One hundred and fifty years of military control of the northern part of the Gulf did not do the region any good. The external and, sometimes, internal siege imposed by the occupation left a lot of ignorance, backwardness and poverty in our region, which is still suffering the consequences. The occupiers departed without offering much help to the occupied societies. They did not build schools or libraries, they did not care about education, health or the infrastructure. Imagine how different things would be if formal education had started in our region 200 years earlier.
The occupiers may have departed from our region, but occupation still exists, albeit in different forms and shapes. Throughout history, colonisation was redefined as "imperialism" and then as "neo-colonialism", which refers to indirectly controlling other states using cultural, economic or political tools. Strangely, the international community does not mind this type of new "imperialism".
The most important feature of neo-colonialism is that the economic factor leads the long list of objectives. However, there are hidden agendas to maintain control over former colonies and dependencies. Culture and language are among the most important tools. Ibn Khal-dun, a 14th-century Muslim sociologist, said that losers tend to imitate the winners.
Suppression of knowledge
In his book The Nature of Despotism, the prominent Arab reformist Abdul Rahman Al Kawakibi (1854-1902) wrote that despotism and science are diametrically opposed. Tyrants do their best to keep their citizens in the dark and prevent them from being educated. When men of science emerge from within the straits of tyranny and try to enlighten others, they are chased and oppressed by the tyrants. The lucky ones manage to escape to other lands. That's why all great prophets and many scientists, scholars and men of literature kept moving from one country to another and died as strangers.
The award-winning science fiction film Avatar discusses the tyranny of humans over other nations and civilisations, where the expansion of mining by humans for a certain mineral threatens the local tribe's existence.
The film portrays the inhabitants of the occupied planet from a purely western perspective. They are humanoid in appearance, but can connect with organisms around them, transferring thoughts and memories to trees, plants and other creatures. The film makes fun of their beliefs and their cultural heritage, which reminds us of the sufferings of many peoples in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
Tyranny and greed are part of human nature. We clearly see this phenomenon in military occupation and even in management on a small scale, when officials do not realise that the powers given to them are temporary and limited to their office spaces.
Tyrants and occupants are always forced to end their oppression and usually the ending is not a happy one. Despite the military bases tyrants construct to protect their interests and guarantee their continuous presence, occupiers are always forced to leave in a humiliating manner. The phrase "the last soldier to exit" is repeated again and again throughout the history books.
A friend tells me that our societies are still suffering the effects of colonialism and that we only see the surface of it. Most dictators do not read history carefully and ignorantly repeat the same mistakes again and again.
Colonialism imposed some kind of siege on the region. After the pearl trade had receded and before the discovery of oil in commercial amounts, the local economy entered into a dark tunnel. Difficult conditions coupled with few opportunities to migrate to neighbouring countries deprived most sectors of the society of the chance to keep up with development.
In the midst of the political changes that dominated the world after the Second World War, the turn of events was as unexpected as Avatar's ending. This isolated region was destined to play a key role on a global level, thanks to the discovery of oil. Our lifestyle has changed and new terms such as "pre-oil" and "post-oil" have entered our dictionary.
Life around us has changed too fast, even faster than in our dreams. With the boom, life has become easier. The real renaissance, however, only began with education. My elderly friend who witnessed the pre-oil era tells me that we have developed in almost all sectors and invested in most fields. But our people and culture, he says, are still lingering somewhere between the pre-oil and post-oil eras.
Jamal Al Shehhi is an Emirati writer.
