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Since November 2003, student and faculty research from the Department of Art and Design at Zayed University in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been involved with a cooperative project with the National Museum of Ras al-Khaimah (NMRAK). The primary purpose of this is to build an educational website on the architectural and social history of the emirate of Ras al-Khaimah. We have been focusing our efforts on documenting the abandoned village of Jazirat al-Hamra along with Christian Velde, the Resident Archaeologist at NMRAK, to digitally reconstruct a cluster of houses of coral and beach stone construction. In addition, students, many of whose families originated in Jazirat al-Hamra or Ras al-Khaimah, have been interviewing elder members of their families to provide more information on social context for the buildings. This has proven to be a complex endeavour. Although we are outsiders to the society, as faculty we indirectly represent one of the main stakeholders as the University is funded and managed by the federal government in Abu Dhabi. The village was originally almost wholly occupied by members of one tribe, the Al Zaabi, who quarrelled with the government of Ras al-Khaimah, dominated by the Al Qassimi tribe, and accepted an offer of employment by the Bani Yas-dominated federal government in Abu Dhabi after confederation in 1971, thereby leading directly to the abandonment of the village. One of the senior members of the Al Qassimi family is leading the resort development of the property adjacent to the village, one of the primary threats to the site. Although our intention is to provide support for the promotion and study of heritage in the UAE and to provide practical research opportunities for our students, we have found ourselves at the centre of a complex, radiating web of potential confl ict between three tribal groups, two governments, and a range of individual and corporate interests. This experience opens up a variety of questions about ownership, documentation and preservation in a nation state where tribe remains a vibrant source of both identity and political and economic power.

Keywords: United Arab Emirates, stereotyping, tribe, tribalism, Orientalism, Bedouin, social history

Introduction: ‘Bedouinism’ and constructions of the past

In his memorable essay, ‘The Politics of Meaning’, anthropologist Clifford Geertz (2000, 311) writes: ‘One of the things that everyone knows but no one can quite think how to demonstrate is that a country’s politics refl ect the design of its culture’. In a rare glimpse into the use of heritage as statecraft, Syrian anthropologist Sulayman Khalaf documents the support of camel racing in the United Arab Emirates as part of a larger heritage revival project reliant on an imagined shared ‘Bedouin’ past, noting that control over the meaning of heritage is critical to the state’s ability to ‘widen its legitimacy base and subsequently increase its strength’ (Khalaf 1999, 102). And yet the gap between popular representations of heritage and the histories and memories kept alive outside the boundaries of statecraft create tensions in the public realms of heritage. Dale Eickelman notes the specifi c role of education in the Arab world has contributed to this tension. ‘Mass education, especially mass higher education,’ writes Eickelman, ‘has rendered more explicit the intricate, yet shifting, relationship between the ‘imagined’ communities encouraged by the print and broadcast media and other, alternative shared senses of collective and personal identity’ (Eickelman 1998, 38).

Eickelman’s imagined communities are based on media stereotypes. Homi Bhabha, drawing on Edward Said’s delineation of Orientalism (Said 1979, 3), defi nes the stereotype as a ‘discursive strategy’ and a ‘mode of representation’ or ‘form of knowledge and identifi cation’ whereby certain characteristics of a collective identity are repeated and asserted as accepted facts (Bhabha 1994, 66). Bhabha in particular explores the use of the stereotype as a means of manufacturing and bolstering colonial power, claiming that the ‘objective of colonial discourse is to construe the colonized as a population of degenerate types on the basis of racial origin, in order to justify conquest and to establish systems of administration and instruction’ (Bhabha 1994, 70).

What is intriguing about the United Arab Emirates, though, is that the stereotype as a tool is wielded by an indigenous minority that holds the reins of power and that

THE CASE OF JAZIRAT AL-HAMRA: STEREOTYPES, HISTORICAL INVESTIGATION AND CULTURAL REPRESENTATION IN THE CONTEMPORARY UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Ronald Hawker

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projects the stereotype as a representation of the collective self rather than of the collective other. The harnessing of the stereotype in the context of the United Arab Emirates is not, strictly speaking, built into the social evolutionary framework that supports colonial authority. It is, however, a touchstone that reminds the indigenous population of a certain kind of tribal authority still maintained in the United Arab Emirates,� and that suggests a common foundation for the modern nation and its citizens. The use of such stereotypes, however, as they erase difference as historical fact, also bolster internal systems of hegemony and open up the possibility of historical research as a threat to both established authority and inter-group harmony.

