Oman: An Arab Model for All Developing Countries

By Richard H. Curtiss

Only 23 years ago Oman, a scenic country on the mountainous southeastern tip of the Arabian peninsula, had three private elementary schools, with a total of 900 students, all boys, and no public schools at all. The only education to which most Omani children could aspire was learning to read just enough to recite Qur'anic verses correctly.

Parents who wanted anything beyond that for their children had to send them out of the country to schools in the nearby United Arab Emirates, to Oman's former colony of Zanzibar where they could live with relatives while studying, or to relatively expensive boarding schools in Egypt.

Today, young Omani men and women who have been educated solely within their country are graduate students and teaching assistants at Sultan Qaboos University, which opened in 1986 some 40 kilometers from Muscat and Matrah, the twin cities of the capital area. Others, having obtained their B.A. or B.S. degrees in Oman, are doing graduate work at universities around the world, particularly in the United States.

Oman's evolution from one of the most technologically and educationally deprived countries in the world to a model of balanced economic and social development in only one generation is one of history's most astonishing, and inspiring, feats.

It was facilitated, of course, by revenues from Oman's first petroleum exports in 1967. But Oman's oil has never flowed in the quantities enjoyed by its two giant neighbors, Iran and Saudi Arabia, or some of the smaller Arab emirates of the Gulf. Initial production was so low, in fact, that Oman's ruler of the time, Sultan Said Bin Taimur, was reluctant to use the meager revenues to begin developing the modern infrastructure his only recently politically stabilized country so desperately needed.

When his son, Qaboos Bin Said Al Said, upon returning from a British military education at Sandhurst, urged his father at least to open schools to help Omanis acquire the skills needed to function as a nation in the modern world, he was put under virtual house arrest in a palace in his birthplace, Salalah, Oman's southernmost coastal city. It was from there, reportedly with encouragement from the British political advisers who had urged his father to send him to Sandhurst, that Sultan Qaboos took over the government on July 23, 1970, while his father, too, was in Salalah. That date marked the beginning of a bloodless educational, social and economic revolution that could become a model for every country still facing problems similar to those of Oman in 1970.

In addition to an almost totally illiterate population, Oman, with only two hospitals, had formidable health problems. It lacked even a rudimentary economic infrastructure, with fewer than 6 miles (10 kilometers) of paved roads, and only a scattering of homes in the capital served by electricity.

Although it is strikingly beautiful, Oman has a tiny population of no more than two million people widely dispersed over an area of 82,030 square miles (212,457 square kilometers), slightly smaller than the state of Kansas. Some Omanis lived in tiny date-producing oasis hamlets accessible only by footpaths through formidable mountains. Others were to be found in agricultural and fishing towns and villages, some reachable only by boat, in narrow plains and rocky inlets skirting some 1,056 miles of Indian Ocean and Arabian/Persian Gulf coastline.

Omanis were cut off from each other by mountain ranges dipping in some places directly into the sea, and from the rest of the Arabian peninsula by an inland desert plateau that blends imperceptibly into the Empty Quarter of Saudi Arabia. The young sultan, only 29 years old when he assumed power, set out systematically to overcome those problems. One of his first acts was to end a simmering civil war in his native Dhofar province and, in 1975, to demarcate Oman's border with Yemen from which support for the rebels had come. The following year he launched the country's first five-year plan setting economic and social goals for his revitalized government.

Working in his favor were the basically peaceful and gentle nature of the Omanis, whom all foreign visitors find strikingly friendly and hospitable, and an Omani pride and self-assurance that stems from never having been colonized. Even occupation of the Omani ports of Muscat and Sohar by Portuguese seafarers, who first visited Oman in 1507, was brief. Oman's Imam Sultan Bin Saif expelled them on Nov. 18, 1650, a date now commemorated as Oman's national day. Omani ships then turned the tables, harassing Portuguese held ports in Africa and Asia.

The Omanis themselves have been both colonizers and traders in various periods of history. Copper from the land of Magan, tentatively identified by archeologists as Oman, reached the Sumerians, founders of the world's first cities and inventors of the first writing system. Omani sailors, using the monsoon winds, were a link between Sumer in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and the other two contemporaneous civilizations at the dawn of written history in the Indus River valley and the Nile River valley. To this day, copper is mined and exported from the vicinity of Oman's port of Sohar.

