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HIST 46B Final - Coggle Diagram

- - - - The title of the book is also a metaphor for how the new oil-rich cities are constructed. As described by Munif himself, they are "cities of salt," cities that "offer no sustainable existence. When the waters come in, the first waves will dissolve the salt and reduce these great glass cities to dust. In antiquity, as you know, many cities simply disappeared. It is possible to foresee the downfall of cities that are inhuman. With no means of livelihood they won't survive" (Munif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cities_of_Salt).
        
        While before the arrival of the oil prospectors, the Wadi lived an idyllic oasis life without a significant stratified class structure, the petro-cities that followed were rife with inequality, with all but a few Arab elites being in the lower working class and the American being the hegemonic upper class, in control of the oil companies that brought so much change and chaos to the Wadi people's livelihoods.
        
        The cities of salt that are constructed by the oil companies display a side of oil and an impact of oil not typically depicted to outsiders of the Arab world. While many may consider it as just an automatic generation of massive amounts of wealth, the novel depicts oil as something that "impoverished the Arab and hijacked his destiny" (Munif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cities_of_Salt). Instead of bringing about economic growth or democratic reforms, the book shows the reality of why oil matters: it allows the state to enrich itself while at the same time (or as a result of) oppressing its people, since the well-being or productivity of the citizens is not necessary in the face of oil fields needing only a handful of low-skill Arab workers to maintain and expand.
        
        Not only this, but the American oil companies are the ones carrying all the bargaining power. They are the ones that rake the most profit in by far, and throughout the novel, they are able to lay-off many Arab workers without a hitch and settle Mizban's death. The emir, with the indirect and direct support of the companies, imprisons Mufaddi and forms armies. The oil wealth is going into the pockets of the Americans and very wealthy Arabs, while the majority of the Arabs are much worse off after oil. They suffer oppression, low wages, terrible and unsafe working conditions, long hours, and segregation, even as the upper class Arabs and Americans line their pockets with seemingly unlimited quantities of oil wealth. Oil matters in that it imported Jim Crow, with its racial hegemony and worker abuse, injecting it directly into the every day life of what used to be the idyllic life of the Wadi people and to much of the oil producing Arab world in general.
        
        Furthermore, oil matters in that it allows the oil producing nations to not have to seek alternative means for obtaining economic advances.
        
        For many oil-exporting countries, a high percentage of state funds comes from rent, with oil exports consisting of a large percentage of that rent. In this context, rent is considered "income acquired by states from sources other than taxation" (Gelvin 1). For example, Saudi Arabia obtains 90% of its state funds from oil exports, Kuwait 94%, and Abu Dabi 95% (Gelvin 1). As a result, oil perpetuates these countries' indifference to their citizens' needs, as seen so clearly in the novel, where the autocratic emir is completely indifferent to the plights of his people—even as Miteb voices the concerns to him directly—and is completely self-absorbed in increasing oil wealth and personal ambitions to grow his political power and army. In a way, the microcosm of The Cities of Salt maps onto the macrocosm of many conflicts of oil such as the Gulf War, the Oil Crisis, and the Iraq War. Even in many modern Arab states, such as Saudi Arabia, who spends the largest percentage of its GDP on its military, making it the fifth most expensive army in the world, does so with largely oil revenue and at the expense of social infrastructure in many of its rural, desert communities.
        
        The story starts off from the lens of Miteb al-Hathal, the patriarchal figure of the poorest and proudest tribe of the Wadi. Although protagonists' class of the pre-oil era could be considered as low class, within the tribe, it was largely egalitarian and many were content with their lives. Of course, there were the sorrows and pleasures that accompany any life, but in the post-oil era of the novel, it's clear that their lives did worsen. What needs to be understood is that how content one is is not directly proportional to the material wealth that one has. Even as the livelihood of the people of the Wadi did not materialistically decrease by much, the injustice, mistreatment, and segregation, coupled with the ability to see just how rich you could be by observing the Americans in their camps would have a huge negative impact on the overall subjective wellbeing of the Wadi people after the sudden transition into a modern oil-powered city.
- - - - This macrocosm of rapid technological advances shows up in the microcosm in the Cities of Salt. One can witness the utter destruction that the new Western technology brought, obsoleting domestic industry and, with it, mass unemployment. For example, Akoub and Raji, Arab truck drivers, both lose their jobs as they stand no chance against the modern, more efficient American trucks. The entire town of Wadi al-Uyoun is completely destroyed as the industrial plant literally and physically replaces their century-long way of life. The members of the now extinct village are now forced onto the road in search of employment, as others take jobs at the oil extraction and refinery plants.
        
        The technology also has an entrancing effect on the Arab people, as people are amazed and feel ignorant as the technology become more and more present in their daily lives. Even the emir becomes a curious, little child as he tries to understand how the radio works.
        
        The novel shows how technology brought with the oil investments tears at the social fabric of Saudi life. This sudden shift of society is inherently destabilizing, with the Americans intentionally, or perhaps inadvertently, taking advantage of this to the fullest extent. The way of life for many of the Wadi people were suddenly obsolete and no longer a niche they could fulfill in their own society, which had seemed to become so foreign to them overnight.
        
        The hegemonic position of the Americans made sense from their perspective. With the technology being a symbol of Western dominance over the oriental, who, looking at how the emir acted, were naive and child-like in the face of modern technology.
- - - - With the advent of machines, cars, ships, planes, radio sets, televisions, among other novel modern technologies, the change brought by oil allow the local people to enjoy the new forms of technological marvels. With their introduction to the sea in Harran, the locals also get to react to the natural marvels of the ocean: living in the desert their whole lives, many had not witnessed such large bodies of water before. The nature of their reaction to the sea is one of awe and wonder, but they also fear the waves and do not go far into the ocean. This reaction is the same with the new Western technology as well as their new lives in the dramatically different society they now find themselves in. While there are niceties to these advancements and modernization, it all comes with much confusion and fear.
        
        Furthermore, the modernization is also presented as a shift that comes at a cost of the cultural identity and customs that the Wadi people had held so dearly for hundreds of years. This is no better exemplified than by the arrival of the "Satan's ship," an American cruise ship, carrying many American blond women. Many Arabs find this as a moral corruption and shocking to their religiously conservative values. Further complicating this is that some Arabs actually embrace this change, as brought on by the baker Abdu Muhammad, who decorates his bakery with images of these women and falls in love with one of these American ladies.
        
        Another shock comes when the Wadi's people are asked to give up one of their most precious belongings, their camels. With much of the Wadi's people's culture an artifact of their environment, and now that, although they are in the same geographic location, it is irrovacably and dramatically altered, it's more than just the loss of their homes and livelihoods, but also their cultural identity. As best put by Methid, "What happened was not just the loss of place called Wadi al-Uyoun, nor any loss that a man could describe or grow accustomed to. He realized that it was a breaking off, like death, that nothing and no one could ever heal" (Manif 121-122). This breaking off was that lost of identity, with western culture in its place.
- - - - While I knew that natural resources were a double-edged sword, often enriching countries with high standards of living, while making poor countries poorer, I never understood why that was the case. Reading the events that take place in Cities of Salt gave me a better understanding of why this was the case: the production of oil actually allowed