Shifting sands: A Mayo reflection on life in the Persian Gulf

Mayo historian Dr. Michael M. O'Connor examines what's currently happening in the Middle East and looks back on the five years he spent there

In the early 1990s, I developed a fascination with the Middle East.

My sudden interest coincided with the First Gulf War but was unrelated to it.

My journey into the Middle East has its roots in two unlikely books - unlikely because their authors were army officers, and I would normally have dismissed them out of hand for that reason alone, assuming they would not cover topics of interest to me.

However, I was quite mistaken. The authors were military men, but they were many other things as well, most notably travel writers who bore witness to, understood, and valued the innate differences of people of other cultures and beliefs.

I picked up the first of the books in a second-hand bookshop in London’s West End. It resides on my desk in Murrisk, Westport.

The title is Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926), by T. E. Lawrence. Lawrence is well known as the subject of David Lean’s epic film Lawrence of Arabia.

Besides his military career, Lawrence was a diplomat, writer, and archaeologist.

Significantly, he is renowned for his role in and documented experiences of the Arab revolt and the Sinai and Palestine Campaign during World War I.

Although Lawrence offers detailed accounts of these campaigns, including successes, failures, and military specifics, it is the deeper themes in his writings that resonate today - the desire for self-determination, personal and group identity, cultural exchange, the savagery of war, and the complex cultural richness of the Arab World.

The second book is Wilfred Thesiger’s Arabian Sands (1959). It narrates his journey through the Empty Quarter in Arabia after World War II, providing a vivid portrayal of the Bedouin people’s fading way of life and exploring themes of personal endurance, cultural exchange, nostalgia, and the solitude that comes with being in spaces outside the hustle and bustle of modern life.

Whether consciously or subconsciously, we all navigate our lives by referencing others, places, and events.

My first encounter with the Middle East (strictly speaking, North Africa) was a trip to Tunisia in 1993 during the holy month of Ramadan.

Over two weeks, my travel companion and I explored the length and breadth of the country, visiting historic sites that ranged from Ancient Rome and Byzantium to World War II - history piled upon history in a place that has been contested for millennia.

More interestingly, we visited rural communities where we enjoyed Berber hospitality and watched the sun set against an orange sky on cold February evenings.

I left with a strong desire to see more. There would be more trips to North Africa, particularly Egypt, but later, with family and friends travelling from Cairo to Lake Nasser and everywhere in between.

On a bright June morning in 1995, I sat bleary-eyed, gazing out the window of a Malaysian Airlines aircraft as it glided through cloudless skies into Dubai International Airport.

I cannot remember how many times I repeated this scene over the next five years, travelling across the Gulf, the broader Middle East, and to and from London, Dublin and Knock.

What I do recall is the intense blast of moisture-laden heat that hits you at the top of the aircraft steps when the door opens - back then, there were no air bridges at the airport.

I had been to Dubai before, three years earlier, as a stopover en route to Seychelles. I was prepared for the heat on the steps, but not for much of what I encountered over the following five years.

My wife, Caroline, arrived a few weeks later because her paperwork was still at the UAE Embassy in London, where we had lived for some years.

My memories of my time in the Gulf are overwhelmingly positive and, over the past two weeks, I have found myself reflecting on that period, the people we met and befriended, and the work we did.

The relentless flow of news across social media channels has also given me, as it has many others, cause to dwell on the plight of expatriates stranded in their homes, hotels, and airports, and, of course, on the plight of the local population.

I include in the latter the substantial Asian communities that keep the economies of the Gulf states functioning. They work in construction, healthcare, hospitality, and nearly every other labour-intensive, unattractive, and poorly paid sector.

They are exiles from nations such as India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Indonesia; nations whose governments do not provide for them but are happy to benefit from their overseas earnings remitted to their families at home.

I arrived in the Gulf four years after the First Gulf War, when memories of the conflict were still fresh in many minds and when it was not uncommon to see military aircraft in the skies and at airports across the region.

Fear of conflict, however, had mostly dissipated.

Dubai and other cities across the region had settled into a routine that was underpinned by a strong desire to advance development - investment in infrastructure, healthcare, education, financial markets, oil and gas, and, crucially, in Dubai’s case, tourism.

Sanctions ensured that Iraq and Iran were excluded from this, making them no-go zones for Westerners, including professional advisers like myself.

My work took me to all the GCC countries and beyond, including Jordan, which was a particular favourite.

The work was literally and figuratively groundbreaking; the days (and nights) were long.

Cultural awareness and self-awareness in contexts where there were often more than a dozen nationalities and as many languages were vital tools for survival.

The writings of Lawrence and Thesiger served as guidebooks to success and were a good conversation opener in social settings with Arab people.

In this context, I met, worked with, befriended, and drank copious amounts of coffee and tea with many wonderful people, including Palestinian exiles, Lebanese middlemen, Libyan and Egyptian lawyers, and local Emirati (and their equivalents in other countries) government and business people.

I recall sitting in the back garden of an octogenarian lawyer in Amman. He was a Palestinian exile who escaped with his life, an eye-catching scar on his forehead and little else. He built a successful legal practice in Amman.

We ate traditional breads, hummus, Musakhan chicken, stuffed leaves, salads, dates, and oranges, and he lamented that he would not see his homeland again and thanked Allah for the loving family around him.

Everything was, of course, political, loaded with cultural niceties and peculiarities, and misunderstandings could be fatal.

Outsiders who failed to grasp this often had short careers and were recalled to London on overnight flights. My greatest achievement was being offered a position by a major government client after I told my English employer I was returning to Ireland.

This was despite having very little Arabic, and certainly no business Arabic.

