Petro-Linguistics: The Emerging Nexus Between Oil,

English, and Islam

Sohail Karmani
 This article seeks to link the dynamics of oil with the spread of English in the Arabian Gulf region. It argues
that "oil" sustains certain social, economic, and political conditions that (a) provide a fertile environment for
the expansion of English and that (b) serve the economic interests of the English-speaking nations of the West.
It also contends that the successful expansion of English in this region is to a large degree dependent on
pacifying the political force of "Islam."
 Three things that reveal the close relationship that exists between “Islam,” the
expansion of English in the Arabian Gulf region, and the global dynamics in the
struggle for oil.

1. The profound triumphant symbolism of a powerful language like English in the heartland of the
Islamic world, where as much as two thirds of the world’s proven oil reserves are located.
2. The strategic socio-political significance of English as part of a broader struggle to pacify the
political force of “Islam” in order to gain greater access to the region’s vital energy reserves
3. The deliberate use of the emotive force of 9/11 as a means of intensifying and expanding the
teaching of English under the dubious pretext of “fighting the global menace of Islamic
radicalism.”
we first need to consider the socio-political and socio-economic dynamics that underpin the
control and management of the region’s oil resources and how their effects have impacted on
social development in the Arabian Gulf states.
 THE COMING OF THE OIL ERA
 After the dramatic OPEC oil embargo in October 1973: it became clear that the economies of the industrialized
West were bound to the Arabian Gulf region, and by extension to the heartland of the Islamic world.
 to redress the balance on oil trade and secure a greater share of profits from revenues, Muslim OPEC states
increased oil prices by some 300%
 Henry Kissinger, the US Secretary of State at the time lamented, “oil is much too important a commodity to be
left in the hands of the Arabs”
 Until now, the spectre of “Islam” had scarcely figured either in mainstream American culture or media, but with
the rapidly rising cost of oil, it soon became associated in the public mind with a cluster of unpleasant things.
 The U.S. political scientist, Robert Gilpin(1981),however, applauded the OPEC decision and even described it
as “the greatest forced redistribution of wealth in the history of the world”
 Cont.
 Peter Mansfield (1976/1985), the well-known British historian of the Middle East , describes
the transition from one of the poorest regions in the world to one of the richest with control
over a major part of the world’s financial reserves as one of the “most extraordinary
phenomena of the twentieth century.
 As Albert Hourani(1991) observes it also soon became clear that what might have seemed
to be a declaration of political and economic independence was in fact an ominous step
towards greater dependence on the industrialized nations of the West.
 Far from simply being a blessing from God, oil soon proved to be what OPEC founder, Juan
Pablo Pérez Alfonso, in 1975 famously called the “devil’s excrement”
 reason to believe that Alfonso was right

 economic analysts : despite the revenue gains in the 1970s and early 1980s , oil-exporting
countries in the region have significantly lagged in growth and development in comparison to
resource-poor countries.
 Per Capita income—especially in Bahrain, Oman, and Saudi Arabia—has fallen considerably
over the last three decades with social conditions now beginning to show alarming signs of
deterioration .
 As a result of substantial public expenditure commitments, particularly to bolster military
infrastructures and fund white-elephant projects, the region faces heavy foreign debts and
huge budget deficits, not to mention the dwindling revenues from oil exports in recent years.
 The rapidly increasing young population and unemployment rates
 According to the much-cited Arab Human Development Report 2003 : the overwhelming
dependence on oil revenues and external oil rents as the sole or principal source of income—
what political scientists call the “rentier mode of production”—is the primary cause disrupting
the region’s social, political, and economic development.
 Three reasons why the extreme reliance on oil revenues continues to prevail despite its corrosive effects
on the region’s development.

 First the rentier mode of managing oil revenues has been crucial in "buying off political
consensus "and thereby securing and strengthening the state’s legitimacy

 Second, the enormous surplus of capital generated from oil revenues permits governments
to pursue a capital-intensive economic strategy to deliver social and economic progress in
place of a more labor-intensive orientated approach; the logic being that the former offers
quick and easy returns compared to the much lengthier, more demanding and somewhat
riskier option of the latter
 Third, the ever rising demand for oil in the world places huge political pressures on major oil-
producing economies in the region to continue to sustain the current rentier mode of
production with all its attendant social effects .
 THE MAKING OF A REGION-WIDE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING INDUSTRY

