Dissertation_Dr Faisal Almubarak

83
petitioning of the central government for their populace. Al-Said (1982) wrote "The central
government never felt that this was more than a mere privilege to suggest, and when it
deemed it necessary, its plans and projects were carried out despite the notables'
objections."43 Emirs of provinces have since served as representatives for the central
government, overseeing state ordained civil tasks and police powers, executing state's
projects, and supervising the subjects.
No effort was made to sustain and incorporate the traditional system of authority.
Instead, the expansion of central state control took the form of provincial branching of the
bureaucracy, new functions obviated the old ones, and bureaucratic procedures supplanted
traditional consultative decision-making at the local community level. Early government
projects such as those from the 1930s to 1950s were slow and simple (e.g., digging water
wells; building dams, roads, schools, health clinics; and providing police protection) and
did not significantly alter the old system of authority. However, due to the the dramatic
political and economic developments of the 1960s and 1970s, the mushrooming of
government services included the establishment of new branches within the ministries. The
rapid growth of state departments called for employing not only out of town and regional
personnel but foreigners as well. For example, between 1962 and 1967, the number of
government employees doubled. It was then that the traditional powers and representatives
of the multi-power traditional authority system were radically challenged and altered. The
buttressing of central control was the government's national priority to stave off the
centuries-long tendencies of fragmentation and provincialism.
This process of modernization under the auspice of the central power has been
complemented with the national educational programs which have promoted the a new
values of the nation-state, hence becoming a catalyst for new national consciousness.
Generous allocations in the creation of new schools, universities and other learning
institutions which provide free education to citizens and scholarships to study abroad were
designed to encourage the break with the historical isolationism among young people, all
meant to prepare the population for economic prosperity in the future. During the last two
decades, the student population has increased from nearly 600,000 to 2,500,000.
Simultaneously, this process of national homogenization has gradually altered the
millennia-long tradition of the identification of locals in reference to their tribal or towns of
origin.