This paper examines how the Bedouin stereotype – the idea that the Arab people are nomads of the desert – is used to represent the past in the United Arab Emirates and how historical investigation complicates the use and legitimacy of this iconic stereotype and potentially contradicts an important unifying image for this young nation. I argue

� The government of the United Arab Emirates, which Al Abed and Vine characterize as ‘…a unique combination of the traditional and the modern’, consists of a Supreme Council made up of the hereditary rulers of each of the seven emirates and led by the president and vice-president, elected from the ranks of the Supreme Council. The Supreme Council is supported by a Council of Ministers, or Cabinet, appointed by the President, and a Federal National Council consisting of forty members appointed by each emirate based on the emirates’ population (Al Abed and Vine 2000, 58-59).

that the concept of Bedouinism is not congruent with present or historic circumstances, but that it nonetheless provides a useful means of constructing a common past for the nation. I then examine the problems this raises for the research and presentation of heritage in the UAE today, through the example of cultural research in the contested village of Jazirat al-Hamra. Finally, I suggest some ways in which this project may help to resolve social and political tensions by presenting a series of informed, multi-vocal accounts of the heritage of the site. Historical background

Before we embark on the case study in question, it is necessary to outline something of the unique socio-political development which has resulted in the modern nation-state of the United Arab Emirates. The UAE is a peninsular country located on the southwestern side of the Arabian Gulf and on the northwestern banks of the Gulf of Oman. With an area of 83,600 kilometers and a total �996 population of 2,377,453, (Al Abed and Vine: 269), the United Arab Emirates controls the third largest proven oil reserve in the world (Al Abed and Vine: 99). It consists of seven emirates: Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm al-Qawain, Ras al-Khaimah, and Fujairah. The region was known prior to confederation in �97� as the Trucial Coast and dependent on the few resources the difficult climate and geography offered. The historic economy was based

Figure 1. the united arab emirates (Figure: marie-claire Ferguson)

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on the exploitation of resources available in the different geographic zones of the area – terraced farming in the mountains, date palm cultivation in the interior oasis, fi shing and trading along the coast, and animal husbandry, particularly goat, sheep and camel, in the desert tracts that separate each zone or along the fringes of each settlement (Heard-Bey 1996 and 2001; Kazim 2000). Rather than the romantic ideal of roaming desert warrior, the typical Emirati person prior to the discovery of oil would be better described using historian Frauke Heard-Bey’s term ‘versatile tribesman’ (Heard-Bey 1996, 24), a person who utilized tribally owned and controlled resource locations within the different geographic zones on a seasonal basis. In J. G. Lorimer’s Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia, the primary source on turn of the century ethnography in the lower Gulf, only 10% of the population was characterized as nomadic, or Bedouin (Heard-Bey 2001, 100; Lorimer 1908).

The path leading to the establishment of the UAE and away from the traditional tribal economy was begun in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Tribal maritime forces based in the northern emirates attempted to control shipping in the Gulf through the Straits of Hormuz. The British government branded the area the Piracy Coast and began the systematic pacifi cation of Gulf tribes, resulting in the signing of a series of truces and agreements, beginning in 1820, ultimately leading to the area’s establishment as a British protectorate. This tied the area to the development of British India trade, culminating in an era of prosperity based primarily on pearl fi shing and trading in the fi rst quarter of the twentieth century (Al Qasimi 1986). Pearling collapsed in 1929 and the area was plunged into an era of relative poverty until oil surveying gained momentum in the 1950s and 1960s. Funds from the oil and gas industries fuelled the rapid growth in the physical and social infrastructure of the country in the two decades following confederation (Zahlan 1998).

The oil and gas industries and a related construction boom have demanded a labor force beyond the numbers of indigenous Emiratis and the United Arab Emirates is now a country completely dependent on foreign labour. In 1975, Emirati citizens represented 36% of the total population. By 1980, the percentage had dropped to 28% (Kazim 2000, 320). In a recent debate on expatriate and domestic labour in the United Arab Emirates sponsored by the Arabic-language newspaper Al Khaleej, speakers cited a government census indicating that Emirati citizens constitute only 7.5% of the nation’s workforce. The majority of the nation’s residents are citizens of other countries, most notably India and Pakistan (Kazim 2000, 320). Different sectors of the economy are dominated by different ethnic groups, none of them Emirati. This has created a crisis of identity, especially with the foreign dominance of media and education.

Although it is not a matter of public debate, the ethnic and tribal make-up of the Emirati citizenry is not homogenous.

The lower Gulf has a well known history of both tribal cooperation and confl ict and inter-regional migration, including from the non-Arab world, especially from southern Iran and the Iranian and Pakistani provinces of Baluchistan (Heard-Bey 1996, 36-37). Because of the alleged Iranian occupation of the strategic islands of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs, also claimed by the Qawasim rulers of Sharjah and Ras al-Khaimah, connections with southern Iran are downplayed, if not completely obscured, in popular heritage media. Tribal allegiances critical to the maintenance of pre-oil economic resources predate nationhood and still contribute to patterns of marriage and inter-tribal interaction (Heard-Bey 2001, 98) in both positive and negative senses. The notion that tribalism might contribute to national fragmentation is a legitimate fear given the stories of tribal confl ict and raiding that permeates Emirati oral histories. The Emirati poet Hamad Bu Shihab captured a sense of how the past might be refl ected in a negative light in a poem celebrating the progress of the nation under the leadership of its fi rst president, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan:

Yesterday these Emirates were torn apartIn them destructive men created havoc.And today we are enjoying security and stabilityForcing envious people to admire us.Yesterday these were disunited EmiratesSuffering ignorance, poverty, illness, and chronic diseaseAnd today the Lord has bestowed upon us his graceIn uncountable abundance.Yesterday few people knew our nameAnd today our voice reaches all corners of the Earth.Oh! What a difference between our yesterday and today.

