Frontier development and indigenous peoples

Pcrgamon Progress in Planning, Vol. 47, pp. 25 1-336. I997

0 I997 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved

0305-9006/97 $32.00 + 0.00

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Abstract

This issue brings together five case studies where development supported by the state has affected the indigenous peoples who are the traditional occupiers. Each study pays particular attention to the role of urban and regional planning in the process of frontier development and its impact on indigenous people. The conclusion is that although the five very different cases share a common experience in which the effects of frontier development on indigenous people has been invariably negative, it is possible to envisage a more enlightened policy in which regional planning embraces standards of human rights. 0 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Frontiers, Planning and indigenous Peoples

Oren Yiftachel and Tovi Fenster

This issue is devoted to a global look at a vexing theoretical and practical question: the impact of “frontier” development on indigenous peoples. Rather than discuss in depth the concepts of “frontiers” or “indigenous peoples”, we have sought to present several cases where development has affected the traditional occupiers of areas developed by, and for, external interests. Our basic aim is to fill a void in the otherwise extensive literature on frontier development (see, for example, Gradus and Lithwick, 1995; Prescott, 1987; Turner, 1962) which has generally treated the frontiers from the ethnocentric viewpoint of the developing and expanding collectives. This literature has generally ignored the perceptions and reactions on the other side of the frontier-that of indigenous peoples.

Nevertheless, the problems and aspirations of indigenous peoples in frontier regions have started to occupy centre-stage in most multi-ethnic settler states, where indigenous groups have recently become more politically assertive. At the same time, these states have turned much of their energy toward integrating into a globalizing political and economic regime, thus opening their doors for further external investment and development in frontier areas. This local-global tension and the “Janus face” of the modern state (concurrently looking in and out) brings into sharp focus the plight of indigenous peoples vis-ri-vis the ceaseless (and state assisted) global drive for frontier development, resources extraction and profit accumulation (Taylor, 1995). This tension also highlights the role of urban and regional planning as a particularly important policy area, which can significantly influence the evolution of relations between indigenous peoples and contemporary states.

In this short introduction we wish to set the five case studies in their theoretical, historical and political context. We will briefly travel through recent scholarly debates, and especially focus on the making of settler states and on the particular role of urban and regional planning. In the following pages we also aim to open, rather than settle, questions and debates, on which further light will be shed in the case studies below, and in our conclusion at the end of the issue.

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254 Progress in Plunning

1 .l. THEORETICAL CONTEXT

The question of ethnic minorities and their relations with public authorities and neighbouring communities has increasingly occupied researchers and policy-makers in recent times. Within that general interest, the place, rights and power of indigenous minorities in capitalist-settler states, has received particular attention, prompting some commentators to herald the coming of a “post-colonial” age (Jacobs, 1993; Mercer, 1993).

In parallel to this growing interest in minorities, the capitalist-modern (and postmodern) state is back on the social science agenda, with renewed efforts to conceptualize and theorize the dynamics of state-society relations (see Mitchell, 1991; Taylor, 1994). In both topics noted above, the role of space and place has been receiving notable attention, as key media through which ethnic identities and politics are being reshaped visd-vis the state, capital and neighbouring communities (Keith and Pile, 1993; Watson and Gibson, 1995). This interest has also affected the emergence of a wave of “urban” and planning studies, which have analyzed the impact of planning policies on the shaping of ethnic relations (see Thomas, 1995). A particular focus of these studies has been the evolution of settler states.

1.1.1. The making of settler states and indigenous peoples

The “problem” of indigenous peoples is most prevalent in settler societies, where whites or other dominant groups have colonized traditional homelands previously occupied by native populations. The terms “settler societies” refers usually to states created by overseas colonialization endeavours, like the cases of South Africa, Australia and Israel, which are discussed in three of the articles below. However, we regard internal colonization of indigenous regions (by neighbouring, as opposed to foreign, groups) as a similar process. The similarity is particularly poignant from the perspective of indigenous groups. Accord- ingly, the cases of northern Russia and Kurdistan are also included in this issue, as additional representative dimensions of the conflict between indigenous groups and the development interests of contemporary states.

Settler states have relied on waves of (international or domestic) migration attracted to their economic and political opportunities. The economies of these societies quickly expanded, using the vast resources appropriated from the indigenous peoples, most notably, land. Since their inception, states in such societies have continuously attempted to construct national cultures, in order to create “nations” from the disparate array of ethnic groups assembling under their jurisdictions. The on-going expansion of white settlement, and the “frontier development” which accompanied that settlement, therefore served two purposes: (a) to enlarge the state’s economic base (thereby making room for further waves of migrants); and (b) to form a major cultural ethos around which a new nation could be built (Friedmann, 1992; Kellerman, 1993; Kimmerling, 1983).

Clearly, these endeavours of building “new nations” and expanding their economies

Frontier Development and Indigenous Peoples 255

ran counter to the needs. rights and aspirations of indigenous peoples. As Kellerman (1993) notes, settler societies had three main options in dealing with indigenous groups: genocide. tight control or (a degree of) partnership. The selection of these options mainly relied on the power balance between the groups. The first option was exercised in parts of Australia and the United States, while the second in almost all settler societies at various periods of their histories-including all the cases outlined in the pages of this issue. The last option of partnership is the rarest, but was evident in New Zealand, for example, where the Maori population was relatively strong, and where an 1840 treaty guaranteed a degree of power-sharing between Europeans and natives (Pawson, 1992).

1.1.2. ControIling indigenous peoples and the creation of internalfrontiers

As noted above, in nearly all cases of ethnically mixed settler societies, dominant ethnic groups quickly established patterns of controI and oppression over indigenous populations. Typically, governments of settler societies have attempted to control and oppress indigenous groups, for two main reasons: (a) to blunt their expected resistance to the use and exploitation of their natural and human resources for the benefit of settler groups; (b) to minimize indigenous challenge to their nation-building efforts which nearly always entailed a complete cultural dominance of the core group, and the exclusion of native peoples from the social boundaries of the new “nations” (Jackson and Penrose, 1993).

Especially significant for our discussion here is the link between social control and frontier development. In this context we can observe that control exercised over indigenous groups has often resulted in the delineation of internalfrontiers. These are “alien” areas within the state boundaries into which the core attempts to expand, penetrate, and increase its control (Marcuse, 1995). Internal frontiers are usually created in regions with high concentrations of indigenous ethnic minorities, where settler-local struggles occur over the control of land, power and resources (Yiftachel, 1996). Such frontiers can also be found in inner city “ghettos” or other migrants quarters, where constant tension between the ethnicity and citizenship of minorities governs public policies and practices of control, segregation, assimilation and incorporation (Fenster, 1996; Marcuse, 1995). Internal frontiers thus present challenges and. opportunities for the two central projects of settler societies: nation-building and economic development. Accordingly, states often invest much energy and resources in their attempts to bring internal frontiers under their total control.

State policies affecting internal (indigenous) frontiers may include the resettlement of majority populations in such regions, the dissemination of “national” culture, the force- ful removal of minority members outside these regions, the development and “taming” of hostile natural environments, or the imposed modernization of these “backward” regions-all in the interest of the dominant group (see also Meir, 1988; Mikesell and Mur- phy, 199 I; Newman, 1989). The existence, “invention” and promotion of frontier regions (and the control of indigenous groups associated with these frontiers) must therefore be

256 Progress in Planning

understood as central pillars in the economic and identity building projects of most settler societies. The concept of internal frontiers is relevant to the current special issue of Progress in Planning for one other reason: the policies, interests and reactions evident these areas link the issue of frontier development to the practice of urban and regional planning. It is to the impact of urban and regional planning on indigenous peoples that we now turn.

1.1.3. Planning and the control of minorities

Because internal frontiers always constitute specific locations, territories and spaces, issues of land, land use and spatial planning policy have been central to the mechanism of minority control outlined above. Needless to say, land has been a prime resource over which continuous ethnic and racial struggles have been staged. It has been essential for expansionist white colonization efforts, and has provided both material and spiritual assets for the settling societies (Kimmerling, 1983). Yet, at the same time, land in frontier regions has provided the material and spiritual basis for the very survival of indigenous cultures, identity and economy (Gale, 1990). This setting has exposed an inherent andfundamental conflict between frontier development and indigenous peoples, which has plagued settler societies in their attempt to enter into a democratizing post-colonial era (Jacobs, 1993: 101).

Given the importance of land, urban and regional planning-which generally regulates land-use, housing and development policies-became a major instrument of state control in settler societies. As shown elsewhere (Fenster, 1995; Yiftachel, 1995) planning policies can be explicitly and implicitly used to control ethnic minorities, through territorial containment, socioeconomic deprivation and procedural exclusion. Urban and regional planning must therefore be understood as a potential instrument of social and political control over peripheral social groups in general and indigenous minorities in particular (see also Gurr, 1993; Smith, 1989).

However, as evident in much historical and theoretical work, urban and regional planning can also be a major force of reform and emancipation (see Forester, 1993; Fried- mann, 1992; Harvey, 1992). Recent changes in the contemporary state, which is entering a post-Fordist and post-modern condition, has given further impetus to the potential reform agenda of planners. No longer do planners represent a grand vision of consensual utilitarian thinking. No longer is the central vision of the “good life” binding to all seg- ments of a pluralistic society (Fenster, 1995; Huxley, 1993). In settler states, a notable process of social fragmentation has thus occurred, guided by an emerging “politics of difference” (Young, 1990). This process seriously challenge “from below” previous over- arching assumptions on which most policy-making has been based during earlier phases of nation-building and economic expansion (Young, 1990).


1.1.4. Minorities and policy concessions

The social and political fragmentation discussed above, and the growing recognition of the legitimacy of difference, have given indigenous groups new platforms from which to launch their struggle against their material and spiritual dispossession by the “national” cores. In a rejection of patronizing notions of all-inclusive nation-building, indigenous peoples in most settler societies have entered a new stage in their campaigns, which revolved around rediscovering (and even reinventing) their national traditions, and building rival collective identities to the ones offered by modern nation-states and their hegemonic cultures.

Therefore, since the 1960s conflict between states and indigenous groups has been more open, direct and confrontationist. This has been augmented by what Smith (198 1) termed “the ethnic revival” which saw minorities around the world being increasingly assertive in their political struggles against states and capital (see also Friedmann, 1992). As a result, some significant policy gains have been made by groups such as the First Nations in Canada, the Maoris in New Zealand, and the Palestinians in Israel (Gurr, 1993; Mercer, 1993; Pawson, 1992; Portugali, 1993). The papers that follow show that in most cases covered in this issue, with the notable exception of the Kurds, some policy gains have indeed been made by indigenous groups vis-d-vis the state, although these cannot be regarded yet as changing fundamental majority-minority power relations.

These (minor) policy gains can, however, be also interpreted in an opposite manner. Several commentators claim that while the state has given ground to indigenous minorities and local groups in some important symbolic areas, it has by and large managed to preserve and reproduce a pre-existing social order. This approach claims that the preservation of minority subordinance has been achieved by directing most material benefits of state policies and economic development to the already powerful rungs of society (Har- vey, 1993; Said. 1994). Here too, it is argued that the role of urban and regional planning policies has been central in intensifying an uneven social order, by widening the gaps between rich and poor, majorities and minorities, white and black (Berry and Huxley, 1992; McLaughlin, 1992; Simmie, 1993; Thomas, 1995).

The position of minorities within contemporary settler states is therefore still subject to an active debate. Have the cycle of oppression and control “from above” begun to cease? Have indigenous minorities marshaled enough power to dismantle the notion and practices associated with “internal frontiers”? Is there a genuine process of democratization at work in settler societies? Is “frontier” development fundamentally opposed to the aspirations of indigenous people?

1.2. THIS ISSUE

The five papers in this special issue attempt to answer some of these questions. The first three deal with prototype settler states, into which European populations have


migrated, and where they met and came into conflict with indigenous groups. In the first, Nel and Mini provide a broad overview of settlement, frontier-building and regional development in South Africa. They focus on the inseparable impacts of white economic expansion, and the territorial control of Blacks, exercised through the creation of reserves and homelands. Alexander and Yiftachel, in the second paper, explore a conflict between Aborigines and the state in an Australian “urban frontier”. They show how Aboriginal resistance to long-established patterns of white dominance erupted in the struggle for the control of a symbolic inner city site which pitted an Aboriginal “sacred site” against a “sacred cow” of a capitalist state. In the third paper, Fenster analyzes the relations between Bedouin-Arabs and Israeli authorities in the Negev Desert, Israel. She shows how the planning of this frontier has worked to erode and contain the cultural, economic and political “spaces of citizenship” for the region’s indigenous Bedouin inhabitants.

The fourth and fifth papers clearly demonstrate that the problem of indigenous peoples in contemporary states is not limited to prototype settler states. In the fourth paper, Fon- dahl traces the debilitating effect industrialization and development have had on the Evenks of northern Russia, and evaluates the merits of a recent policy approach to “freeze the frontier” by declaring certain regions as “territories of traditional nature use”. Finally, in the fifth paper, Gotlieb analyzes the disastrous consequences of the twin processes of post-colonial state formation and resource exploitation on the Kurds in Turkey and Iraq.

We trust that the five papers will shed some useful light on the theoretical questions and political debates outlined above. Needless to say, the five papers only present a partial overview of the history and current issues of indigenous peoples. However, we feel that they cover important cases, and believe the readings offered in this issue will make a contribution towards a better understanding of the plight of these peoples. Because indigenous peoples have been worst affected by the last two centuries of colonization, nationalism and rampant “frontier” development, we also hope that far more work on the place, power and rights of indigenous peoples in contemporary states, and far more exploration of practical planning solutions to their specific problems, will follow this issue.

1.3. REFERENCES

Berry, M. and Huxley, M. (1992) Big build: property capital, the state and urban change in Australia. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 16,35-69.

Fenster, T. (1995) Participation as a political process in enforced resettlement projects: the Bedouin in the Negev, Israel. Geography Research Forum 15,3348.

Fenster, T. (I 996) Ethnicity and citizen identity in planning and development for minority groups. Political Geography 15,405-418.

Forester, J. (1993) Critical Theory, Public Policy and Planning Practice: Toward a Critical Pragmatism. State University of New York Press, Albany, NY.

Friedmann, J. (1992) Empowerment: The Polifics of Alrernarive Development. Blackwell, Cambridge. Gale, F. (1990) Aboriginal Australia: survival by separation. In Shared Space, Divided Space, eds M. Chisholm

and D. Smith, pp. 217-234. Unwin Hyman, London. Gradus, Y. and Lithwick, H. (Eds) (1995) Frontiers in Regional Developmenf. Bowman and Littlefield, Maryland. Gurr, T. (I 993) Minorities at Risk: the Global View of Ethnopolitical Conjict. Institute of Peace Press, Arling-

ton. VA.


Harvey, D. (1992) Social justice, postmodernism and the city. International Journal q/ Urban and Regional Research 16,588-601,

Harvey. D. (I 993) Class relations, social justice and the politics of difference. In P/ace and the Politics of Identity, eds M. Keith and S. Pile, pp. 41-66. Routledge, London.

Huxley. M. (1993) Panoptica: utilitarianism and land-use control. In Postmodern Cities Conference Proceed- ings, eds S. Watson and K. Gibson. University of Sydney, Sydney.

Jackson, P. and Penrose, J. (Eds) (I 993) Constructions of Race, Place and Nation. UCL Press, London. Jacobs, J. (1993) Shake’m this country: the mapping of the Aboriginal sacred in Australia. In Construction of

Race. Place andNation, eds I? Jackson and J. Penrose, pp. 100-120. UCL Press, London. Keith. M. and Pile, S. (Eds) (1993) Place and the Politics of Identity. Routledge, London. Kellerman, A. (1993) Sociefy and Settlement: Jewish Land of Israel in the Twentieth Century. State University

of New York Press, Albany, NY. Kimmerling, B. (1983) Zionism and Territory. Institute of International Studies, University of California, Ber-

keley, CA. Marcuse, F’. (1995) Not chaos, but walls: postmodernism and the partitioned city. In Postmodern Cities and

Spaces, eds S. Watson and K. Gibso 1, pp. 187-l 98. Blackwell, London. McLaughlin, B. (1992) Shaping Melbourne’s Alture: Town Planning, the State and Civil Society. Cambridge

University Press, Cambridge. Meir, A. (1988) Nomads and the state: the spatial dynamics of centrifugal and centripetal forces among the

Israeli Negev Bedouin. Political Geograpll,v Quarterly 6,25l-270. Mercer, D. (1993) Terra nullius, Aboriginal sovereignty and land rights in Australia. Political Geography 12(4).

299-3 18. Mikesell, M. and Murphy, A. (1991) A framework for comparative study of minority aspirations. Annals of the

Association of American Geographers U(4), 58 I-604. Mitchell, T. (1991) The limits of the state: beyond statist approaches and their critics. American Polifical Sci-

ence Review 85( I ), 77-96. Newman, D. (1989) Civilian presence as strategies of territorial control: the Arab-Israeli conflict. Political

Geography Quarterly 8,2 15-227. Pawson, E. (1992) Two New Zealands: Maori and European. In Inventing Places Melbourne, eds K. Anderson

and F. Gale. Longman, Cheshire. Portugali, J. (1993) Implicated Relations: Society and Space in Israel. Kluwer, Dordrecht. Prescott, J. (1987) Political Fronfiers and Boundaries. Allen and Unwin, London. Said, E. (1994) The Politics of Dispossession., the Straggle for Palestinian Self-Determination. Chatto and Win-

dus, London. Simmie, J. (I 993) Planning at the Crossroads. UCL Press, London. Smith. A. D. (1981) The Ethnic Revival. Cambridge Universitv Press. Cambridge. Smith, S. (1989) Tde politics of race and a new segregationalism. In The Polit,Tal Geography of Contemporar)

Britain, ed. J. Mohan, pp. 151-171. Macmillan, London. Taylor, P. (1994) The state as a container: terriioriality in the modern world-system. Progress in Human Geography

18(2), 151-162. Taylor. P. (1995) Beyond containers: internationalism, interstateness, interterritoriality. Progress in Human

Geography 19(l), l-l 5. Thomas, H. (1995) Race, public policy and planning in Britain. Planning Perspectives 10, 125-148. Turner, F. (1962) (Reprinted). The Frontier in American History. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York. Watson, S. and Gibson, K. (Eds) (1995) Postmodern Cities and Spaces. Blackwell, Oxford. Yiftachel, 0. (1995) The dark side of modernism: planning as control of an ethnic minority. In Postmodern

Cities and Spaces, eds S. Watson and K. Gibson, pp.-21 6-242. Blackwell, Oxford. Yiftachel. 0. (1996) The internal frontier. Rerrional Studies 30.493-508. Young. I. (1990) Jkice and the Politics of DiTference. Prince& University Press, Princeton, NJ.

CHAPTER 2

Racial and Economic Subjugation on South Africa’s Eastern Cape Frontier

Etienne Louis Nel and Simphiwe Mini

2.1. INTRODUCTION

In South Africa, issues of racial conflict, discrimination and exploitation have been both distinguishing and dominating features of the country’s history since European colonization in 1652. As in the case of other lands of recent settlement, colonists came into direct contact with established indigenous societies (de Kiewiet, 1941; Davenport, 1977; Christo- pher, 1984). Contact and territorial seizure was at first of a limited nature. The opening up of the interior, the appreciation of its vast wealth and the arrival of large numbers of settlers induced a concerted invasion of the interior from the nineteenth century however. The subjugation of the indigenous people, as the European frontier moved ever eastward and northward from the initial point of contact at Cape Town, was marked by increasing military action and concerted efforts to suppress all opposition. After over one hundred years of conflict the “East Cape Frontier” was finally brought under “European” control and the African residents were forced into increasing impoverishment in racial reserves in the districts of the former frontier. These districts were to become labour reservoirs for commercial and mining interests in the distant metropoles (Rogerson and Pirie, 1979). The post-World War Two era, instead of heralding the freeing of subjugated peoples, as in other former colonies, marked an intensification of racial exploitation under the system of apartheid. The recent democraticization of South Africa places very specific demands on the new government to attempt to relieve the desperate levels of poverty still prevailing in the former reserve areas.

This paper seeks to detail developments on South Africa’s primary colonial frontier. that of the Eastern Cape frontier. The progressive subjugation of the African tribes (primarily the Xhosa in this instance) either through co-option or military suppression led to their territorial segregation into set reserves. Details of how the reserves became centres of exploitation and labour supply are provided in the paper. Emphasis is placed on territorial arrangements to control and pacify indigenous people and force them into a situation of economic dependence. A key focus of the paper is on developments in the apartheid era and the perpetuation of racial and economic discrimination which it enforced. In South Africa,

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issues of race and space were conflated to reflect dominant white attitudes of racial supremacy and the enforced discrimination and marginalization of indigenous peoples. The paper concludes with an examination of some of the key challenges facing the new non-racial government in South Africa in terms of developing these areas.

