The Emerging Trucial Omanese Supersheikdoms
Kristol, William
"The Emerging Trucial Omanese Supersheikdoms" but a mighty sea that stretches far beyond the Loop, and at least past Jackson Park. In the days long ago, when travellers came to the...
...Shaikh Zaid ibn Sultan alNihyan, the Sheik of Abu Dhabi and head of the federation of the seven sheikdoms, is truly the best of all political worlds...
...The famous Trucial rial is one of the most stable currencies in the world...
...In the West the collapse of the Protestant Ethic, of the work ethic, has been and is a serious matter...
...The answer is no, because Trucial Oman has the one sure defense against educated incapacity: almost no one is t, ducated...
...The 95 per cent of the people wh,~ are now farmers, fishermen, heedsmen are on the whole unproductive...
...From ten in the evening until two in the morning the shores are dotted with the gas lamps of the fishermen...
...As May descends upon the lake, the old men who fish for the joy of it bring their rods along with their nets...
...Shad and lampreys are not haman food...
...The times are rare when he can be coaxed into casting range of shore...
...For Trucial Oman is going to become in the next thirty years even more important than it was when it last peaked (around 700 B.C...
...I think nol...
...Fishermen have lined the public and corporate wharves: spreading their nets into the water, pulling them up only minutes later ladened with twenty, forty, or sixty fish...
...But they can't i~timidate a fish...
...All we can say is that present indications point that way...
...It will be the first post-postindustrial state...
...All the economic growth is being generated and will continue to be generated by foreigners, aided perhaps by a few educated natives...
...Today, readers may feel that it has successfully accomplished its task...
...Early in April, propelled by lust, the smelt head for the southern shallows...
...Trucial Oman is about to regain its former glory -- and then some...
...Warm industrial effluent, far from repelling the fish, beckons to them, and they come...
...Maybe someone up lhere's trying lo tell us something...
...There have been all kinds of conflicts among the various sheiks, and there has been conflict between the richer and the poorer sheikdoms (especially between rich Abu Dhabi and the others...
...There seems to be little on the horizon to cause a slowing of Trucial Oman's growth rate...
...by the year 2000, they will have a $20 million per capita income , and no one will work...
...Sometimes they hook carp, sometimes the salmon...
...The only real problem the emerging Trucial Omanese Supersheikdoms will face in the coming years is defense...
...Evans warned of the dangers and challenges the radical left poses to the democratic system...
...A man remarks that he owns two deep freezers, and in three weeks of fishing he has nearly filled them...
...since the leader ship is also enlightened, the problem of an~'ien reg~ae morale is avoided...
...One would be an influx of immigrants, attracted by the wealth...
...Professor Martin Diamond, a member of the government department at Northern Illinois University, con~ibutor to The Publ/c Interest, coauthor of The Demoeratw Republic and former organizer and campaigner for the Socialist Party, also spoke at Bloomington, delivering such a piquant lecture that he was invited to speak at the following east and west coast conferences...
...Participants at The Alternative c o n - ferences were serious students interested in the concepts of the American democratic system and the open society...
...But...
...Since the sheiks have 50-50 profit-sharing deals, all they and their people have to do is sit back and watch...
...Readers may scoff at my mention of these fables, long rejected by the smug belief that Lake Michigan is but a puddle fit for garbage...
...It is a prosperous area...
...I doubt it...
...This is just as effective as nuclear weapons -- and there is no fallout...
...The famed Trucial Oman Scouts (numbering about 1,000) are gallant and tough fighters, but seem unlikely to be able to deter or defeat a determined invasion by a major power who wants to take over Trucial Oman and its wealth...
...Or what about the New York Times tale of the 400 (that's right, 400) "veterans of the New Left (who) voted to form a new group called The New American Movement" in Davenport, Iowa...
...But did you read or hear about the three nation-wide conferences held this fall to study democracy and the open society...
...Another feature atiraction in Bloomington was George F. Will, special assistant to Senator Gordon Allott and Washington columnist for The Alternative, who occasionally finds himself at odds with hard-line conservatives...
...It is now in the process of developing a weapon more effective -and more fearsome -- than the nuclear bomb: an intercontinental guided oil slick...
...In the recent monetary crisis, when all other currencies were moving up and down and causing trouble, the rial held firm...
...The question therefore is, will Truclal Oraan's present rate of economic growth, continue for the next three decades...
...This will be an economic phenonemon of some interest, if it comes about...
...Only two developments could impede Trucial Oman on its way to Supersheikdomness...
...Garbage, the mills, the smoke -- they scare the men, all right," says an old timer...
...For example, Trucial Oman's present growth rate has been accomplished" in an atmosphere of political instabili...