(quoted in Ghanem 2001, 309)

The Bedouin stereotype

In a society divided by tribalism and ethnicity, the Bedouin stereotype offers a unifying symbol. And it is impossible to escape the various installations, murals, photographic exhibits, museum displays, and folklore activities recalling the Bedouin past. These often appear to confi rm the touristic desire for a real ‘Arabian’ experience common to visitors and the newly-arrived. I was initially inspired to explore the issue of what is being represented in these various shows and events in a scholarly way by an incident during a group visit to the wonderful restoration project in Dubai’s historic Bastakiya neighborhood, a cluster of wind tower houses, a form of architecture unique to the Arabian Gulf, built by southern Iranian immigrants between 1904 and 1930. The trip was organised through the university I was then working at, sponsored by the Dubai Municipality and graciously hosted by the head of the historic buildings section, himself an Emirati citizen. One of my senior (European) colleagues at that university – someone I respected and considered an ‘old hand’ in the Middle East because of his years of experience in Lebanon – commented

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on the achievement of the turn-of-the-century buildings to our Emirati host. ‘Not bad for Bedouin’, he said.

I could see by the ripple of a frown that fl owed over our host’s face that although this was meant to be a complement, it had missed its mark. Clearly, the word ‘Bedouin’ was problematic in this context. The term was admittedly used in a condescending way by my senior colleague, but how was it received by our host? Did he fi nd the term itself derogatory? Was he offended by the presupposed superiority of the speaker? Or, was the term Bedouin simply used in a way that did not suitably respect the way of life it embodied? The chain of knowledge, or fantasy, that this exchange entailed was confusing to me and this rather inane and thoughtless non sequitur opened up a whole series of questions as I struggled to understand who exactly the Bedouin were and what role they had in the history of my new home. This single comment raised complex issues about who is representing the United Arab Emirates to whom, as well as why and what is being communicated in the process.

To begin with, the English word ‘Bedouin’ derives from the Arabic ‘Bedu’. While related, they resonate in popular imagination in unique ways in each language. What is evoked in the mind of an Emirati citizen in terming himself and his ancestors ‘Bedu’ differs from the perception of someone outside of the Gulf tribal structure trying to understand Emirati culture as ‘Bedouin’. In casual conversations, my Emirati friends often use the term ‘Bedu’ in reference to their ancestors as a way of distinguishing their origin. In short, it is a more convenient way of stating that they were from the interior, not the coast. My understanding of the term suggested nomadism and I was therefore confused when my friends or acquaintances would talk of their grandfather’s farm. What, then, is a Bedouin?

Indeed, the Al-Majani Arabic-English dictionary cites the Arabic Bedu (بدو) as interchangeable with the English Bedouin and that both denote nomadic life associated with the desert (Dar al-Majani 1996, 24). The Oxford English Dictionary offers some of the same common associations in its defi nition of Bedouinism: ‘of the desert, wandering; gypsy;…dweller in the desert’ (Fowler and Fowler 1964, 105). Commonly, the term Bedouinism therefore evokes a nomadic lifestyle specifi cally connected to the desert and usually involving camel herding. In trying to untangle the epistemological roots of nomadism, of which Bedouinism is of course an integral part in the Middle East, William and Fidelity Lancaster note that ‘the common equation of ‘nomad = pastoralist = tribal’ comes from a confusion of categories and does not stand up to scrutiny…the three factors of movement, economic pursuit and socio-political system may coincide, but equally they may not – and they do not in the Arab world where the term ‘bedu’ complicates the issue further’ (Lancaster & Lancaster 1998, 24). In other words, nomadism is not necessarily Bedouinism and tribal peoples may not share all the features of the Bedouin stereotype. In the Dubai Museum, for example, the historic

importance of tribalism is explained through the sections on ‘The Bedouin Lifestyle’ (Dubai Municipality nd, 10), thereby reproducing this semantic confusion between ‘tribe’ and ‘Bedouin’.

While Bedouinism may suggest pastoralism, tribalism and the desert for some, it evokes something more emotive for others. As Jabbur noted, words derived from the ‘b, d, w’ and bedu (بدويا) Arabic root that forms badawiya (ب ,د ,و) occur only twice in the Quran, whereas al ‘arab, ‘in (بدو)the sense of ‘bedouins’’ (Eickelman 1998, 29) occurs ten times. There is thus a connection between the Bedouin and the idea of a common Arab past through this Quranic association. This connection establishes a powerful and sympathetic association with the word Bedouin for many Arabic speakers, especially in the United Arab Emirates, where the constitution states that although it is ‘….an independent state, possessing sovereignty [,…i]t is part of the greater Arab nation’ (quoted in Al Abed and Vine 2000, 58). What is implied here is a noble and thoroughly Islamic ancestry that binds the Emirates together with other Arab peoples. In this context, the notion of Bedouinism provides an identity that is both ethnic, through its associations with the Arab people, and spiritual, with its Quranic associations.

