Page 263 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

26o Arabia, the Gulf and the West

were soon deemed too high-flown for the mundane purpose in mind: a more
down-to-earth style was needed. Nor was the Plantagenet England of Philby’s
invention the right metaphorical medium through which to present Saudi
Arabia to an American audience: to be effective, the historical analogy would

have to be a recognizable one. The one eventually chosen was the American
West in pioneer times, presented in suitably homespun prose. So the American
public was introduced to the sheep-herders of Najd, driving their flocks to
watering-holes and high pastures, to Wahhabi circuit-riders bringing the ‘good
news’ of the reformed faith to outlying settlements, and to posses of ikhwan
pursuing outlaws into hostile territory. It was a highly evocative theme: Saudi
Arabia as a mirror-image of the Old West, a wide, unfenced land where nature
was unsubdued, where religion was simple and fundamentalist, and the law of
the gun prevailed - the desert of Arabia, in short, as America’s last frontier.
With no rival school of Arabian history in the United States to challenge it,
ARAMCO had no difficulty in gaining acceptance for its interpretation of the
modern history of the peninsula. The situation has not changed up to the
present day. It was, and it still is, virtually impossible for any independent
Western scholar to visit Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government does not wel­
come foreign inquirers after knowledge, and almost the only way in which a
foreign scholar can enter the country - unless he is there at the government’s
request to serve it in some specific capacity - is to be sponsored by ARAMCO.
Needless to say, the company exercises great care in its selection of those to
whom it is prepared to give its seal of approval. Independence of outlook and
an enquiring mind are not on the company’s list of desirable qualities in
applicants. The depressing results of these twin policies are all too evident in

the dearth of European scholarship, and the current quality of American
scholarship, on Saudi Arabia.
Over the past three decades the ARAMCO version of Saudi Arabian history
and politics has been firmly implanted not only in those American universities
which offer programmes in Middle-Eastern studies, but also in learned
societies, philanthropic organizations and other institutions interested in the
Middle East, such as the Middle East Institute in Washington which is (or was)
partially subsidized by ARAMCO. The company’s influence has been especi­
ally apparent in universities and colleges where Saudi Arabs are sent to study,
whether situated on the eastern seaboard or in states like Texas and California
where the parent companies have their homes. It has also been apparent in the
scholarly publications issuing from these diverse sources, all of which have
exhibited an uncritical, not to say reverential, attitude to the Al Saud and their
doings. The company’s propaganda on behalf of its Saudi clients even invaded
the chaste pages of the new edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, where

sunoosedly disinterested articles contributed by ARAMCO scholars prove ,
ondoser inspection, to be semi-devotional exercises in honour of the Al Sau

or disguised arguments in support of their territorial and dynasuc ambiuons.