 The real emergence of global capitalism began in the immediate aftermath of the OPEC oil embargo and the real
emergence of a global ELT industry followed shortly afterwards
 As the world’s leading international energy corporations like were vying for greater rights to the Arabian Gulf’s
vital oil reserves to explore ,extract ,refine ,and transport oil and gas to thirsty global markets, it soon seemed
opportune that the somewhat smaller, yet nonetheless highly profitable ,stake of an incipient ELT industry was
also up for the taking.
 All that seemed necessary was to seek and hire the right sort of language teachers (i.e. sensitive to Arab–Islamic
customs and values),
 So long as the major oil producers were able to maintain a constant supply of oil from the region and guarantee a
certain degree of economic openness, English seemed to display a remarkable propensity to spread both rapidly
and extensively.
 Cont.
 As English took root in the region, it soon began to penetrate not only as one might expect into the realms of
formal schooling or education but into almost every major public and private institution
 So ,an extraordinary influx of ESL instructors, teacher trainers, ELT textbook publishers, and language course
providers shortly followed while also thousands of Gulf Arab students were awarded lavish scholarships to study
English in Britain, Australia, and the United States.
two salient factors of why English language learning in the region has been mostly unsuccessful:
1. there still exist no definitive locally produced approaches that meet current language learning needs of the region,
The use, for instance, of culturally alienating and Islamically inappropriate instructional materials, methods, and
approaches is still very much the order of the day
2. the regional ELT bodies like TESOL Arabia continue to be filled by an exclusive corps of Anglo-Western TESOL
practitioners, most of whom—to be fair—lack the most rudimentary knowledge about “Islam” or even say a
smattering of the most basic structures of the Arabic language
 ENGLISH IN A PETRO-ISLAMIC STATE

 It is tempting to take the that English found itself “in the right place at the right time "as if to suggest that the arrival
of English in the Arabian Gulf region was a purely fortuitous affair and as if to imply that Arabic had somehow been
in the wrong place at the wrong time.
 The decisions to initiate and facilitate the expansion of English were ultimately politically driven and wholly caught
up in the global and regional struggle for greater control of the region’s vital energy reserves.
 There certainly does seem to be an unmistakable pattern here of brutal and devastating military confrontation,
followed by political compliance, economic liberalization, oil-driven modernisation, and finally—as one of the
important spoils—an aggressive expansion of English language teaching. But ultimately the success of this pattern
of events depends largely on overcoming the region’s major and most formidable obstacle, namely Islam.
 A direct and open conflict is why in order for the ELT industry to expand successfully, a complex ideological process
of pacifying “Islam” must take place. One way to appreciate how this is played out is to look more closely at the
ideological arguments that favour the expansion of English in the region or more precisely to consider the
underlying ideology of modernization to which the role of English in the region is linked.
 modernisation

 The core belief in the ideology of modernization :“underdeveloped” nations must break free of traditional institutional
structures that limit economic development and prosperity. And further in order to best overcome underdevelopment,
traditional societies must adopt or emulate the institutions and patterns of behavior found in industrialized societies.
 the importance of English in the modernisation position may be summed up as follows: Muslim societies have no
choice but to adopt English if they are to emerge from their present state of “underdevelopment.” And this of course to
a very large degree implies a substantial curtailment of a lot of what represents Islamic culture.
 Tollefson (1991) : there are essentially two ways that the spread of English is ideologically linked to modernisation
theory.:
1. The idea of English as an indispensable tool of modernization. This position is summed up by Huntington (1997) as
follows:
English is the world's way of communicating interculturally. The use of English in this way, however, is intercultural
communication. … It is a tool for communication not a source of identity and community. (p. 61)
 Cont.
 2. monolinguals(preferably in English)is seen as a practical advantage for modern social
organization while multilingualism is seen as a characteristic of “unmodernised,” “traditional”
societies .
 ENGLISH IN THE “WAR ON TERROR ”
 September 11: pressure has been mounting on Muslim to reform educational curricula
 As a direct response to the“cause”of the attacks ,the U.S. Congress concurred that some of the textbooks being
used in Saudi educational curricula were fostering what it described as a “combination of intolerance,
ignorance, anti-Semitic, anti-American , and anti-Western views” in ways that posed a “ danger to the stability
of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,the Middle East region, and global security.
 15 of the 19 hijackers of the 9/11 attacks were identified as Saudi nationals: there were calls for the government
of Saudi Arabia to reform its education curriculum in a manner that promotes tolerance, develops civil society,
and encourages functionality in the global economy”
 It has been mostly under the combined pretext of“ educational reform ,” U.S. national security, and the "war on
terror "that the astonishing formulas( namely“ more English and less Islam”) underpinning the Rand
corporation’s reform initiatives have surfaced.
 “English” hugely benefited from recent global events in two significant ways:

 1. There is an increasing urge these days to further the expansion of English into the primary and
secondary level school systems of the state sector.
 2. Coffman (2003) observes that since the 9/11 attacks, the number of Gulf Arab students applying to
U.S. universities has dropped significantly fueling an increased demand for “Western-quality ” programs
locally with the result being that British and American style universities in the region have been
mushrooming.
Thank you