Popular historical texts in English are fi lled with similar romantic allusions to the desert and its sway over the people who live in it. When British traveller Wilfred Thesiger was in the region formerly known as the Trucial Coast in the late 1940s, he took pains to point out how bountiful the passage from the oasis towns of Liwa to Buraimi was in contrast to the Empty Quarter to the immediate west and described as well various coastal and interior towns and their ways of life that he had had the opportunity to see (Thesiger 1999). It was, however, the desert to which he always yearned to return. Conjuring up a romanticised image of the desert warrior free from the constraints of urban civilization, Thesiger asserted that ‘[e]verything that is good about the Arabs has come to them from the desert. The only society in which I’ve found nobility is that of the Bedouin…The bedu were always above everyone else: they were more civilized and more noble…The highest standards of behaviour were the standards of the desert’ (quoted in Taylor 1999, 129-130).

On the other hand, Eickelman reports the rejection of the appellation of ‘badawi’ by people in the interior of Oman because it is seen as a ‘disparaging’ term (Eickelman 1998, 40), presumably because it implies rural and tribal roots outside the confi nes of urban civilization. In the short story, Life is Given and Life is Taken Away, by contemporary Emirati writer Mohammed Al-Murr, the ‘bedu’ character is a sinister harbinger of violence and banditry (Al-Murr 1994, 81-83). There is thus considerable vacillation in the perception of what it means to be Bedouin. Jibrail Jabbur describes the meeting between the societies of the Syrian desert and the village of his childhood and defi nes another of the basic stereotypes of the desert Bedouin:

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RONALD HAWKER : THE CASE OF JAZIRAT AL-HAMRA

Located on the desert fringe, the village…is in close contact with the desert; hence the spectacle of the bedouins, whom the village folk called al-‘arab, ‘the Arabs’, was familiar to me...We boys all used to whisper among ourselves that these simple ‘Arabs’ in the village were the crudest of men and those most violently inclined to plunder, pillage, and murder...Indeed, we considered them the most evil creatures on earth…

(Jabbur 1995, 1)

The vacillation between positive and negative perceptions of Bedouinism recalls the shades of good and bad found in the broader Western stereotype of the ‘Noble Savage’: close to the land, simultaneously noble and bloodthirsty, above (or below) the laws of civilization. Nonetheless, fi nding a common meaning for the term Bedouin is complicated by the nuances of association between and sometimes transcending the two languages of Arabic and English. It is the positive resonances of the term Bedouin – the connection with the desert, the nobility, the Quranic associations of purity – that clearly reverberate in the imagination of Emiratis and serve most usefully as one of the main tropes of Emirati nationhood. But why construct a past on an image so confl icted and apparently related so loosely with the reality of the past?

Why the Bedouin?

The process of understanding the past in the United Arab Emirates begins with the land. The knowledge that people have eked out a living off it in this harsh climate and that therefore the culture must relate very directly to the environment, shapes the way one perceives what must have been here before. The researcher must use their imagination though, as even comparatively recent socio-economic conditions have now changed quite markedly. Oil has transformed life in the Emirates. Camels – those great hallmarks of Bedouin life – are a hobby pursued much like horse racing in Europe and America. During the cool winter months, they are raced around great oval tracks, their owners keeping pace beside them in powerful imported Japanese 4X4s. The land is ‘domesticated’, crisscrossed by highways and dotted with large agricultural projects, and air-conditioned towns and cities built of modern concrete blocks. The only tents one sees are beneath the decorative palm trees in the great walled gardens of cast-concrete neoclassical mansions during Ramadan, or raised temporarily on the edge of the street to host wedding feasts.

The landscape of the United Arab Emirates beyond the highway shoulders and new compound villas is, however, extreme, forbidding and mysterious with its great salt plains and rolling red dunes. One often wonders: who could live here without air conditioning, without the luxuries that we now associate with modern life? Furthermore, everywhere one looks, in the museums, the luxury hotels, the winter camel races, the various annual shopping festivals, there is evidence for the parade of a related set of symbols: the

falcon, the camel, the tent, the coffee pot. These symbols suggest that this dramatic and seemingly unforgiving land had been the kingdom of the Bedouin, the Arabs residing here before oil and the great infl ux of immigrant labour.

Some remaining elements of the past appear to contradict this construction. Bastakiya is a historic neighbourhood of monumental courtyard and wind tower houses. These houses are constructed of mud brick and coral and decorated with marble columns from Italy, ornate stucco panels, and great wooden doors imported from Gujarat and Bombay. The neighbourhood was built using the commercial wealth of the pearl merchants (Coles and Jackson 1975; Kay 1989; Al Rostomani 1991; Omer (ed) 1998; Hawker 2001) and could hardly be related to the austere, wandering lifestyle of the Bedouin.

