By the late 1980s, Ireland’s economy was in crisis with unemployment at 17 percent and a public finance problem that appeared out of control.
Kieran Forde, born in a staunch traditional Catholic family in a rural Irish community where as a teenager he had seriously contemplated joining the priesthood, had just graduated in agriculture. Looking around he saw little in the way of employment prospects in his native land.
As has happened on several occasions before in Irish history, emigration seemed a way out of the situation. With a group of friends he applied for jobs all over the world from New Zealand to the US and one of the invitations returned from Saudi Arabia.
“The Kingdom at that time — late 70s and early 80s — was undergoing tremendous agricultural development,” said Forde. “Dairy farming was one of the sectors that was just beginning to take off here.”
The Saudi government had started a program to modernize and commercialize agriculture. Indirect support involved substantial expenditures on infrastructure, which included electricity supply, irrigation, drainage, secondary road systems, and other transportation facilities for distributing and marketing produce.
Land distribution was an integral part of the program. As a specific stimulus, the 1968 Public Lands Distribution Ordinance allocated five to 100 hectares of fallow land free of charge for individuals, up to 400 hectares for companies and organizations, and a maximum of 4,000 hectares for special projects.
It was into this lively agricultural environment that Forde entered when he joined Masstock Saudia in Riyadh in the sales division, the parent company of Almarai at that time, which was the marketing arm before it became a company in its own right. A few years later he changed from livestock to arable and has now been with the Tabuk Agricultural Development Company for the last nine years and is in charge of strategy management.
He reflected on his 27 years in the Kingdom and said that the changes in technology in agriculture are remarkable in their extent but expected. The drive for self-sufficiency in food and the development of large-scale operations required the import of specialist expertise and equipment.
Forde focused on the changes in the people he has worked with over the years. Young people are, he said, much more educated now than when he first came.
“We tried to recruit from Saudis in the 80s but just could not find anybody beyond high school level. Now they are much more sophisticated.”
He works now in a very much more Saudized environment as a result.
Over the years, the country’s infrastructure has developed out of all recognition. The relatively undeveloped city of Riyadh had, in 1985, a population of about 1.4 million. Currently it stands at 4.5 million.
Shopping then, he noted, was done in wholesale markets and souks; there were very few supermarkets.
“It was not the local ‘done thing’ to shop in supermarkets — they were for western expats,” he said, suggesting that the traditions of face-to-face interaction and hands on bargaining were very much the local style.
Now there has been a dramatic shift with hundreds of supermarkets across the nation.
“It’s sad to see the wholesale markets — particularly food markets — disappearing, but they are going very fast.”
By the summer of 1965, two temporary television stations were on the air in Saudi Arabia, one in Jeddah and the other in Riyadh. Neither had official inauguration, the government’s normal seal of official approval.
Since then TV has developed massively, said Forde, adding that it has “on the whole been I think very positive — it has opened up people’s minds to what western values are about. The west is not as bad as it was perceived. It works the other way around as well.
Globally, there is much more information out there showing what Islam is about, and in the Middle East what the west is about.”
Forde feels that TV had brought the two cultural poles closer together — there is now much more understanding. “There are still deep divisions — but one should not underestimate the level of understanding that has been achieved,” he said.
Forde, unusually for an Irish Catholic, converted to Islam.
“The one thing I was struck by when I came here were the family values, they really hit me,” he said. He found a great similarity here with his home community and the great importance of the family in rural Ireland.
“I was really impressed by the remembrance of God and the religious values, all those things. I quite naturally became friendly with Saudis and as it does, the conversation turns to Islam and its values and I was very taken by it.” He noted the strong adherence in rural Ireland, where he was born and brought up for the first 12 years of his life, to Catholicism as the only religion.
“I had thought to become a priest, and I came from a solid religious family. Religion was part and parcel of our lives.”
It made a difference to him in all sorts of ways, he said, adding that in Ireland his “family accepts me, my wife and children, but any discussion of religion is off the agenda now. Seventy percent of my home is here — my wife and children were born here and the extended family is Saudi. I work with welcoming decent people and I am happy to be here.”
Asked to paint a thumbnail sketch of 2020, he said, “It’s good to see the young developing to consolidate the country and taking on the responsibilities of running the Kingdom with the passing of the older generation. It is also good to see the adoption of the best of western values without the loss of the best of the values from their own society and culture.” Change, he thought, would come but “I feel it will happen harmoniously, I don’t think it will be confrontational at all.”
He acknowledged the dramatization of events by the world’s media of the current activities in the Middle East.
“The government here is well aware of the demands of the younger generation and that given time and space to let it happen; the handing over to the next generation will occur in a considered and harmonious way.”
