Harold Walker - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Harold Walker
Asian Affairs, 2020
This book is one outcome of a conference held at the Middle East Institute at the National Univer... more This book is one outcome of a conference held at the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore in December 2016, of which at the time the acting director was the much-lamented P...
Asian Affairs, 2021
The fifth section is about now. Under King Salman andMBS the kingdom has rejected an incremental ... more The fifth section is about now. Under King Salman andMBS the kingdom has rejected an incremental approach to reform and gone for bust. Rundell is enthusiastic about opening up entertainment, women’s freedoms to enter most professions, and the doing away with the guardianship system (though I suggest it is not eradicated). Educational and legal systems are being modernised, but legal reform is a work in progress.
Asian Affairs, 2021
What historians will find of most interest, however, is the light the Reports throw on the person... more What historians will find of most interest, however, is the light the Reports throw on the personality of Sheikh Shakhbut, who ruled Abu Dhabi from 1928 to 1966. On the one hand a man of great charm: on the other his meanness, his fraught relations with his sons and brothers, his maltreatment of his advisers, his disdain for education, his suspicion of development. In a lengthy vignette, Wilkinson wrote “Shaikh Shakhbut is an absolutely fascinating character, almost impossible to describe and the complete despair of anyone who has to deal with him...”
Asian Affairs, 2016
Ali al Shihabi is no member of an opposition. On the contrary he gives credit to Al Saud (the Hou... more Ali al Shihabi is no member of an opposition. On the contrary he gives credit to Al Saud (the House of Saud) for building, over the relatively brief life of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a State that has brought the benefits of stability, infrastructure and basic services to the majority of its people. He points out that in 1932 the Kingdom had no inherited structure of governance, other than a handful of bureaucrats in the Hejaz, on which to build. Fairly enough, he invites the reader to compare the value delivered to the Saudi citizen with that offered to the inhabitants of a peer group consisting of other oil-rich States such as Algeria, Libya and Iraq. Saudis do not, he observes tellingly, emigrate.
Asian Affairs, 2015
After the uprising and the slide into civil war, the Kurdish area to the north-east of the countr... more After the uprising and the slide into civil war, the Kurdish area to the north-east of the country became effectively autonomous. Syrian government forces withdrew to deal with threats to the regime nearer the big cities. Kurdish became the language of instruction in schools, and there was a measure of security in the towns. Kurdish parties were, however, treated with suspicion by members of the Syrian National Council. Secession or autonomy were opposed, and there were threats from Arab nationalist and Islamist groups that, after the fall of the regime, a unitary state would be established, snuffing out the limited self-rule that had been achieved.
Asian Affairs, 2005
... The insistence of the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani that the drafting committee should be el... more ... The insistence of the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani that the drafting committee should be elected, taken together with the demands of the time-table ... For an educational body such as the Royal Society for Asian Affairs perhaps the greatest lesson of the war on Iraq was that you ...
Asian Affairs, 2012
... Page 23. INSECURE GULF the long-run. ... This introduces potent new dimensions to the securit... more ... Page 23. INSECURE GULF the long-run. ... This introduces potent new dimensions to the security equation, not least basic issues of food and water security, and the chapter analyses the measures being undertaken in the GCC states to mitigate and overcome them. ...
Asian Affairs, 2020
This book is one outcome of a conference held at the Middle East Institute at the National Univer... more This book is one outcome of a conference held at the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore in December 2016, of which at the time the acting director was the much-lamented P...
Asian Affairs, 2021
The fifth section is about now. Under King Salman andMBS the kingdom has rejected an incremental ... more The fifth section is about now. Under King Salman andMBS the kingdom has rejected an incremental approach to reform and gone for bust. Rundell is enthusiastic about opening up entertainment, women’s freedoms to enter most professions, and the doing away with the guardianship system (though I suggest it is not eradicated). Educational and legal systems are being modernised, but legal reform is a work in progress.
Asian Affairs, 2021
What historians will find of most interest, however, is the light the Reports throw on the person... more What historians will find of most interest, however, is the light the Reports throw on the personality of Sheikh Shakhbut, who ruled Abu Dhabi from 1928 to 1966. On the one hand a man of great charm: on the other his meanness, his fraught relations with his sons and brothers, his maltreatment of his advisers, his disdain for education, his suspicion of development. In a lengthy vignette, Wilkinson wrote “Shaikh Shakhbut is an absolutely fascinating character, almost impossible to describe and the complete despair of anyone who has to deal with him...”
Asian Affairs, 2016
Ali al Shihabi is no member of an opposition. On the contrary he gives credit to Al Saud (the Hou... more Ali al Shihabi is no member of an opposition. On the contrary he gives credit to Al Saud (the House of Saud) for building, over the relatively brief life of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a State that has brought the benefits of stability, infrastructure and basic services to the majority of its people. He points out that in 1932 the Kingdom had no inherited structure of governance, other than a handful of bureaucrats in the Hejaz, on which to build. Fairly enough, he invites the reader to compare the value delivered to the Saudi citizen with that offered to the inhabitants of a peer group consisting of other oil-rich States such as Algeria, Libya and Iraq. Saudis do not, he observes tellingly, emigrate.
Asian Affairs, 2015
After the uprising and the slide into civil war, the Kurdish area to the north-east of the countr... more After the uprising and the slide into civil war, the Kurdish area to the north-east of the country became effectively autonomous. Syrian government forces withdrew to deal with threats to the regime nearer the big cities. Kurdish became the language of instruction in schools, and there was a measure of security in the towns. Kurdish parties were, however, treated with suspicion by members of the Syrian National Council. Secession or autonomy were opposed, and there were threats from Arab nationalist and Islamist groups that, after the fall of the regime, a unitary state would be established, snuffing out the limited self-rule that had been achieved.
Asian Affairs, 2005
... The insistence of the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani that the drafting committee should be el... more ... The insistence of the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani that the drafting committee should be elected, taken together with the demands of the time-table ... For an educational body such as the Royal Society for Asian Affairs perhaps the greatest lesson of the war on Iraq was that you ...
Asian Affairs, 2012
... Page 23. INSECURE GULF the long-run. ... This introduces potent new dimensions to the securit... more ... Page 23. INSECURE GULF the long-run. ... This introduces potent new dimensions to the security equation, not least basic issues of food and water security, and the chapter analyses the measures being undertaken in the GCC states to mitigate and overcome them. ...