Page 210 - The Origins of the United Arab Emirates_Neat

'7(> The Origins of the United Arab Emirates

minimum there was obviously no point in going beyond it, as
presumably HMG did not desire to undertake more commitments
on the God-forsaken Trucial Coast than was absolutely necessary.
If the minimum of interference did not give us our ends I
was always prepared to advocate an amount of interference which
would achieve our ends.14
One of the means whereby Fowlc was able to gain his ends was
the policy he termed enforcement of tribal responsibility. This was
at least as effective as such obvious measures as bombardment,
for which he showed disdain. The types of punishment threatened
or meted out under this policy were calculated not only to cause
the ruler to suffer personal loss and humiliation, but also to damage
the prosperity and the freedom of mobility of his people—to the
further detriment of his prestige and, thus, of his ability to retain
power. The enforcement of tribal responsibility took on two different
forms. The first was the stronger of the two and as such never
went beyond the stage of threats; the threats were invariably taken
seriously, and proved capable of breaking any form of resistance.
What was threatened was the destruction of the shaykhdom’s
pearling fleet if the ruler did not obey or behave as the Resident
wished him to do. Naturally, such a catastrophe would have destroyed
the financial mainstay of the shaykhdom, and almost certainly would
have brought about the downfall of the ruler. In 1935, when
Shaykh Shakhbut of Abu Dhabi was adamantly resisting efforts
to have a petrol store built in Sir Bani Yas island, he was made
to swallow his pride and give the required permission on pain
of the destruction of his pearling fleet. The same threat was issued
to Shaykh Ahmad bin Rashid of Umm al-Qaiwain in 1937 when
he refused to allow a surveying party for the projected air-route
to remain for longer than fifteen days. It is interesting to note
that on this occasion Fowle threatened Ahmad with another, more
ominous, punishment: that ‘certain local pressures would be brought
to bear against him and his people*. There is no indication as
to what these ‘pressures’ might have been, but there is little doubt
that the policy of enforcing tribal responsibility brought ample
rewards.
The second type of sanction employed by Fowle was the milder
one of‘stoppage of His Majesty’s Government’s good offices’, which
meant that the ruler and his people would until further notice
be deprived of travel papers. This measure was greatly inconvenient
to the ruler and his more prominent notables and merchants. At
various intervals in 1938, the rulers of Abu Dhabi, Ras al-Khaimah
and Sharjah received this form of punishment. Fowlc did not regard
the withdrawal as a severe sanction, since it only caused an awkward