Page 220 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

Bombay. The few young men who were sent abroad for educa­
tion, went to schools or colleges in India. Today, many young
men arc receiving higher education in the universities of the Middle
East, and they arc keenly interested in Middle East politics as well
as in those of the West.
Today, there is much talk here about ‘the haves and the have-
nots’ in the Gulf which, in general, means the people in the oil
Shaikhdoms and those of the Shaikhdoms where there is no oil.
In the Gulf there has never been acute want, and the inhabitants
of the Shaikhdoms appear to be healthier than those of other
Middle East countries. The sea provides unlimited quantities of
varied and most excellent fish, dates arc grown in Hasa, Bahrain
and Oman, and there has always been enough money in the
Shaikhdoms to import rice, sugar, tea and coffee, and other goods
from India. The fact that many of the poorer Arabs live in
barastis is often mentioned by Europeans as a proof of their
poverty, but in a damp, hot climate where the rainfall is only two
or three inches a year, a barasti is a better habitation than a house,
unless the latter is provided with electric fans or air-conditioning.
The Gulf is not one of those places where there arc immense
differences between ‘the haves and the have-nots!’
It is only in recent years that the younger generation of Gulf
Arabs have become politically minded, which is the inevitable
result of education, foreign travel and broadcasting. In the oil
states the sense of values has changed. The possession of a date
garden, a fish trap, a pearling dhow or some camels is no longer
an indication that a man is well to do. Television sets, radios and
cars have now become status symbols. But it is open to doubt
whether the people are more happy and contented today, than
they were forty years ago, or even when Loch was in the Gulf.
Loch’s diary makes the reader realise how many British lives
were sacrificed in suppressing piracy. Later, the British succeeded
in putting an end to the slave trade - but that is another story.
Britain achieved these objects, not with any ambitions towards
territorial conquests, but in order to make the seas safe for the
ships of all nations and to put an end to the people of the Gulf
carrying off their fellow creatures into slavery. Unfortunately
very few of the present generation of Gulf Arabs realise the part
which Britain played in the past.

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