Salty Oil Money In The Novel Cities Of Salt, By Abdelrahman Munif

Salty Oil Money

The novel, “Cities of Salt,” by Abdelrahman Munif, is based on political fiction that is intertwined with the real issues that oil has brought to all the aspects of the Middle East. The book focuses on the changes brought by oil driven minds; it also illustrates the initial encounters, the confusion and the grief that Arab people faced during the beginning of the oil industry in a remote region. We learn about the interaction of Arabs and Americans in a small town, presumably found in Saudi Arabia.

The time period during this book is set during the discovery of oil by Americans during the 1930’s and the development into the 1960’s. Since the book is divided into several volumes, we learn about the changes of both the human and natural landscape during different stages of oil influence. In the first volume we learn about Miteb al- Hathal and people like him who saw their homeland taken and destroyed by foreign people and unknown machines. The cries and disapproval this character tries to explain are overlooked and forgotten as the engineers transform a virgin landscape into an oil field. With overpowering authority and wealth from the oil money a new city emerges known as Harran. This city quickly grows with ports, roads, pipelines and even American homes. The native people of the area find the labor jobs as a source of income they never thought possible. When lifestyles started changing, they no longer had to be desert travelers. However their way of thinking also changed because they were also giving up some of their traditions and freedoms. Toward the end of the first part of the book, the people start a strike against the American oil company and set the oil field on fire. The indigenous population is initiall...

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...e a man becomes mesmerized by the women in American magazines. As time passes and progress is made for the oil company, so do people become greedy and want more material goods.

The author exposes how the American and Arabs cultures met and interacted. It is clear that the Arab people did not comprehend the changes they would face. Furthermore, the Americans had to adapt but somehow still overcome religion and tradition. Consequently, the beginning of the oil era brought financial wealth but for the greater part brought painful changes to Arab societies. It is difficult to understand how oil wealth did not completely modernize the Middle East for a greater good. Instead we know about the real situation in both the novel and the real Arab culture and how oil money paired with retroactive empires, old religious beliefs and self-absorbed Western governments took over.