Ghazi Abdul Rahman Al Gosaibi | |
|---|---|
| Minister of Labor | |
| In office 12 April 2004 – 15 August 2010 | |
| Prime Minister | King Fahd King Abdullah |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Adel Fakeih |
| Minister of Water and Electricity | |
| In office September 2002 – April 2004 | |
| Prime Minister | King Fahd |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Abdullah Al Hussain |
| Ambassador to the United Kingdom and Ireland | |
| In office 1992–2002 | |
| Prime Minister | King Fahd |
| Preceded by | Nasser Almanquor |
| Ambassador to Bahrain | |
| In office 1984–1992 | |
| Prime Minister | King Fahd |
| Minister of Health | |
| In office 1983–1984 | |
| Prime Minister | King Fahd |
| Preceded by | Husain Aljazaeri |
| Succeeded by | Faisal Alhujailan |
| Minister of Industry and Electricity | |
| In office 1976–1983 | |
| Prime Minister | King Khalid King Fahd |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1940-03-03)3 March 1940 |
| Died | 15 August 2010(2010-08-15) (aged 70) Riyadh, Saudi Arabia |
| Resting place | Al Oud cemetery |
| Alma mater | University of Cairo University of Southern California University College London |
Ghazi Abdul Rahman Al Gosaibi (Arabic:غازي بن عبدالرحمن القصيبي; 3 March 1940 – 15 August 2010) was a Saudi politician, diplomat, technocrat, poet, and novelist. He was an intellectual and a member of the Al Gosaibi family that is one of the oldest and richest trading families of Saudi Arabia andBahrain. Al Gosaibi was considered among Saudi Arabia's topmost technocrats since the mid-1970s.The Majalla called him the "Godfather of Renovation"[1] while Saudi journalistOthman Al Omeir argued that he was "the only great man in Saudi Arabia."[2]
Al Gossaibi was born on 3 March 1940 to one of the richest families of the Kingdom inHofuf located inAl Ahsa province.[3] The family was ofNajdi origin.[4] His mother was from the Kateb family of Mecca who died when he was aged nine months, and he was raised by his grandmother.[5]
He received primary and secondary education in Bahrain which was aBritish protectorate during that time.[5][6] He attended theUniversity of Cairo and received a degree in law in 1961. Later, he moved to the United States and graduated from theUniversity of Southern California with a degree in international relations in 1964. He later completed his PhD in law at theUniversity College London in 1970; his PhD thesis was about the Yemen crisis which took place from 1962 to 1967.[5][7]
Al Gosaibi began his career working as a lecturer atKing Saud University in 1965.[5] He held various positions, including associate professor, dean of the faculty of commerce and head of the department of political science.[8] In 1965, he served as a legal consultant to the Saudi reconciliation committee; the job was related to negotiating with the Egyptian forces in Yemen.[5] He also served as the director general ofSaudi Railways Organization in 1970,[3] chairman of Jubail Petrochemical Company (Sadaf) and Yanbu Petrochemical Company (Yanpet),[8] member on Public Investment Fund, Supreme Manpower Council,[8] andRoyal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu.[7]
Al Gosaibi was one of the technocrats in the 1970s who were chosen by the Saudi government for assigning public positions and posts.[9] In October 1975,King Khalid appointed him the minister of industry and electricity,[10] which he held the position until 1983.[11] In 1976 he proposed the creation of a joint-stock state-controlled firm that could serve as a catalyst for the industrialization of Saudi Arabia. Later that year theSaudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) was created, and Al Gosaibi was named its chairman.[4][12] He also served as the minister of health from 1983 to 1984.[11] He was removed from office without any explanation in 1984.[13] Then he served as the ambassador to Bahrain (1984-1992) and was subsequently appointed the Saudi ambassador to the United Kingdom and Ireland in 1992.[14] Al Gosaibi replacedNasser Almanquor as ambassador to the United Kingdom and Ireland following the latter's removal due to his support for thefatwa (religious decree) asking for the death of British writerSalman Rushdie.[15] In 1999, Al Gosaibi nominated himself to serve for the post of director general ofUNESCO.[16] However, he was not elected, andJapanese diplomat,Koichiro Matsuura, became the director general.[3] In the election, Matsuura won 34 votes, Al Gosaibi 13.[17] Al Gosaibi's term as Saudi ambassador to the United Kingdom and Ireland ended in September 2002.[7]