2.2. SOUTH AFRICA AND THE INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE OF THE

FRONTIER PHENOMENON

In common with lands of so-called “recent settlement”, such as Canada, Australia and the United States (Williamson, 1951) the “frontier” theme is a well established concept in South Africa’s historical experience and its historiography (de Kiewiet, 1941; Keller- man. 1993). Although there are differences in the essential nature of the frontier experience between countries (Christopher, 1984) the basic process of conquest and domination is similar. As was the case elsewhere in the world, the expansion away from the original colonial settlement in South Africa, was frequently into lands already occupied or sought after by indigenous people. Thompson and Lamar’s (1981: 7) definition of a frontier has definite application in the South Africa case, namely that it is “a territory or zone of interpenetration between two previously distinct societies”. As in many other areas policies of outright physical annihilation through warfare and later structural disintegration of the indigeneous social society and its re-incorporation in a subservient position into the alien social and economic system were pursued (Jones, 1986). As has been noted elsewhere by Meinig (1960) and Adelman (1994) the notion of the frontier implies a “process” of change which induces very distinctive structuring of social and economic relations, usually on the grounds of ethnicity, between the colonizers and the colonized, which are perpetuated after the closure of the frontier.

Despite the similarities with the frontier experience of other countries which various authors have noted (Lamar and Thompson, 1981) the South African experience has fundamental differences. The parallels between South African and North American experience of the frontier cannot be sustained with regards to the issue of the incorporation and exploitation of the indigenous people in the capitalist system in South Africa versus their virtual exclusion in the North American case (Lamar and Thompson, 1981). Another fundamental difference from the experience of other areas relates to the degree to which racially based inequality and discrimination against the indigenous population persisted through to the 1990s. This particular study places emphasis on the role which apartheid pJayed in the persistence of social and economic inequality on the frontier.

2.3. THE EASTERN CAPE FRONTIER

Colonization of South Africa led to numerous parts of the country becoming areas of conquest and conflict. The more significant ones related to Britain’s clash with the Zulu


kingdom in present day “KwaZulu-Natal”. and the Boer (farmers of Dutch descent) incur- sions across the Caledon river into the present day Kingdom of Lesotho (previously known as the Basutoland) (Davenport, 1991). The most drawn out confrontation was over the so-called “Eastern Cape” frontier, which was a true moving frontier of conquest and subjugation in the American sense. It was this frontier on which “far more than any other frontier . . policies (of control) were thought out and deliberately applied” (Davenport, 1991: 114).

In South Africa, the initial point of colonial settlement was the South Western Cape, from whence expansion into the interior occurred (de Kiewiet, 1941) (see Fig. 1). By the middle of the last century, the majority of what is now South Africa was controlled by either the Brit- ish or Boers. The same cannot be said for the area known as the “Eastern Frontier” however, the last part of which was only finally absorbed into the British Empire in 1894 (Davenport, 1977). Following numerous colonial spatial restrictions of Africans to set reserves and the later entrenchment of these controls by the 19 13 Land Act, the region in question was divided up into two groupings of “native” reserves for the Xhosa people, namely the Ciskei and the Transkei. These reserves were later consolidated into two definable Homelands under apartheid (Nel, 1993). The intervening portion of “white” South Africa between the two reserves came to assume, significantly, the name of “Border” (see Fig. 2). Although function- ally part of South Africa, in parallel with the nation’s other Homelands, both Ciskei and Transkei experienced only limited ec’onomic growth, coming rather to be seen as sources of

FIG. I. Settlement in the Cape and the Frontier--12th century-1778. Source: Davenport (1977); Hummel (1988); Switzer (1993).


L ESOTHO

KEY

Border-Ke, Rsgm” _ _._

PORT ELIZABETH

FIG. 2. The Border-Kei region, Homelands and the industrial development points. Source: Nel(1993).

cheap, migrant labour and places of subsistence agriculture (Pickles, 1991; Pickles and Wood, 1992).

In the contemporary sense, the region is a marginal or “frontier” zone of the South African space-economy. The two Homelands of Ciskei and Transkei and the intervening Border corridor have been treated as one unit, known as Border-Kei, by numerous individuals and organizations which recognize the area’s fundamental economic unity (Davies et al., 1980; Border Kei Development Forum, 1993) (see Fig. 2). The low ratings scored by the area on a variety of key indices, as depicted in Table 1, are indicative of the inequalities which exist between this region and the rest of South Africa. The inherent weakness of the region’s economy is apparent from the table which indicates that even though nearly 16% of South Africa’s population live in the region, it only generates just


over 3% of its total gross geographic product and has 4.2% of its industrial labour force (Nel and Temple, 1992).

TABLE 1. Key economic features

Population GGP per capita GGP Indust. labour Informal sector Region force employ.

South Africa 39 million R239 billion R558 I I .5 million 22% Border-Kei 6.2 million R.8 billion RI500 80,000 48% % of South Africa 15.8% 3% 27% 5.4% -

GGP=Gross Geographic Product. R=Rand (US.% I=approx. R3.6). Source: Development Bank of Southern .4frica (1991); Border Kei Development Forum (1993).

2.4. THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE FRONTIER

The dominant African tribe in the Eastern Cape is that of the Xhosa. This group would appear to have arrived in the eastern part of the disputed area between the Bashee and the Gamtoos rivers between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries A.D. Their westward movement was however impeded b:y the presence of two tribal groupings between them and the later European settlement around Cape Town, namely the KhoiKhoi and San (Switzer, 1993) (see Fig. 1). By the late seventeenth century the Xhosa had penetrated most of the area between the Fish and Kei rivers, this area which was to become the primary zone of conflict with European settlers (Christopher, 1984). The eighteenth century was also noted for the expansion eastward of European settlers, primarily independent Dutch farmers or Boers who wished to obtain fresh grazing and agricultural land, Their movement had little if any military backing and was not the formal land seizure which the British administration was to turn the process into after their securance of control of the Cape in 1806 (de Kiewiet, 1941). Instead, the pastoral frontier expanded eastwards as an open frontier under the leadership of individual farmers (Christopher, 1984).

The intervening tribes between the Europeans and the Xhosa were gradually either decimated, assimilated or forced into servile labour. The “open” frontier between the Gam- toos and the Fish rivers was marked by an uneasy peace and occasional conflict. The settlement at the Cape fell under the control of the Dutch East India Company till the nineteenth century. They however lacked the means to control this far-flung land. The company arbitrarily fixed the frontier at Mossel Bay in 1743, the Gamtoos River in 1770 and the Great Fish River in 1778 (Davenport, 1977) (see Fig. 1). Lacking the means to enforce such decisions, according to Switzer (1993) both Boer and Xhosa ignored these rulings and the borders remained “phantom barriers”.

In 18 12, following the British take-over of the Cape, a decision was taken to enforce strict territorial segregation and the frontier became a “closed” one (Hummel, 1988). After a series of disturbances and cases of stocktheft, all the Xhosa west of the Fish River


(some 20,000 persons), were forced over that river, their crops and homesteads destroyed and their cattle confiscated (Davenport, 1991). The entire area from the Gamtoos to the Fish River was then opened up for European settlement and the Fish River had a series of forts built along it. The arrival of several thousand British settlers in 1820, who were settled in the areas just west of the Fish River, marked a concerted effort to enforce the area1 distinction between the two cultures (Christopher, 1984; Hummel, 1988).

The British designation of the Fish River as the frontier was soon challenged by the Xhosa chiefs, with disputes over that border and subsequent ones forming a major catalyst for the nine frontier wars which were fought between 1779 and 1878 (de Kiewiet, 1941). Territorial claims by the Xhosa seem to have been matched by European demands for both land and labour, creating an explosive situation in which conflict was inevitable (Switzer, 1993). After the war of 1819. the Xhosa were pushed over the Keiskamma River and the area between it and the Fish River was set aside by the British as a “neutral zone” (Peires, 1981; Davenport, 1977, 199 I ) (see Fig. 3). In parallel the British followed a policy of “divide and rule” trying to isolate individual chiefdoms from each other and exploit existing differences. The co-option

ORANGE FREE STATE

Populatmn Movements _______

Neutral Territow 1619 ________

British Kaffraria 1647-1665_____

Cmkei Reserve Areas 1635-1959_.

FIG. 3. The Eastern Cape Frontier in the 19th century. Source: Freeman (1981); Davenport (1991); Switzer (1993).


of the Fingo sub-tribe gave the British an ally in conflicts. They were rewarded with land grants which helped to form a buffer between the British and the rest of the Xhosa and also served to weaken the unity of the Xhosa tribes. The Fingo as such became the vanguard of the British eastward drive, being allowed to occupy the neutral territory in 1835 (Davenport, 1991; Switzer, 1993). Following the war of 18341835, the British temporarily seized all the land up to the Kei River. Although they later withdrew, the British frontier was effectively fixed at the Keiskamma River and tribes west of it were confined to specific rural “locations” as part of the first steps at proclaiming ethnically distinct reserves (see Fig. 3).

In 1846, following increasing lan,d hunger amongst the Xhosa and provocation by the British, the Xhosa invaded the Cape colony, sweeping through to the Sundays River. The results for the Xhosa, following the British reaction, were dramatic (Peires, 1981). The Keiskamma River was then enforced as the boundary of the Cape colony. The area between that river and the Kei River was taken over as the Crown colony of British Kaf- fraria in which tribes were confined to 3050 square miles of reserves (Nel, 1991; Switzer, 1993) (see Fig. 3). The subsequent war of 1850-1853 ended with further territorial losses being experienced by the Xhosa and the British entrenching their hold over the tribes. The then Governor, Sir George Grey, decided to “undermine and destroy” the Xhosa society and to position them as a “subordinate people”(in Switzer, 1993: 65). He proceeded to do this through financial support for the missionary societies, schools, roads, hospitals and irrigated farming in an effort to settle and control the Xhosa and force their dependence on European civilization.

In 1856-l 857 the last major act of Xhosa resistance took the form a ritual mass cattle- killing and destruction of their crops. This took place at the inspiration and guidance of spirit mediums who told the Xhosa that this was necessary to usher in the return of their ancestors who would lead them in a mission to destroy the Europeans (de Kiewiet, 1941; Peires, 1989). The failure of this religious sacrifice decimated the Xhosa physically and psychologically. Starvation led to the death of between 35,000-50,000 people. This, coupled with targeted British action forced the Xhosa into contract labour for the British, in return for food rations (Switzer, 1993). This action as such helped to address the serious demand for labour which existed in the colony.

In 1866, British Kaffraria was annexed by the Cape colony and the remaining Xhosa stronghold east of the Kei River was further weakened by the settling of the pro-British Fingo and Tembu sub-tribes between it and the Bashee River (Davenport, 1977, 1991). Following disturbances in the late 1870s many Xhosa were forced into employment on white farms or went to Cape Town as indentured labourers (Switzer, 1993). From 1878 to 1894, the British were able to extend their control eastwards from the Kei to the border of the Natal colony on the Umzimkulu River (see Fig. 3). This whole area from the Kei River was later set aside as the African reservation of the Transkeian Territories (Tran- skei) (de Kiewiet, 1941; Davenport, 1977) (see Fig. 3). The period of military conquest was matched and followed by a period of intensified subjugation of the Xhosa. They were forced into the position of becoming a servile, labouring class, co-opted into


participating in the western economy through having to seek low skilled employment partially through the new obligation to pay taxes to the colonial authorities.

2.5. THE ECONOMIC SUBJUGATION OF THE XHOSA

The clash with the British had destroyed the Xhosa militarily, they had lost most of their land and were confined to set rural locations, which, by the beginning of the twentieth century, could not support their resident populations. In parallel with the phase of military expansion and subsequent to it an economic battle was also being fought. Attempts to weaken African commercial farmers, who were competing with white farmers, white demands for lands and the demands of the mining industry for labour led to a concerted effort to incorporate the Xhosa into the capitalist system (Peires, 1981; Bouch, 1980; Davenport, 1991). This was achieved through various restrictions and the imposition of taxes on huts and individuals which obliged Xhosa men to seek temporary work on the mines or the transport system to pay these taxes. The result, according to Switzer (1993: 87) was that the Xhosa were “denied the right to an independent rural existence and ultimately subordinated to the industrial labor process”. Tied up with the spread of missionary activity and education, the Xhosa were effectively westernized, but, at the lowest possible tier of the socio-economic spectrum.

The introduction of the capitalist economy in the Eastern Cape involved a redefinition of terms of access to basic means of production. New forms of property ownership were superimposed on the existing African indigenous land tenure systems. New tenurial arrangements were designed to link conditions of access to land resources to new labour demands of emerging capitalist agriculture and the needs of the mining companies. The provision of labour supplies for commercial agriculture and mining was achieved through an artificially created land shortage within the reserves. A primary mechanism employed to enforce this was the Glen Grey Act of 1894 which was intended to give more security of tenure it redefined the terms of access to basic means of production. Its principal purpose, however, was to provide labour; land was held on an individual basis only, no subdivision was allowed and a single male relative was to inherit the whole unit. As a result future landless generations of African peasants would be born proletarian and dependent on wage labour (Harris, 1968). Cecil Rhodes, the Cape’s prime minister insisted that:

every black man cannot have three acres It must be brought home to them that in the near future nine tenths of them will have to spend their lives in daily labour, in physical work, in manual labour (Cape House of Assembly, 189&Debates, 27.7.1894: 362).

The process of spatial and racial subjugation and bias described herein preceded the further formalization of the process of discrimination in the apartheid era when the reserves were transformed into the infamous Homelands and the system of migrant labour exploitation entrenched.


2.6. THE PERIOD FROM 1913 TO 1948

In 1910, South Africa was formally established following the amalgamation of the four former states of the Cape, Natal, Transvaal and the Orange Free State. This led to the passage of numerous, nationally co-ordinated discriminatory measures. The first of these was the 1913 Natives’ Land Act (Bouch, 1980). The Act denied Africans access to land outside the reserves and as such ended the practise of black tenant farming in white districts (de Kiewiet, 1941). Individual tenure in the reserves on standard land grants was enforced still further to reduce social stratification and to squeeze in the greatest number of people possible (Switzer. 1993).

Under this situation, overcrowding ensued and conditions degenerated in the Homelands. By 19 18 the land in the Ciskei areas had reached saturation point and could no longer provide for the subsistence needs of the population (Switzer, 1993). Overpopula- tion and overstocking of the land induced serious erosion and the further deterioration of conditions. Only 20% of the Ciskei was deemed to be suitable for arable cultivation by 1948 as a result. Economic conditrons in the reserves worsened with destitution and dependence increasing in parallel. By 1925 household cash income from production was about 22% of what it had been in 1875 and cash expenditure was less than half (Switzer, 1993). In certain districts up to 75% of the able-bodied men were migrants working outside the district on a semi-permanent basis. Decades of government discrimination and manipulation clearly succeeded in forcing the African populace into a situation of dependence on European capitalism and entrenched their position as a servile proletariat.

2.7. THE APARTHEID ERA, 1948-1990

After 1948, with the formal adoption of apartheid as a state policy, conditions in the reserves deteriorated at an even faster rate. The government perpetuated the view that the reserves were labour reservoirs, but simultaneously overlaid this notion with its separate development ideology (Davenport, 1991; Pickles and Wood, 1992). In an attempt to develop each tribal/ethnic group into separate nations, measures of autonomy were accorded to each reserve such that they could eventually acquire political independence from South Africa, yet continue to provide labour for “white” business (Pickles, 1991; Pickles and Wood, 1992). In 1959 the promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act provided the initial legislative basis for self-governing status (Nel, 1991). As part of the process of imposing territorial autonomy on the Homelands (the new name for the reserves) first territorial and then legislative assemblies, elected by the Homeland dwellers, were sanctioned. In 1976 Transkei and in 198 1 Ciskei were granted nominal independence from South Africa (Switzer, 1993) (see Fig. 2). These governments were dominated by co-opted African elites who accepted the policy for the personal gains it promised them and their supporters. On a political level the separate- ness of black and white, based essentially on the old colonial division of space were


entrenched, maintaining Africans as the destitute residents of impoverished Homelands and forced migrant labourers in “white” South Africa’s mines and cities.

2.7.1. Economic support mechanisms-agriculure

In terms of the economic sustainability of these areas it was decreed that only a certain proportion of rural inhabitants would be able to remain as farmers in the Homelands. The non-farm population would need other forms of employment inside and outside the Homelands. In practise it was only small elites, usually aligned to the co-opted African leaders, who benefitted from government sponsored “improvements” and betterment of farming conditions (Switzer, 1993). Government intervention led to the removal of some 71% of the most dehabilitated agricultural land from production and average plot size shrank by 21X---this in turn forced even greater numbers to depend on migrant wages for their livelihood (Switzer, 1993). By 1980 although 64% of the Ciskei’s population was officially rural, only 5% were making a full-time living from agriculturally derived activities.

2.7.2. Economic support mechanisms-industry

The blatant incapacity of agriculture to support the majority of the Homelands population and the need to prop up the illusion of their independence, served to strengthen the government’s conviction of the necessity of sanctioning industrial support strategies in the Homelands. In addition, state support helped to entrench the system of “racial Fordism” in the country by assisting metropolitan capitalists to exploit the low skilled, cheap labour situation prevailing within the Homelands (Rogerson, 1991; Pickles, 1991; Pickles and Wood, 1992). In pursuit of this ideal, the government launched its industrial decentralization strategy in 1960 in which assistance was offered to firms setting up in designated growth points (Nel, 1994) (see Fig. 2). On the positive side it did offer some form of subsistence income to Homeland residents. Exceedingly generous incentives, sometimes described as being “the best in the world” were offered to establishing firms (Rogerson, 1988). Support packages were progressively improved through the 1960s 1970s and 1980s.

By 1991 the policy was finally abandoned because of political change, the exorbitant cost of the policy and the dubious success which it had achieved. On a national level by 1992, a total of 400,000 jobs, or 30% of South Africa’s manufacturing employment, had been created by the pre-1991 policies (South African Institute of Race Relations, 1993). Superficially these results suggest that certain positive influences were flowing from the strategy. The cost, however, was high and it has been estimated that if incentives and the cost of infrastructural provision are considered each job in a development point cost four times the cost in metropolitan areas (Wellings and Black, 1986). A true reflection on the dubious status of decentralized industries in the Border Kei region is given by surveys which have shown that up to 79% of affected firms were drawn to the development points


by the incentives and not through any inherent advantages (O’Neill, 1988). Links to the host economy have been limited with very little evidence of industrial agglomeration, self-sustaining growth or linkages occurring.

An examination of Table 2 reveals the changing fortunes of industry in the study area. On a superficial level it would appear that there has been a dramatic improvement in the region’s prevailing industrial and employment base. Between 1963 and 1991 the number of employment opportunities rose from just over 20,000 to in excess of 80,000. The dramatic and still continuing loss of jobs since the suspension of the programme in 1991, however, is indicative of the artificiality of the strategy and the disinvestment of previously supported firms. The fact that industry had not settled in these areas under free market conditions reflects on the poor resource base, lack of skills and absence of agglomeration in the area. Whilst artificial support is naturally undesirable there are at present few viable alternatives for the region. Withdrawing one of the few support mechanisms has only aggravated the prevailing situation of poverty. As a result, the area continues to be the deprived labour reservoir which it became in the colonial era.

TABLE 2. Industrial development, 1963-1993

1963 1985 1989-1991 (estimates) Indust. Jobs Indust. Jobs Indust. Jobs

Border 259 19.736 328 36,644 241 35.000 Transkei 27 620 73 I 1,606 107 17,452 Ciskei 2 50 70 11,875 203 28.868 Total 288 20,406 471 60,125 551 81,320

Indust.=total number of industrial firms. Jobs=total number of employment opportunities. Source: Nel(l993).

1993 (estimates) Indust. Jobs

210 22.000 77 8672

152 12.918 439 43.590

2.8. THE CONTEMPORARY SITUATION

From an economic perspective the Homeland policy, however unjust the ultimate motivation, did render a measure of economic support to the most marginal people in the country. Rationalization of these strategies and the forces of the national and global market have ensured that poverty has been reinforced. The need to break the desperate situation amongst the suppressed people of the former frontier has become all the more urgent and places very specific demands on the new South African government. There are, however, many structural defects in the regional economy. The current recession, nearly ten years of drought and problems in the wool industry has severely weakened the economic base of the farming community and related service centres. Parallel to these factors has been the retrenchment of tens of thousands of farm labourers who have migrated to the already economically depressed small service centres. At a more general level, political unrest and labour instability has seriously inhibited growth in the region. The destruction of a large number of factories in Ciskei as a result of riots during 1990,


several of which never reopened, dealt a major blow to the region (Nel and Temple, 1992). In 1994, in line with national level changes, the old Homeland divisions ceased to exist

and Ciskei and Transkei have been absorbed into the new province of the Eastern Cape (see Fig. 4). The abolition of the remnants of the old colonial frontier does not, however, address the very real imbalances experienced by the millions of destitute people still resident in the former reserves. It is estimated that average unemployment levels exceed 50% of the potentially economically active population and peak at a figure of in excess of 80% in certain rural districts (Development Bank of Southern Africa, 1991). The structurally weak economy and the traditional reliance on migrant remittances present a daunt- ing challenge to developers. In addition, as stated previously, despite having nearly 16% of the nation’s populace it only contributes just over 3% of national gross geographic product (Border Kei Development Forum, 1993). Per capita gross geographic product, stands at 27% of the national average and is the lowest in the country. Serious job losses from closing industrial concerns, the worsening condition of agriculture, contraction in

inlernatlO”al BoundarIes -I- ./

./ NORTHERN TRANSVAAL 1

Plovlnclal Boundaries ---- Former Homelands BOTSWANA

Border-Kel . . . . . .

NORTHERN CAPE

WESTERN CAPE 400

FIG. 4. South Africa’s provincial boundari~lW4. Source: Department of Regional and Land Affairs (1994).


the mining industry nationally and hence in migrant remittances, have enforced dependence on informal sources of income.

