Sultan Qaboos played the crucial role of mediator in
the talks leading up to the nuclear agreement Iran signed with the G5 +1
countries last year. Last week, Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani visited Oman in his first official visit to an Arab
country, to strengthen their good relations and expand trade. The visit concluded with the signing of a
contract to supply as much as 10bn cubic meters of Iranian gas a year to meet
Oman’s growing energy requirements.
Curious about Oman’s diplomatic character, I started
reading Oman, Culture and Diplomacy by Jeremy Jones and Nicholas Ridout. It is the most academic book I’ve read in a
while (which isn’t actually saying much), is a bit redundant and circular at
times, but is also pretty interesting.
One complaint I have is that the two authors sometimes
overlap their writing. Once they used
two different titles for the same sultan in the same chapter. The sultans already have deceptively similar
names, so when they mentioned Sultan Said bin Sultan on one page and Seyyid
Said bin Sultan on the other page, next to the numerous other Sultans of the
family (Ahmed bin Said, Said bin Ahmed, Sultan bin Ahmed, and Salim bin Sultan)
I was naturally confused.
I’m only a few chapters in, but I wanted to outline
some of the main points so far.
The authors argue that Oman’s culture itself, the way
that Omanis go through daily life, shapes the foreign policy and diplomacy of
the country. They describe three primary
factors as having shaped this unique culture.
The first is a long history of interaction with foreign
entities through the flourishing Indian Ocean trade. Since as long ago as 3000 BCE, merchants used
the monsoon winds to travel and trade along the coasts of Africa and Asia. Once Islam arrived on the scene, it also
traveled the trade routes, spreading not only religion, but a written language,
shared values, and social connections as well.
Omanis, being Arabic speakers and among the first to convert to Islam, helped
to spread these new concepts, and subsequently benefited from them. All this traveling created a class of Omanis
with wide foreign experience.
The second factor was the effect of the many migrants
who settled in Oman’s port cities. Even the
Omanis who never ventured past their shores couldn’t help but interact with
foreigners daily. Migrants came from
what is now Iran, Pakistan, India, and East Africa, bringing their languages, skills,
and most importantly, their cultural differences. And so Oman’s cosmopolitan character grew.
The third factor is fairly recent. Prior to 1970, there weren’t a lot of jobs or
opportunities for Oman’s labor force, so a lot of the young people went abroad
to find work. Many of them did very well
for themselves. When Sultan Qaboos took
over and started building up the country, he called on those experienced
ex-pats to come back and contribute to the progress. Many of them came back, bringing their
widened outlooks with them and now occupy key government positions.
In later chapters, the authors get into some very
specific aspects of Omani culture, one of the most important of which is Ibadi
Islam. One of these days I hope to write
a little bit about that.
No comments:
Post a Comment