Intersections and tensions between civilizations and modernities: The case of Oman

Oman, Civilizational History and Modernities in Tension: Some Theoretical Reflections.

This essay is a reflection on the modernity of Oman. I want to look at Oman from the perspective of its ‘modernity’ as this provides a broader framework in which to contextualize its more recent history, especially in the wake of the so-called Arab Spring and its turbulent aftermath. While much attention has been paid to Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, Bahrain, Libya and Yemen, Oman is an overlooked and under-explored case. In much of the published research literature on it, Oman is conventionally viewed as a society that has recently been modernized after emerging from a period of isolation during the early part of the twentieth century. The standard argument in outline is that it has modernized quickly during the last forty years under the rule of the current Sultan Qaboos bin Sa’id, who has been an active modernizer. This modernization has entailed extensive infrastructural development including roads, health and education, the development of oil and natural gas resources, and tourism. It has also included the consolidation of the Omanian state and its boundaries after the Dhofar settlement, its position as an ‘honest broker’ in the diplomacy of the Arab world and international contexts, and more recent experiments in formal democratization, which has shifted its basis for authority from ‘traditional’ to ‘posttraditional’. All of this has occurred in the context of Oman as a complex multi-religious society, even in terms of its relation with Islamic traditions, with its own internal regional differences. The assumption in this literature is that Oman is a ‘young’ society in modern terms.