The new government, at national level through its Reconstruction and Development Programme (African National Congress, 1994) and at provincial level through the new Ministry of Economic Affairs of the Eastern Cape, is seeking suitable strategies to come to terms with these issues (Eastern Cape Government, 1995). Time alone will tell whether they can succeed in addressing a legacy of deprivation and disempowerment which has roots extending back over 200 years.

2.9. CONCLUSION

In South Africa the “frontier” between European settlers and Africans was one characterized by hostility and conflict for a period of over 100 years. The indigenous people were gradually obligated to retreat in the face of the colonial advance which forced them into a situation of increasing rural overcrowding and deprivation. The final conquest of the Eastern Cape frontier led to the confinement of Africans into impoverished reserves which soon lost the capacity to provide food for their residents. This situation, together with a policy of enforced taxation and changes in land tenure, pushed Africans into the emerging capitalist economy of the country at the level of migrant labourers. Under apartheid, dependence and underdevelopment was further entrenched with the artificial transformation of the reserves into Homelands and later pseudo-independent countries.

In the South African space-economy the old reserve areas, whilst now lacking any form of territorial autonomy, remain as enclaves of desperation and destitution. The frontier has thus been transformed in the South African context from a zone of conquest and subjugation to one of deprivation and impoverishment for its residents.

Acknowledgement-The assistance with the figures by Oakley West and his staff in the cartographic unit of the Department of Geography at Rhodes University is gratefully acknowledged.

2.10.REFERENCES

Adelman, J. (1994) Frontier Development: Land Labour and Capital in the Wheatlands of Argentine and Canada. 1890-1911. Clarendon, Oxford.

African National Congress (1994) Reconstruction and Development Programme. African National Congress, Johannesburg.

Border Kei Development Forum (BKDF) (1993 I The Structure of the Border-Kei Economy. BKDF, East London. Bouch, R. (1980) Farming and politics in the Karroo and the Eastern Cape, 1910-1924. South African Histori-

cal Journal 12,48-64. Cape House of Assembly (27 July 1894) Cape House of Assembly Debates, Cape Town. Christopher, A. J. (1984) South Ajrica: The Impact ofPast Geographies. Juta, Kenwyn. Davenport, T. R. H. (1977) South Africa: A Modern History. 2nd edition. Macmillan, Johannesburg. Davenport, T. R. H. (1991) South Africa; A Modern History, 4th edition. Macmillan, Basingstoke. Davies, W. J., Lochner, T. G. and Wait, C. V. R. (I 980) The Greater East LondonlKing William’s Town Develop-

ment Region: Towards a Strategyfor Survival. Institute for Planning Research, Research Report no. 20, University of Port Elizabeth, Port Elizabeth.


de Kiewiet. C. W. (1941) A History of South Africa: Social and Economic. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Department of Regional and Land Affdirs (1994) Republic ofSouth Africa: MagisterialDistricts andProvinces.

1994 Map. Department of Regional and Land Affdirs, Pretoria. Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) (1991) Economic and Social Memorandum, Region D: 1990.

DBSA, Halfway House. Eastern Cape Government ( 1995) Economic Reconstruction and Growth (position paper). Eastern Cape Govern-

ment, Bisho. Freeman, C. (1981) An assessment of the territorial development of the Ciskei with special reference to independ-

ence. B.A. Honours Project, Rhodes University, Grahamstown. Harris, M. (1968) The Rise ofdnthropotogical Theory. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. Hummel. H. C. (1988) The human impact: an historical overview. In A Field Guide to the Eastern Cape Coast,

eds R. A. Lubke. F. W. Gess and M. N. Bruton. pp. 393408. Grahamstown Centre of the Wildlife Society of Southern Africa, Grahamstown.

Jones, G. D. (1986) Maya Resistence to Spanish Rule. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, NM. Kellerman. A. (1993) Settlement frontiers revisited: the case of Israel and the West Bank. Tijdschri/ voor Econ.

en Sot. Geografie 84(l), 27-39. Lamar, H. and Thompson, L. (I 98 I) The Frontier in History: North America and Southern Africa Compared.

Yale University Press. New York. Meinig, D. W. (1960) Commentary. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 50,95-96. Nel, E. L. (1991) The spatial planning of racial residential segregation in East London, 1948-1973. M.A. thesis,

University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Nel, E. L. (1993) Regional Development on a South African Frontier A Case Study of the Border-ciskei-

Transkei Region. Paper uresented at the Ben Gurion University Conference, The Dead Sea. Nel, E. L. (1994) Regional development in South Africa: from apartheid planning to the reform era. Geography

Research Forum 14, 13-29. Nel, E. L. and Temple, J. (1992) Industrial development and decentralization: Transkei and the Eastern Cape.

Journal of Contemporary African Studies 11(2), 154-178. O’Neill, R. C. (1988) Investering-die problematiek van investeringsbesluitneming vir die privaatsektor in die

vervaardigingsbedryf in die grens, Ciskei en Transkei. Ph.D. thesis. Rhodes University, Grahamstown. Peires, J. B. (I 981) The House of Phalo. Ravan Press, Johannesburg. Peires, J. B. (1989) The Dead Wih Arise. Ravan Press, Johannesburg. Pickles, J. (1991) Industrial restructuring, peripheral industrialization, and rural development in South Africa.

Antipode 23(l), 68-91. Pickles, J. and Wood, J. (1992) South Africa’s Homelands in the age of reform: the case of QwaQwa. Annals of

the Association of American Geographers 82(4), 629-652. Rogerson, C. M. (1988) Regional development policies in South Africa. Regional Development Dialogue, special

issue, 228-262. Rogerson. C. M. (1991) Beyond racial Fordism: restructuring industry in the “New” South Africa. TQdschrifi

voor Econ. en Sot. Geografie 82(5), 3555366. Rogerson, C. M. and Pirie, G. H. (1979) Apartheid, urbanization and regional planning in South Africa. In

Development of Urban Systems in Africa, eds R. A. Obudho and Salak El-Shakr. Praeger, New York. South African Institute of Race Relations (1993) Race Relations Survey: 1992/93. South African Institute of

Race Relations, Johannesburg. Switzer, L. (I 993) Power and Resistance in an African Society: The Ciskei Xhosa and the Making of South Africa.

University of Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg. Wellings, P. and Black, A. (1986) Industrial decentralization under apartheid: the relocation of industry to the

South African periphery. World Development 4, 1. Williamson, H. F. (1951) The Growth of the American Economy. Prentice Hall, New York.

CHAPTER 3

Sacred Site or Sacred Cow? The Frontier of Urban Racial Struggle in Australia

Ian Alexander and Oren Yiftachel

3.1. INTRODUCTION

There has been a recent surge of interest among social scientists in the dynamic relations between the State and civil society (Mitchell, 1991; Taylor, 1994; Young, 1990). Issues of race, ethnicity, space and place have featured prominently in these recent debates (see Keith and Pile, 1993; Watson and Gibson, 1995), as have topics dealing with the place of indigenous peoples within contemporary settler states (see Anderson, 1993; Mercer, 1993).

Within that context, our paper aims to analyze a protracted racial struggle for control over a riverside inner city site in Perth, Western Australia (Fig. 5). The venue is claimed by Aborigines (indigenous Australians) to be a sacred site. The same site also hosted the Swan Brewery-Perth’s largest beer producer’--for nearly 100 years. The brewery was relocated in 1979, leaving the large red-brick industrial building vacant (Fig. 6). Since then, an intense struggle has developed between Aboriginal and other community groups on one side, and the State government, business and some urban conservationist interests on the other. The former wished the old Brewery building to be demolished and the site returned to its original vacant and “sacred” character, while the latter pushed for the retention and restoration of the building, perceiving the Brewery’s prime location and unique architecture to enhance both capital accumulation and urban preservation. In that sense, the struggle over the future of the Swan Brewery has pitted a sucred site versus a sacred cow.

The case at hand has therefore meaning and implications far beyond the confines of Perth, Western Australia. As will be shown below, it is a prism through which the dynamic relations between a deprived indigenous minority, the State, capital and other communities. can be studied. Given the resources and energy devoted to the conflict over the site from all protagonists, and given the longevity of the struggle, it has become a test-case for both the West Australian State and its Aboriginal community. In that sense the Brewery conflict represents a notable frontier of urban racial relations in Australia.

The paper begins by providing background to European-Aboriginal relations in Australia, and later to surveys key theoretical issues pertaining to these relations. This is ,&+!_a 11:4-1) 275

Progress in Plmnirlg

vlETR0 REGION

I KINGS PARK RESERVE ///lj

swan river

Source: adapted from Landcorp records, Perth

FIG. 5. The Swan Brewery site, Perth, Western Australia.

followed by a detailed analysis of the case study, and by a brief conclusion. We define “the State” in this paper as the agglomeration of public institutions and agencies charged with the implementation of public policies. “Planning” is defined as the formulation, content and implementation of spatial public policies. “Indigenous peoples” denote the occupiers of settler states prior to the arrival of European colonizers.

3.2. INDIGENOUS AND EUROPEAN AUSTRALIA

The impact of the European (mainly British) colonization of Australia on its indigenous Aboriginal peoples has been widely documented before (see, for example,


FIG. 6. The Swan Brewery (1991): general view of building and Mounts Bay Road. A group of Aboriginal protesters can be seen at the building’s foreground.

Attwood et al., 1994; Beckett, 1988; Brent, 1992; Rowley, 1972). Rather than repeat the now well documented story of white expansion, land seizure, warfare, genocide and subsequent Aboriginal marginalization, exploitation and near extinction, we will briefly highlight in this section a few points of relevance to the analysis of our paper. These will touch on the impact of capitalism on Aboriginal life, the role of land and planning policies, and recent Aboriginal resistance to State and European hegemony.

Australia was relatively evenly populated by Aboriginal peoples prior to the permanent arrival of whites in the late 18th century. Archaeological evidence points to at least a 40,000 year history of Aboriginal occupation of the land, with their numbers being estimated at 750,000 on the eve of white colonization, as opposed to 240,000 in 1993 (Mercer, 1993: 300,3 13). The Aboriginal mode of production was based on hunting and gathering, semi-nomadic life-style, communal land ownership, and a socioeconomic organization based on relatively small clan units.

As Cuthbert (1995) shows, the Aboriginal mode of production fostered cultural values such as a desire to live in harmony with nature, a predominance of symbolic over the material, a non-institutional structure of social relations, and a reliance on oral methods of transmitting traditio’ns, laws and customs (see also Beckett et al., 1994). Needless to say, this mode of produ.ction was diametrically opposed to the capitalist order imposed violently by European colonizers. Genocide, poverty, marginalization


and cultural destruction was wrought on the Aborigines by the imposition of white capitalism (see Ross and Drakakis-Smith, 1983; Mercer, 1993).

Land and space were other dimensions where European and Aboriginal cultures clashed. An Aborigine was deemed to “belong” to a particular zone, according to place of birth and social affiliation. This contrasted with the property ownership traditions imported by Europeans. In addition, boundaries, location and territories were fuzzily defined in Aboriginal cultures, reflecting the secrecy of religious beliefs and the exigen- cies of nomadism. This, again, contrasted sharply with the European-modernist ceaseless aspiration to precisely define, delimit and demarcate territories (Jacobs, 1993; Young, 1992).

White colonizers have sought to use territorial exclusion and containment as a method of controlling the Aborigines (for a personal account of the impact of these practices, see Bropho, 1980). They limited their access to the main cities, drove them off the land in most areas suitable for agriculture or urban development, and defined reserves (mostly in central and northern Australia) where Aborigines were entitled to live in relative autonomy and obscurity. However, as Gale (1990) shows, these segregation control policies also created appropriate conditions for the preservation of Aboriginal culture and collective identity, which enabled them to survive a very real threat of extinction (see also Bennet, 1989; Howard, 1982).

The territorial bases in central and northern Australia also enabled the Aborigines to organize politically (Gale, 1990). During the 1960s and 1970s they gradually began to challenge patterns of entrenched white domination over Australia’s economy, land, culture and politics (Bennet, 1989; Howard, 19X2). In 1967, following a referendum, Aboriginal people were finally given the right to vote and the Federal government was given the right to legislate for Aboriginal interests. In 1975, the Anti-Racial Discrimination Act was passed through the Federal parliament. In parallel to the legal and civil rights struggles, a main thrust of the Aboriginal campaign was aimed at securing land rights, as a central pillar in the recovery of their culture and sovereignty. This struggle has mainly been staged for control over sites and zones in country regions, although several notable campaigns have also been conducted in the heartland of Australian white urban centres (Anderson, 1993; Jones, 1992).

Land rights campaigns have been staged on a Federal level and in most States of the Australian Commonwealth (Gale, 1990). On a Federal level, continuous challenge was mounting against the extraordinary Australian legal concept and convention of terra nuf- lius, which deemed Australia to have been an “empty land” (that is, free of any land owners) prior to white colonization. After a protracted 10 year legal battle in what is known as the “Mabo case”, the Australian High Court recognized native land ownership and rescinded the terra nullius convention in 1992, giving Aborigines their greatest land rights victory to date (Mercer, 1993). The High Court victory paved the way for new Federal land rights legislation enacted in 1994, under which Aborigines can make native title claims. However. a post-Mabo successful native title claim depends on highly restrictive conditions, and is not likely to return much land back to Aboriginal ownership.


In the meantime, land rights struggles have been continuing in each State with varying degrees of success, typically bringing into conflict, Aborigines, pastoralists and mining companies. In a related milestone decision, mining was prohibited by the Federal government in Coronation Hill-a (disputed) Aboriginal sacred site in the Northern Territory, marking another notable achievement in the Aboriginal campaign for land rights (Jacobs, 1993).

The conflict over the Swan Brewery, documented below, forms part of the Aboriginal land rights campaign. It should be understood within the context of long-lasting patterns of white domination and Aboriginal oppression. On a broader scale, it should be understood as part of the on-going conflict between a settler-capitalist state, its economic and cultural logic, and a small but now highly politicized indigenous minority. The next section will elaborate on these broad, theoretical aspects.

3.3. STATE, DEVELOPMENT AND INDIGENOUS MINORITIES:

THEORETICAL ASPECTS

The theoretical perspective from which we wish to analyze racial relations in Australia in general, and the struggle over the Swan Brewery site in particular, focuses on the modern (and postmodern) capitalist state, and its dynamic relations with indigenous groups. It conceptualizes minority-state relations as a particularly problematic part of state- building efforts in settler societies. The establishment of these states, by its very nature, was based on the dispossession of indigenous groups, thereby precluding-at least initially-the possibility of harmonious coexistence between colonizer and colonized (Jacobs. 1993; Kirby, 1993).

Given this confrontational historical context, governments in most multi-ethnic settler societies have opted to use a range of control mechanisms against homeland indigenous minorities. These mechanisms have typically de-territorialized the minority, made it economically dependent on the majority and on the State, and excluded members of the minority from the centres of political power and policy-making processes (see Yiftachel, 1992).

The pervasive use of control policies in settler states against indigenous peoples has occurred for two broad reasons. First, the modes of production used by indigenous peoples-despite the considerable variations between cases-were never easily incorporated into the expanding European capitalist system. For example, the common ownership and use of land, the oral methods of transmitting traditions, and the self- sufficient socioeconomic organization, posed an alternative to the logic of capitalism which was constantly-by its very expansionist nature-searching for new markets and territories. In that sense, de-territorializing indigenous peoples and making them dependent on the central capitalist system for their very survival, was an effective method of annihilat- ing a competing mode of production (see Cuthbert, 1995; Ross and Drakakis-Smith, 1983).

280 Progress in Plunning

Second, and related to the above, the culture of indigenous peoples, which usually revolved around a spiritual bond to the land, a semi-nomad state-less life style, and other non-western patterns of caste, family and authority, were totally incongruent with the core culture around which settler states were building their “nations”. The very existence of an independent and historically and geographically grounded cultures was seen as a threat to the “melting pot” assimilationist ideology and practice of most settler societies. This gave rise to the strategy of weakening the minority and removing it-physically and socially-from any position of threat to the dominant hegemonic national culture and identity (Connor, 1987).

The consideration of space and time factors assists in the understanding of these control mechanisms. The former relates to the control over indigenous minorities being often associated with a distinct spatial order of exclusion, segregation and ghettoization (Mabin, 1995; Marcuse, 1995). The latter refers to the expansion of dominant (European) interests at the expense of indigenous peoples continuing far beyond settler societies gaining independence. The combination of these spatial and temporal factors has caused analysts to observe the delineation of “internal ethnic frontiers” (Kellerman, 1993) where governments and majorities employ strategies of “internal colonialism” against indigenous peoples (Ross and Drakakis-Smith, 1983). Internal frontiers, such as the Swan Brewery site to be studied below, have come to form major loci of minority-majority conflicts within settler states (Yiftachel. 1996).

A theoretical understanding of State control over indigenous peoples cannot, however, be complete without addressing the dynamic and ever-changing relations between States and minorities. Control policies can rarely remain unchallenged for long periods, with popular resistance likely to emerge as part-and-parcel of contemporary sociopolitical order (Kirby, 1993). In that context. we have previously argued (Yiftachel and Alexander, 1995) that the modern state is currently “under siege”, being exposed to intensifying pressures both “from above” by national and international capital, and “from below” from an increasingly politicized civil society.

These pressures are gradually limiting the ability of the State to implement its policies, including urban and regional planning and development policies. This phenomenon is a consequence of what has often been labelled a “restructuring” of the modern (and “postmodern”) state. which is closely linked to the globalization of the world-economy, technological change, and the ascendancy of non-government organizations on both trans- national and intra-national levels (Berry and Huxley, 1992; McLaughlin, 1992).

Of particular importance to our present paper has been the proliferation of community and locality groups, which have increasingly challenged State policies, using their ability to mobilize popular support against both government and (less frequently) against capital. As a result, and possibly as a counter-move to the growing openness of the world economy, intra-state politics have been marked by the emergence of new collective identities along locality, ethnic, gender, sexuality and ideological lines (Young, 1990; Harvey, 1992). The role of territory and place has been central to the formulation of many of these identities. as foci and nodes of mobilization and identity-building on both urban

Fronrier Development and Indigenous Peoples 281

and regional scales (Keith and Pile, 1993). In short, modern (and postmodern) settler states have been increasingly characterized by social fragmentation.

This fragmentation has provided indigenous minorities with a more favourable setting for their struggles against States and majority domination, and with an opportunity to forge alliances with other oppositional social interests. As a result, the number of minority- rights campaigns has escalated dramatically during the last two decades (Gurr, 1993). However, social theorists still debate whether the increasing incident of minority-state conflicts constitute a genuine structural change (Soja, 1995), or only a mechanism of containing-and ultimately still oppressing-the demands of minorities for societal change (Harvey, 1992).

Given this theoretical setting, we are interested to explore in the case study below the dynamic relations between an increasingly mobilized racial minority, a seemingly weakening state, a hypermobile and highly influential capital, and other sections of a settler society. Can indigenous people muster enough community support to challenge well- established patterns of European domination? Can the capitalist settler state reconcile the inherent tension between development and non-economic (cultural, spiritual) indigenous aspirations? The following account of the struggle over the Swan Brewery site may shed some light on these questions.

3.4. THE STRUGGLE OVER THE SWAN BREWERY SITE

The Swan Brewery on Mounts Bay Road, Perth (Figs 5 and 6) stood in 1995 as an incomplete part-renovated and massively extended shell. Work on the project ceased in 1993, with the developers (Multiplex Constructions) claiming the market for commercial space did not justify its completion. This was despite the company being sanctioned by Government to undertake the project only two years earlier, when the commercial market slump was already evident (Financial Review, 22 June 1992: 2). The brewery stands, therefore, as a monument to a bungled project. More importantly, it is another monument to the suppression of Aboriginal aspirations.

This is a story in which a State Labor Government (who took government in Western Australia from the conservative Liberal Party in 1983) played a leading role in enforcing its will on the Nyungah Aboriginal community and, indeed, on much of the wider community. During the decade 1983-1993 while the government was pursuing its development agenda, the project was consistently opposed by a majority of public opinion. The opponents ranged from radical to conservative, but they were united in their desire to have the buildings demolished and the area returned to parkland. Certainly as Jones (1992) notes, their diversity made them a somewhat “peculiar alliance” (p. 10). But they were nonetheless effective in delaying, although definitely not thwarting, the Government’s plans.

For many involved in the dispute, demolition of the buildings was necessary to allow recognition of, and prevent further damage to, the site’s sacredness and great significance


to the Nyungah Aboriginal people. As one of their elders, Robert Bropho (Fig. 7: he became a leading figure in the dispute) puts it:

It all comes back to land, it is our birthright our religion, our culture (personal interview, I I September 1995).

The brewery buildings were also seen as an unnecessary encumbrance on the banks of the Swan River, a danger to motorists travelling along Mounts Bay Road (which bisects the site) and as a symbol of the State Labor Government’s murky dealings with local financial entrepreneurs and developers. This 1980s saga became known as “WA-1nc” (denoting the economically disastrous and inappropriately intimate association between the West Australian government and big business) which eventually caused the downfall of the Labor government in the 1993 elections.

Yet some in the community argued that the buildings should be restored because of their supposed architectural and historic merit: parts of the building were constructed in the late 19th century. In the final analysis these arguments seemingly won the day. But there is far more to the State’s action than their support of what can in any case be seen as elitist colonial values.