Representations such as these seem to contradict the physical evidence for the past. Archaeology (Potts 2001) and social history (Heard-Bey 1996 and 2001; Kazim 2000) suggest that the majority of the population has long resided along the various mangrove-lined inlets on the coasts and not in the desolate sands of the interior deserts. Fishing supported a larger population and could be supplemented by the coastal palm gardens and interior mountain and oasis plots where winter rains and underwater reservoirs could be utilized by kin and kindred tribes. The waters of the Gulf provided great trading opportunities and camels drew the various geographic zones together into a single, albeit multidimensional economy. Why then does the desert warrior overshadow the more pacifi c coastal fi sherman, merchant and town dweller when we imagine the past of the Emirates?

The Bedouin is one of the concepts related to the United Arab Emirates that is internationally recognized and offers therefore a trope for national identity that can then be balanced by more contemporary symbols, like the now famous seven star hotel the Burj al-Arab, completed in 1999 and seen as suitably emblematic of Dubai and its growth to adorn the emirate’s car license plates. This massive structure is designed in excess: 21,000 square feet of 22-carat gold decorates its walls and furniture; a huge central fountain with a 100 foot geyser occupies the main foyer; an ‘undersea’ restaurant is accessed through a simulated submarine ride; and each suite contains an additional butler suite. To focus on the Bedouin as one trope is misleading. Such a symbol and concept need to be seen in a broader context, where images of the Bedouin past represent a noble and tenacious history and the soaring architecture of the present signifi es the Bedouin’s fi nal conquest over the land and therefore the endless commercial and social possibilities of the current generation of Emiratis. And as the urban development of the United Arab Emirates increases in intensity, control over land is an increasingly important monopoly to wield. Emaar, Nakheel, the great Palm developments, the ‘World’, and various other seemingly impossible real estate developments sprout from the coast on artifi cial islands and are sold at soaring prices

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to expatriate residents, investors, and property companies. The land, after all, is the dar, or territory of the Bedouin, not the sailor.

Bedouin ‘signs’, such as traditional dress, activities like falconry, camel racing, and date palm cultivation, continue to suggest ‘a secure point of identifi cation’ for constructing a collective self (Bhabha 1994, 69) in the United Arab Emirates, which has experienced dramatic demographic and technological change. These signs as they appear in displays and ‘traditional’ activities are in part inspired by early colonial images of Emirati society. The photographs of foreign residents and visitors of the Emirates between 1945 and 1970, like Wilfred Thesiger (Taylor 1995), Ronald Codrai (Codrai 1993), and Ramesh Shukla (Shukla & Bhatia 1995), provide, in the absence of indigenous tradition in documentary photography, a bank of ‘historic’ images. These have been celebrated by indigenous Emiratis as a valuable documentation of a past now gone and provide the basis of a public collective visual memory.

Like many aspects of society in the United Arab Emirates, museum work is a multicultural and collaborative affair that incorporates the efforts of a variety of individuals, Arab and non-Arab, Emirati and foreigner. The current incarnation of the Dubai Museum, for example, was designed Joy Ashworth of the London-based company Event Heritage Limited. The National Museum of Ras al-Khaimah was restored by Jayanth Laxman and Major Tim Ash, Austrian anthropologist Walter Dostal and British archaeologist Beatrice de Cardi all had a say in the initial exhibition design (Hull 2000, 17-18). The fi nal approval of this work is inevitably in the hands of a senior Emirati offi cial and in promotional literature it is frequently stressed that the role of the museum and these sorts of display is to ‘offer people a chance to see the true, genuine and enlightened life of our ancestors’ (Ajman Museum guidebook, quoted in Hull 2000, 22).

Archaeologist Soren Blau points out that the distinction between ethnography and archaeology is blurred in these representations and that because the fi rst museums were ethnographic, displaying objects that were either recently or even still in use, their purpose is not to represent the past as much as it is to ‘encapsulate the essence of being part of the UAE…’ (Blau 1995, 124). Once again, the historical associations of the Bedouin stereotype offer a sense of unifi cation for people in the Emirates. They identify with this romantic past of hardship and heat, which in turn implies through a complex range of associations that their ‘people’ were in the Emirates in the fi rst years of Islam. However, as Hull rightly points out, there is considerable diversity in the form of Islam embraced by the people of the lower Gulf which, it could be argued, mirrors a greater ethnic diversity (Hull 2000, 52-56). Unifi ed through a shared past and a shared religion in the imaginative use of the Bedouin stereotype, the message is that they have earned the luxuries brought by the sea of oil that surges

beneath the sands to which they are profoundly attached through their Bedouin ancestry. Furthermore, they have the right to develop, destroy or sell the land as they see fi t.