Some 3,000 years after the rise of Sumer, Roman writers were complaining that too much of the empire's wealth was bring drained off to pay for the frankincense from Oman that sent clouds of fragrant smoke heavenward from altars all over the ancient world. Today, visitors to traditional households in Oman are greeted with rosewater sprinkled on their hands upon arrival. As they depart, smoke from burning frankincense is directed through, around and under robes and dresses so that the guests will be wreathed in its pleasing, cleansing aroma as they emerge into the street.

Many of the legendary voyages of Sinbad the Sailor were launched from Omani ports, as were countless others that took South Arabian sailors from the Hadramaut ports of Oman and neighboring Yemen as far east as Guangzhou (Canton) in China as early as the seventh century A.D. Because Omanis embraced Islam in 630 A.D., during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad, some 200 million Indonesians, Malaysians and Malays from Sarawak, Brunei and the southern Philippines are Muslims. They trace their Islamic religion and some of their ancestry to Hadramauti merchants who set up trading and sometimes ruling dynasties throughout Southeast Asia.

Baluchistan's Makran coast in present-day Iran and Pakistan was for many years a colony of Oman, and many Baluchis immigrated to Oman during and since that time. Along with other parts of Africa, the huge clove-growing island of Zanzibar (now a part of Tanzania), off Africa's east coast, also became an Omani colony in 173O, making Oman the only non-European country to hold possessions in Africa.

Ahmed Bin Said founded the present Al Bu Said dynasty in 1741 when he was elected imam. In 1785, the titles of imam and sultan were divided between his two sons. In 1798, Britain persuaded Said Bin Sultan Ahmed to sign the first of the friendship treaties that have linked Oman and Britain ever since. In 1831, at the height of its power as a trading and seafaring nation, Oman sent a sailing ship to Philadelphia to establish formal diplomatic relations with the United States.

Oman's sprawling overseas empire was split in 1856, however, when, after the death of its sultan, Britain settled a dispute between his sons by giving Zanzibar to one and Oman to the other. Oman subsequently lost its other overseas possessions. Then, rebellions that broke out in 1915 in the country's interior and were not settled until 1959 sealed the decline that ended only in 1970.

The colonial ties that once linked Oman and Zanzibar, however, had created an anomaly that served Oman well in the first urgent rush to catch up educationally. In the early years of the 20th century, an Omani trader might have a wife in Zanzibar and another in Oman. Before 1970, therefore, some Omani children raised in Zanzibar had excellent education's, while their siblings or cousins raised in Oman had none. After 1970, with Oman gradually opening to the world and conditions in Zanzibar deteriorating, hundreds of the better-educated Omanis became available to help staff the 720 primary and secondary schools opened by Sultan Qaboos during the first two decades of his rule.

He also brought thousands of teachers from other Arab countries, particularly Sudanese, Egyptians, Palestinians, Jordanians and Syrians. Others from the British Commonwealth, Europe and the United States arrived to teach Omanis foreign languages. Among the teachers and technicians who came to Oman in the late 1970s were an annual contingent of American Peace Corps volunteers, some of whom stayed to join American companies participating in the rush to apply Western technology to Oman's economic needs. By 1991, Oman employed 15,587 teachers in 800 schools for 360,066 students, including 192,985 boys and 167,081 girls.

The speed with which the economy developed under Oman's carefully prepared five-year plans was to some extent dependent upon the price of petroleum. Production was 720,000 barrels per day (b/d) in 1992, and the government's goal is to bring it to 750,000 barrels for the rest of the 1990s. Output is limited, however, by the fact that new oil deposits are being discovered at only a slightly higher rate than old ones are depleted.

In the late 1970s, when the price of petroleum skyrocketed, Oman built whole new suburbs in the capital area, permitting the expansion of the government into modern ministry buildings which, along with shopping centers and comfortable villas for the thousands of technocrats required for Oman's economic development, now extend in a continuous strip of sparkling white buildings along the scenic coastal hills for 20 miles between the original capital and its international airport.

