Today, a world of change has come to Oman because of the progressive leadership of Sultan Qaboos Bin Said, who overthrew his father and opened up the country. His strategy for modernization was build around educating children, boys and girls alike. Today, Kristof wrote, Oman "is a contemporary country with highways, sleek new airports, satellite TV dishes and a range of public and private universities. ... Boys and girls alike are expected to finish high school at least." Imagine Afghanistan and Yemen - Oman's neighbor to the west - without widespread fundamentalism and terrorism. That is what Oman's investment in education can teach us.
Thailand RPCV Cathy Salter writes: Change in Oman a lesson for us all
Change in Oman a lesson for us all
By Cathy Salter Columbia Daily Tribune
Monday, November 1, 2010
One of my daily rituals is reading The New York Times online. Articles on world events, politics, travel, dining and wine, theater, home and gardening, books and movies are accessible as soon as stories are filed. On this particular late-autumn morning, after a walk, I've come into my studio to touch in with the rest of the world.
On a cautious note, talks are under way in Afghanistan between the inner circle of President Hamid Karzai and Taliban commanders who are secretly leaving their sanctuaries in Pakistan with the help of NATO troops. On an optimistic note, 23-year-old American Maggie Doyne raised $25,000 and built an orphanage and school that she is now running in a rural, former Maoist region of Nepal - one of a number of do-it-yourself foreign-aid projects featured in an uplifting column by Nicholas D. Kristof.
The two stories brought to mind another Kristof article just days before about a country that has fascinated me for four decades. After returning to the United States after a three-year teaching assignment with the Peace Corps in Thailand, I found myself teaching five sections of ninth-grade geography in Bellevue, Neb. I was 24 and had traveled around the world on my own, but as a geography teacher, I had much to learn.
When it came time to tackle the Middle East, I read all I could find on the subject to stay ahead of my students, to challenge them and to keep them in touch with current events.
Why, I asked them to speculate, was the region called the Middle East? Wasn't it once referred to as the Near East, and before that the Levant? What did these geographic labels say about the times and distances traveled and the point of origin of the nations and travelers who created the regional terms in the first place?
My students were given blank maps of the Middle East and using their desk atlases labeled countries at center, the foot and toe of the Arabian Peninsula as well as strategic straits, gulfs and seas surrounding this vast oil-rich, desertous region. Saudi Arabia, Yemen (then North and South at the time), Muscat and Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates took their places on the desk maps and in my students' minds - names that spoke of worlds filled with covered markets, frankincense and myrrh, oil, deserts, oases and date palms, camel caravans and pilgrimages to the holy city of Mecca.
Another recent New York Times article by Kristof reminded me that 40 years ago, my students were particularly fascinated with Oman - a country the size of Kansas with only six miles of paved road and an illiterate and fiercely tribal society. Kristof described it then as "one of the most hidebound societies in the world. There was no television, and radios were banned as the world of the devil. There were no Omani diplomats abroad, and the sultan kept his country in almost complete isolation."
Tucked into rocky hills in the desert, Oman's capital city, Muscat, was a walled city with gates that closed at dusk after a cannon was fired. Woe was the fate of anyone wandering outside the gates without a torch at night. There were only three primary schools for more than 900 boys and not one for girls.
Today, a world of change has come to Oman because of the progressive leadership of Sultan Qaboos Bin Said, who overthrew his father and opened up the country. His strategy for modernization was build around educating children, boys and girls alike.
Today, Kristof wrote, Oman "is a contemporary country with highways, sleek new airports, satellite TV dishes and a range of public and private universities. ... Boys and girls alike are expected to finish high school at least."
Imagine Afghanistan and Yemen - Oman's neighbor to the west - without widespread fundamentalism and terrorism. That is what Oman's investment in education can teach us.
Cathy Salter is a geographer and columnist who lives with her husband, Kit, in southern Boone County at a place they call Boomerang Creek.
