Strike!

The new social pastime here in Oman is to protest. Everyone is doing it!

Well, actually, the Omanis are protesting. And striking! The rest of us are working working working.

Around noon today we heard the rumor that the truck drivers were possibly going on strike and gasoline may be in short supply soon. By 3 p.m. stations were closing due to lack of gas. I’m not sure whether there was a run on gasoline this afternoon or the drivers have actually been on strike for days and no one cared till just now. Either way, we topped off our tanks and came home.

A few days ago the news hit: the Sultan had given the elected legislature (I don’t know what they’ve been doing all this time, really) legislative and audit powers. I was so excited I bought the paper (I’ve never bought the paper for a headline before) and waited with baited breath for a day or so. Oman is on its way! The monarch is giving away power to a democratically elected body of representatives! How exciting! How even more forward-thinking is this monarch, that the elected body was already in place, just doing nothing much until the people decided they wanted more say in how things went! That is the Sultan’s way, it seems: to know what the next step should be, and wait until the people want it. Not push anything, not hold back progress.

The upshot of all this was… nothing. The protesters by and large don’t seem to care.

The protesting goes on. And on. And on. And to what purpose isn’t clear. Each little group has its own agenda, and no one cares what any of it is about anymore, not even the local bloggers who were giving hourly updates at first.

So basically: Oman is undergoing major governmental and historical changes… and who even cares? A few nerdy history-loving expats?

All of us expats just trade information now on what commodity is now in short supply, which highway is virtually blocked because of rubber-necking. The embassy sends out warnings: “stay away from protests!” — but they are so numerous that it is nearly impossible. If it gets important enough that it impedes traffic, we’ll avoid it out of sheer necessity. I passed three or four protests today that weren’t even causing slowdowns.

The giant-looking protest at the top of this post? It’s actually five guys in lawn chairs.

Hubby and I have a private bet going that as the temperature soars, this is all going to end. The picture just above is at a large local bank – by the next day it was fewer than five people, then it was over. My bet? No one is going to care anymore when it’s 120 degrees Fahrenheit outside.