Three places remain vivid in my memory: wandering around Oman during days off with my young family; Abu Dhabi, working long hours with a persistent, endlessly entertaining Scotsman who became a good friend; and Doha, working for months on a large, complex project with another Scotsman.

Our Arab clients found humour in us and we in them, and we soaked up the knowledge freely given in the cultural exchanges. There were quite a few Irish men and women in Dubai at the time, even an ‘Irish Village’ with an Irish pub.

I remember going there once to watch the usual Mayo debacle in an All-Ireland Football Final - Kerry, 1997 - but generally, we moved away from Ireland and Irishness and embraced the cultural experience - Ireland could wait; as refugees of the repressive and economically bankrupt 1980s, we felt we owed it nothing, and the World was ours to see.

Social life in Dubai, for both locals and expatriates, was centred around family. My eldest daughter was born in Sharjah, a small emirate north of Dubai. My second daughter was born in Dubai.

Because there was no consular support, I had to obtain their passports from the Irish Embassy in Riyadh, a process that took several weeks.

A middle-aged Muslim woman lawyer from northern India, with an unforgettable name straight out of the Arabian Nights and an exaggerated Oxford accent, accepted my word that they were my children and reassured the Irish embassy staff in another country accordingly.

The testimony of an Irishman, corroborated by an Oxford-educated Anglo-Indian living in Dubai, to Irish officials - the World was so much simpler back then.

I sat on a dusty street in Sharjah on a hot September day in 1996 while a shoeless man using a manual typewriter typed up a birth certificate in Arabic for my eldest daughter for a few dirhams.

Two years later, my wife and I listened to a Catholic Jordanian priest struggle with the name we had given our second daughter during her baptism. These are memories that don’t fade.

Leaving Dubai was difficult. We left many good friends behind, along with a diverse community of wonderfully friendly people.

I never felt unsafe in the Gulf, travelling frequently with my family from the Strait of Hormuz in northern Oman to Fujairah on the Indian Ocean, to Al Ain and Hatta in the desert, and everywhere in between.

Since our departure in 1999, Dubai’s population has exploded, and, like anywhere else in the world, it has experienced its ups and downs, including financial crashes and the COVID-19 pandemic.

When passing through Dubai International Airport in the summer of 2024, we could not believe how much it had changed.

It had become the world’s largest airport. Meanwhile, the states north of the Gulf have been torn apart by religious conflict, foreign interference, and proxy wars. To the south, Yemen remains embroiled in a humanitarian crisis caused by conflict and external interference.

In a letter home to his parents, Lawrence wrote: "The foreigners come out here always to teach, whereas they had much better learn, for in everything but wits and knowledge, the Arab is generally the better man of the two."

Lawrence was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1935. If the history since Lawrence tells us anything, it is that the foreigners never went to teach; they went to take, and they took and continue to take.

The American and Israeli attack on Iran was an unjustifiable act of war lacking any rational justification.

The initial strike from Israel, which involved the killing of numerous children, is sadly a scene that has become all too familiar from the genocide committed against the people of Gaza. The taking is not confined to wealth.

Over the past two years, it has become evident that Iran is no match for Israel and its American ally. The attack on Iran was not a defensive response; it was an aggressive, unlawful act against a sovereign nation.

The language used by the aggressors aims to justify and excuse their actions, but the true motives are clear. The foreigners are in the Gulf to take, they do not care about the oppressed, the oppressed are the excuse, and their liberation invariably leads to mass and indiscriminate killing.

The ruling regime in Iran is heinous and oppressive; this has been the case for decades. The brutal killing of those who dare to protest, the suppression of women, individuals of different sexual orientations, literature, and visual culture are all issues Iran needs to be challenged on.

However, attacking Iran without a legal basis under international law, without consensus, and without regard for the stability of the Middle East and perhaps even the World is reckless and demonstrates a complete disregard for human life and safety, as well as a profound ignorance of the history and people of the region.

Beginning with the Soviet-Afghan War in late 1979, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria have all been bombed into the Middle Ages by economically and militarily superior nations, and all for what purpose?

Trying to mould the people of the Middle East into a shape that is recognisable to men elected to serve for four years, and eight if they are lucky, has achieved nothing positive. There is no long-term plan informed by experience.

What is the human toll of all this killing and suffering?

Many are calculating the cost of American regime-change wars in the region in dollars, not in lives lost and destroyed; Middle Eastern lives have always been worth less than white Western lives.

Powerful men in the West have taken the humanitarian ideals of a coloured Middle Eastern man who lived 2,000 years ago and twisted them in furtherance of a crusade against the people of the Middle East for profit and advancement.

What we do know, from experience, is that once a ceasefire occurs, international corporations aligned with the ‘right side’ will secure contracts to rebuild the Gulf and the conquered territories.

International arms companies will work relentlessly to produce weapons to restock the arsenals of Gulf nations to defend them against enemies created for them.

Bright-eyed, optimistic professionals, bankers, and engineers will flock to the Gulf to support rebuilding efforts.

Some will be captivated by the region and its people, naively believing their work is meaningful and will improve lives. But it is all an illusion or mirage; part of the prelude to the next act, a destructive, regime-changing war.

In the early 1940s, De Valera’s Ireland remained neutral in the face of Nazi genocidal aggression. The current Fianna Fáil leadership is more nuanced, condemning Israel for genocide but remaining silent on the actions of its ally, the United States.

The people of the Gulf and the expanding theatre of conflict deserve better from Ireland and most European nations, who are afraid to speak out and condemn the violence, killing, and savagery. Regime change is coming, and no one is exempt.