It is here that the appropriation of Bedouin representation for the construction of a national identity makes sense. Historic tribal confl ict can be mediated by the assertion that a Bedouin, or rather an al ‘arab, identity, signifi es commonality. It suggests a common origin and associates the people with the original followers of the Prophet Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Him). Although Islam is the key component of a common identity on the Arabian peninsula and links Emirati society to the larger global Muslim community, the pragmatic concerns of ethnic diversity, demographic marginalisation, and the control of land and resources also demand a second, more specifi c communal bond. Of course, the notion of Bedouin life represents a general stereotype for Arab culture, but it takes on additional resonance in the Arab Gulf where previously rural and politically marginal tribes have been rapidly transformed into rich and infl uential modern nation-states in which the indigenous population constitutes no more than 20% of the total population and substantially less of the labour force. Khalaf, translating and quoting Al Murr, reports that this phenomenon is ‘alarming to many nationals as they now represent only a small minority in their own homeland…(i)n this changing socio-cultural and economic context the nationals are manifesting in different discourses that their local national culture is threatened; they perceive it to be under siege’ (Khalaf 1999, 104; Al-Murr 1997). The Bedouin stereotype thus offers both a common and continued identity that separates the indigenous minority from a larger majority that contains, in addition to groups of non-Muslims, large numbers of non-Arab Muslims and non-Emirati or non-Gulf Arabs.

The touristic desire for an ‘authentic’ Arabia is further fed by the publication and regular exhibition of photographs by early foreign residents and visitors. These documentary photographs offer both formal and informal glimpses of life in the Emirates before the massive construction of the 1980s. They were also often staged and selected to make ‘a good picture’ that evokes an ‘authentic’ sense of Arabian life. The books thus abound with images of camels, armed Bedouin tribesmen, women in burkas, open-air markets and Quranic schools of latticed palm fronds. It is not that these did not exist, but Dubai has also had permanent, monumental public schools since 1912 and a permanent market, the Suq al-Kabeer, since 1850 (Omer 1998, 11, 16). It is important to recognise that photographers felt a need to record what they saw as unique about Emirati society, and that contemporary displays and publications seek to reproduce this uniqueness. These images are as much creative artefacts as they are historical. Much of the early photography adheres to the common European anthropological concern for ‘salvaging’ the remnants of ‘primitive’ pre-industrial societies. This is Renato Rosaldo’s ‘imperialist nostalgia’, lamenting the changes

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that the photographers as agents of Western modernity were themselves instigating (Rosaldo 1989). One such agent was Ronald Codrai, an amateur photographer, who was in the Emirates to negotiate oil concessions on behalf of Petroleum Concessions Limited between 1948 and 1955.

It is indeed, as Khalaf points out, an irony that the various features of the ‘authentic’ Bedouin past are at once integral components of Emirati state craft, a symbol of pan-Arabism, and commoditised and marketed to a primarily European tourist market. Speaking specifically of the various hotel-sponsored safaris to the winter camel races, Khalaf comments that this process of commoditisation ‘…within global market forces transforms… ‘folklore’ into ‘folklure’’ (Khalaf 1999, 102). An irony stems from the different ways in which different audiences perceive Bedouinism and its associated symbols.

So, what happens when historical research collides with the hegemonic interests of such a stereotype? Where do the fault lines emerge? The complexity of this issue has come home to the faculty (staff) at Zayed University in Dubai, who are all expatriates, as we attempt to organise an integrated research project with our students, who are all Emirati and all women, at the contested village of Jazirat al-Hamra. This village offers a unique glimpse into the past as large sections of it survive virtually intact from the early twentieth century, due in large part to inter-tribal conflict on the eve of the UAE’s confederation. Furthermore, the residents were primarily Arab in origin, rather than the Iranian migrants who built the better known historic quarters in the Gulf, like Dubai’s Bastakiya quarter or the suq district in Muharraq, Bahrain (although one house and possibly the commercial section of town was built by immigrant Iranian merchants). This affords a different perspective on the historic built environment in the Gulf and gives us a glimpse into the physical organisation of a typical Gulf port, and the multiple communities living there. This paper will now outline the nature of this project, and how it contributes to an understanding of the complexities of the term ‘Bedouin’ in the UAE.

Jazirat al-Hamra: Background

Jazirat al-Hamra, sometimes referred to as Jazira az-Za’ab, is a small, low-lying island off the southern coast of Ras al-Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates. J. G. Lorimer, in The Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia (1908), states that the Al Za’ab constituted the single largest tribe in Ras al-Khaimah. Therefore, Jazirat al-Hamra provides us with valuable information on the relationship between tribe and architecture in the changing economic and social conditions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As the island was the headquarters of the Za’ab, who, in 1908, consisted of 4,500 members concentrated in specific villages between Ras al-Khaimah and the Batinah Coast of Oman, the notion of tribe is a key

to understanding this built environment. These separate lines of the larger tribe not only had social contact with one another, but also inter-married. Furthermore, other tribes, particularly more impoverished (and often described in historical texts as ‘Bedouin’) tribes, like the Khawatir and the Shihuh lived seasonally on the fringes of the settlement in impermanent residences.

Many of the Al Za’ab residents also owned land on the mainland. Just over half the date holdings in the nearby oasis village of ‘Ain Khatt, or the Khatt Hot Springs, belonged to the Al Za’ab. Khor Kalba in eastern Sharjah contained a further 150 houses. They could also be found in a series of villages in Saham and Shinas, both of which were important sub-divisions of the Wilayat of Sohar, which constituted the western half of Oman’s Batinah district, an important area for date cultivation in Oman. The Al Za’ab villagers in Oman were typically date owners and cultivators and fishermen.