...There is virtually none now, but with all these modern amenities being built, and given the fact all the other chic places are becoming overcrowded, the rich may decide to "winter" in Trucial Oman, which has a curiously fresh 10 The Alternative February, 1972 and simple beauty in winter, when the air is bright and clear and rain has turned the desert green...
...But many other fish are...
...Mter each catch they set up a little assembly line, cleaning the fish, washing them, and stacking them in plastic bags for eating in the summer ahead...
...Trucial Oman will have crossed a new threshold in world history...
...when the Omanese played "a predominant part in ancient navigation...
...With April comes the warming of the waters in the Lake...
...Participants at these gatherings, held in Bloomington, Indiana...
...The standard argument would be that the people of Trucial Oman will become fat and lazy and degenerate like us...
...Will spoke on the relation of foreign policy to the open society and the importance of a sound foreign policy to democracy...
...In the days long ago, when travellers came to the University cf Chicago, they brought with them tales of shoreline miles out of sight, and of unseen streams and inlets...
...The A l t e r n a t i v e F e b r u a r y , 1972 9 but a mighty sea that stretches far beyond the Loop, and at least past Jackson Park...
...Cambridge, Massachusetts and Carmel, California, unfortunately do not fit into the "youth" stereotype that the media likes to porfi'ay...
...in fact, Trucial Oman may well grow even faster in the future...
...Will Trucial Oman be afflicted with this disease, thus cutting its growth rate...
...And .the conflict between Abu Dhabi and the other sheikdoms is lessening as the other sheikdoms do become much richer, and as a true federation resulting in the virtual unificatioh of lhe seven sheikdoms becomes more imminent, the prospects are that wealth will be shared more evenly...
...Sporting men bring their wives and friends...
...The ancient struggle between an individual man and a single agent of natur.e goes on, undaunted by folly or social policy...
...This is the true genius of Trucial Oman...
...this is certainly a good sign for the country's future...
...But they are wrong...
...they are spared for the coho...
...nothing has changed in a thousand years...
...when the country becomes rich, it will be easy to import everything needed for the 135,000 people...
...In fact~ almost no one can read (fewer than five per cent...
...Furthermore, Trucial Oman's incredible growth has provided it with the means of ensuring further growth, especially given enlightened political leadership...
...this would lower per capita income...
...Instead, all participants emphasized the common element in their philosophies -- an underlying belief in the validity of the lraditions and principles of the American democratic system...
...The only way to forestall this is not to let anyone immigrate...
...If you look at the newspapers but once a week you could hardly have missed their reports...
...Trucial Oman consists of seven technically independent but closely linked states, all ruled by sheiks...
...Both the speakers and participants at the tl~ee conferences represented a cross-section of the American ideological speclrum - - representing such diversified groups as Young Americans for Freedom and the Young People's Socialist Alliance...
...will be comparable to ours -- about $2.6 trillion...
...Poor men bring their families...
...They build fires and catch their dinners...
...But these should bo non-oxi~tent...
...Internally -- within each sheikdom -the political and social stability is remarkable...
...The Emerging Trucial Omanese Supersheikdoms William K r i s t o l T HE EASTERN part of Arabia known geographically as Truclal Oman has an area of about 30,000 square milew and a population of about 135,000...
...Trucial Oman's total GNP (with a poloulatiop...
...Men pursue the salmon, but he is a competitive fish, and not easy prey...
...In fact, decision-makers and world leaders, to say nothing of policy analysts, ignore this area at their peril...
...Or the People's Party Convention in Dallas in December (it drew 200 of the peoole...
...as the world becomes more ancl more "modern," it would somehow be appropriate that the premier parl of the world (at least economically) be governed on the principle of the divine right of sheiks...
...That is to say they are what the media considers h'relevant and booring...
...its Gross National Product grea at a rate of 37.3 per cent per year this past decade, raising the Gross National Product per capita to slightly under $2,000 (source: World Bank...
...A form ot government which has existed for ages but which can produce men like H.H...
...Are they any significant "counterv3iling forces" at work which may slow Trucial Oman's growth...
...The Alternative sponsored these conferences and, as with everything else done by moderate students, conservative students and responsible liberal students, we managed to maintain an amazingly low profile with the media...
...Lampreys have moved into the fresh water lakes from the sea through the Saint Lawrence Seaway...
...In his talk, entitled "The Perspective of the Framers, A Decent Regime Although Democratic" he provided valuable historical and political ineontinued on page 20...
...They seek warmth for spawning, so they swim for inlets and harbors along the lake...
...So, probably, would the qualitv of life -- there would be no "Abu Dhabi Review of Books" to get on people's nerves...
...I bear the news that the Lake lives, and life within it continues, and though the waters pass through the valley of the shadow of industry, and receive vast transfusions of filth, even at the very walls of the belching pouring giants, life is sustained...
