The following are my own personal views on working in two neighbouring Islamic countries as a Brit expatriate over a period of nearly 15 years. I chose to seek work there to financially support my wife and family when my self-employed earnings halved in two years after 20 years piloting on the Manchester Ship Canal.
I arrived in Saudi Arabia in April 1985 to find that despite my paperwork being correct I was not welcome in their country and I, and all other expatriates, were basically non-persons with no rights at all. Unlike many contractors working in Saudi, I was living and working within the local community in an ordinary block of flats in the very ordinary small city of Gizan. There was no company compound behind security gates where most expats spent their time and socialized after work.
There was no social contact with our neighbours and at no time were me, my Brit and Indian pilots or my Filipino and Sri-Lankan tugs and small-craft crews made welcome in any way, throughout the two years I spent there.
I was glad to leave and have never had the slightest wish to return to Saudi Arabia.
My arrival in Oman, in July 1987, could not have been more different!
Immigration was no better nor worse than any airport I have been through, but without the outright hostility shown to all non-Saudis by immigration officials when arriving in Jeddah each and every time.
I was greeted in Arrivals by one of the team who had interviewed me, who then drove me to the Sultan of Oman's Naval Base in Muscat, situated in a small, enclosed cove, with its only neighbour, the Sultan’s Palace.
Historical note: Sultan Qaboos, just a few years earlier, had deposed his father, not because the father was any sort of tyrant but because he wanted to shield his people from the influence of western, non-Muslim interests wanting to exploit Oman’s oil revenues. At the time, in 1974, Muscat was still a walled city with its gates being closed each night. Oman had just 10 km of tarmac roads and only in the immediate Muscat area.
Sultan Qaboos had attended Sandhurst Military College, in the UK, and had obviously been influenced by that experience. His bloodless coup was assisted primarily by the UK’s military, specifically the Special Air Services.
By the time I arrived, Sultan Qaboos had used those oil revenues to construct modern highways throughout Oman—and, far more important to his Omani citizens, put a medical centre and a school in every village.
For myself these were possibly the best years of my life
Whether his father was right in his distrust of our western influences, or whether Sultan Qaboos was right in believing that those western influences could benefit his people, and that such changes were inevitable, I leave it for you to decide.
All I know is that in my nearly ten years in their navy, my Omani crews never showed anything but an incredible gratitude for what their Sultan had done, and continued to do for Oman, for them, and for their families.
For myself these were possibly the best years of my life.
As the commanding officer of a 30-metre-long landing craft all I had to do was to complete each task Naval HQ gave me in the way I thought best. No one was looking over my shoulder.
My coxswains and crews were Omani nationals, mostly natural sailors, very competent, and so easy to work with.
My engineers were mainly Sri Lankan and were equally good, and I once had an Indian ship’s cook who insisted on serving me a typical English roast Sunday lunch despite my appeals to let me share the fare he prepared for the crew!
After three years at the Omani naval base on the Straits of Hormuz, the gateway to the Arabian Gulf and an internationally vital strategic shipping lane, my then-boss left Oman and I was asked to take over the squadron.
That meant a move back to a brand-new naval base and some incredible social life, where work was mixed with a lot of pleasure.
The Officers Wardroom was similar to any in the Royal Navy, where entertaining guests, and doing so very well, was the order of the day.
And the highlight, for me, was to meet my now Canadian wife, working at the Sultan Qaboos University Hospital at the time, when she and others joined our festivities. Although they did not bring their wives to these functions, many Omani officers attended these events. They loved Christmas!
But despite the huge differences between Saudi and Oman, any expat working in either country knew one very unassailable and important fact. If there was any even minor dispute between a Saudi or an Omani national, and a non-Muslim expat, then the latter would always be found the guilty party.
In Saudi that could lead to a summary jail sentence, without appeal. Oman, always more tolerant, would likely just deport the expat —again with no appeal.
Which leads me to ask a question.
With so many Canadian students protesting the war in Gaza, along with many agitators who are not necessarily their fellow students, do they have any idea that to support these protests fully is to accept that secularism is anathema to any Islamic state, as in every single one of these countries the church is also the state?
This isn’t hypothetical, it’s reality, and deserves serious consideration when choosing with whom we ally ourselves as citizens in a democracy.
