SALEH AL SHAIBANY - saleh_shaibani@yahoo.com - Oman leads the way in the integration of different cultures and this is the reason why the country has attracted a diversity of people from different ethnic background for more than forty years.
This is the key reason why the country has been successful in promoting law and order which is the basis of stability. The cultural harmony practiced in Oman is different from cultural tolerance many countries of the world based their internal policies on. The word ‘tolerance’ has certain motives and one of them is to get something back in return.
The Sultanate’s concept of social harmony is based on unreservedly embracing the characteristics and uniqueness of new cultures. In its role of multiculturalism, Oman has been successful in overriding the ups and downs of economic instability in one form or another. One example is the density of different background of cultures in workplaces. Different channels of thoughts are all multiplexed in one source to produce the desired results. Without sounding vague, the richness of the existence scenario of having different nationalities working on a common goal have always helped Oman stand above the rest. Oman has never been a magnate for pulling in a host of multi-billion dollar projects, at least not yet. However, it has steadily built a firm foundation towards that goal through social oneness.
Oman has reaped many benefits of having a large pool of people living and working in the country from different diversities. One of them, and it has to be in the opinion of many, is the intellectual expansion of the youth in the last 40 years. Prior to that — when Oman had only one dominating culture — the local youth were caught in a one dimensional mental trap.
Four decades later, thanks to the Renaissance conceived by His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the youth are now exposed to many doors of intellectuality. There is a big difference to the management of the affairs of state in the 1970s and 1980s to the handling of the same in this decade.
It rings true to the management of private business, too. The present economic leaders were either born in the 1970s or grew up in that decade. Part of their education, both in the classroom and the streets, was enhanced through social integration as exposed to different cultures.
Going through different ethnic identities, the same generations have used the experience to improve the economic activities and the business processes.
They are building relations by bridging complex gaps to formulate strategies with the help of foreign workers. The emergence of Oman from obscurity to its current position of relative prosperity owes to this fact. It is all about how to perceive and interpret the ethnic dimension in business and work relationship.
Omani business leaders and economic planners know that different ethnic background is reflected positively in the labour market. They also know that when it comes to recruitment, the employment of people from a diversity of cultures is essential to push the wheel economy forward.
The learning curve is still evolving in Oman. It is the exchange of ethnic values that is the catalyst to the success of both the economical and business environments. It is safe to say, the promotion of cultures and freedom of ethnic expression in the country has its roots from the Sultanate’s background as a former seafaring nation.
To answer the critics who are still restricting social integration, particularly in the workplaces, the answer is very simple. To exclude or limit expatriates integration, would catapult Oman back to the obscurity of the 1960s.
The inflow of foreign capital, both in investment terms and human level, will always heavily depend on the unreservedly integration of cultures.
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