As explorer, colonialist, researcher and settler, the West has influenced the creation of a negative image of the communities in the East it believed to be less civilized and developed. Citizens have equally been influenced by such an image, and they see themselves through Western eyes. Unsound views have become so common that they have been held as all but facts. Among the familiar images is the one regarding oil wealth in the Arabian Gulf countries which has been built up since oil was discovered there and made use of over half a century ago