Next Al Gosaibi was appointed minister of water and electricity in mid-September 2002 when the ministry of agriculture and water was divided into two independent ministerial bodies.[14] His tenure lasted until April 2004.[18] During this period, Al Gosaibi was also appointed board member ofSaudi Aramco[19] and served in the post until October 2004.[20]King Fahd appointed him as the minister of labor on 13 April 2004 following the split of the labor and social affairs ministry into two.[18][21] He contributed to the national strategy of Saudization into practice and motivated private firms to employ a greater proportion of Saudi nationals.[22] He served in the post until his death in 2010[7] and was succeeded byAdel Fakeih in the post.[23]
Al Gosaibi was a member of the honorary committee ofPainting & Patronage from 2000 to 2010.[24] He also actively participated in the organization of its first and second programmes held in London in 2000 and Riyadh in 2001, respectively.[24]
Al Gosaibi, while serving as minister of health, was dismissed in 1984.[13] He had openly asked for and supported the transparent tendering for regional hospitals.[9] This criticism of Al Gosaibi targetedSaudi Oger, owned by lateRafik Hariri, who had been closely associated with King Fahd.[9] Since Al Gosaibi was not able to meet with King Fahd, he wrote a poem for the King, entitled "A Pen Bought and Sold".[9] The poem, which was published on the front page ofAl Jazirah, indirectly accused the ruling elites, includingPrince Sultan, minister of defence, of corruption.[9][25] King Fahd fired him after reading the poem.[9]
Al Gosaibi was also removed from his post as ambassador to the United Kingdom and Ireland in 2002 due to his poem, a short verse entitled "You Are the Martyrs", published inAl Hayat in mid-April, supposedly praising a Palestinian female suicide bomber.[3][26][27][28] The poem was allegedly dedicated to a Palestinian teenager,Ayat Akhras who blew herself up on 29 March 2002 in theKiryat HaYovel supermarket inJerusalem, resulting in the death of two Israelis.[8] Al Gosaibi described her as the "bride of the heavens" who "stands up to the criminal" and "kisses death with a smile."[8] The poem also included critical views about the United States[28] and the Arab political and intellectual elite, who, for Al Gosaibi, did not assume any responsibility with regard to the Palestinian conflict.[6] Before his removal from his post by the Saudi government, Al Gosaibi had faced censure from theBritish Government because of the aforementioned poem.[28]
Al Gosaibi, as the minister of industry and electricity, stated in 1980 thatAmerican foreign policy was "self-doubt, isolative, and had a tendency to abdicate."[29] He also criticised the approach by US media towards Saudi Arabia.[29] During his tenure as Saudi ambassador to the United Kingdom and Ireland, he describedOsama bin Laden as "a human monster" in the immediate aftermath of the9/11 attacks in theBBC's HARDtalk interview.[30] In 2002, he argued that the suicide bombers "died to honor God's word."[31] In response to the criticisms from Jewish groups over his poem, "You Are the Martyrs", he defended his position and accused Israel of "committing war crimes."[31] He also expressed his support for a two-state solution for thePalestinian conflict and the Saudi government-backed Arab peace initiative.[12] During the same period, he said: "the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is worse than anything Europe experienced under Nazi Germany."[32]
He was an apparent critic of the Saudi conservative society.[3] He was an ally ofKing Abdullah in regard to his reform initiatives[33] and is known for his liberal religious views.[34] He was against terrorism and extremism and called for democratic reform in the Kingdom, although he argued that it needed to be a very gradual process.[31] He was labeled by radicals as "a Westerner, infidel, secular and a hypocrite", and experienced a systematic and intense ideological campaign against him.[16] More specifically, Osama bin Laden called him in a taped message in 2006 a liberal fifth columnist.[35]
