Muscat, Jan 10 - 2020 was a challenging year for the whole world and for Omanis in specific. We woke up on the 11th day of it to hear the shocking news of the demise of our beloved Sultan Qaboos, the father and founder of our modern society.
To generations born 1970 onwards, he was the only ruler we knew and were looking forward to celebrating his 50th Anniversary in November. Grief united us as a nation as we sat in front of the TV watching his funeral while tears of anguish and disbelief ran freely. Comfort came when hearing the announcement of our next Sultan: His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tarik.
I still remembered his calm and down-to-earth demeanour when being interviewed for a local documentary that I watched ages back. Seeing him again at the funeral built a sense of condolence and confidence that we needed in that hard time. Heaven seemed to mourn the great loss too and rained heavily for hours right after the burial, something that would be remembered in awe for generations to come. Weeks after the funeral people still greeted each other with: “Where were you when you heard the news?”. During the forty days of mourning, many of us wondered about little things that marked any transition period: Will the money bills change? How about the national day date that meant a lot to us? And the national anthem? The answers came gradually that almost everything will stay the same, except for the change in the last two verses of the anthem that made it more general and not specific to any Sultan. His Majesty was just continuing the work of the great man before him.
The month of March came with its first wave of coronavirus and the whole world came to a standstill. Oman was one of the first countries to announce total lockdown when many European countries were still debating air travels and closing of borders between different countries. Many of my European friends stopped watching the news and believing data published by their governments regarding the number of cases and deaths in the region or in their countries; contrary to us here who listened keenly to our minister of health’s weekly updates that included different stats and preventive measures taken by the government to stop the spread of the disease. The real test came at summer when the world around us started opening up slowly while we resumed our lockdown status.
Even worse, when in many countries mask-wearing became optional and people started socialising and getting back to normal life whereas here tougher measures were being taken. Many Omanis started grumbling over social media about how fed up they were and “why can’t we be just like everyone else?” The answer came shortly after the second wave hit the world and barely affected us and now with half of the world going under lockdown again, we’re familiar with living life according to the new norms that include wearing face masks, cleaning hands constantly and social distancing.
This would have not been possible without the wisdom of His Majesty Haitham bin Tarik who, like Sultan Qaboos before him, share a long-term vision and steady leadership. In the future, the pandemic will be something of the past that our Omani children might hardly remember it or will only study about in schools. They might be given the task of researching it and will have to interview us, the generation who went through it. My version would be: “It all started much before March; in January specifically when we lost a great man and gained another...”.
Rasha al Raisi is a certified skills trainer and the author of: The World According to Bahja. rashabooks@yahoo.com
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