To appreciate this we should go back to the early 198Os, when there was a private development proposal for a residential and commercial development on the brewery site put forward by a leading (but later fallen) Perth entrepreneur (Yosse Goldberg) (Ansara, 1989: 5) who had purchased the site from the Swan Brewery company in 1980.’ Uneasy about the plan and in view of adverse public reaction, the Perth City Council of the day

FIG. 7. Robert Bropho - the Nyungah Aboriginal leader of the Swan Brewery campaign.


requested the State Government to purchase the site. The request was eventually agreed to and the ownership of the site passed to the Government (for use as “public purposes”) in late 1985 for a price of some $5 million. Interestingly, this brought the site back into public ownership for the first time since it was sold to the Swan Brewery over a hundred years earlier in 1879 for the princely sum of 400 pounds (Jones, 1992: 6).

There are many other fascinating aspects about the purchase which involve dubious transactions between the purchaser, other WA-Inc entrepreneurs and the government. The exact details are given in Ansara (1989) and need not concern us here, except to note that the on-going association of business interests and governments in the redevelopment of the site had gradually transformed it into a “sacred cow” for the State’s key decision-makers.

A sequel was to follow in 1992, when another deal was announced with a major builder, as outlined below. What should be highlighted here is that all the entrepreneurs involved with the brewery site received policy concessions or other favours from the Government during the 1980s and were also all major donors to Labor Party funds. While the subsequent Royal Commission into “WA-1nc” was unable to “prove” any corruption per se, many of the players (including Premier of the day, Brian Burke) have subsequently been gaoled on other (and at times related) charges. Criminal details aside, it should be noted that the intimate links between government and business have greatly militated against recovering the “sacred” statu.s of the site in the face of its development potential.

But back in 1985, having taken over the site, the concept of turning over the area to parkland soon disappeared from the Government agenda. As Ansara (1989: 9) notes, in view of its association with business interests this is not that surprising in retrospect. Plans for redevelopment involving various degrees of commercial activity, such as taverns and at one stage a boutique Brewery, rapidly took shape despite mounting community protest.

During the same period, the “sacred site”element of the equation makes its entry into the storyline. Several Aboriginal protest meetings were held in 1985 and the Nyungah Aboriginal people became involved. This reflected earlier calls for the site (known as Goon- inup) to be acquired for Aboriginal people. These calls were based on the site’s association with Nyungah ceremonies for countless thousands of years, and the Dreaming Track of the Waugul (Rainbow Serpent, creator of the rivers) passing through the site. By 1987. the Aboriginal Legal Service had served a writ on the Government seeking “an injunc- tion against redevelopment" (Ansara, 1989: 14).

This action slowed down the development, as did several Perth City Council refusals to approve development plans. But despite this, and despite continuing protests from within its own ranks, the Government was determined to press ahead. It soon removed the matter from local government hands and “revised” its development plans to include an Aboriginal gallery. But such plans were not based on any recognition of local Aboriginal aspirations and were formulated with no consultation with Aboriginal or other interests. and in any case did not recognise widespread community demands for demolition of the buildings.

Aboriginal protesters set up a protest camp on the site early in 1989, making clear their


claims (Fig. 8). They gained considerable support from union, church and welfare groups concerned with social justice issues and they were astutely led by Robert Bropho of the Swan Valley Fringe-Dwellers Community. Some community groups (such as the predominantly middle-class Foreshores and Waterways Protection Society) fighting the Government plans seemed rather uneasy with this direct action by Aboriginals, but the protest camp added to community pressure on the Government. The Aboriginals also sought assistance from the Federal Government, and were successful in having the site declared significant under Federal Aboriginal Heritage legislation, and placed temporarily under Federal control in June (Ansara, 1989: 41).

However, the State Government soon had this decision modified and sought to modify trade union bans on the site. As Ansara (1989: 45) explains, some union officials close to the Government joined a newly-established group, the Brewery Preservation Society, argu- ing that the building was an important part of Perth’s working class history. Other lobby groups such as the elitist “City-Vision” (a group of architects, planners and artists push- ing for the revitalization of central Perth), also pressed the architectural merits of the buildings and its potential as a Riverside activity focus over any Aboriginal claims to the site. These claims were periodically attacked and ridiculed, as were many of the protesters and their supporters. This no doubt paved the way for Police eviction of the protest camp late in 1989, and the arrest of several people in the process.

But uncertainty over development plans continued, with some building unions, notably the key Construction, Mining and Energy Workers Union, still supporting a ban on the

FIG. 8. Protest graffiti in the brewery site.


site and some successful Aboriginal legal challenges to the plans (Jones, 1992: 9). The State Aboriginal Affairs Minister of the day (Pam Buchanan) was not in favour of the development, and a change of Premier in early 1990 brought some hope of a Govern- ment back-down (with the new Premier Carmen Lawrence apparently being more open to Aboriginal claims, than her more development-oriented predecessor Peter Dowding).

This however was not to be, with the new Premier Lawrence continuing support for the development throughout 1990, despite growing opposition in the Labor Caucus and even occasional questions from the Government back-benchers in the Parliament. A new Government back-bencher, and a former left union official (Jim McGintyj, called for a reassessment of the project in his first speech to Parliament in mid-1990, saying:

it is a social justice issue rather than a simple question of whether one ought to preserve an old building (WAPD. 31 May 1990: 1600).

But later that year, an extensive Cabinet shake-up occurred, and significantly, the Aboriginal Affairs Minister lost her place to the former union leader, who later revised his back-bench sentiments. The sacked Minister resigned from the Labor Party and sat as an Independent shortly afterwards. Other Labor colleagues (including one of the authors of this paper) followed her in 1991. During that year, the State Parliament, with support from the Independents and the Liberal/National Party Opposition, passed a motion moved by the sacked Minister calling for demolition of the Brewery. Speaking in support of the motion, she said:

the most important part of the argument is the point relating to Aboriginal interests there is no doubt that this site is one of spiritual and historical significance to the Aboriginal community (WAPD I5 May 1991: 1945).

Needless to say, the motion was ignored by the Government. Shortly afterwards, the former Minister died after a long illness. It was left to another Independent MP (Reg Davis)-an ex-Liberal this time, and a member of the Legislative Council (the State Upper House)-to take up the matter later that year. He put together a Bill requiring the Govern- ment to demolish the buildings and return the area to parkland. The Bill passed as the Government was outnumbered in the Legislative Council.

A similar path for the Bill was likely also in the Legislative Assembly (the State Lower House), given the result of the previous motion and the resignation of Labor MPs. In the new setting, the Government was still short of a majority if all the Independents voted as one. But despite expectations an amended version of the Bill was defeated in the Assembly early in 1992 on the casting vote of the Speaker, when another ex-Liberal Independent (Ian Thompson) switched his support and voted with the Government. This he justified mainly on the grounds that the Government had in mind a “deal” which would see private enterprise take over the project. This “wavering” Independent MP described himself in the debate as an “unashamed” supporter of free enterprise, although he was in something of a “dilemma” over his vote, having previously supported the motion for demolition (WAPD 4 June 1992: 3509).

Beyond the power brokers, personalities, dates, bills and legislations, however, it is

286 Progress in Plarwing

instructive to note how the interests of a peripheral indigenous minority-even when backed by large parts of the community-are time and again brushed aside by the government in the face of pressure from business and development interests.

Consistent with that vein of close government-business cooperation, a controversial announcement was made by the Government as soon as the Bill was defeated. This involved no less than a 65year lease of the site to a major West Australian building company-Multiplex-for restoration and extension of the buildings and for its recycling for commercial purposes. The Government was to play no further direct role in the project, but at what political price? As the press pointed out (West Australian 5 June 1992: 1) Multiplex, via its high profile director (John Roberts), had been a major donor to the ALP (to the tune of around $600,000) during the 1980s. It had also been the major builder on many Government projects during that time. Nonetheless, the Government insisted that this was not another WA-Inc type deal.

The announcement was put out by no less than the new Minister for Heritage (who- paradoxically-was the very same union leader who previously opposed the development). With the assistance of a new “listing” of the buildings in the State’s Register of Historic Places, the minister was able to “justify” his change of stance from his initial Parliamentary contribution. He argued with the recent passing of the long-awaited Herit- age Legislation, the listing gave the Government an obligation to conserve the building (Sundq Times, 7 June 1992: 3). Curiously, the Government felt no such obligation in respect of Aboriginal Heritage: it ignored earlier judgements on the site’s significance in these terms. Robert Bropho-the Aboriginal leader of the brewery struggle-described the latest plan as “genocide” ( Wesr Australian, 5 June 1992: 1) and the protesters’ feelings were summed up by graffiti which appeared on the site (Fig. 9). Neither was the public convinced: an opinion poll taken later that month put support for the Multiplex plan at only 11% with fully 63% supporting demolition of the building and return of the area to parkland (West Australian, 27 June 1992: 3).

Nonetheless a deft series of manoeuvres by Government and developers followed, including the builders seeking and obtaining an Industrial Commission order to lift bans on the site. The unions reluctantly complied following a close vote at a union mass meeting (West Australian, 25 August 1992: 7) and work began on the site late in 1992. Demonstrations and protests at the site resumed and attempts were made to stop work on the site. Arrests of protesters followed, and the Courts banned many from returning to the site. These heavy-handed tactics effectively gave the developers the protection they sought to get the project underway.

The new right-wing Liberal State Government (which defeated Labor in 1993), despite its trenchant criticism of the Multiplex deal, showed no signs of cancelling it on assum- ing office early in 1993. Work proceeded, although Federal Court action succeeded in temporarily stopping work when it ruled that the then Federal Aboriginal Affairs Minister (Robert Tickner) should reconsider an earlier decision he made not to further intervene in the matter (West Australiun, 5 May 1993: 74). The Federal Minister, however, again


FIG. 9. The state of the building’s partial refurbishing (1994).

refused to intervene, completing a picture of almost wall to wall support (active or passive) among policy-makers to the Multiplex deal. Yet again, the interests of local Aborigines and sizeable portions of the white community were pushed aside in favour of the interests of a large developer who was about to restore and save the “sacred cow”.

Restoration and extension work--apparently classified in the contract as preliminary work-again continued slowly until ‘cessation late in 1993 (West Australian, 8 December 1993: 2). A short-lived success followed for the protesters came when the Liquor Licens- ing Court disallowed liquor licences in the proposed development (which was to include several restaurants: The Australian, 1 June 1994: 23). This was, however, later overturned by the High Court (West Australian, 2 1 April 1995: 3). Even so, by late 1995 no work had been done on the site, and there are serious doubts as to whether the project will be completed within the specified period (that is, by late 1996). However, the recent delays in the completion of the Brewery Multiplex project are due as much to the machinations of the developer and its dealing with the Government, as to community protest.

3.5. OVERVIEW

While the State Labor government tried to argue that the brewery deal struck with Multiplex did not carry the “WA-1nc” taint (that is, inappropriate favouritism towards business interests), there is little doubt that it was publicly perceived in this light. The

288 Progress in Plcrnning

deal, and the way in which the State consistently overrode public opinion, did nothing to enhance the Government’s losing effort at the 1993 polls.

It appears that the State was locked into a development imperative for this site as a result of its strong support for, and involvement in, financial and development interests. These interests spread far and wide: Multiplex Constructions was also part of a major new housing development (Ellenbrook) in the Swan Valley area (some 25 km north-east of Perth) in the early 1990s (see Yiftachel and Alexander, 1995). This development impinged on Nyun- gah sites in the area, but at the time, such was the intensity of the Brewery struggle that the Nyungah community did not have the time or resources to effectively oppose Multiplex on two fronts (Robert Bropho, personal interview 11 September 1995).

The Government will no doubt continue to count the cost of the WA-Inc years for some time to come. Whether the State’s consistent denial of Aboriginal claims to the brewery site has dented the State’s credibility is less clear, since the State has set many precedents in this regard over the years (Ansara, 1989). Indeed, the Burke Labor Govern- ment was re-elected in 1986 supported by a last-minute pledge by the Premier to abandon Aboriginal Land Rights legislation. This had a lot to do with accommodating mining and development interests who whipped up an hysterical campaign against the initial legislation (see Alexander, 1988: 127).

The then State Premier, Brian Burke, was also a key figure in convincing the Hawke Federal Labor Government to abandon its plans for uniform Land Rights legislation (Mercer, 1993: 307). The current right-wing Liberal West Australian State government-under the leadership of Richard Court-has fought with ferocity the historic Federal Mabo decision (which gave Aborigines the right to apply for native titles). A subsequent West Australian native title legislation was passed with apparent majority public support, and with some racist overtones to its attack on the Federal legislation. Western Australia, then, is still dominated by conservative and racist attitudes, and the immense inequalities in conditions and opportunities between white and black communities seem set to continue.

A bright spot in this rather gloomy picture is that the Court Government has granted the Swan Valley Fringe Dwellers title to the land they occupy in Lockridge (a deprived suburb, some 15 km north-east of Perth). This occurred after years of unsuccessful negotiations with the previous Labor administration. This indicates that the current government does at least have some regard for the Nyungah community (Robert Bropho, personal interview 11 September 1995). Despite the apparent loss in the campaign for the brewery sacred site, all may not yet be lost in the broader struggle for recognition of Aboriginal rights in Western Australia.

3.6. CONCLUDING COMMENT

The dispute over the Swan Brewery site shows that the State can be extraordinarily determined to push ahead with a development no matter what the political cost. Com- munity protest, and legal challenges to the State from the Nyungah community in


particular, forced the Government to change tack on the development several times, and eventually hand the project over totally to private capital. In reference to one of the central theoretical issues raised earlier, the State certainly had to withstand a steady “siege” over an entire decade, and in this sense there was a successful alliance formed between an ethnic minority group and other community interests against the State.

In the final analysis, the sacred site on which the brewery stands has been seriously violated and the buildings’ partial refurbishing (Fig. 9) has restored the “sacred cow” of white European heritage values to t.heir normally pre-eminent position. In this instance, therefore, the State seems to have been far more beholden to capital and elitist values than to the wider community. The push on the State “from below” (which reached unprecedented heights during the Swan Brewery struggle, particularly as far as Aborigines are concerned) still made but a dent on its armoury. The interests of capital, backed by the planning mechanisms of the State have retained their dominant position. The State used its planning powers to override community protests and in effect to control the Aboriginal community.

In conclusion, the Swan Brewery case study vividly exposed the inherently conflicting goals and aspirations of the capitalist-settler state and its indigenous peoples. While sweeping conclusions cannot of course be drawn from this one case, it did show that the struggle contributed to the recognition-and indeed to the political power-of West Australian Aborigines (Jones, 1992). However, the State was truly locked into a set of economic and political interests from which it could not “release” itself, even in the face of great damage to its image in the community. As shown above, in this head-on conflict the economic “sacred cow” proved more resilient than the indigenous “sacred site”.

Dedication-Our paper is dedicated to the Nyungah Aboriginal people and their unwavering struggle for Aboriginal rights in Western Australia.

3.7. REFERENCES

Alexander. 1. (I 988) Western Australia: the resource State. Australian Geographer 19, 117-l 30. Anderson, J. (1993) Constructing geographies: “race”. place and the making of Sydney’s Aboriginal Redfern.

In Constructions of Race, Place and Nation. eds J. Jackson and J. Penrose, pp. 8 I-99. UCL Press, London. Ansara, M. (1989) The Old Swan Brewery Dispute: A/ways Was, A/ways Will Be. Jequerity, Balmain, N.S.W. Attwood, B.. Winifred, B., Burrage, A. and Stokes, L. (1994) A L/J? Together A Life Apart: History of Relations

between Europeans and Aborigines. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne. Beckett, J. (1988) Past and Present-the Construcfion of Aboriginality. Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra. Bennet, S. (1989) Aborigines and Political Power. Allen and Unwin, London. Berry, M. and Huxley, M. (1992) Big build: property capital, the State and urban change in Australia.

International Journal of Urban and Regtonal Research l&35-69. Brent. M. (I 992) The World of the First Australian: Aboriginal Traditional Life Past and Present. Aboriginal

Studies Press, Canberra. Bropho. R. (1980) Fringedweller. Alternative Publishing Co-operative. Sydney. Connor. W. (1987) Ethnonationalism. In Understanding Political Development, ed. W. A. H. Weiner, pp. 198-

220. Little, Brown, Boston, MA. Cuthbert, A. (1995) Dreamtime and the culture of poverty. Paper delivered at the Theory, Culture and Society

conference, Berlin. Gale, F. (I 990) Aborginal Australia: survival by separation. In Shared Space, Divided Space-Essays on Conjlict

and Territorial Organization, eds M. Chisholm and D. M. Smith, pp. 217-234. Unwin Hyman, London.


Gurr. T. (1993) Minorities at Risk: a Global Survey of Ethnopolitical Conflicts. US. Institute for Peace, Washington, DC.

Harvey. D. (1992) Social justice, postmodernism and the city. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 16, 588-60 I.

Howard. M. (1982) (Ed.) Aboriginal Power in Australian Society. University of Queensland Press, St Lucia. Jacobs, J. (1993) Snake’im this country: the mapping of the Aboriginal sacred in Australia-the case of Corona-

tion Hill. In Constructions of Race, Place and Nation, eds J. Jackson and J. Penrose, pp. 100-120. UCL Press, London.

Jones, R. (1992) A tale of one brewery: ideology and landscape in historical perspective. Paper delivered at the Eighth International Conference of Historical Geographers, UBC, Canada (copy with authors).

Keith, M. and Pile, S. (1993) Introduction (parts I, 2). In Place and the Politics of Identity, eds M. Keith and S. Pile, pp. l-40. Routledge, London.

Kirby, A. (1993) Power/Resistance: Local Politics and the Chaotic State. Indiana University Press, Blooming- ton, IN.

Kellerman, A. (1993) Settlement and Society. SUNY Press, New York. Mabin, A. (1995) On the problems and prospects of overcoming segregation and fragmentation in Southern

Africa’s cities in the postmodern era. In Postmodern Cities and Spaces, eds S. Watson and K. Gibson, pp. 187-198. Blackwell, London.

Marcuse. P (1995) Not chaos, but walls: postmodernism and the partitioned city. In Postmodern Cities and Spaces, eds S. Watson and K. Gibson, pp. 187-198. Blackwell, London.

McLaughlin, J. B. (1992) Shaping Melbourne’s Fufure? Cambridge University Press, Melbourne. Mercer, D. (1993) Terra nullius, Aboriginal sovereignty and land rights in Australia. Polifical Geography 12(4),

299-318. Mitchell. T. (1991) The limits of the state: beyond statist approaches and their critics. American Political Sci-

ence Review 85(l), 17-96. Ross, H. and Drakakis-Smith, D. (1983) Sociospatial aspects of Australian Aboriginal underdevelopment.

Empirical evidence from the East Kimberley. Geoforum 14,325-332. Rowley, C. (I 972) The Destruction of Aboriginal Society. Penguin, London. Soja. E. (1995) The six restructurings of Los Angeles. In Posrmodern Cities and Spaces, eds S. Watson and K.

Gibson. pp. 163-179. Blackwell, London. Taylor, P. (1994) The state as a container: territoriality in the modern world-system. Progress in Human Geography

18, 151-162. WAPD (various dates) Western Australia: Parliamentary Debates, Hansard. Government Printer, Perth Watson. S. and Gibson, K. (1995) (Eds) Postmodern Cities and Spaces. Blackwell, London. Yiftachel, 0. (1992) Planning a Mi.ved Region in Israel: the Political Geography of Arab-Jewish Relations in the

Galilee. Avebury. Aldershot. Yiftachel, 0. (1996) The internal frontier. Regional Studies 30,493-508. Yiftachel, 0. and Alexander, A. (1995). The state of metropolitan planning: death or restructuring? Environ-

ment and Planning C: Government and Policy 13(4), 213-296. Young, E. (1992) Hunter-gatherer concepts of land and its ownership in remote Australia and North America.

In Inventing Places: Studies in Cultural Geography, eds K. Anderson and F. Gale, pp. 255-212. Long- man Cheshire, Melbourne.

Young, I. (1990) Justice and the Politics of Difjference. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.

NOTES I. The Brewery was purchased from another high-flying (and later fallen) Perth entrepreneur-Alan Bond.

CHAPTER 4

Spaces of Citizenship: the Bedouin and Israeli Frontier Development’

Tovi Fenster

4.1. INTRODUCTION

Frontier development is about change. Change in the environment as a whole and in the use of space in particular. Although seen in western modernizing perceptions as positive, the procedures involved and their impact are frequently incompatible with the lives of those living in such spaces and with their natural setting. The seemingly naive observa- tion of Jorgensen (1971, in Sibley, 198 1: 7) clearly identifies this perception: “Underdevelopment, paradoxically then, has been caused by the development of the capitalist political economy of the United States”. Here Jorgensen refers to the role of capitalism in creating peripheral areas for the Indians in North America, and as things stand today, similar results are inherent in capitalist economic development in most countries. The system works to eliminate indigenous peoples claims to land and resources if they get in the way of development and national ambitions. This has been the case in areas like the Northern Territories in Australia, Arctic Canada, Alaska, the former Soviet Arctic (see Fondhal, this issue) and many other frontier areas with indigenous peoples living according to traditional lifestyles.

Some of the theories of development tackle these circumstances by looking critically at the metropolitan dominance applied to peripheral areas, or at the internal colonialism in core-periphery relationships. The latter acknowledges the fragile situation of indigenous peoples who are the most affected by development change. Excluded from the decision making process, they are regarded in fact as “invisible” in the area, and as a result the environment they inhabit is transformed not according to their own needs but according to outsiders perceptions (usually those of the ruling majority in a nation-state). Such situations of conflict take on great significance, with often traumatic confrontation, in frontier areas where natural resources such as land and water are scarce, and oil, gas or other minerals are there for the exploiting.

