OPPapers.com

Are The Bedouin Now A Mirage?

Are the Bedouin Now a Mirage?
Before, after, and during the fall of the Ottoman Empire, exchange in The Middle East has been complex: "Aspects of the household mode of production, along with aspects of kin-ordered, tributary, and mercantile modes—no single mode was dominant," (Cole). So individuals engaged in this mode or that mode of production, but on that Arabian Peninsula—that desert—individuals exchanged the goods and services they had to offer mediated by need. Need of water, need of food, need of technology—the Bedouin, for instance, were connected to urban specialists by their agents or individuals in possession of their product: they came to the Bedouin camps. If the Bedouin were left in need, however, they exacted raids for livestock and water (Toth). The incapability of the farmer's defense against these raids lead to the paying of tribute or the outright hiring of a group of Bedouin. But it is after the fall of the Ottoman Empire that the already fractured spatial economies of the farm and the urban stabilized and flourished; the unbounded lifestyle of the Bedouin is threatened by borders.
According to the venerable PK Hitti:

To [the Bedouin] the desert is more than a habitat, it is the custodian of his sacred tradition, the preserver of the purity of his speech and blood, and the first and foremost defense against the outside world. Its scarcity of water, scorching heat, trackless roads, lack of food supply—all enemies in normal times—proved staunch allies in times of danger (Elphinson).

With the simultaneous close of World War II and the Ottoman Empire, the Middle East was carved into what it now resembles today: several diverse states acting as individuals in the world market. While an interesting comparison could be made here regarding the nature of the world market in comparison to the modes of exchange already detailed before you, suffice to say that although different...

Please login to view the full essay...