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THIS ISSUE: Oil – Past, Present, Future Europe, the Middle Volume 10 - Number 4 June – July 2014 £4 THIS ISSUE: Oil – Past, Present, Future ● Europe, the Middle East and North Africa ● OPEC after the Arab uprisings ● A curse or a blessing? ● Life after sanctions? ● Nostalgia and the oil city ● The cinema of Iraqi oil ● Libya’s nascent oil industry ● The dawn of the Saudi petro-age ● PLUS Reviews and events in London Volume 10 - Number 4 June – July 2014 £4 THIS ISSUE: Oil – Past, Present, Future ● Europe, the Middle East and North Africa ● OPEC after the Arab uprisings ● A curse or a blessing? ● Life after sanctions? ● Nostalgia and the oil city ● The cinema of Iraqi oil ● Libya’s Nascent oil industry ● The dawn of the Saudi petro-age ● PLUS Reviews and events in London To follow "Reza Shah" (2013) © Amin Roshan. Image courtesy About the London Middle East Institute (LMEI) of Janet Rady Fine Art Th e London Middle East Institute (LMEI) draws upon the resources of London and SOAS to provide Volume 10 - Number 4 teaching, training, research, publication, consultancy, outreach and other services related to the Middle June – July 2014 East. It serves as a neutral forum for Middle East studies broadly defi ned and helps to create links between individuals and institutions with academic, commercial, diplomatic, media or other specialisations. With its own professional staff of Middle East experts, the LMEI is further strengthened by its academic Editorial Board membership – the largest concentration of Middle East expertise in any institution in Europe. Th e LMEI also Professor Nadje Al-Ali SOAS has access to the SOAS Library, which houses over 150,000 volumes dealing with all aspects of the Middle East. LMEI’s Advisory Council is the driving force behind the Institute’s fundraising programme, for which Dr Hadi Enayat AKU it takes primary responsibility. It seeks support for the LMEI generally and for specifi c components of its Ms Narguess Farzad programme of activities. SOAS Mrs Nevsal Hughes Association of European Journalists Dr George Joff é Mission Statement: Cambridge University Mr Barnaby Rogerson Th e aim of the LMEI, through education and research, is to promote knowledge of all aspects of the Middle Ms Sarah Searight East including its complexities, problems, achievements and assets, both among the general public and with British Foundation for the Study of Arabia those who have a special interest in the region. In this task it builds on two essential assets. First, it is based in Dr Kathryn Spellman Poots London, a city which has unrivalled contemporary and historical connections and communications with the AKU and LMEI Middle East including political, social, cultural, commercial and educational aspects. Secondly, the LMEI is Dr Sarah Stewart at SOAS, the only tertiary educational institution in the world whose explicit purpose is to provide education SOAS and scholarship on the whole Middle East from prehistory until today. Mrs Ionis Th ompson Saudi-British Society and BFSA Dr Shelagh Weir SOAS LMEI Staff: Professor Sami Zubaida Birkbeck College Director Dr Hassan Hakimian Coordinating Editor Executive Offi cer Louise Hosking Megan Wang Events and Magazine Coordinator Vincenzo Paci Listings Administrative Assistant Shahla Geramipour Vincenzo Paci Designer Shahla Geramipour Disclaimer: Letters to the Editor: Th e Middle East in London is published fi ve times a year by the London Middle Opinions and views expressed in the Middle East Please send your letters to the editor at East Institute at SOAS in London are, unless otherwise stated, personal the LMEI address provided (see left panel) views of authors and do not refl ect the views of their or email [email protected] Publisher and organisations nor those of the LMEI and the MEL's Editorial Offi ce Editorial Board. Although all advertising in the Th e London Middle East Institute SOAS magazine is carefully vetted prior to publication, the University of London MBI Al Jaber Building, 21 Russell LMEI does not accept responsibility for the accuracy Square, London WC1B 5EA of claims made by advertisers. United Kingdom T: +44 (0)20 7898 4490 SSubscriptions:ubscriptions: F: +44 (0)20 7898 4329 E: [email protected] www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/ To subscribe to Th e Middle East in London, please visit: ISSN 1743-7598 www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/affi liation/ Contents LMEI Board of Trustees 4 19 Professor Paul Webley (Chair) Director, SOAS EDITORIAL Political and civic life at the Professor Richard Black, SOAS dawn of the Saudi petro-age Dr John Curtis Iran Heritage Foundation 5 Claudia Ghrawi Sir Vincent Fean INSIGHT Professor Ben Fortna, SOAS Europe, the Middle East and 21 Mr Alan Jenkins North Africa: oil and gas REVIEWS Dr Karima Laachir, SOAS George Joff é BOOKS Dr Dina Matar, SOAS