On a theoretical level, this paper looks at the development of frontier areas from the perspective of incorporation, or the lack of incorporation, of citizen rights of indigenous

291


people within planning and development processes. At the empirical level, the paper examines government-Bedouin relations in the frontier development of the Negev.

4.2. CONCEPTS OF CITIZENSHIP

The notion of citizenship has been widely discussed and analyzed in the literature in the last decade, the result of political and social crisis in wherein the exercise of power is challenged (Benton, 1991; Kofman, 1995). From the widely used definition of citizenship as “full membership in a community” (Marshall, 1950. 1975, 198 1) there has been a shift to a more complex, sophisticated, less optimistic analysis of the term. In general, the idea of citizenship can be used analytically, to expose differences in the de jure and de facto rights of different groups within and between nation states (Smith, 1994). The concept is also used normatively to determine how a society that is sensitive to human rights should look. Both the analytical and normative expression of citizenship have been re-examined by both the left and right in the political spectrum, each side critical of the other’s viewpoint (Held, 199 1).

Three main models of citizenship can be identified (Kofman, 1995). First, the civic republican model, which focuses on the civil and civic rights of the individual citizen, and which is associated with the American and French revolutions. A second, ethnic model reserves citizenship for those members of a nation whose status is defined by a community of descent. This model suits Germany and Israel. The third is the model of social citizenship which emphasizes social rights as part of citizenship and was mainly promoted by Marshall. Critics of these models point to the flawed definition of citizenship in each, and their normative approach.

The paper focuses on implications of citizenship for indigenous minority groups. Kyim- licka (1989) refers to this issue when advocating First Nations collective rights in Canada as part of a liberal democratic approach which refers to the concept of territoriality as part and parcel of citizen rights. It must be emphasized though that there is a clash between Kyim- licka’s approach and the fact that the capitalistic economic approach is viewed, as Jorgensen says, as a mechanism of indigenous exploitation. This paper takes a similar perspective and focuses on territoriality as the major expression of citizenship in the context of planning and development. It examines how far the State of Israel acknowledges the rights and attach- ment to territory of the Bedouin, as an indigenous minority, in policies regarding the develop ment of the Negev Desert. Acknowledgement of citizen rights should first and foremost be expressed in involving the Bedouin in any development actions taken in the area. This idea of participation as an integral part of citizenship is not new. Citizenship has long involved a reciprocity of rights and duties for the community (Held, 1991). Citizenship formalizes the conditions for full participation (Smith, 1994). As Held notes, there is much significant history in the attempt (of authorities) to restrict the extension of citizen rights to certain groups or classes, such as owners, men, white men, educated men, etc. As we shall see, this became the case in the landownership disputes between the Bedouin and the Israeli government. In


the next section I look at interpretations of citizenship in space, or what I call in this paper (after Painter and Philo, 1995) spaces of citizenship.

4.3. SPACES OF CITIZENSHIP

“Top down” changes in the use of space in development processes invariably involve actions taken by those governing bodies also charged with the fulfilment and protection of the citizen rights of their citizens. Thus, citizenship is about the relationship between the state and its inhabitants. If this is correct, then we can invoke principles of citizenship in planning and development, which in turn call for respect on the part of the state for the different or traditional uses of space which are the result of the different lifestyle and territoriality of indigenous peoples. Citizenship means also a respect for the right of equality, that is, the provision of equal access to development components such as infrastructure, services, education and employment, as long as these components are compatible with indigenous peoples needs and desires (Fenster, 1996). If indigenous people are equal citizens and citizenship is about a respect for equality and difference, then spaces of citizenship must allow for the combination of the two.

If participation is part of citizen rights then spaces of citizenship must be developed with the participation of indigenous peoples, in order to define which development components should be treated differently from those of the majority in a nation-state, and which should be looked at as equal (or similar) in their eyes.

This new interpretation of citizenship allows for in-depth and critical analysis in development and planning in areas where indigenous people live. Spaces of citizenship can be interpreted in several ways (Painter and Philo, 1995). The first and the most common interpretation defines material spaces which determine boundaries of “us here” and “them there”, that is, the geographical boundaries of the nation-state which indicate which people are considered citizens and which are not. However, reality is much more complex, since within the “us here” category there are the “them here”. those which the “us” seek to banish or disregard although spatially they must be considered citizens. In geographical terms this means spaces in which the “them here” live but which are predominantly defined for certain categories of people other than the “them” themselves, and such that the “them” have to pretend to be what they are not. In the introduction to this issue, we used the term internal frontiers to describe the situation in frontier areas. In such areas, issues of spaces of citizenship have become even more needing of examination due to scarcity of natural resources.

The whole concept of spaces of citizenship aims to create heterogeneous and pluralistic uses of space so that the “others” can use these spaces with the same freedom and self sufficiency as the “us’‘-the majority. Where the others wish to live in an ethnically and culturally homogeneous space, such a space should be provided levels of development equal to the majority’s. The “others”., according to Painter and Philo, may be women in men’s space, gay, lesbian or bisexual people in heterosexual space, a child in adult space,

294 Progress in Plmning

a nomad in a “sedentary” space or. in general terms, an individual possessing different sets of needs from those of the majority.

The concept of “spaces of citizenship” is used here to analyze and critically evaluate the changes in material spaces of the Bedouin in the Negev Desert. Formerly nomads, the vast majority of them lead today a sedentary life. Being Muslim and Arab, they form a religious. national and ethnic minority in the Jewish Israeli state. Although officially considered as equal citizens in the state, they are more or less “invisible” in the government development programs for the Negev. Their spaces of citizenship are not considered because the rules, norms and values for spaces of citizenship in Israel are determined from above by Israeli authority. Moreover, the fact that the Bedouin are spatially separated from the Jewish population in the Negev has created “islands of underdevelopment” or what Painter and Philo call “underground geographies”. This paper addresses the creation of “underground geographies” in the Negev by analyzing the different approaches to space and development on the part of the government and the Bedouin. But before discussing this, a brief review of concepts of citizenship in Israel is required.

4.4. CITIZENSHIP IN ISRAEL

Israeli society encompasses a strong mixture of social, economic, ethnic and religious divisions. Being dominated by Jewish refugees, some of them survivors of the Holocaust, very explicit terms of citizenship apply for the Jewish people. Citizenship in Israel is largely defined by ethno-religious identity-Judaism, shared by people having a wide variety of origins, languages and cultures (Bauber. 1995). After all, the ruison d'Ptre for the Jewish state in Zion- ist ideology is the “gathering of the exiles”. and to make this possible, the newly born state of Israel abolished all restrictions on Jewish immigration and land sales to Jews, and created the Law of Return of 1950 and the Citizenship Law of 1952. These laws granted every Jew the right to immediate citizenship upon arrival in Israel. The problem was that the “promised land ” for the Jewish refugees was already populated by Palestinian Arabs, so these new laws in fact tended to disenfranchise both Arabs and Bedouin, denying them their citizen rights, and indeed the provision of citizenship to many of the 600,000 refugees who had fled during the 1948 war and wished to return to Israel. This discrimination, although less pronounced than at the birth of the state, remains an important issue among Bedouin until today.

The sense of territoriality so inherent in indigenous peoples culture was cause for great frustration for the Arabs and Bedouin. The ongoing conflict over territories affected terms of citizenship as well as development patterns in frontier areas of the Negev in the south and Galilee in the north. The rapid Jewish development in these two regions, took place on Arab and Bedouin lands. These lands were either classified as belonging to “internal refugees” or “present absentees”, and in the Negev as “crown lands” which reverted to the sovereign government of Israel upon the termination of the British Mandate (Lustick, 1980). Several land expropriation laws were formulated to ensure the legal use of land belonging to private owners, most of whom were Arabs.’


Today, Israel is aspiring to be a modern western society with a development ideology of transition from a subsistence-level, traditional lifestyle to an industrialized and technologically advanced society. This approach obviously has had little respect for the different cultural, ethnic and traditional needs of both Jews and non-Jews who are “different” from the mainstream westernized Jewish society; Oriental Jews, Ethiopian Jews, Bedouin and Arabs. This attitude is expressed in the two types of sociopolitical policies which are prevalent in Israel: assimilationist policies towards Jews, which neglect or ignore the cultural or ethnic needs of the various Jewish ethnic groups, and separation or control policies which discriminate against non-Jews in terms of access to resources.

Before analyzing spaces of citizenship for the Bedouin let us have a brief look at the history of the relationship between Bedouin and the government to gain a greater understanding of the situation in the Negev at present.

4.5. THE HISTORY OF BEDOUIN-GOVERNMENT RELATIONS IN THE

NECEV

The Bedouin today are considered the most impoverished society among the Arab and Jewish sector.3 The reasons for this. are very much a result of the pattern of relations between the Bedouin and the authorities since 1948.

Bedouin roots are in a nomadic lifestyle which they maintained up to the beginning of the 19th century. Towards the end of the British Mandate, the Bedouin were divided into 95 tribes. The tribe was an artificial administrative division of their society which had been traditionally divided into confederations. However, the British and then the Israeli authorities succeeded in substituting the tribe as the widest form of political association among the Negev Bedouin. These divisions were adopted by the Israeli authorities after 1948, as part of a policy to isolate the Bedouin from the rest of the Arabs in Israel, and in order to hasten the internal fragmentation of their society (Lustick, 1980). With the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, only 11,000 Bedouin remained in the Negev out of the 65,000 that had lived in the area before the war, the rest having escaped or been evacuated to Jordan. Their number has increased since then to 81,000 in 1993 (“Development Plan for the Bedouin”, Ministry of Housing, 1995). The Bedouin situation is widely discussed in the literature (Ben David, 1982; Meir, 1984; Meir, 1986; Kressel et al., 1991; Fenster, 1993).

Administration of the Negev is included within the district of the city of Be’er Sheva (see Fig. 10). This administrative division was in fact established in Ottoman times at the beginning of the 20th century, and was designed to coincide more or less with the areas occupied predominantly by the nomadic Bedouin. Be’er Sheva is still the capital of the Negev with 140,000 inhabitants. In common with many other peripheral areas in other countries, the Negev is the largest single region in Israel and the least densely populated. Its 13,525 km2 comprises 61.6% of the total area of Israel, but occupied by only 397,000 people 7.6% of the total population of Israel.

The Bedouin ceased wandering during the British Mandate. From this period they

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Frontier Development nnd Indigenous Peoples 297

settled in traditional agriculturally based settlements which are today considered illegal by the Israeli state, and are a major Factor in the landownership dispute. This landownership dispute has greatly affected relations between the Israeli government and the Bedouin since 1948. The constant conflict over landowership rights in the Negev has caused frequent confrontations in the development of the Negev when areas occupied by Bedouin taken over and the Bedouin were forced to evacuate. In 1980, when the peace treaty with Egypt was signed, the open spaces of the Negev were required to replace military airfields previously based in the Sinai. This included large areas where Bedouin lived. Knowing that evacuation could not be imposed with force (because of its connection with the peace treaty and with an eye to international public opinion) the Israeli government passed a special land law which acknowledged Bedouin rights in these areas and stipulated compensation, both financial and in land replacement for the Bedouin. Approximately 5000 Bedouin were evacuated and received compensation according to this law. But many others have held out for higher sums, and till today the government and Bedouin have not agreed on terms of compensation to solve the landownership disputes.

The second major issue which has caused conflict between the two parties is the type of habitation that the government agrees to provide the Bedouin in new settlements. The government wants them to live in only seven towns, while the Bedouin wish to have choices of lifestyle, either urban or rural, and the legalizing of some of their traditional settlements. Both of these issues will be analyzed in the following sections.

Up to the 1960s the Bedouin were confined in a special military reserve area, which they were not allowed to leave without permits. Some government planned towns were constructed in the mid-1960s in order to concentrate the Bedouin in defined areas where the provision of services would be facilitated, a policy invariably used by governments of countries where nomadic or indigenous minorities live (Sibley, 1981). The planning of the towns was in fact a tool of control over the “them” to enable the “us” to use the spaces according to the majority priorities and preferences. We shall see in the next section that whatever degree of attention to social structure was considered proved inept and insufficient (see also Fenster, 1993). Within the towns, some basic infrastructure including water, electricity, telephone, and sewage were provided, along with basic health and education services, but to a very low standard and usually such projects were not fully completed. By 1993, 60% of the Bedouin (48,000 people) were already living in the seven planned towns: Rahat, Tel Sheva, Aruar, Kessifa, Segev Shalom, Hura and Lakia (see Fig. 10, Ministry of Housing, 1995). A further 33,000 remained in traditional settlements scattered over an area of approximately 1.5 million dunam (150,000 ha) in the Northern Negev, with no basic infrastructure or any services because of their illegal status. The authorities used court orders to demolish houses, and put fierce pressure on the Bedouin to move to the new towns. Nevertheless, many Bedouin persist in staying on their land until the landownership issue is solved, and other options for habitations besides towns are provided.

I argue that an egalitarian approach to development would have permitted the Bedouin


to participate in dictating the changes in their living environment. It would treat them equally by allowing them their own definition of spaces of citizenship, recognizing their landownership claims, and allowing them to develop their settlements with the same freedom and to the same level of development as the Jewish population.

4.6. SPACES OF CITIZENSHIP FOR THE BEDOUIN OF THE NEGEV

As previously defined, spaces of citizenship for indigenous minorities are those which respect both equality and difference, so that minorities living in these areas have the right to maintain a different use of spaces according to different lifestyles, at the same time having the right to develop on equal terms with other citizens of the country. Regard for equality and difference in the use of spaces is relevant to all aspects of life as is shown in Table 3.

4.7. BEDOUIN PERCEPTIONS OF SPACES AND DEVELOPMENT

1 will now analyze and evaluate the government planning approach as implemented in the construction of the seven Bedouin towns. This approach is examined with particular attention to the extent to which spaces of citizenship are taken into consideration in the development process, and the Bedouin attitudes towards life in these spaces. In analyzing the various uses of space, I usually start with a description of the traditional use of space and compare it with present use in the government settlements.

4.7.1. Methodology

A survey carried out in 1994 helped to identify Bedouin perceptions and attitudes towards the development of the towns and the region in general. This survey was part of a new development plan for the Bedouin in the Negev. Bedouin needs were identified using two methods: questions to a representative sample of Bedouin, and discussions in focus groups. The survey involved 350 respondents, 200 from the seven towns and 150 from the traditional villages.

Only Bedouin men were interviewed because of Bedouin traditions which placed restrictions on women. However, in order to include women in the research, the methodology of focus groups was used.4 Four focus groups were formulated in which some 50 women participated. Both questionnaires and discussions in the focus groups looked at Bedouin lifestyle in towns and traditional villages, from which we can identify Bedouin perceptions on what is termed here as spaces for citizenship.


TABLE 3. The articulation of spaces of citizenship for Bedouin as an indigenous people Pnd its translation into public action

Lifestyle components

Cultural/social

Rights (e=equality dzdifference) Expression in space

Guidance for public action (authorities action)

d-maintain own culture: d-space for traditional institutions d-spaces for housing for clans and tribes based on traditional rules d-spaces for maintaining privacy of women

-maintaining traditional institutions in planning -low level of density in planning of settlements

d-maintain traditional groupings of clans and tribes d-maintain traditional rules regarding privacy of women e-be provided with modern facilities equal to others.

Economic d-maintaining traditional economy

e-being provided with skills for modern occupation

e--equal access to education facilities and curricula

e-spaces for modern economies and equal incentives for economic development -spaces for education facilities

Political d-the respect for d-landownership traditional rule of patterns, use of space for territoriality subsistence agriculture

e-the choice of lifestyle (rural or urban)

e-the need for various types of settlements: rural and urban to satisfy groups needs

e-the building of youth clubs, sport areas, playground area, cultural centres. religious centres

d-spaces for traditional economy

-provision of equal access to services and infrastructure -planning diversified type of settlements

-the articulation of traditional and modern economies in the development plan -equal access to pubhc incentives regarding economic promotion

-taking into consideration territorial and landownership rights in development

The table illustrates the lifestyle components involved in a development process. It specifies the ways in which each of the components should be viewed either from the perspective which emphasizes difference or that which emphasizes equality. This of course can be used as a generic table, in reality its components should be decided upon by the community itself once it is involved in the development process.

4.7.2. The cultural and social use of spaces

Traditionally, social spaces among Bedouin society indicate the necessity for seclusion of Bedouin clans, especially at the level of the nuclear and extended family. This particularly involves respecting the privacy of the Bedouin women. Therefore, to avoid unwelcome meetings, large spaces exist between dwellings of families from different clans or tribes (Ben David, 1976).

How has the need for these social and cultural spaces been met in the planning of the new towns in the eyes of the Bedouin? Most of them complain about the high density of living in the towns, which is not compatible with their traditional lifestyle. Seventy one percent of the respondents, residents of the towns, said that the size of the plot they were


provided was not adequate, and 68% felt that the distance between houses was not large enough. Moreover, the majority are interested in maintaining existing patterns of living in the towns where each neighbourhood is populated by a different clan or tribe. Here principles of the right for maintaining “difference” in the use of space were not totally adhered to. Although planning for neighbourhood separation on a tribal basis. the Israeli authorities failed to provide them with suitably open spaces, because they used modern western standards in designing the towns. Bedouin notions of spaces of citizenship required adopting different planning measures of density or inner structure of neighbourhoods, more suitable to the cultural and social needs of the minority group. This lack of acknowledgement of their needs for different standards of planning, is similar to the attitude of other governments towards their indigenous citizens, as with the Canadian government towards the Inuit and the Dene nation, or the British authorities policies towards the Gypsies (Sibley, 1981).

4.7.3. Infrastructure

Because they are considered illegal by the State, traditional settlements have no basic services like water supply, electricity, and sewage, or social and commercial services. Only in central locations has the government built schools and health clinics to serve the clos- est settlements.

As a consequence of this situation one would assume that the most attractive incentives to move to towns would be the provision of infrastructure and services. After all, this was exactly what they lacked in their traditional lifestyle, and in the towns infrastructure and services are supposed to be basic components and the ruison d’ttre, albeit the government’s, for their establishment. It follows logically then that if the government was interested in moving the Bedouin into planned towns it would develop a full infrastructure so that “the product”, the towns would be “attractive” to custom- ers. Intentionally or not, the Israeli authorities have only provided low levels of infrastructure and services in the towns, lower than those in most Jewish settlements in the area in terms of the general development of the towns, the level of road and pavement, street lights, green areas, sewage systems, etc. As a result, the towns look impoverished and lack the supposed advantages of living in them as compared to traditional Bedouin settlements. This is an example where spaces for citizenship are not fulfilled: the Bedouin are not “equal” to the Jews in their access LO infrastructure and services. Indeed, 50% of the respondents-who were residents of the towns- expressed dissatisfaction with the infrastructure system, and 73% were dissatisfied with education and health services. To sum up this section, the cultural and social use of spaces by Bedouin necessitates both the articulation of rights to maintain “difference”, which would allow for large spaces for housing and neighbourhoods in the towns, and rights to equality in the level of infrastructure and services when compared to Jewish settlements in the area.


4.7.4. The economic use of spaces

Indigenous minorities with a traditionally land-based self-sufficiency economy, such as the bruit in the North American and Canadian Arctic and the Bedouin in Israel, may be considered especially vulnerable to the expansionary force of capitalistic development. Economic self-sufficiency separates the peasantry from a modern economy and helps the peasant to resist incorporation (Berger, 1988). Thus, a dual system economy is created in these peripheral areas, traditional and modern.

Official figures show that today agriculture has becomes a marginal occupation for Bedouin, only between 7%~ according to the Israel Statistical Bureau (1993) and 16%. according to the survey results, of the total Bedouin work force. However, statistics are invariably a matter of definition and the number of residents of the traditional villages who defined themselves as working part-time in agriculture in the survey was surprisingly higher: 35% of educated Bedouin, 50% of professional employers and 73% of the pension- ers and unemployed declared that they work part-time in farming. This means that the Bedouin still maintain a dual economy system where farming is actually informal or “invisible”. This situation is highly connected to the issue of landownership discussed in the next section.

The Bedouin dual economy refers to these two separate economies: traditional and outside wage-earning work. This dual system is kept maintained for both practical and traditional reasons. The traditional economy provides extra financial security since outside employment is never permanent (Marx, 1980; Abu Rabia, 1994). But perhaps the main reason for working in agriculture is more for cultural and social reasons: agriculture for the Bedouin is not just for supplement of income, it is a way of life as seen in the following figures.

Regarding modern employment, the Bedouin work mainly in construction (30X), public services (33%) and in the industrial sector (33%) (Ministry of Housing, 1995). The rate of “white collar” jobs among Bedouin is far lower than in the Jewish sector. For example, there are only 0.1 engineers out of 1000 people in the towns of Rahat and Tel Sheva, as compared to 11 .O in Beer Sheva and 34.8 in Jewish community settlements (Negev Center for Regional Development, 1993). Regarding the allocation of economic spaces in towns, 97% of the respondents residents of the towns wished that their place of work would be within the towns. This contrasts greatly with the reality where Bedouin towns are totally lacking infrastructure for industry, and until recently receiving little incentive from the government for industrial and tourist development (Negev Center for Regional Develop- ment, 1993).

