The oil boom of the 1960s drove Saudi Arabia to undergo some remarkable changes in a very short span of time, but many wonder whether the wealth obtained from the oil or “black gold” has been good for Saudi society.
Seventy-six-year-old Ahmad doesn’t believe it has.
“I remember what life was like before we discovered oil. It was much harder than now but by no means more backward. The struggles we had to endure made us highly skilled, grateful and we never took anything for granted,” he explained. “Family life revolved around the father whom we all looked up to, even feared. We had total respect for him, respect you rarely see in today’s youngsters.”
And yet, as Ahmad explains, his father was by no means a conventionally educated man, yet he taught his sons endlessly about the rich Saudi heritage, recounting stories handed down from one generation to another. “The comfort we now enjoy may well make life easier; but personally I prefer the old way of life, it was better for us,” Ahmad said.
Ahmad is not alone in his opinion, but even he agrees that the oil, which accounts for 90 percent of the Kingdom’s GDP, transformed the previously basic Saudi infrastructure into one of the most sophisticated in the world and established a well-run education system.
In 1951, Saudi Arabia had 226 schools that taught 30,000 students, of whom only a few were lucky enough to get desks and chairs. And those who had aspirations of attending university had to forget about such a dream for another six years until 1957 when the first university opened in Riyadh, with its nine lecturers and 21 students. Such minuscule figures are almost unbelievable in today’s world, especially when taking into account this was not so very long ago.
The reasons why there were so few schools before Saudi Arabia struck it rich is not altogether clear, when far poorer countries of the time made sure their children got an education; and it is somewhat ironic that this happened in a region where the search for knowledge first began, and where some of the greatest minds discovered the foundation stones of modern thought.
The Arabian Golden Age should be an epoch revered by all, in the same way the Western world looks up to its great thinkers. But today’s Arabs, though proud of bygone times, seem to regard wealth and prestige more highly than knowledge.
A thousand years ago while Europe was slumbering ignorantly in the Dark Ages it was the Arabs who were busy enlightening the world on ground-breaking discoveries in mathematics, astronomy and medicine. Alongside such greats as Ibn Khaldoun, Ibn Sina, Al-Farabi, Imam Shafi, Al-Jabra, Ibn Taymiya, the likes of Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud simply pale into insignificance.
Wealth may be a blessing, but you cannot put a price on knowledge.
Twenty-three-year-old Rachael, who is reading history at King’s College Cambridge, visits London whenever she gets a chance, but not for the shops, the bright lights or the theaters; instead Rachael heads straight for the doors of the British Museum.
“To be honest, I feel rather ashamed to call it the British Museum when most of its exhibits are from all corners of the globe, but I love the place, especially the rooms on Islamic art,” she said.
“I have increasingly less time away from my books so it is a bit of an indulgence but I feel my time here amid so much thought and learning is never, ever wasted. My friends all say I’m boring but I’m just interested in the past and I want to know as much as I can about all world cultures. There’s so much to learn, so little time; it is a waste to sit and throw away the years. I would much rather be poor and enlightened than rich and self-satisfied.”
And there are plenty of other Europeans just like Rachael who share her zeal for knowledge and see learning as the most important occupation in life.
Sadly, there are notably fewer “Rachaels” in the modern Arab world, where the mutual rivalry of attaining material things and showing off has overtaken the deeper meaning of what life is really all about.
Some blame this on the fact that Arab youth is no longer proud of their roots, but isn’t it more accurate to say that they are not properly aware of them?
Old Ahmad has bad eyesight, his hearing is very poor but his mind is still razor-sharp.
“People today have become rich and backward. Wealth is not a blessing for everyone, some cannot handle it. School is all well and good but it does not necessarily make you educated,” he insisted.
The restaurant he has run for over 40 years attracts quite a bit of custom from expatriates, a few of whom he has kept in contact with.
“I learned English by listening to the BBC World Service. I can speak it quite well and understand practically everything,” he said proudly but failed to catch his eldest son add: “And yet he cannot write a single letter.”
Does it matter with a brain like Ahmad’s?