Is MBS awakening Saudi Arabia to the power of its oil? Who is going to awaken Somalia to the power of its coastline?
Posted: 14 Dec 2022, 18:59
It wasn’t too long ago when I used to hear as a young man Ethiopia’s fight for continued access to the Red Sea. It lost it after a prolonged fight when Eritrea became de facto independent in 1991.
Both Ethiopia and Eritrea have relatively similar “ethnic” and religious doctrine distributions. Ethiopia introduced ethnic federalism in 1991. If I am not mistaken, Eritrea chose to use geographic administrative regions from the get go in 1991.
Ethiopia faced a protracted debate starting in 1991 about ethnic federalism. The latest news coming from Ethiopia suggests that it has been a major contributing factor in the ongoing atrocities against the civil society in the country.
The Red Sea felt far away when Eritrea became independent.
A few days ago, I watched an advertisement about a planned tourism resort on the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia. It made the Red Sea appear even farther away.
I remember hearing news when I was a young man about a discovery of gold in Saudi Arabia. It went that they said that when people thought they would run out of oil in due time because it is a finite resource, Allah gave them gold. It is where the fiercest religious doctrinaires, the Wahhabi, started their preachings.
Any perfunctory observer about its rich resources would imagine diversifying its wealth instead of giving free money to its citizens, which I also heard a long time ago. Whether oil transporting tankers come from the east or west, it is in a position to make primary influence over the management of its oil instead of relegating it to the Dollar. With China and Russia rising and the oil rich Middle East getting its fair share of influence over managing its oil, Africa should also be in a better position to have its fair share of influence over managing its vast mineral resources.
So, is the new leader of Saudi Arabia awakening it to its wealth and diversifying it? The pristine water of the Red Sea in the advertisement is unforgettable.
It reminded me the unforgettable seemingly marble filled beaches of Somalia that I came across in a video clip a few years ago. At least part of Somalia has been historically called Puntland, which attracted tourists from afar in ancient times.
In my mind, it has a far more potential to attract tourists than the Red Sea. On the other side of the Indian Ocean is the Indian subcontinent that is rising with a huge number of population. Altogether, the African side of coastline from Somalia to South Africa is significantly longer than that of India. Despite that, it is called the Indian Ocean. That is another story.
The question that I have been asking ever since I saw the seemingly marble filled beach of Somalia is if it can not be turned into a tourist paradise.
I don’t think that the place is far from the center of mass of world population. I don’t know if such a location has been determined yet. What it means is a locality in the world where most people in the world are closest to geographically. Somebody can probably quickly determine an approximate location using the countries of the world, their total populations, and the geographic locations of their capital cities.
Around 1996 or 1997, an American asked me what prospects Ethiopia had to develop. I didn’t see it coming. My quick intuitive response was that if for nothing else, its geography puts it close to the center of the different regions of the world. It seemed the American didn’t see that intuitive answer coming. After observing that, I felt content about the concept of the center of mass of world population in trying to answer that unexpected question.
An awakened Somalia to the power of its coastline should be good for Ethiopia as well because it will have more tourists pass through it.
Both Ethiopia and Eritrea have relatively similar “ethnic” and religious doctrine distributions. Ethiopia introduced ethnic federalism in 1991. If I am not mistaken, Eritrea chose to use geographic administrative regions from the get go in 1991.
Ethiopia faced a protracted debate starting in 1991 about ethnic federalism. The latest news coming from Ethiopia suggests that it has been a major contributing factor in the ongoing atrocities against the civil society in the country.
The Red Sea felt far away when Eritrea became independent.
A few days ago, I watched an advertisement about a planned tourism resort on the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia. It made the Red Sea appear even farther away.
I remember hearing news when I was a young man about a discovery of gold in Saudi Arabia. It went that they said that when people thought they would run out of oil in due time because it is a finite resource, Allah gave them gold. It is where the fiercest religious doctrinaires, the Wahhabi, started their preachings.
Any perfunctory observer about its rich resources would imagine diversifying its wealth instead of giving free money to its citizens, which I also heard a long time ago. Whether oil transporting tankers come from the east or west, it is in a position to make primary influence over the management of its oil instead of relegating it to the Dollar. With China and Russia rising and the oil rich Middle East getting its fair share of influence over managing its oil, Africa should also be in a better position to have its fair share of influence over managing its vast mineral resources.
So, is the new leader of Saudi Arabia awakening it to its wealth and diversifying it? The pristine water of the Red Sea in the advertisement is unforgettable.
It reminded me the unforgettable seemingly marble filled beaches of Somalia that I came across in a video clip a few years ago. At least part of Somalia has been historically called Puntland, which attracted tourists from afar in ancient times.
In my mind, it has a far more potential to attract tourists than the Red Sea. On the other side of the Indian Ocean is the Indian subcontinent that is rising with a huge number of population. Altogether, the African side of coastline from Somalia to South Africa is significantly longer than that of India. Despite that, it is called the Indian Ocean. That is another story.
The question that I have been asking ever since I saw the seemingly marble filled beach of Somalia is if it can not be turned into a tourist paradise.
I don’t think that the place is far from the center of mass of world population. I don’t know if such a location has been determined yet. What it means is a locality in the world where most people in the world are closest to geographically. Somebody can probably quickly determine an approximate location using the countries of the world, their total populations, and the geographic locations of their capital cities.
Around 1996 or 1997, an American asked me what prospects Ethiopia had to develop. I didn’t see it coming. My quick intuitive response was that if for nothing else, its geography puts it close to the center of the different regions of the world. It seemed the American didn’t see that intuitive answer coming. After observing that, I felt content about the concept of the center of mass of world population in trying to answer that unexpected question.
An awakened Somalia to the power of its coastline should be good for Ethiopia as well because it will have more tourists pass through it.