Bedouin women expressed a deep desire to work outside their home, a situation which is not possible if the place of work is not located within the settlement (Fenster, 1995). Seventy-five percent of Bedouin men also expressed a desire to develop employment areas for women in their towns (only 30% of those living in traditional villages expressed the same desire, being more traditional and less open to changes). The discussion on spaces of citizenship for Bedouin women which includes the complexities of their difference and

302 Progress in Plantling

equality is beyond the scope of this paper. However, it should be noted here that Bedouin women are constrained in their use of space for traditional reasons of modesty, and these constraints should be taken into consideration in the planning of the settlements and the provision of employment opportunities and services (Fenster, forthcoming).

To sum up the indications of the Bedouin responses to the 1994 survey, spaces of citizenship in economic terms for both women and men require that any settlement planned for the Bedouin should be heterogeneous and meet the needs of a dual economy, for both men and women. In planning terms, it means the provision of agricultural ground alongside areas for private industrial enterprises to be developed within the settlements. This, of course, requires not only physical planning, but also the provision of incentives, subsidies and other financial support similar to that provided to Jewish settlements.

4.7.5. Spaces in the political context-the landownership issue

Here I refer to spaces which have strong political implications of territoriality. The political context of the use of space is expressed in two main issues: the landownership conflict between Bedouin and Authorities, and the debate around the type and numbers of Bedouin settlements planned by the government. I call the first the right for spaces of landownership and the second, the right for spaces of different lifestyles.

4.7.6. Spaces of landownership

Territorial integrity and territorial sovereignty are extremely important in the organization of human society and even at the end of the 20th century territoriality remains a fundamental element in modern society (Grosby, 1995). Spaces of landowership are the expressions of this sense of territoriality and can be approached as the most obvious manifestations of traditions, cultures and ethnicity. Nomads and authorities usually clash around this question, and it has been a consistently thorny issue between the Bedouin and Israeli authorities. The landownership conflict in Israel had a marked effect on relations between the two sides because of the vital need for land for both peoples, Jewish and Bedouin. And these land needs must be considered in the context of the political territorial conflict between Jews and Arabs which characterized the development of the country. As in most clashes over land between governing authorities and ethnic communities, two separate viewpoints come into play: the laws created by states to assure their control over the land, and the traditional rules of land ownership invoked by the ethnic groups. States customarily invoke a claim, which also appears in the relevant literature, that nomads by definition do not own land, since they wander from one place to another as a mechanism to cope with territorial conflict (Rappoport, 1978). Is it really the case, or rather do nomads wander solely for the basic needs of food and water. In the last decade it is becoming clearer that territoriality is highly connected with subsistence existence. Researches among the Indians in Canada


produced the “land use biography maps” which demonstrate the history of land use in hunting, fishing, berry-picking and camping to sustain basic needs for existence. These open areas are their territories and ones to which they claim ownership (Broady, 1988).

In Israel, each side has its own mechanisms to deal with the land conflict. The Israeli authorities use the 1858 Ottoman Land Law to claim that most of the Negev lands are “crown lands” if they are arable. This is in spite of the fact that prior to 1948 the Bedouin cultivated around 2,200,OOO dunam in the Negev (Lustick, 1980). The problem is that the Bedouin do not posses any legal proof of ownership (Kushan), which they could have obtained under the British Mandate. Many of them chose not to register their lands in order to avoid taxation. This situation has been exploited by the authorities to claim that the lands they hold are not really theirs. The Bedouin firmly maintain the right to call their lands their own. Furthermore, they do not consider legal documents proof of ownership. They claim ownership of land over which they allege to have had long-standing, uninterrupted occupancy, regardless of the fact that they do not hold the official documents to prove it (Marx, 1967).

The Bedouin are persistent in their landownership claims and hold on very tightly to their land by living in approximately 100 traditional settlements, with over 9000 dwellings in which approximately 33,000 people live. They are dispersed over a large area of some 1.5 million dunam. Obviously, this area is not available for Israeli development purposes, and this is why the authorities wish to concentrate the Bedouin and “free” the area for development dictated by the state.

The Bedouin view the two issues of moving into planned towns and solutions to their landownership claims as highly connected. Eighty-five percent of the respondents to the 1994 survey, residents of the traditional settlements, considered one of the major factors preventing them from moving into the towns was this unsolved problem of ownership.

To sum up this section, the creation of spaces of citizenship means acknowledgement on the part of the authorities of Bedouin rights to their lands. Citizenship in this respect would allow for participation in decision-making regarding options for sorting out landownership conflicts, as well as development schemes for the Negev, and the determination by both sides of the nature of development, either by appropriate and agreed financial compensation or land replacement or both.

4.7.7. The right for spaces of different lifestyle

By spaces of different lifestyle, I mean spaces in which different ways of life or habitations, rural and urban, exist. In planning terms, this applies to the type. nature and numbers of settlements that are provided for the Bedouin in the Negev. The government’s official policy is the planning of seven towns as the sole legal solution for the Bedouin. The Bedouin want other options for rural, communal habitations. Even today, almost 25 years after the establishment of the first Bedouin town, the Bedouin have not been persuaded to utterly change their lifestyle, and still express a desire for choice, and not to

304 Progress in Pluming

be forced to live either as illegal dwellers in their traditional settlements, with constant threats of court actions and housing demolition, or to become urban residents. The authorities regional policy may be seen as a crude assault on basic human rights which in this case involves freedom of choice as to which lifestyle a person wishes to live. it may also be viewed as a discriminatory act against the Bedouin minority as opposed to the Jewish majority which has a variety of choice for lifestyle in the Negev. The Jewish farmers living in the Negev region number 53,000. They live in 104 agricultural settlements (kibbutzim, moshavim, etc.) as opposed to 33,000 Bedouin who have only one option to live in one of seven towns (Negev Center for Regional Development, 1993).

The desire to have a lifestyle choice is expressed in the response of the Bedouin living in the traditional settlements to the question: “To which type of permanent settlement would you prefer to move?“. Almost 80% responded that they preferred to move to agricultural settlements.

The government has all along tended to relate to the Bedouin as non-visible citizens of the area. This is precisely how “underground geographies” are created. Unfortunately this tendency is still dominant in two government plans recently finalized. The first is the Regional Statutory Plan for the Negev, in which many of the areas which are occupied by traditional Bedouin villages are allocated for other development purposes such as industry, forestry, roads all as if the area is totally empty. Many objections to the plan were submit- ted by Bedouin. The “invisibility” of the Bedouin is likewise expressed in another plan, “The Negev is Growing”, which was issued by governmental and semi-governmental bodies including the Ministry of Agriculture, the National Jewish Fund and the Jewish Agency. The plan aims to upgrade the economic and social conditions of the peripheral Negev. It mentions “40,000 people who live in 100 rural settlements” in the area, but the truth is that the area also includes another 35,000 Bedouin in 108 traditional agricultural villages who somehow got erased. Moreover, all components of development included in the plan (agricultural development, new settlements, water, greenhouses) do not apply at all to the Bedouin population, although one such greenhouse project exists at present in Rahat. Bedouin towns do not appear in the general map accompanying the plan. This attitude of the authorities only serves to emphasize how much the idea of spaces of citizenship are missing and needed at the conceptual level. Something has to be changed conceptu- ally before practical matters can be sorted out, and the visibility of these people must be revealed. It is obvious that the two prime issues of territoriality and landownership and the nature of habitation are at the moment a bitter expression of the lack of spaces for citizenship, and display serious discrimination towards the Bedouin.

4.8. WHERE IS THE CLASH? HOW TO PLAN FOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN

FRONTIER AREAS

The paper outlines the complexities and difficulties in developing frontier areas where indigenous people live. The analysis of government development approaches using


concepts of spaces of citizenship clearly illustrates the lack of consideration and the ignoring of Bedouin human rights by the government of Israel when dealing with the development of the Negev.

In fact, Israeli authorities have used planning as a means to control the Bedouin. Plan- ning as control is sometimes used in the literature to apply to the mentally ill, but also to indigenous and ethnic minorities (Cohen, 1985). It means that planning is used to prevent the use of spaces by those with different needs, desires and values by means of territorial, procedural and socio-ecomonic constraints (Yiftachel, 1995). The “them here” can not maintain their lifestyle if it seems to contradict some of the principles of use of space of the “us here”.

This paper presents an alternative way of dealing with development issues so that spaces of citizenship for minorities can be created. By using the concepts of equality and difference in the use of space, it attempts to emphasize the meaning of spaces of citizenship in various level of living: cultural and social, economic and political. This approach may be seen as naive, but the reality in the Negev and in other peripheral areas around the world shows the importance of creating spaces of citizenship not only because of the need for sensitivity among governments towards human rights, but for practical reasons of the economic and political price that authorities will have to pay if these problems are not solved. Private enterprises as well as governments open their wallets and include evaluation of compensation for indigenous people as part of project costs precisely because it is impossible otherwise to develop frontiers. The situation in Israel points to the humanitar- ian, political and economic need for a change in current practices.

4.9. REFERENCES

Abu Rabia, A. (1994) The Negev Bedouin and Livestock Rearing. Berg Mediterranean Series, Oxford. Bauber, R. (1995) Cultural minority rights for immigrants, Paper presented at the international conference on

Migration and Multiculturalism, London, 30 August-2 September 1995. Ben David, J. (1976) The process of spontaneous settlements among the Negev Bedouin. In Notesfor the Bedouin,

ed. C. Bailey. 7, pp. 30-49 (in Hebrew). Ben David, J. (1982) Stages in the sedentarization of the Negev Bedouin, a transition from semi-nomadic to

settled population. Ph.D. thesis, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Benton, S. (1991) Gender, sexuality and citizenship. In Citizenship, ed. G. Andrew& pp. 151-163. Lawrence and

Wishart, London. Berger, T. (I 988) Northern Frontier Northern Homeland. Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver. Broady, H. (I 988) Maps and Dreams. Douglas and McIntyre, Vancouver. Cohen, S. (1985) Planning of Social Control. Polity Press, Oxford. Fenster. T. (I 993) Settlement planning and participation under principles of pluralism. Progress in P/arming

39(3), 167-242. Fenster, T. (I 995) Gender and Space among the Bedouin in the Neges (mimeo). Fenster, T. (1996) Ethnicity and citizen identity in development and planning for minority groups. Polifical

Geography 15,405-418. Fenster. T. (forthcoming) Space for gender: cultural roles of the forbidden and the permitted. Grosby, S. (I 995) Territoriality: the transcendental, primordial feature of modern societies. Nations andNaiiona/-

ism l(2), 143-162. Held, D. (1991) Between state and civil society: citizenship. In Citizenship. ed. G. Andrews, pp. 151-163. Lawrence

and Wishart, London.


Kofman, E. (1995) Citizenship for some but not for others: spaces of citizenship in contemporary Europe. Politico1 Geography 14(2). 121-137.

Kressel, G., Ben David, J. and Abu Rdbia, A. (1991) Changes in the land usages by the Negev Bedouin since mid-19th century. Nomadic Peoples 28, 39-51.

Kyimlicka, W. (1989) Liberalism, Community and Culture. Clarendon Press, Oxford. Lustick, 1. (1980) Arabs in a Jewish State. Austin University of Texas Press, Austin, TX. Marshall, T. H. (1950) Citizenship and Social Class. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Marshall (1975) Social Policy in ;he Twentieth Century. Hutchinson, London. Marshall (1981) The Rinht to Welfare and Other Assavs. Heinemann Educational. London. Marx, E. (1967) The Bedouin of rite Negev. Manchester University Press, Manchester. Marx, E. (1980) Economic changes among Bedouin in the last decade. Nores on fhe Bedouin 1 I, 3-l I (in Hebrew). Meir, A. (1984) Demographic transition among the Negev Bedouin and its planning implications. Socio Economic

Planning Sciences 18,399409. Meir. A. (1986) Pastoral nomads and the dialectics of development and modernization. Sociefy and Space 4,

85-95. Ministry of Housing (I 995) Development Plan for the Bedouin in the Negev. Ministry of Housing, Jerusalem. Negev Center for Regional Development (I 993) Statistical Yearbook of the Negev, I. Negev Center for Regional

Development, Beer Shevd. Painter, J. and Philo, C. (1995) Spaces of citizenship: an introduction. Political Geography 14(2), 107-120. Rappoport, A. (1978) Nomadism as a man-environment system. Environment and Behavior 10(2), 214247. Sibley, D. (198 I) Outsiders in Urban Societies. Blackwell, Oxford. Smith, S. (1994) Citizenship. In The Dictionary of Human Gegoraphy, ed. R. J. Johnston, p. 67. Blackwell, Oxford. Yiftachel. 0. (1995) The dark side of modernism: planning as control of an ethnic minority. In Postmodern

Spaces, eds S. Watson and K. Gibson. Blackwell, Sydney.

NOTES I. The data appearing in this paper is based on a survey carried out as part of a development plan for the

Bedouin in the Negev in 1994. The author wishes to thank the Ministry of Housing in Israel for allowing the use of the data.

2. Approximately 93% of the land in Israel is state owned. Four percent is Arab privately owned land and 3% is Jewish privately owned land.

3. The ranking was made by an aggregate of factors, such as unemployment levels, income levels, education, crime. The two Bedouin towns of Tel Sheva and Rdhat are ranked lowest in the list of the Arab sector which in itself has very much lower living standards than the Jewish sector (Ministry of Housing, 1995).

4. Focus groups consist of IO-12 people that share one common characteristic but are different in other ways. In this case all participants in the focus groups were women from one extended family or clan, living in the same neighbourhood and up to age 35, but with different levels of education, different marital status, different economic levels.

CHAPTER 5

Freezing the Fran tier? Territories of Traditional Nature Use in the Russian North

Gail A. Fondahl

5.1. INTRODUCTION

Russia’s North has long served as a resource frontier for the state. Furs, minerals, oil and gas. timber and other resources of its expanses enriched the coffers of the Tsars, then the Communist Party. The state incorporated the northern indigenous peoples into the process of extracting these resources when it needed their help. It pushed them aside when their own needs impeded resource development.

Concerns about the cultural and even physical survival of Russia’s northern First Nations has recently provoked a reassessment of state policy toward them. The 1979 and 1989 censuses showed low population growth among most of the northern indigenous nations, and absolute numerical losses for several peoples (Osnovnye, 1990). Both censuses also recorded high rates of linguistic assimilation, a sign interpreted as indicating poor cultural health. Glasnost has allowed the pursuance of research which attests to high levels of social malaise, as indicated by extreme rates of suicide, homicide and alcohol abuse. By the early 1990s even the mass media frequently invoked the term “ethnocidal” to describe much of the last half century of Soviet policy toward its northern indigenous peoples.

Scholars and indigenous northerners themselves have attributed the dire situation in part to a reduced ability to enjoy “traditional” cultures, including participation in “traditional activities”. The state defines “traditional activities’as herding, hunting, trapping, fishing and gathering. If less than 50% of Russia’s indigenous northerners work in so-called traditional activities, these activities still define the core of the various indigenous ethnoses in the minds of both many indigenous individuals themselves, and many outsiders (Materialy, 1990).

Perhaps the single most significant threat to the traditional activities is an eroding land base. Industrial development has destroyed tens of millions of hectares of reindeer pasture and hunting lands (Materialy, 1990). Leaders of the northern indigenous rights movement within Russia since the late 1980s have called for the establishment of “territories of PlmPU ,7:4-c 307

308 Progress in Phning

Q’S”, zones from which “non-traditional”activities would be barred, and traditional ones thus protected.

Recent Russian Federation legislation has called for the establishment of “territories of traditional nature use” for the benefit of northern indigenous peoples. These territories are to be areas of significant size in which activities other than traditional ones will be limited. This paper assesses “territories of traditional nature use” (territorii tradit- sionnogoprirodopofzovaniya or TTPs) as a medium for “freezing” the frontier in the Rus- sian North. Through the use of a case study, I examine the importance of traditional activities (reindeer husbandry, hunting) to one indigenous nation, the Evenks, in one small area of their homeland, northern Chita (Fig. 11). After providing a brief history of industrial penetration into the area, I summarize the recent Russian Federation legislation which calls for the creation of TTPs. I then describe the manner in which this federal legislation is being implemented in northern Chita. The paper ends with a short discussion of the potential of TTPs for protecting traditional activities-and promoting indigenous rights-in the Russian North.

The analysis offered in this paper is informed by observations made by Evenk individuals from northern Chita, regarding the impact of industrial development on traditional activities, the utility of the recent federal legislation, and process of its implementation in northern Chita. These observations were recorded during 20 weeks of field research (April- August 1994) in the Chita Province and the neighbouring Buryat Republic.

5.2. INDIGENOUS TRADITIONAL ACTlVITlES AND THE FRONTIER IN

NORTHERN CHITA PROVINCE

Historian Frank Tucker (Tucker, 1980) offers a definition of frontiers as “thresholds, borderlines areas . . between things mastered and other things not yet mastered”, as “those areas in which men [sic.] are most dynamically in motion to master the environment”. From an indigenous perspective, most of Russia’s North would hardly fit this ethnocentric definition. The various northern nations have long “mastered” the reindeer pasture, hunting grounds, fishing sites and other lands, through intricate rotational usage schemes of both temporal and spatial character (Krupnik, 1993; Turov, 1990). For instance, toponymic studies evince a cultural landscape, barely perceptible to the Slavic eye, but rich with meaning to the indigenous peoples (Vasilevich, 1958).

The Evenks, one of Siberia’s First Nations, have “mastered” much of the area from base of the Taymyr Peninsula in the central Arctic Russian, southward into Mongolia and Manchuria, and from west of the Yenisey River to the Okhotsk Sea and Sakhalin Island. About 4% of the Evenks (1168 individuals) live in the Chita Province’s three northern regions (rayony) (Fig. 11). Until the mid-20th century most of the Chita Evenks pursued small-scale reindeer husbandry and fur and game hunting. Deer provided critical transport for a nomadic life, both as pack animals for household belongings and as riding animals. Hunters covered extensive areas mounted on deer, tracking fur animals.


/

. TOWllS

- Regional Boundaries

----- Rivers

100 km

Ust-Karen& ,

Vershino-Dal

source: Oboslwmie. 1993. P.194

FIG. 1 I. Territories of traditional nature use, Chita Province.


Non-hunting family members herded the other deer, moved camp, tended to domestic chores, and processed the harvested furs.

Sustained Russian penetration into present-day northern Chita Province began in the mid-17th century. with Russian governmental representatives exactingyusak, or fur tribute from the Evenks. Slowly an immigrant population grew. attracted by the valuable sable. However, until the 20th century the number of resident non-Evenks remained relatively small.

Gold-mining began in northern Chita in the late 1920s and stimulated rapid immigration into the area. By 1931 the population had reached 7210, 58% of which were miners. Evenks numbered 1739, or about 24% of the population. Over the next five years the population doubled. to 17,787. The Evenk population remained stagnant, at 1732 (Obos- novanie, 1993).

Mines development affected the traditional activities of the Evenks in numerous ways. Traffic along supply routes to the mines and activities at the gold-washing sites frightened away the wild animals, especially the larger ungulates, upon which the Evenks depended for meat. The miner’s use of fire, for clearing and for thawing auriferous deposits, caused frequent forest fires, which destroyed thousands of hectares of forest and lichen pasture- the habitat for domestic reindeer, fur bearers and game animals (Zisser, 1929).

Development of Chita’s northern gold deposits stimulated the demand for cargo transport. Reindeer caravans provided transport through the roadless taiga in the long season during which river navigation was impossible (Kosmachev, 1979). Reindeer numbers had sharply declined as a result of Evenk protests against forced collectivization. dropping from 13,300 reindeer in 1931 to 8200 in 1935. Yet the well-being of indigenous households directly correlated with the number of deer owned (Petri. 193 1). Appropriation of animals by the mining enterprises further impoverished and demoral- ized the herders.

If some federal policies of the 1920s and early 1930s preached protectionism for northern peoples and their traditional activities against too-rapid industrialization, others sought the need to incorporate indigenous cadres into the industrialization of the North, precisely because only their skills in coping with the severe northern environment could ensure the rapidity of industrialization that the State desired (Forsyth, 1992; Slez- kine, 1994). Industrialization’s needs eventually took precedence over those of the traditional activities, both where it competed with the traditional activities, and where it subsumed them.

The gold-mining population briefly burgeoned in northern Chita. With the expansion of richer lodes to the east, in the Aldan Basin, many miners moved on. In 1949, however, world-class copper deposits were discovered in the central Kalar Region. Reconnaissance for other mineral resources, and for a route for a second trans-Siberian rail route incorporated Evenk herders into the industrialization process as guides, and their reindeer as pack animals. By 1960 Evenk collective farms of Chita’s three northern regions received more than half their income from providing reindeer transport to geological, mining, and railroad reconnaissance parties (Nedeshev, 1968).


This “transport boom” did not last long. By the mid-1960s planners had identified a route for the new railroad (the Baykal-Amur Mainline, or BAM). At the same time, the introduction of helicopters, jeeps, and all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) drastically reduced the need for reindeer as pack animals. Geological expeditions kept apace, still numbering several dozen per year into the late 1970s but they no longer depended on Evenk traditional activities. Mechanization also helped push back the frontier to a new degree:

The BAM was very bad. It spoiled the region. It spoiled the pastures, Both the railroad itself and the ATVs. Helicopters, too. Deer were slaughtered from these vehicles (Evenk elder, Kyust- Kemda, 7 June 1994).

