[LINK] "A Test for Oman and Its Sultan"

[rfmcdonald]

The New Yorker's Elizabeth Dickinson looks at the situation in Oman, where the country's aging, ailing and modernizing Sultan Qaboos seems to be nearing the end of his life at a time when his country is vulnerable.

(I would note that Dickinson makes no reference of the rumours that the unmarried sultan is homosexual. Such have been circulating for at least the past decade in the English-speaking world, and likely longer in the Middle East proper. Has anyone else heard anything about this?)

Among the leaders of the Middle East today, there is perhaps no one more enigmatic or more adored than Sultan Qaboos. During his forty-four years of rule, he has used his absolute authority and the wealth from 5.5 billion barrels of oil reserves to transform Oman from a territory with just ten kilometres of roads and a roaring civil war into a middle-income country whose people have never lived so long in peace.

Yet, over the past decade, Qaboos has retreated into solitude, cultivating an image that is benevolent but aloof. Few have had access to his royal audiences, and he has rarely spoken publicly. He doesn’t attend regional summits, preferring to send an array of envoys as stand-ins. Roads bear his name, but, unlike other regional leaders, he hasn’t made his likeness ubiquitous in the capital.

So the country stood still when Qaboos sat down in front of a camera on November 18th, his seventy-fourth birthday, to confirm what many suspected. He spoke of an unnamed illness—he is believed to have terminal cancer—that would “require us to proceed with the medical program in the forthcoming period,” he said. Qaboos was presently in Germany. For the first time, he would miss the National Day celebrations, to be held the following week.

“This is a very testing time for us, because we are realizing that we need to take a leap of faith,” says Khalid Al-Haribi, a social entrepreneur and the former head of Oman’s first independent think tank, Tawasul. “There is a proverb: that one only grows up when he or she is no longer dependent on the parents.”