Oral history from within the Al Za’ab states that their presence on Jazirat al-Hamra dates back to the 1600s and their efforts to combat European colonists, particularly the British, Portuguese, and Dutch, seizing land in consideration of other tribes. The Al Za’ab in Jazirat al-Hamra were actively involved in pearling, sending up to 25 boats to the pearl banks at the beginning of the century. They also used small boats to gather and sell firewood in Sharjah and Dubai. Herds of cattle and sheep were kept on the island. With a fleet of 100 camels and 100 donkeys,

figure 2. map of ras al-Khaimah, showing The loCaTion of JaziraT la-hamra

(figure: Chae lee)

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they were active in the overland trans-shipment of goods brought in through their port as well. The pearl industry contributed the most to Jazirat al-Hamra’s prosperity, which is refl ected in the size of the settlement and the materials and decorative schemes of the houses. Interviews conducted by our students indicate as well that a number of other tribes also resided, at least seasonally, in Jazirat al-Hamra, working the pearl boats that sailed from her port, maintaining the date gardens, or working on the transport caravans.

Taken in its totality then, the Al Za’ab tribe engaged in a series of economic activities typical of the region, combining agricultural holdings and cultivation with fi shing and coastal trading, as well as linking the western and eastern coasts of the peninsula through a scattered network of villages serviced by caravans of donkeys and camels. The Al Za’ab villages were typically located on the coast with nearby access to the interior through the wadi (water-cut valley) routes. The Al Za’ab settlements thus offered opportunities to purchase food and other provisions for those travelling overland or descending from the mountain villages in the interior. Dominating the southern portion of the emirate of Ras al-Khaimah, the island rivalled the fairly large trading town of Ras al-Khaimah and the regional authority of the ruling tribe, the Qawasim, in the southern plain.

Depending on the relative success of the Qawasim and the Za’ab, their relationship could move in and out of dependence and subservience. This was typical of tribes prior to the regional rise of the nation-state. Often, a larger tribe would impose a tribute tax on a neighbouring, weaker, but otherwise autonomous tribe. In Saudi Arabia, this was called the khuwa system, from the Arabic word for ‘brother’, akh (Rasheed 1991, 111). While on the surface this sounds oppressive rather than brotherly, those who paid tribute earned a number of other valuable rights, including the privilege to cross and use the larger tribe’s territories and to access their wells. The smaller tribe was also able to call on the protection and support of the larger tribe in times of trouble (Rasheed 1991, 111-113).

The Za’ab’s associations with their neighbours were thus fraught with diffi culties. For example, British agent reports from 1919 chronicle raids by the Al Khawatir tribe, a nomadic section of the Al Na’im tribe under the protection of the ruling family of Umm al-Qaiwain, the neighbouring emirate immediately to the south. In return, British administrative correspondence records an attack on the camel herds of Umm al-Qaiwain by up to 300 Al Za’ab men. In 1949, relations between the Qawasim sheikh and ruler of Ras al-Khaimah, Saqr bin Mohammed (still ruler of the emirate), and the al Za’ab sheikh, Abdullah bin Hassan, were at a particularly low ebb with Sheikh Abdullah claiming payment from the oil concessions signed by Sheikh Saqr. In November 1949, the Al Za’ab set up fi ring positions along the main road from Sharjah to Ras al-Khaimah. In retaliation, troops aligned with Sheikh

Saqr seized control of one of Jazirat al-Hamra’s two guard towers overlooking the island’s main water source. The following day they captured Sheikh Abdullah’s son and two prominent merchants from Jazirat al-Hamra, imprisoning them in the fort in Ras al-Khaimah town. In order to end the confl ict, the Al Za’ab paid annual tax to the ruler in Ras al-Khaimah at the completion of the summer pearl diving season. Tribal relations after the country’s confederation in 1971 are less documented, but still tense. When Abu Dhabi emirate was established as the federal capital, many from Ras al-Khaimah and particularly Jazirat al-Hamra relocated and took up government jobs there (Van der Meulen 1997).

Without oil, Ras al-Khaimah’s development has been limited, despite a sizeable free-port and important cement and construction industries. Recent efforts at increasing tourism have been made. The government, dominated by members of the ruling Al Qassimi tribe, is heading resort and free-hold real estate development in southern Ras al-Khaimah, alongside the abandoned half of Jazirat al-Hamra. Government press releases in 2004 announced the demolition of the old houses, citing their danger as the primary reason. However, the removal of the old village would allow the resort and free-hold housing program to link with the still thriving industrial port and create an economically viable corridor along Ras al-Khaimah’s southern coast, thereby expanding the coast’s ongoing industrial development from Dubai north. Nonetheless, many Al Za’ab families are adamant that they maintain ownership rights to the houses and their property in Jazirat al-Hamra and thus any development in the old village could not be achieved without purchasing their old houses, which of course has the potential to create escalating costs for the emirate’s development plans, or expropriating and therefore aggravating a historically infl uential tribe.