The decline of reindeer husbandry, of traditional activities, is related to the fall of nature. This started around 1974, with the introduction of technology-snowmobiles, ATVs. These allowed for easier penetration into the taiga, and thus the destruction of land as people came in and over-hunted the game animals (Evenk hunter and former herder, Tungokochen, 3 May 1994).

Degradation of the land, and the over-hunting of the taiga’s fur and game species by outsiders, increased in scale from the late 1970s onward. This further threatening the ability of the Evenks to carry on their traditional activities.

With the end of the transport boom, Evenk herders lost a major source of income. Noting this, planners suggested that reindeer herding, and to a lesser extent hunting, now be articulated with the industrial economy in a different way-as a source for meat for the burgeoning population (Borozdin and Makushev, 1978). The construction phase of the BAM was projected to attract over 14,000 workers to northern Chita. Beef production cost four to five times more than reindeer venison production (Karelov, 1979). Reindeer herders were to become reindeer ranchers, in a move that would purportedly help themselves, while continuing to aid the industrialization process.

After reaching a high of 15,500 reindeer in 1970, herds declined under pressures of “rationalization”, poaching, and general mismanagement. By 1993 they had fallen to 7400 animals, lower than the post-collectivization (1940) level of 8400. Hunting has also experienced overall declines, in both numbers and types of animal harvested (Obosno- vanie, 1993). Explanations for the demise of the traditional fields include a whole complex of factors-compulsory education at boarding schools and thus lack of appropriate training in the traditional fields; difficulty in recruiting herders and hunters from the (ill- trained) indigenous youth; state confiscation of private, then collectivized property, including deer; sedentarization and “villagization” of the indigenous population, into larger centres chosen for their agricultural potential rather than their potential to favour traditional activities; and poor provisioning by state organs of those remaining in traditional activities. If these factors negatively affected Evenk herding and hunting, scholars identify as most important the effect of state-sponsored industrialization on the traditional activities (Zadorozhnyy, 1992). In trying to mould these activities to the changing needs of first the reconnaissance, then the construction, and then the operation of industrial nodes and transport infrastructure, the state required fundamental changes in the conduct of the Evenk traditional activities. As it finally attempted the introduction of

312. Progress in Planning

reindeer ranching for meat production, we can question whether the state was even supporting a traditional activity-the Evenks assiduously avoided culling domestic animals for meat, except in times of need.

Spatially, industrialization in northern Chita shifted the frontier’s fulcrum, with the balance of land “mastered” by industrial processes and related activities ever increasing. While substantial areas remained little affected by direct industrial activities, Evenk herders and hunters suffered (largely illegal) competition from an ever increasing number of immigrant hunters who held few of the ethical and ecological principles toward nature use that characterized Evenk relations toward their homeland.

By the early 1990s. the development path followed over the course of the last half- century came under severe criticism. Recent publications stress the need for “sustainable development”, in northern Chita, based on traditional activities and recreation rather than the development of non-renewable resources (Zadorozhnyy, 1992). At the same time, interest in gold-mining has revived, and gold-mining guilds, some with foreign investment backing, are invading the taiga anew.

The process described above for the Chita North-of industrial activities eroding the land base of traditional activities, and of forced articulation and “rationalization” of traditional activities for the benefit of industrialization processes-has occurred throughout the Russian North, with varying degrees of intensity. Legislators at the federal level have recognized, perhaps for a variety of reasons, the need to address this situation, and have begun to do so.

5.3. LEGISLATING THE FRONTIER: FEDERAL PROTECTION FOR

TRADlTlONAL ACTIVITIES

Protecting traditional activities, and the lands on which they depend showed up on the agenda of Russian legislators in 1989. Since then a number of acts have called for the designation of “territories of traditional nature use” on which traditional activities of indigenous northerners may be pursued (Fondahl, 1995). Such territories were to be selected from land which had not yet been influenced by industrial development.

Most important of the recent legislative acts is Presidential Ukase, No. 397, “On urgent measures for defense of places of habitation and economic activities of the numerically small peoples of the North” of April 1992 (0 neotlozhnykh, 1992). This ukase reinforced the stipulations of preceding laws and decrees in requiring that state organs of power delineate areas in which indigenous peoples practice traditional forms of economic activities, and confirm these as “inalienable property of the [Peoples of the North], which without their agreement cannot be subject to alienation for industrial or other development which is not tied to traditional economic activities”.

Ukase No. 397 further orders that the regional associations of the northern peoples be involved in defining the TTPs. The associations consist overwhelmingly (though not exclusively) of indigenous individuals. Thus, this ukase, if implemented, ensures


indigenous input into the process of land allocation which previous legislation had not guaranteed.

A draft law on the “Legal status of Numerically Small Peoples”(Foundations, n.d.) also has as a cornerstone the creation of TTPs as specially organized places of residence and economic activity (reindeer pastures, fishing and hunting areas), not subjected to withdrawal and industrial development, created to ensure the development of traditional forms of economy in places of residence and economic activity of indigenous peoples of the North, especially not numerous ones (Article 8.2).

This proposed law has gone through a number of drafts over the last four years, but the state parliament has yet to adopt it.

The legislation, passed and pending, seemingly offer an opportunity to indigenous peoples to “freeze” the industrial frontier where that is their desire, and to shape its spatial development along lines that fit their own aspirations. However, several problems confront the legislation. Firstly, “traditional nature use” itself is poorly defined legally (Obosno- vanie, 1993). Legislative acts and Russian academic literature seem to agree on a litany of activities which include hunting, trapping, reindeer herding, fishing and gathering. Yet several issues surrounding these activities are left unspecified, including: (1) who can be a “traditional nature user” (is this limited to indigenous persons?); (2) what technologies are allowed under the aegis of “traditional nature use”?; and (3) does “traditional nature use” include commercial development or only subsistence use? These are issues which have plagued land claims processes in other circumpolar states.

Another fundamental problem persists in that state control over the definition of what constitutes a traditional activity contradicts principles of First Nations self-determination. Attempts to incorporate indigenous input into the realization of TTPs, and even into the process of defining what these territories should be,’ still falls short of their incorporation into the process of defining what traditional activities themselves should comprise.

Yet more problematic than the ill-defined nature of “traditional nature use”, and intrinsic difftculties with who does the defining, are the imprecise stipulations on land alienation. Protected status of the TTPs is not unqualified. Ukase No. 397 permits alienation of land within TTPs for uses not connected with traditional activities ifindigenous peoples consent to this. Thus, by setting up TTPs, the industrial frontier is not crystal- lized, only congealed.

Allowing indigenous peoples to choose to develop these lands industrially accords with international policies of self-determination. However, Russian Federation legislation fails to specify concretely what constitutes indigenous “agreement” to alienation, and who precisely should participate in such a. choice. That is, who should vote in a referendum on alienation of TTP lands? Presidential Ukase No. 397 suggests that indigenous people living within a TTP or within a region which contains a TTP would vote in a referendum for alienation of TTP lands. Article 8.2 of the Draft Law on the “Legal Status of Numeri- cally Small Peoples of the North” (Foundations, nd.) holds that the land within the territories is not alienable at all, while the text of Article 8.1 and 8.4, taken together, stipulates that indigenous participation is required in any decision to alienate land, but does not


dictate the relative power of the indigenous voice vis-d-vis the non-indigenous in such a decision. As described below, the local interpretation of the legislation can deviate from what appears to be the intention of the presidential ukase, the draft law, and federal decrees.

5.4. FREEZING THE FRONTIER: CHITA’S TERRITORIES OF TRADITIONAL

NATURE USE

Few areas in the Russian North have acted on the presidential ukase to set up TTPs. Chita Province is one which has. In order to implement the federal legislation, the provincial government contracted a group of scholars to draw up a preliminary plans for protected territories. Members of this Working Group then travelled to the regional (ruy-

onnye) capitals (Verkh Usugli, Tupik and Chara; see Fig. 11) to present proposals and solicit input from the local, and especially the Evenk, population. In at least one case a meeting was also held in a outlying village (Tungokochen). After approximately a year’s work, the Group presented its final recommendations in a report, “The Basis for a Terri- tory of Traditional Nature Use of the Evenks of the Chita Province” (Obosnovanie, 1993). This report proposed that significant areas of the three northern regions be set aside for TTPs (Fig. 11).

When in 1992 the Working Group set about its task, Presidential Ukase No. 397 had sum- moned a set of laws, including the Law on the Legal Status of Numerically Small Peoples of the North, which would more precisely guide the establishment of rights for the indigenous population and for the establishment of protected territories. Such legislation was still in draft form, and its passage not imminent. (This was the excuse that many provinces used to not implement the presidential ukase.) The Working Group chose to work toward implementation of the existing decrees and ukases by taking into consideration the drafts of laws being circulated, by guessing at future developments-and by using inconsistencies in the federal legislation to the provincial purpose. To govern the TTPs until such federal legislation was adopted the Chita government passed a set of temporary rules for use of the land and other natural resources on these territories (Ob utverzhdenii, 1994).

Chita Province clearly espoused the position that the goal of a TTPs should be not to protect indigenous rights to land, but rather to protect traditional activities of the indigenous (Evenk) population. This approach, the Working Group argued, would serve to minimize ethnic conflict. It viewed the use of nationality criteria for establishing TTPs use as “very problematic”, for both demographic and cultural reasons (Obosnovanie, 1993). Less than 4”/) of the population of Chita’s three northern regions is Evenk; in all but five settlements Evenks constitute a minority. If the federal legislation was directed toward preserving and developing traditional fields as an important prerequisite for cultural survival, the use of nationality criteria for establishing land bases for such activities could possibly undermine this goal in areas like northern Chita. While for some Evenks, traditional activities remain the major means of securing a living, for others hunting, herding or fishing provides only an


auxiliary source of livelihood. Some Evenks do not participate in traditional activities. In northern Chita more non-Evenks participate in the traditional activities (mainly hunting) than do Evenks. Many such Siberians, whose roots go back generations, resent the idea of any limitations on their rights to practice traditional activities in connection with improved rights for indigenous peoples. Although it was not clear what these limitations might be, and how the borders of the TTPs might have differed, if “ethnic” criteria were used, the Work- ing Group dismissed such criteria as faulty and dangerous. By setting up TTPs for all inhabitants involved in traditional activities in the Chita North, the provincial government claimed that it avoided discrimination based on either nationality or length of residence (Obosno- vanie, 1993).

The areas delineated as TTPs comprise 26.6% of northern Chita. As Fig. 11 indicates, the territory dedicated in each region borders neighbouring TTPs, forming a continuous zone of protected land (with an additional exclave in the Kalar Region). Three criteria prevailed in delineating the lands: presence of reindeer habitat, relative absence of mineral deposits, and contiguity. By choosing adjoining areas, the Working Group sought to maximize environmental protection effects of the TTl? A tentacle of TTP wrapped around the eastern extreme of the Tungiro-Olekma Region, providing a buffer zone against industrial development in the neighbouring Amur Province. The Working Group repeat- edly underscored the role of the TTPs as not only a zone protecting the future of traditional activities but as an important component in Chita’s system of nature protection.

Some areas were specifically excluded from the TTPs, including the flood zone of a potential hydroelectric station on the Vitim River, and a proposed national park site in the Kalar Region. Strong lobbying by the neighbouring region (Chernyshevskiy) to the south influenced the decision to not extend Tungokochen’s TTP to its southern border. Officials in Chernyshevksiy Region suggest that this border area may be gold-rich, and feared that a TTP in Tungokochen might limit their ability to develop gold-mining. These and many other areas of critical importance to both herding and hunting remain outside the protected zones.

Chita’s interpretation of the legislation, and its process of implementation, evoked heated debate in the villages of Northern Chita on several counts. Some Evenks denounced the limited chance for participation in the planning process. The Working Group held public meetings only in the larger villages, thus marginalizing input from Evenk (and other local inhabitants) living in outlying villages. High transportation costs made any expectation of travel to the centres. to participate, unreasonable. At the same time a limited budget (and short time frame) constrained the Working Group from visiting all settlements. Yet 66% of the Evenks of northern Chita live in villages which were not visited by the Working Group; 42% live in remote villages, not connected by road or rail to villages in which meetings were held. For a significant number of Evenks, attending a meeting would have been difficult, if not impossible.

Nor did the process which the Working Group employed to choose the lands for the TTPs allow much inter-regional communication. Members of various regional teams


(Kalar, Tungiro-Olekma, Tungokochen) which worked with the Working Group met but once together, in January of 1994, to hear the final decisions of the group. The chairperson of the province-level Association of the Numerically Small Peoples, Maria Fedorovna Grigoreva, boycotted this meeting in protest of a process which provided too little chance for genuine input from the people it was supposed to benefit.

Evenk individuals have also complained about the value of the territory allocated (Author’s fieldnotes, April-May 1994). They note that much is alpine tundra, some not even terribly good reindeer pasture. The TTPs of northern Chita include little hunting ground of decent quality. Several individuals imputed that the selectors chose lands precisely because they were not worth much to non-Evenks. The fact that such a perception exists, whether valid or not, undermines the credibility of both process and results. A few individuals also complained about the failure to include cultural and spiritual sites of major importance in the TTPs: decisions for inclusion of land seemed to focus exclusively on the economic dimension of traditional activities as defined (economically) by the state.

Major concerns surround the issue of land alienation within the TTPs. As noted above, the presidential ukase stipulates that by referendum an area within a TTP can be opened for development. In compliance with this clause, the Working Group’s report suggested that in cases where mineral deposits are found within the TTPs, “their fate should be decided by the ethnos itself” (Obosnovanie, 1993). Throughout the report, the term “ethnos” applies only to the Evenks; thus the report seems to promote a decision on alienation by the Evenk population. If this contradicts much of its thrust at not providing special rights for the Evenks, but for those practicing traditional activities, it adheres to the tenets of Presidential Ukase No. 397.

Chita Province’s Temporary Rules governing the TTPs are internally contradictory on the issue of alienation. Article 2.1 notes that “land of the TTP is the inalienable property of the whole population living on this territory . . . “, implying that Evenk and non- Evenk living within a TTP should control decisions about the TTP, while Article 2.3 holds that “land in the TTP can be alienated for industrial or other development not connected with economic activities of the indigenous population, only with its agreement, by means of a referendum carried out in the region . . . “, suggesting enfranchisement of indigenous persons living within the region. Regional (rayonnye) and provincial officials offer yet another interpretation. They hold that procedure for alienation will involve a referendum of the total voting-age population (indigenous and non-indigenous) of the region (interviews with V I. Shkarovskiy, chairperson of the Chita Provincial Committee oh Land Resources and Land Planning, 2 1 April 1994; V. Ye. Renn, Chairperson of the Com- mittee on Land Reform, Tungokochen Region, 25 April 1994; A. Shchetkin, head of the Tungiro-Olekma Regional Administration, 12 May 1994).

This last interpretation provides precarious protection for the TTPs. In the Kalar Region, the vast majority of inhabitants are relative newcomers, workers on the BAM, Bamo vtsy. In the Tungokochen Region the bulk of the population (78%) lives in southern mining villages, which were only addended to the region in 1977. To what extent will


these residents value traditional activities, and support their protection over new economic opportunities? While the “wildness” of Siberia, the “pristine”environment and recreational opportunities attracted some, the relatively high salaries for mining and industrial construction provided the main impetus for these immigrants. Evenks and other long- time inhabitants feel that a referendum of the whole region’s population likely would represent neither the interests of the Evenk population nor the population involved in traditional activities (Author’s fieldnotes, April-June 1994).

5.5. DISCUSSION

Can TTPs promote traditional activities? Can they provide a territorial base on which to promote indigenous self-governance? The recent federal legislation embodies both these goals. The Russian Constitution (Article 69) implicitly invokes the principles of international conventions which stipulate both the right to continue “traditional” activities and the right to self-governance over historic homelands (Konstitutsiya, 1993).

To date, however, the legislation on TTPs includes governmental decrees and a presidential ukase-but no law. The lack of law has permitted local (i.e. provincial and republican) officials to respond to the decrees and ukase in various ways. Many provinces have done nothing, choosing to wait for a law’s passage. Critics of this approach note that in some areas of the Russian North industrial encroachment proceeds at a rate which will all but eliminate any chance of setting up TTPs in the not-too-distant future. It is perhaps this very prospect which some provincial governments find attractive--by postponing the creation of TTPs they postpone the possible freezing of lucrative industrial frontiers. By delaying long enough, significant territory not influenced by industrial development will be hard to identify, and will comprise only the most marginal of lands, in all senses.

Key ofticials in Chita Province felt that the slow pace of legal reform in Moscow could indeed compromise the chance of establishing TTPs in its northern regions. Unlike their counterparts in some provinces, they supported the general concept of TTPs. This is evident in choice of a Working Group, composed of some of the province’s leading proponents of a shift to “sustainable development”. Thus provincial officials chose the other response-to act. They chose to manipulate the still incomplete and internally contradictory legislation to their purpose, through creative interpretation. The interpretation favours protection of traditional activities, but not protection of indigenous rights. Such an approach has both merits and failings.

Ensuring a substantial land base for traditional activities may in some cases provide a significant step toward facilitating the persistence of indigenous land-based cultures in the Russian North. Yet extant legislation makes it all too easy for officials to ignore cultural needs. Legislation does not address the need to protect, and incorporate into the TTPs sites beyond those critical for the economic imperatives of the traditional activities. Hunt- ing, herding, and other traditional activities throughout the Russian North have held


cultural significance far beyond that of simple economic support of the indigenous peoples. A limited understanding of the cultural complexity of traditional activities may in the end continue to undermine cultural persistence, as the totality of a land base critical to the continuation of an ethnos is ignored.

Politically astute, the approach of focusing on traditional activities rather than indigenous rights acknowledges the reality of an environment of growing nationalisms and national antagonisms in Russia. Some Evenk individuals themselves applaud this approach of not differentiating along “ethnic” lines, but along “professional” ones (Author’s field notes, April-June 1994). In the rocky transition to market relations which Russia is experiencing, they accede that the primacy given indigenous peoples’ needs will unlikely be great. A shift in the rhetoric surrounding the creation of TTPs, from one of indigenous rights to one of sustainable development, may make the concept of TTPs more palatable in today’s Russia. Yet in providing for sustainable economic development, TTPs, if properly delineated, also can provide for sustainable cultural development. Evenk individuals stressed this point, that “sustainable development” must be construed as culturally, as well as economically and ecologically sustainable, and thus, that lands for traditional activities need to include sites and areas of cultural as well as economic importance.

Yet sidestepping the issue of aboriginal rights is but a short term solution. In an increasingly legalized Russian society, this issue sooner or later must be confronted. Some analysts propose that TTPs can serve both industrialists and First Nations, as one linchpin in a land claims settlement procedure which will inevitably occur in the Russian North in the future. Following the pattern of land claims settlements in other Circumpolar states, First Nations of the Russian North would extinguish “nominal and very undefined rights” to much of their historical homelands in return for concrete rights, guaranteed by the government, to self-governance over smaller territories (Pika and Prokhorov, 1994). Industries might even facilitate the establishment of such TTPs in order to progress their own interests outside of the TTP boundaries. In this way, the creation of TTPs continues, if in a new way, the model of co-optation of traditional activities for industrial purpose-perhaps in a way at last beneficial to both parties.

If in fact the TTPs are to be to loci of indigenous self-governance, can a definitional focus on traditional activities, even with a broadened understanding of these activities to encompass non-economic facets, suffice? The form of TTP created in the Chita North potentially freezes the industrial frontier. But it is not the indigenous population which is empowered over its continued congealment or thawing,

Acknowledgements-Research for this paper, including fieldwork, was supported by grants from the National Council for Soviet and Eastern European Research (NCSEER), the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), and the US. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) with funds provided by the National Endow- ment for the Humanities. the United States Information Agency, and the US Department of State (Soviet- Eastern European Research and Training Act of 1983, Public Law 98-164, Title VIII, 97 Stat.1047-50). The Baykal Institute of Rational Resource Management (Ulan-Ude), and especially Senior Researcher Darima Dorzhievna Mangdtaeva, provided logistical and academic support. None of these organizations is responsible for the contents or views expressed.


5.6. REFERENCES

Borozdin. E. K. and Makushev, Y. Y. (1978) Reserves for increasing the productivity of reindeer husbandry. Nauchno-tekhnicheskiy byulleten NIfSKh KS SO VASKhNIL 16, 2427 (In Russian).

Fondahl. G. (1995) First Nations rights to land and resources: an evaluation of Russian approaches and their implementation in Southeastern Siberia. Paper prepared for the Russian Federation Ministry of National- ity Affairs and Regional Politics International Working Seminar on the Peoples of the North, Moscow, May 1995 (available from author).

Forsyth, J. (1992) A History of the Peop1e.r of Siberia. Russia’s North Asian Colony 158II1990. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.

Foundations (nd.) Law of the Russian Federation, “Foundations of the legal status of indigenous populations of the Russian North”, draft law, English translation, typescript.

Karelov. A.M. (1979) The Traditional Northern Comp1e.x of Activities of BAM. Eastern Siberian Book Press. Irkutsk (In Russian).

Konstitutsiyd (1993) The Constitution of the Russian Federation, Adopted by a General Vote, 12 December 1993. Juridical Literature, Moscow (In Russian).

Kosmachev, K. P (1979) Historic-geographic evaluation of agricultural-industrial development of the montane- taiga territory of the BAM zone. In Geografieheskie Problemy Zany BAM. pp. 3-17. Nauka, Novosi- birsk (In Russian).