...But the recent establishment of a Supreme Council of the Federation of the Arab Emirates should bring greater cohesiveness and political stability to Trucial Oman...
...They were neither screaming leftist, threatening to liberate the solar system or Wallacite yokels...
...Ten fish will fill you up,they Say...
...All Sheik Zaid has to do is push a button and whatever country is causing trouble becomes subsumed in oil...
...One problem may "advanced" societies have suffered from in the past few years is educated incapacity...
...Or the pro-abortion rally...
...If this is done, and if some of the educated Omanese emigrate to the West (Trucial Oman is lacking in some minor amenities, like books) per capita income would go even higher...
...less than one tenth of one per cent as big as that of the U.S...
...So, will the 21st century become known as the Trucial Omanese century...
...Often cradled in the midsts of steel mills and petroleum refineries, the eggs are set and fertilized...
...Not necessarily...
...But Trucial Oman never had a Protestant Ethic in the first place...
...In addition, tourism should help Trucial Oman's economy...
...Trucial Oman may well be the first post-nuclear power...
...The governments, by virtue of tradition, have almost unQuestioned legitimacy...
...of tourism adding still more impetus to Trucial Oman's spectacular economic growth brings to mind the possibility of currency problems...
...A group of Mexicans pull in a massive catch, chatting gaily in Spanish, singing of what they call in that tongue, 'the sardines...
...The highlight of the midwestern conference was M. Stanton Evans who is editor of the Indianapolis News contributing editor to Human Events, chairman of the American Conservative Union, and, according to National Review's masthead, an "exalted editor" of that journal...
...Studies underway at Hudson Institute indicate that there is probably less educated incapacity in Trucial Oman than anywhere else in the world (although Malawi is a close second...
...The vision (spectre...
...the Women's Abortion Action Committee staged in Washington in November...
...Chicago has struggled for years, for time out of mind, to fill the Lake with trash and poison...
...Beginning in the southern reaches along the Indiana coast, then spreading northward by Chicago and along the opposite Michigan shore the shallows come alive with fish urging to spawn...
...I have seen the magic of the Lake myself, and I have travelled along distant coasts far from the company, and the wastes, of men...
...The nets are strung from the docks at South Chicago Works, at Inland Stel, and in the U.S...
...Some 'Youth Meetings' the Media Ignores Baron Von Kannon D ID YOU READ the newspaper stories about the big Chicago meeting of The Emergency Conference for Young (an unacknowledged code word for left liberal) Voters last month...
...Coho salmon feed along the shores, finding the shad, the alewife, a tasty meal...
...A month later, spawning nearly done, and the warmth filtering to deeper and more northerly waters, the smelt depart...
...Many people - - e v e n those in responsible positions -- seem to be fairly ignorant of Trucial Oman, or, if they do know of it, chuckle when it is mentioned...
...Smelt are not pilchards, though, which are not found in Lake Michigan...
...Lake perch and coho are drawn from spring to fall, frequenting the shallows in the early morning, moving to the depths as the sun pours warmth into the water...
...They can be seen in Chicago's Calumet Park, or at Harbor Park in East Chicago, or at Clark Sh'eet in Gary...
...Does this mean that Trucial Oman will be forced to become a nuclear power...
...But, unlike typical "youth culture" meetings, The Alternative conferences did not collapse into ideological bickering and tests of purity...
...Who can really tell...
...Extrapolating the growth rate of the past decade, we find that the GNP per Capita of Trucial Oman in the year 2000 shouM be about $20 million...
...There was virtually no trading in the rial, so confident were its holders...
...He tests the ingenuity of men, he demands they come to meet him in boats...
...Despite the fact that attendance at all fofir events fell far short of the announced goal, the media was there with cameras whirring, flash-bulbs popping and reporters scribbling trying their best to prove that the youth movement is still alive and still left-liberal...
...As the flow of smelt drops from a flood to a crowd to a trickle, the men with the lines begin drawing perch...
...For example, Sheik Zaid announced in 1.968 a Five Year Development Plan, including "a modern road nctwork, three airports, mode~'ri port facilities, telephone networks, a water 'distribution system, sewage systems, schools, public buildings and 10w-cost housing units," and various industrial projects: The strengthening of Trucial Oman's already firm infrastructure cannot but help prospects for continued -- even increased -- growth...
...And if so, what will be the effects of the emergence of Trucial Oman as a super-sheikdom (or a federation of super-sheikdom), both for Trucial Oman and the world...
...And it doesn't matter anyway, because by the year 2990, no one in Trucial Oman will have to work...
...Steel Gary turning basin...
Vol. 5 • February 1972 • No. 5
