Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Computer competence, e-governance, and a mobile-phone culture are commonplace
across the region.
Urbanisation
Rapid change comes at a cost. While there's pride in recent achievements, there are frus-
trations too. There's resentment, for example, towards Arabia's ever-growing expatriate
population who helped build the region's infrastructure but who are now reluctant to
leave.
Industry has drawn people away from their villages and disrupted the time-honoured
patterns of rural life. Those on the fringe of encroaching urbanisation find the traditions
they valued are undermined, leaving little recognisable of a Bedouin heritage. For those
remaining in remote areas, there is disappointment at the perceived exclusion from the be-
nefits bestowed on an urban life.
The Arab Spring
Frustration with the process of modernisation and the perceived threat of encroaching
ideologies inevitably leads to political repercussions - a situation that Al-Qaeda and other
fundamentalist groups have been quick to exploit.
In 2011, with Libya, Tunisia, Egypt and Syria in turmoil, the Arabian Peninsula wit-
nessed its own Arab Spring. Mostly propelled by students who felt sympathy with the
democratic aspirations of their North African counterparts, there were minor protests in
Oman, more pronounced problems in Bahrain and an ousting of the president in Yemen.
But while it is convenient to lump the unrest into the collective term 'Arab Spring', the
reasons for the uprisings in each of those countries were primarily local in nature, in-
formed by domestic concerns such as religious sectarianism, unemployment and a minim-
um wage.
Relationship with the West
Besides, evidently democracy is not the only way of effecting good governance. Oman, as
reported in the UK
Guardian
for example, was named as the 'most improved country in
the world over the past 40 years' by the UN Development Fund. According to many com-
mentators (not least former US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton who praised the 'remark-
able gains' made under Oman's absolute monarch, Sultan Qaboos), the countries of the
Peninsula, with their prosperous, well-fed, well-educated, well-housed and mostly peace-
ful populations, have been well served by what is commonly termed 'benign dictatorship'.
Interestingly, this is a subject now taught in some business schools as part of the project
