries of the commun­
ist bloc. Together with a number of Zanzibaris they now occupy prominent

positions in the Omani administration. Although a few members of the Al Bu
Said, distant relations of the sultan, have been brought into the government,
the dearth of talent and expertise among them has limited their usefulness’
Saiyid Qabus likes to have Dhufaris about him, even when, as in the case of one