Sheep magazine Archive 2: issues 10-17

The official British position was that the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman
was a fully sovereign and independent state. In truth, it was a de facto
British colony. As such, successive British governments were responsible
for the woeful political, social and economic conditions that the sultan’s
subjects endured, and which both created and fuelled the popular revolt.
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In the mid-1960s, Oman had one hospital. Its infant mortality rate
was 75% and life expectancy was around 55 years. There were just
three primary schools – which the sultan frequently threatened to close
– and no secondary schools. The result of this was that just 5% of the
population could read and write. There were no telephones or any other
infrastructure, other than a series of ancient water channels. The sultan
banned any object that he considered decadent, which meant that
Omanis were prevented from possessing radios, from riding bicycles,
from playing football, from wearing sunglasses, shoes or trousers, and
from using electric pumps in their wells.
Those who offended against the sultan’s laws could expect savage
punishment. There were public executions. Conditions in his prisons –
where Pakistani guards received their orders from British warders – were
said to be horrendous, with large numbers of inmates shackled together
in darkened cells, without proper food or medical attention.
The people of Oman despised and feared both their sultan and the
British who kept him in place and colluded with his policy of nondevelopment.
Unsurprisingly, the sultan often had to call upon the British
to provide the military force required to protect him from his own people.
SHEEP IN THE ROAD : NUMBER 15