This combination of tribal history and economic plans for the future make the site signifi cant in a number of ways therefore, and brings to the forefront the issue of use of the past by competing stakeholders in the present. While students and faculty have both expressed interest in developing plans for its preservation and integration into a sustainable development plan for southern Ras al-Khaimah, we are concentrating our efforts on documenting as much of the site as possible and then creating a virtual experience in which viewers can see the buildings in various states of preservation and digital reconstruction and hear the voices directly of the residents and stakeholders. The methodology adopted by the students has therefore been directed towards measuring buildings, creating measured drawings and identifying room functions of the compound houses (especially winter versus summer accommodations). In cases where the students are from the Al Za’ab tribe, it has been possible even to identify nuclear families and lineage groups residing in the different compounds. Accepting the likelihood of the site’s destruction as well as the limited capabilities of our faculty and students, we are opting for a low-cost website that nonetheless enshrines the possibility

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of a built-in multi-vocality in terms of how we document the site and disseminate information on its history, as well as the complicated issues it embodies.

Using various design programs to build interactive components into the website, students have also created a bilingual site and are concerned that it provokes interest fi rst by its design and then by its content. The website, by its nature, is collaborative, providing a way of giving voice to those who would otherwise be silenced in the construction of a homogenized, unifi ed, and romantic past for a society fragmented by tribalism. We have students from both the Al Qassimi and the Al Za’ab families working on the site, as well as those from other tribes with direct interests in the area. And while we all struggle to stay away from direct engagement in the political issue of ownership, both development plans and inter-tribal confl ict are irrefutable facts and are bound to surface in our students’ interview work.

A remarkable digital video created by one of the students carrying out the project, Ayesha Majed, based on oral interviews with her grandparents, Mohammed Juma Saeed Al Suwaidi and Moaza Juma Mohammed Al Muhairi, played over a series of video shots of the disintegrating old coral buildings of Jazirat al-Hamra and transcribed into English subtitles, took on a nostalgic tone. For the speakers, the past was both simpler and kinder. The issue of tribe, however, was also front and centre, with the interviewees describing the rhythms of the day according to the use of food and the hosting of visiting Bedouin and Shihuh (a mountain tribe based in Ras al-Khaimah) guests. The physical outlay of the community was based on authority and kinship. The sheikh’s fortifi ed house was located on the landward edge of town. This interior edge afforded both a better defensive position away from maritime approaches and offered a transitional meeting place for visitors from the interior. Interviews transcribed and summarized by Mahhba Al Za’abi indicates that the kin of the ruling lineage radiated outwards towards the coast from this point, giving way along the water’s edge to the houses of the merchants and pearl traders. Both of these came from different tribes and were connected through tribal networks to southern Iran for the former, and to Bahrain and Qatar for the latter. On the landward edge of town, seasonal workers from the Bedouin sections of the Khawatir tribe, nominally under the rule of the ruling Al Mualla lineage of Umm al-Qaiwain to the south, and the Shihuh, of the mountains to the east, dwelled in impermanent palm frond houses. For the interviewees, in the new cities this traditional pattern of kin and kin-structured interaction has been torn apart through the scattering of nuclear families throughout different neighbourhoods. Resulting urban fragmentation has destroyed traditional social networks and the physical ways in which they were structured, organised and asserted. In Ayesha’s video, the consequent sense of isolation among the older generation is clearly palpable. Tribalism created potential for confl ict, but also offered

systems of co-existence and social interaction and thus an important level of neighbourliness and comfort.

With regard to methodology, it is interesting to refl ect that the project reveals operating conditions for Western-trained academics rarely accounted for in the classroom. Students, familiar with tribal tensions, operate under conditions of self-censorship, either glossing over the details behind tribal confl ict or avoiding the issue altogether. Informants also frequently refused to be fi lmed or taped. For women, this was ostensibly linked to gender issues in Emirati society, although for both men and women the issue of their own tribal associations and their recitation of other tribal histories not only prevented any taped participation, but also prevented them from giving their names to be used as part of the project’s bibliography.

Conclusion: Towards cultural representation at Jazirat al-Hamra

The notion of a Bedouin past is fragile at best and any meaningful historic investigation is bound to disrupt it. Given the complexity of the mix of governmental and personal interests and the continuation of tribe as a viable social system, we fi nd ourselves at the beginning of a new and much larger journey. It is at this moment that our students are readdressing the Bedouin stereotype as a national trope and are at once usefully complexifying the representation of indigenous culture in the public arena while negotiating a long tradition of inter-tribal disputes.

The digital world, based in part on the same principles as mainstream media, is nonetheless a much more ephemeral realm, where the multiple possibilities of hyper-links defy the traditionally linear narrative of the printed word. It is also therefore a space in which we can follow what Eickelman calls ‘the most interesting exploration of identity’, and through which ‘the making, and remaking, of a sense of self and community when ‘authorative’ genealogical histories, previously related principally in oral narrative, compete for social space with the objectifi cations of print and the mass-communicated word’ (Eickelman 1998, 47). In this way, the Jazirat al-Hamra project hopes to offer not just a commentary on the complex and competing tensions surrounding the future direction of this important part of the historic environment of the UAE, but to actually participate at the same time in the resolution of some of those tensions.

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