During his tenure as minister of labor, Al Gosaibi supported the idea that Saudi women should be offered more job opportunities.[26] He stated that Saudis were only interested in high-paying, easy jobs. He served hamburgers in 2008 for three hours at aJeddah fast food restaurant, a job usually performed by non-Saudi workers. Later in a press conference, he told Saudi youth that this type of work was not dishonorable.[8] He warned against increasingracism among Saudis towards the millions offoreign workers in Saudi Arabia in 2008.[36] However, when a significant financial crisis affected all countries, in January 2009 he warned Saudi firms against exploiting the crisis as a reason for terminating Saudi nationals and suggested them to terminate foreign workers in the country.[37]
Al Gosaibi was one of the best-selling writers inthe Arab world and also, was a significant diplomat-poet.[38] He published nearly 40 books, most of which were the collections of his poems,[5] which provide "images of a simpler, desert culture."[26] His novels were mostly based on the topic of corruption, Arab alienation,[26] love,taboos and the condition of the Arab states.[6] InFreedom Apartment orAn Apartment Called Freedom (1994), one of his most known novels, the theme is about the lives of four Bahrainis who left their homes for university education in Cairo in the 1960s.[3] The novel also reflects his own experience in Cairo.[1] Another novel,Sab'ah (2003), is asatire and "depicts the Arab reality through seven characters who have different ideas and works, and are flirting with the same woman."[1]A Love Story (2002) narrates the life of a novelist who is dying in a hospital bed, dreaming about the memories of his past love affair with a married woman.[27]
Al Gosaibi also published non-fiction books, including an autobiography, entitledYes, (Saudi) Minister! A lifetime in Administration (1999)[5][39] andThe Gulf Crisis that offers an insider's account of the Arab reaction toSaddam Hussein'sinvasion of Kuwait.[27] In addition, he wrote essays, focusing on the relations between the Arab and western world.[26]
Some of his books, includingAn Apartment Called Freedom, were banned for a long time in Saudi Arabia.[35][40] The reason for the ban was that his works were often critical of ruling regimes in the region and included a satirical representation of social and political mores.[34] At the beginning of August 2010, just two weeks before his death, this ban was lifted due to his contributions to the country.[1][33]
His novels in Arabic are as follows:
Two of his novels were translated into English:[11]
In 1989, one of Al Gosaibi's poetry books was also translated into English byAnne Fairbairn in Australia, titled asFeathers and the Horizon.[43]
In 2010, Al Gosaibi translated the non-fiction book "The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements," authored by the American social philosopherEric Hoffer.[44]
Al Gosaibi married to a German woman who was raised in Bahrain.[5][9] They had four children; one daughter and three sons.[5]
Al Gosaibi underwent a surgery at Riyadh'sKing Faisal Specialist Hospital in the late July 2010.[45] He died ofcolon cancer at the age of 70 on 15 August 2010.[26][34] The funeral prayer for him was performed at Imam Turki Mosque, and acting Riyadh governor,Prince Sattam attended the funeral.[8] He was buried inAl Oud cemetery in Riyadh on the same day, 15 August 2010.[46][47] His family held another funeral service for him in Bahrain.[45]
Asharqia Chamber began to offer the Ghazi Al Gosaibi Award for the promisingsmall and medium size companies, particularly inthe Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. The award is given biannually.[48] In April 2013,Al Waleed bin Talal Foundation-Global, headed byPrince Al Waleed, bought the house of Ghazi Al Gosaibi inManama, Bahrain, to renovate it.[49]
In 2017 theGulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association posthumously recognized Al Gosaibi as a pioneer inpetrochemicals and chemicals and awarded him with the GPCA Legacy Award.[50]