At present, with the price of petroleum down by 50 percent from its heyday, and the costs of extraction in Oman considerably higher than in places like Kuwait, where oil literally gushes to the surface, Oman has fewer revenues to spend. It is concentrating them on development of other major population centers like the fishing center of Sohar, the inland agricultural center of Nizwa, the well-watered southern coastal center of Salalah, and the towns of the strategic Musandam peninsula, cut off from the rest of Oman by parts of the United Arab Emirates, but jutting into the Strait of Hormuz where the Arabian/Persian Gulf joins the Indian Ocean.

Three major goals of the current five year plan are increased "Omanization," replacing foreign technicians and workers with Omanis as rapidly as possible; further diversification of the economy to lessen its heavy dependence upon oil; and increased privatization of Omani manufacturing and marketing. The goal of Omanization is by 1995 to have Omanis filling 72 percent of the public-sector positions, which Omanis generally prefer to positions in business.

Oman has expanded its fishing industry by providing fishermen with motors for their boats and cold-storage facilities for their catches. It is making similar improvements in agriculture and mining. Surprisingly, it has entered joint ventures with Kazakhstan in the former Soviet Union in the fields of oil extraction and creation of a trans-Asian gas pipeline. Oman also has purchased an interest in an oil refinery in Thailand to help secure a significant share of the Asian market for its petroleum. Oman, with an estimated 9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves, also is expanding its own gas production, and most of its power is generated and its heating and cooking done with natural gas.

Successes of Oman's generation of development are recorded in the country's statistics (see box). Politically, Oman remains an absolute monarchy. Like its Arabian peninsula neighbors, however, it is moving cautiously toward increased popular participation in government. Elections were held for delegates to a consultative assembly (Majlis A1 Shura) created in November 1991. From among the three delegates elected from each local district, the sultan appointed one to participate in the assembly, which consists of a total of 59 delegates.

At present, Oman has two major radio stations and one television station, five daily newspapers and the Oman News Agency. In 1988, the country had registered 1,015,000 television sets, 890,000 radios, and 50,000 telephones. While preparing the public for more active participation in national affairs, the government has created this communications network to link the formerly isolated population centers into one national entity—united with its neighbors to the west by the Arabic language, and with its neighbors on all sides by Islam. Virtually all Omanis are Muslim, with more than 50 percent of Oman's Muslims adhering to the Ibadhi tradition.

Militarily, Oman has been the most outspoken of the six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council in favor of collective GCC defense measures backed up by defense treaties with the U.K. and U.S. It advocates creation of a 100,000-strong GCC joint security force capable of resisting aggression from ens regional power until outside forces can reach the area.

Although its closest political and military ties traditionally have been with the United Kingdom. in 1991 Oman received $15 million in U.S. economic aid, and 5600,000 in U.S. military aid. During the Gulf war, Oman permitted the U.S. to use Vmani facilities to service Seventh Fleet ships operating from the Indian Ocean and U.S. aircraft operating temporarily from bases in the Gulf and permanently from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. In addition to its membership in the GCC, Oman also is a member of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the 21-member Arab League.

Throughout the first 20 years of Sultan Qaboos Bin Said's rule, Oman remained relatively closed to the outside world. Although foreign diplomats were free to come and go, technicians and businessmen needed a local sponsor, scholars and exchange students were carefully screened, and it was difficult for journalists to visit when they wished to. That, too, is changing. Groups of tourists now visit Oman, scholars are encouraged, and the government itself is inviting foreign journalists to come and judge the tranformation of the country for themselves.

There are surprises beyond the expanded roads, school system and nationwide health network of local clinics, regional general hospitals, and specialized treatment available in the national capital that makes modern medical care available to the most remote villager. There also is a system of civil courts and, in addition to traditional Islamic laws, a parallel civil law system that owes much to English common law.

Visitors also find that, after making the long journey from a pre-industrial society to the end of the 20th century in only 20 years, young Omanis now are applying what they have learned in some of the world's finest universities and technical schools to the environmental and societal considerations that will preoccupy the Western world in the century to come.

Clearly there are lessons to be learned in Oman that can be applied in many parts of the world where, for whatever reasons, the development process has been less successful, and its benefits spread less uniformly throughout society. If Oman's success, in both regards, has to be seen to be believed, its ruler now is making that possible. What first-time visitors will find are people who have retained the pride and much of the charm and simplicity from an illustrious past, while routinely producing miracles in this little-known land of infinite possibilities.