Oil and the Arab World (1946)

From the September 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

The appearance of the Atomic Bomb has not eliminated oil from the field of production and destruction. The modern nations are controlled by men who have an eye on the main chance. . Everything, no matter how ancient, “holy” or beautiful, is ruthlessly sacrificed to the God of Profit. The system has worked out in such a way that it has brought to the surface all that is vile in human nature : the worst man has the best opportunity: As the Americans say, it is not the survival of the fittest, but the survival of the slickest: the cunning and treacherous are able to take advantage of those who are straight: the latter are looked upon as simpletons, fish to be hooked by the anglers of the market: one by one they are kicked into the gutter: the religious world bemoans the fact that their dope no longer works and look around everywhere for more enticing bait, Christianity has so little confidence in its adherents that the keys of the Holy Sepulchre can only be trusted to the hands of the Moslems. The Methodists report a decline of 83,000 in their membership in 10 years. They don’t know why, but we do.

In the early days of Capitalism they preached Hell and Damnation to the children working 16 hours a day in the factories. The fear of hell no longer exists; the wage slave has too much experience of the reality. Religion is a fantastic reflection of the real world; a product of the imagination; it dies in proportion as the real world is understood. Material conditions, and not religious illusions, determine the course of history. Man will be better morally when the economic foundation of the society in which he lives is such that the bias is on the right side. Professor Jenks hit the nail on the head when he said “Morality is the result, not the cause, of social amelioration.”

The countries where civilisation first made its appearance are being brought under capitalist influence as a result of oil, etc., being discovered in these regions. As they are adjacent to what Jews, Christians and Moslems describe as the holy land, it is interesting to ponder over the fact that we shall soon see greater miracles performed there than the followers of Christ ever imagined possible.

A writer in the Sunday Times (July 13th, 1946) quotes from Arabia Phoenix, by Gerald de Gaury, a passage which gives us a vivid picture of the changing scene:

“The transforming properties of magical petrol transcend the most powerful incantations of the Arabian nights; yet its common result is not to make the desert blossom as the rose, but to change an oasis or what not into concrete and tarmac. This comes about through the logic of necessity, though other names have been found for it. Where we landed from a sailing ship on the edge of the virgin dunes of the east coast is now an American industrial town; the centre of the oilfield of the American Oil Company . . .”

“The Wahhabis are going to learn something not in the Koran, evidently. Not date palms, goats, camels, mosques and the smell of herbs and charcoal fires, but quays, derricks, rigs, sheds, pipe lines, power plants, automobiles rushing about and hurrying gangs of workmen. Not the salutation ‘ Peace be with you,’ but ‘ O-kay, boy.’ Irrigation experts from America are busy; the towns of Arabia are linked by wireless stations; the royal camp of hundreds of tents is mechanised; six-wheel lorries rumble through the Wadis. ‘The vast wilds of wild Arabia are as thoroughfares now.’ ”

In the World Review of July, Gerald de Gaury gives us a little more information.

“The main industrial development in Saudi Arabia is at the oilfield at the extreme eastern province of Al Hasa, on the Persian Gulf coast. The Arabian American Oil Company (formerly known as the California Arabian Standard Oil Company), of Delaware, U.S.A., was granted a concession for sixty years in May, 1933, for an area of 300,000 square miles. When oil was struck in 1941 the Company began to make payments on account of royalties, which are paid at the rate of 4s. ‘gold’ per ton of oil produced. The area conceded has since been extended to both the North and South, the whole area now forming a crescent shape along the northern frontier down the Eastern Coast and southwards towards the empty quarters. A refinery with a capacity of 2,500,000 tons a year is nearing completion at the small town of Tannra, on the Eastern Coast. There has been a tentative exploration for oil elsewhere in Saudi Arabia, and for a time a concession was held by Petroleum Development (Western Arabia), Limited, an associated company of the Iraq Petroleum Company, but this was abandoned during the war, when the obligation undertaken could not be fulfilled. There has been a project for a pipeline across Arabia from the oilfield to the Mediterranean, but it is unlikely to hold any economic advantage unless the oil output reaches some 6,000,000 tons per annum. The company has had as many as 8,000 Arab workmen on its books at one time, and it is already having a marked effect on the social life of the people of Eastern Arabia.”

We have recently read of British warships being in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf. The great Powers are unable to agree about anything anywhere for long. As capitalism concentrates, the causes of conflict are forced to the surface. Read carefully from La France Libre in the periodical quoted above : —

“Russia has always been considered as being one of the largest oil reservoirs in the world. Her known reserves, according to Professor Gubkine, amounted to 1,000 million tons. But the imperfect exploitation of Russia’s sub-soil lends weight to Gubkine’s further assertion that the certain, and probable reserves amount to 4,600 million tons, thus exceeding those of the United States by 50 per cent. On the other hand consumption has risen to not more than 25 million tons a year; even if it were to rise to the same level as in England it would not appreciably exceed 60 million tons. Of all the great powers Russia was the only one that had no oil problem. But recently her attitude has completely changed. The new orientation shows itself not only in the tracing of new frontiers (the annexation of the oil deposits of Poland and Sakhalin), but also in the strenuous efforts which Russia is now making to obtain a predominant position in the oil industry of Roumania, in Hungary and, above all, in Northern Persia.

Here, according to the recent agreement, half of the production will belong by right to Russia; the other half Persia will have to sell to the highest bidder, which will, no doubt, be Russia, since she offers the natural and most easily accessible market. It should be noted that the concession zone does not touch the frontiers of Turkey or Irak or of Afghanistan—an arrangement intended to allay suspicion as to Russia’s intention in these regions. Given the tension caused by the Russo-Persian dispute in international relations, the new treaty may appear satisfactory, but the crisis serves to remind us that, oil has lost nothing of its powers to engender political conflicts even though that power is to-day confined to the Near East. It is its oil as much as its geography that is making this region the nerve centre of the world.”

The Poets of Persia, sang hundreds of years ago of the tinkling of the camel bells, the song of the nightingale, the beauty of the crescent moon, and the fragrance of the rose.

Then had they time to sit and ponder over the mysteries of the desert. Gone now for ever is the romanticism of this region; the Arab steed is now outpaced by the jeep, the caravan gives place to the railway, the free wild men of the plains are caught in the net of wage slavery.

They will shortly be as bewitched and bewildered by close contact with the mechanism of Capitalism as their forefathers were by the conjuring tricks of the ancient seers.

But they will learn quickly and repeat as they are trying to comprehend the words of our old friend Omar : —

“Could thou and I with fate conspire

To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire.

Would we not shatter it to bits

And then remould it nearer to the heart’s desire.”

Charles Lestor