Th e Caravan Goes On: How Dr Barbara Zollner Birkbeck College 7 Aramco and Saudi Arabia Grew OIL – PAST, PRESENT, Up Together FUTURE Jörg Matthias Determann LMEI Advisory Council OPEC aft er the Arab uprisings Lady Barbara Judge (Chair) Professor Muhammad A. S. Abdel Haleem Paul Stevens 22 Near and Middle East Department, SOAS Law, State, and Society Mr Stephen Ball KPMG 9 in Modern Iran: H E Khalid Al-Duwaisan GVCO Oil in MENA: a curse or a Constitutionalism, Autocracy, Ambassador, Embassy of the State of Kuwait Mrs Haifa Al Kaylani blessing? and Legal Reform, 1906-1941 Arab International Women’s Forum Massoud Karshenas Saïd Amir Arjomand Dr Khalid Bin Mohammed Al Khalifa President, University College of Bahrain Professor Tony Allan 11 23 King’s College and SOAS Dr Alanoud Alsharekh Life aft er sanctions? On the Arab Revolts and the Senior Fellow for Regional Politics, IISS Hormoz Nafi cy Iranian Revolution: Power and Mr Farad Azima NetScientifi c Plc Resistance Today Dr Noel Brehony 13 Ghoncheh Tazmini MENAS Associates Ltd. Professor Magdy Ishak Hanna Nostalgia and the oil city British Egyptian Society Rasmus Christian Elling 24 HE Mr Mazen Kemal Homoud Ambassador, Embassy of the Hashemite BOOKS IN BRIEF Kingdom of Jordan 15 Th e cinema of Iraqi oil 26 Founding Patron and Mona Damluji OBITUARY Donor of the LMEI Hossein Shahidi (1953-2014) Sheikh Mohamed Bin Issa Al Jaber MBI Al Jaber Foundation 17 Saeed Barzin Th e USA and labour relations in Libya’s nascent oil industry 27 Elisabetta Bini EVENTS IN LONDON June-July 2014 The Middle East in London 3 EEDITORIALDITORIAL © Aryan Lavasani DDearear RReadereader “Oil and Gas” by Aryan Lavasani. Part of Black Gold exhibition curated by Leila Varasteh and Vida Zaim. Image courtesy of Aryan Lavasani & Shirin and Homa Art Galleries Nelida Fuccaro, Hassan Hakimian, SOAS il has cast a long shadow over the Stevens considers the implications of of oil, explaining how fi lms produced by Middle East for the better part of new technologies (such as fracking and the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) in the Othe last century. While opinion extraction of shale oil and gas) for the future 1950s sought to present a new and modern has been divided over whether the ‘black of oil in the Middle East. image of Iraq. gold’ has been a curse or a blessing for the Massoud Karshenas looks back at the Elsewhere in the magazine, Elisabetta region, there is agreement that its impact evolution of oil economies arguing that Bini and Claudia Ghrawi tell us a diff erent has nevertheless been pervasive, generating while oil has provided major developmental story: that of the labour and social struggles fabulous wealth and striking inequalities, opportunities for oil-exporters in the region, generated by the development of the oil environmental disasters and spectacular it has also slowed down, if not derailed, industry in Libya and Saudi Arabia under urban development, hyper-modern the timetable for major economic reforms the control of foreign companies. Bini sheds lifestyles and cultures of repression. in these economies. Hormoz Nafi cy takes light on the little known world of Libyan Th is issue of the magazine visits the vexed a similar line in his piece on the future of oil before the rise of the Qaddafi regime relationship between oil and the Middle Iran’s oil sector in the post-sanctions period in 1969, a world dominated by US Cold East and North Africa (MENA); multi- to make a plea for rational reforms to put War concerns with left ist trade unionism. faceted, multi-dimensional and nuanced the management of the sector on a sound Focusing on another corner of America’s oil perspectives seek to shed light on the past, and apolitical footing. empire, Ghrawi unveils the links between just as much as to understand the present Th e next four pieces go beyond the oil industrialisation, political mobilisation and the future of oil in MENA. politics and economics of oil by focusing on and civic solidarity in the Eastern province Th e fi rst two contributions ask whether its social and cultural infl uences. Rasmus of Saudi Arabia before the 1973 oil boom. oil will continue to have the same Christian Elling and Mona Damluji present infl uence in the future of the region. In new and exciting aspects of early oil life Th e next issue will be published in Insight, George Joff é considers this in the and cultures. Elling explores the nostalgia October aft er our summer recess. May we context of the recent crisis in Ukraine and surrounding the bygone oil age in the take this opportunity to thank our readers asks whether the Middle East can allay Iranian city of Abadan since the Islamic and contributors for their support and European energy security concerns in Republic and the Iran–Iraq War. Similarly, wish you all a good break over the summer its stand-off with Russia.
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