Krupnik. I. (I 993) Arctic Adaptations. Natrve Whalers and Reindeer Herders of Northern Eurasia. University Press of New England, Hanover, NH.

Materialy (I 990) Materials of the Congress of the Numerically Small Peoples of the North. Moscow (In Rus- sian).

Nedeshev. A. A. (1968) Eastern Transbaykalia (Prospectsfor the Development of Productive Forces of the Chita Province). Eastern Siberian Book Press, Irkutsk (In Russian).

0 neotlozhnykh (I 992) On Urgent Measure to Defend the LiJe and Economic Activities of the Numerically Small Peoples of the Russian North. Ukase Iof the President of the Russian Federation No. 397, 22 April 1992 (In Russian).

Ob utverzhdenii (1994) On confirming the Te,mporary Rulesfor Use of the Landand Other Natural Resources on TTPs of the North of the Chita Province. Decree of the Head of the Administration of the Chita Oblast No. 33,25 January 1994 (In Russian)

Obosnovdnie (1993) The basis for territories of traditional nature use of the Evenki of Chita Oblast Irkutsk- Chita. Unpublished report of the Institute of Geography, Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Chita Province Committee on Land Resources and Land Use Planning (In Russian).

Osnovnye ( 1990) Basic Indices of the Development of the Economy and Culture of the Numerically Small Peoples of the North. Goskomstat RSFSR, Moscow (In Russian).

Petri. B. E. (I 93 I) Statistical-Economic Reportfor the Tungiro-Olekma Region of the Vitimo-Olekminsk National District (According to Data from the E.ypedition of the State Land Trust. Tsentralnyy Gosudarstvenny Arkhiv Oktyabrskoy Revolyutsii (TsGAOR), f. 3977. op. I. d. 413 (In Russian).

Pika, A. I. and Prokhorov, B. B. (1994) Neotraditionalism in the Russian North. Moscow (In Russian). Slezkine. Y. (I 994) Arctic Mirrors, Russia and the Peoples of the North. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY. Tucker. F. (1980) The Frontier Spirit and Progress. Nelson-Hall, Chicago, IL. Turov. M. G. (1990) The Economy of the Evenks of the Tayga Zone of Central Siberia at End of the 19thl

Beginning of the20th Centuries. Irkutsk University Press, Irkutsk (In Russian). Vasilevich, G. M. (1958) Toponomy of Eastern Siberia. Izvestiya Vsesoyunogo Geograficheskogo Obshestva 90(4)

(In Russian). Zadorozhnyy. V. E (Ed.) (1992) Ukokan. Preparation of the Territory for Development (Ecologic-Geographic

Aspects). Zabaykal Branch of the Geographic Society of Russia, Chita (In Russian). Zisser, V. (I 929) On the reasons for the arisal of forest fires. Okhotnik i rybak Sibiri 4, 17-l 8 (In Russian).

NOTES I, For instance, the various drafts of the Law on the Legal Status of Numerically Small Peoples of the North

have been sent out to the regions, for comment by, inter alia, First Nations individuals. The Associations of Numerically Small Peoples often organize meetings to discuss and comment on such drafts.

CHAPTER 6

Irreconcilable Planning: the Transformation of Life-Place into Economic Space in Iraqi and Turkish Kurdistan

Yosef Gotlieb

6.1. INTRODUCTION

The inter-relationship among the components of development-economic advancement, political suffrage, social welfare, cultural rights and environmental stability-are much stronger than previously believed (Amin, 1990; Friedmann, 1992; Johnston, 1989; Max-Neef, 1991). Social institutions and identities imposed by the governing regimes of new states have not succeeded in forging “nations” out of the post-colonial societies they encapsulate. Consequently, “development” has been distorted and unsustainable in these states (Gotlieb, 1995; Hirschmann, 1981: 280; Seers, 1983: 57-58). New patterns of oppression emerge and lead to the disinheritance of peoples who are collectively referred to as the “fourth world,” or “submerged nationalities” and whose existence has become cbscured under the contemporary state system.

The Kurdish case is representative of peoples whose physical setting, mode of production social institutions and cultural identity have been eclipsed by new states, particularly post-colonial states. As elaborated below the Kurds have a continuous history of group solidarity and relative autonomy (Izady, 1992). The persistence of Kurdish nationalism as well as the severity of repression and exploitation endured by the Kurds provide insight concerning other peoples who share their plight.

The dilemma of Kurdistan can be fully appreciated only when the region is seen as an integral whole, territorially, socioeconomically and politically. Accordingly, reference to Iranian and Syrian Kurdistan is included here for purposes of contextualization since the emphasis of this paper is on Iraqi and Turkish Kurdistan. Additionally, the reader will note that much of the hard data employed is sketchy and outdated. This is unavoidable and represents the status of groups like the Kurds: dismissed as “brigands,” “counter- revolutionaries,” or “primitives”, these groups are reduced to political abstractions by the state centres that control them. Exemplifying this approach is the statement made by

321


Turkey’s Prime Minister Tansu Ciller in December 1993 that there is “no Kurdish question, only a question of terror” (Nerv Statesman and Society, 1992). The Kurds have been made into pariahs to the extent that statements of Kurdish identity was a criminal offense until recently (Howe, 1981; McDowall, 1992). Unrecognized by international state bodies and hidden from view by government statistics in closed military zones the perils faced by peoples like the Kurds is usually much worse than that described by older data.

6.2. IRRECONCILABLE PLANNING

The thesis advanced in this paper is that the violence found in Kurdistan is the outcome of two divergent views of the region. On the one hand governments seek to rationalize and maximize the potential of Kurdish areas as a resource frontier rich in soils, water and minerals (particularly fossil fuels). The official view of Kurdistan is based on its uses as economic space in the service of the state as a whole. For the Kurds, however, Kurdistan is life-place (Gotlieb, 1992) and represents the integrity of the society-nature relations prevalent in the region since time immemorial. Where the state centres see modernization and aggregate economic growth as the primary objective of their policies in all areas under their jurisdic- tion, the Kurds see economic exploitation and cultural imperialism (Adamson, 1965: 13).

Insofar as planners and development policy-makers formulate programs geared toward the post-colonial state, they engage in “irreconcilable planning” by attempting to square two contrary realities: that of the state imposed from the centre, and the realities “on the ground” where peoples resist centralization and struggle to preserve their collectivity and continuity. To the extent that society and environment are mutually formative and co-dependent, attempts at “nation-building” through “cultural engineering” and “modernization” serve to abstract people from place. This estrangement unavoidably leads to conflicts over resources and territorial authority.

The internal conflicts of post-colonial societies neglect factors that are as much a “given” of the region as its resource endowment. Attempts to separate planning from political economy is ultimately unrealistic and counter productive (Friedmann, 1992). When ethnic or regional conflict becomes particularly challenging and/or involves strategically or economically critical space (as in Kurdistan) the state centre responds by using all means at its disposal to bring the disaffected group under heel. When military might is unsuccessful other means aimed at subordinating the disaffected group are employed. In the Kurdish case “de-Kurdification” is applied (Malek, 1989) entailing cultural “engineering,” economic exploitation and massive changes in land use and settlement patterns. These transformations are effected by political repression and armed force.

6.3. THE EVOLUTION OF THE POST-COLONIAL STATE

Since most nation-states today have very brief histories of “nationhood” (Seers, 1983; Wallerstein, 1982) many indigenous groups identify with a common, place-based past


more than with the new state and its centre-which very often is as remote socially and culturally as it is geographically (Amin, 1990; Hughes, 198 1; Verhelst, 1990). Eclipsed groups have been “captured” in a web of exploitative relationships representing what Jafar (1976) refers to in the Kurdish case as “under-underdevelopment”. Local resources are appropriated by the national centre and transferred abroad and in this way the added value of the resource is exported to privileged points at home and abroad and leaves the local resource base depleted while widening the socioeconomic gap between Kurds and non-Kurds.

Stated differently, national authorities and planners view territories under their jurisdic- tion in utilitarian terms: they are concerned with maximizing the economic exploitation of the region for the advancement of the state. The view of the region is one of economic space characterized by some comparative advantage that can be leveraged for the economic growth of the post-colonial society. This functional-utilitarian view of territory would eliminate all frictions that impede maximization and integration of economic potential. Frictions include environmental impediments such as mountains, marshes or other topographical features, inadequate transportation and communication systems or the unavailability of labour. Anthropological factors such as language, culture, creed, and levels of education and technology also constitute frictions that impeded the expansion of economic space. Whatever stands in the way of efficiency in resource extraction from a region is to be eliminated.

6.4. KURDISTAN AND THE MIDDLE EAST AS RESOURCE MINE

A combination of economic and strategic factors have made Kurdistan the object of much bloodshed between the regimes under whose governance the 520,000 km” of Kurdistan falls, on the one hand, a.nd by the more than 25 million indigenous Kurds. on the other. The Kurds have been “problematic” for all four states (Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey) since their inception as modern states (Gunter, 1988). The Kurds have proven formidable, albeit outgunned, fighters (known aspeshmergu) in their resistance to the centralizing regimes of these states. Accordingly, extensive resources including large deployments of troops and weapons of mass destruction have been invested by the governing elites as much for d’efensive purposes as offensive ones since Kurdish insurrection is feared more than the well-equipped, well-trained military forces of surrounding states. Cooperation in containing the Kurds has been shown even among hostile regimes (Bengio, 1989).

The ferocity of fighting between peshmergu and government troops in Kurdistan is partially explained by the fear of destabilization the former posed to the cadres governing them. Another reason is the fear that insurrection would spread to other ethnona- tional minorities in these highly heterogenous societies. To fully understand de-Kurdification, however, requires an appreciation of the political economy of the Mid- dle East and especially the role of oil in shaping the division of the region into states and the ascent to power by indigenous elites (Gotlieb, 198 1, 1982). As one analyst put it:


The Middle East without oil would be a very different region. In addition to changing the face of large parts of the area. oil has helped shape the policies and alignments of the countries of the Middle East-not only with each other but also with the world’s great powers. These outside powers. in their turn, have found their oil interests and their oil ambitions in the Middle East spilling over into their more general relationships with each other, thus helping a process which has made the region a center of international tension over long periods of time (Odell, 1983).

With the decolonization of the Middle East, the departing imperia1 governments safeguarded their interests by installing reliable custodians of newly-created states. Control over extractive industry, for example, was ceded to European and American multinational corporations (MNCs) backed by their home governments. The post-colonial policy enacted by the former European imperia1 powers was such that “native control” over resources of newly-hewned states were transferred to indigenous elites (Stork, 1982). A convergence of interests between elites such as the al-Saudis and the al-Khalifa families and the “major” MNCs engaged in the extraction of fossil fuels and other minerals. When, as in the 1973 “oil crisis” the “national” interests of these post-colonial states required a reconfiguration of the relationship between MNCs and the indigenous elites, a new division of revenues left the western companies with a reduced but nonetheless still considerable piece of the pie.

Bolstered by oil wealth the power exercised by royal and political elites in the Middle East has increased steadily despite the absence of a mandate from the citizens they purportedly represent (Beblawi, 1987: 53; Najmabadi. 1987). The eclipse and repression against obscured groups such as the Berbers (Hermassi. 1987), African Sudanese (Drysdale and Blake, 1985: 15, 215) as well as the Kurds is an integral part of this process (Gotlieb, 1982; Nisan, 1991).

6.5. KURDISTAN AS AN ECO-REGION

Ascertaining the number of people spoken of when using the term “Kurds” is a difficult endeavour (see Fig. 12) (McDowall, 1989: 7). Estimates vary although most special- ists put their population at approximately 2.5 million. The percentage of Kurds among the total populations of the post-colonial states they inhabit range from an estimated 1627% of Turkey’s citizens, l5-30% of the Iraqi citizenry, 10-l 6% in Iran, and between 6-8X in Syria (Eickelman, 1981; Malek, 1989; McDowall, 1989; Sim, 1980, respectively). These same researchers estimate the percentage distribution of Kurds by post-colonial state as: Turkey with 40-56% of the total Kurdish population. Iraq with 13-20’s, Iran with 22-32X, and 3--4X in Syria.

Taken as a whole, the Kurdish non-state nation ranks as one of the Middle East’s most numerically imposing groups constituting the fourth largest ethnic group in the region (Naamani, 1968). The political implication is quite clear: “Even at minimum estimates, there are enough Kurds to form a “state” that would certainly be larger than others now existing in the Middle East . . .” (Fisher, 1978: 195), a conclusion shared by D. Kinnane (1964: 2-3) and M. H. Malek (1989). Although they are often called a “minority” group


-km

FIG. 12. Post-colonial state borders and the division of Kurdistan: schematic presentation.

within Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran, the Kurds are an overwhelming majority in that mountainous expanse of land in northwestern Asia that had, until recently, been known throughout history as Kurdistan. The rugged terrain of Kurdistan and the life it imposes on the people for whom it is a habitat constitute pillars of the Kurds’ individual and collective sense of self (Eagleton, 1963: 1; Entessar, 1989: 87).

With the introduction of new states into the post-colonial Middle East, Kurdistan was politically segmented and apportioned to Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. These new power centres viewed Kurdish insurrection as the foremost threat to their stability, strategically and economically. The geopolitical dismemberment of Kurdistan and the application of martial law throughout its parts is viewed as imperative by the elites who govern these states.

6.6. ECONOMIC PERIPHERALIZATION IN THE POST-IMPERIAL STATES

Kurdish life today remains rural, although about 20-30X of the population inhabiting Kurdistan reside in towns and cities (Kendal, 1980a; Ghassemlou, 1980; Nazdar, 1980). The rural nature of Kurdish life is one of their most identifying economic characteristics. Kurdish labour has become a “reserve army” in what has become economically polycen- tric societies where Kurds occupy the bottom rung of wage-earners. They replace non- Kurdish rural labour drawn to industrial areas or exported to Europe as “guest workers.”

The dogged attempts by Ankara to rid Turkey of the “Kurdish problem” reflect metropole-colony relations where the colony serves the metropole as a reservoir of raw materials and as a protected market for its products (Kendal, 1980b). Van Bruinessen (1984) notes that Kurdish activists in Turkey have “adopted the thesis that Kurdistan is a


colony of the Turkish ruling classes” although many of the Kurdish organizations have also “claimed to see the struggle against class oppression in Kurdistan as equally important [believing] that the chief exploiters-landlords and tribal or religious leaders-parties, with the central state” (ibid).

Concretely, peripheralization is manifested by relates that “great disparities” (Pitman. 1988: 167) exist among Turkey’s main agricultural regions, including the Mediterranean coast with its large export-oriented commercial farms; the central plateau, with its traditional grain farmers; and eastern Anatolia, consisting mostly of Kurdistan where subsistence farming and herding predominate (Seddon, 1989). The agricultural inputs for industry are concentrated in western Turkey, not in Kurdistan where the crops grown are consumed locally. Also. value added on agricultural products grown in Kurdistan is compounded as these products are moved westwardly from the Kurdish periphery. For example, a kilogram of apricots picked for cents on the dollar by peasants in Turkish Kurdistan is then sold at a profit by middlemen to curing houses in the non-Kurdish hin- terlands. There the fruit is dried and refined and sold for profit to exporters in the major centres. The price of the same kilogram of apricots picked by Kurds in southeastern Ana- tolia inflates multifold by the time it reaches retail markets in Amsterdam or Frankfurt. While all sectors of the Turkish economy would appear to benefit from such transactions, the gap between Kurds and non-Kurds, town and country are broadened. Linkages in this chain are unidirectionally forward only; cheap inputs serve as levers for economic growth in the state economy without reinvestment or the strengthening of backward linkages in marginal areas.

The lack of backward linkages and the resulting expansion of socioeconomic gaps are reinforced by the spatial distribution of Turkey’s natural resources: petroleum deposits and most of the country’s chrome. copper, uranium, magnesium and iron ore are found in Turkish Kurdistan.

The economic peripheralization of Turkish Kurdistan is multi-dimensional: (1) the value added of agricultural and other primary resources exported from Kurdistan to prive- leged centres abroad and at home in Turkey; (2) the depletion of these land-based stock resources effectively reduces the resource base of Kurdistan and, accordingly, reduces potential revenues for the indigenous population and in the future is lost, and; (3) the migration of labour resources from Turkish Kurdistan who are “pulled” to European centres and “pushed” by Kurdistan’s under-underdevelopment (Jafar, 1976) are mechanisms for the regional “leakage” of resources from Kurdish areas.

6.7. ECOLOGICAL AND ECONOMIC ENGINEERING

Turkey’s strategy for development involves emulation of the European trajectory of modernization (Pitman, 1988: 204-205). This program has not been applied in Kurdistan where there is virtually no industrial production. Rather, Kurdistan is destined for “development” through managed agricultural production as part of a massive enterprise


known as the Southeast Anatolia Project (GAP, its Turkish acronym). The project has several objectives such as expanding Turkey’s hydroelectric capacity (by about 45%) and increasing the amount of land under irrigation by approximated 25% (Pitman, 1988: 214). Three massive dams and other earthworks literally redirect the course of rivers and fundamentally changes the geomorphology of the region. Additionally, the GAP will reconfigure the landform and ecosystems of Turkish Kurdistan. The area involved is 9.5% of Turkey’s total land mass where approximately 5.3 million people or 9.2% of Turkey’s total population resides (General Directorate of Press and Information of the Turkish Republic, 1992). Eight provinces are involved, including frontier areas with Iraq and Syria.

The “development” program accompanying the infrastructural projects is an ambi- tious one and prima facie has the welfare of the local populace at heart. While it seeks to “raise income levels . . . to narrow the income disparity between the region and other regions,” enhance “productivity and employment opportunities in the rural areas,” and expand the “assimilative capacity of the larger cities in the region” thereby “contributing to the national objectives of sustained growth, export promotion and social stability by efficient utilization of the region’s resources.” On completion in 2005, GAP is touted to be the “largest development scheme in Europe and the Middle East and will lead to a 12% increase in total national income” (ibid). This program of economic growth based on the export of raw materials and manufactured goods, along with its promotion of urbanization exemplifies the modernization approach. Significantly, despite Ankara’s professed interest in improving local conditions the terms “Kurds” or “Kurdistan” are never introduced in the materials produced by the government in Ankara which identifies its goals with “Turkish”nationa1 interests, notwithstanding that Kurds constitute the majority of the population in southeast Turkey.

The development of the “local population” involves de-Kurdification of the region. For example, 509 of 1001 Kurdish villages in Tunceli (Dersim) and Erzincan involving at least 130-150,000 people were forcefully resettled in 1987 alone in the name of “development” (Gesellschaft fur Bedrohte Volker, 1987). One is hard pressed to regard such massive displace- ment as constituting “development,” at least as far as the indigenous population is concerned. In this case the entity undergoing “development” is not the local population but the aggregate state. This represents the dilemma of irreconciable planning whereby development applied to a particular territory is conducted without regard for the needs and interests of the local population. Similar patterns are observed in Iraqi Kurdistan.

6.8. KURDISTAN IN IRAQ

Kurdistan represents approximately 17% of Iraq’s 438,446 km2 and corresponds to 46% of the total rural population in the country (Metz, 1990). Further, “Kurdish areas are . . . the least urbanized [in Iraq] . . . War, the destruction of Kurdish villages, insecurity, and recent government expenditures have accelerated th[is] process” (Marr, 1985).

Given that Iraqi Kurdistan is predominantly rural, the dominant basis of production

318 Progress in Plcrnning

is agriculture. Concerning the role of agriculture in the Iraqi economy, Mason (1990) writes of neglect by the authorities and a concomitant reduction in food self-sufficiency. This is better appreciated when it is noted that the designated “official” change agents in rural Iraq are Baathist (pan-Arabist) cadres (Stork, 1982). Although recent statistics and those specific to Kurds are not available, the effect of these policies on the Kurdish population is clear: since state cooperatives are connected to the Baath, and since the Kurds are not affiliated with the latter, the political and economic centre of the country effectively excludes Kurdish peasants from improved methods of agricultural production.

I. S. Vanly, writing in 1980, characterized the Baath government’s investments in Kurdis- tan in these terms:

Economic development is planned in terms of the enrichment of Arab Iraq, especially Baghdad, at the expense of the Kurdish people. The Darband and Dokan dams built in the Kurdish territories are mainly used to supply Baghdad with electricity. The list of achievements in the “‘Autonomous Region” [of Kurdistan, which was designated as such in 19751 is very far from impressive: a couple of cigarette factories at Suliemaniya and Arbil, a cement factory, a carpet factory, a chicken farm and cattle ranch, a sugar refinery and a marble quarry (Vanly. 1980).

Such feeble industrialization can hardly be termed development by any definition, especially in a country with near-nuclear capacity, such as Iraq. Given the warfare that has plagued Iraqi Kurdistan for the past 15 years, one can only assume that the situation has grown worse.

6.9. OIL AND THE IRAQI STATE CENTRE

Iraq’s largest oil fields are located in Kirkuk, in Iraqi Kurdistan (Woodson, 1975). In this context, the strategic imperative of keeping Iraqi Kurdistan part of Iraq and, by force of necessity, pacifying the Kurds at all costs-including genocide-is abundantly clear (Robinson, 1991).

The importance of petroleum in the Iraqi economy and by extension in fortifying state elite power cannot be overstated (Stork, 1982). In 1984, when the Iraq-Iran War was raging, oil, gas and related products comprised 85% of the country’s exports (Metz, 1990: 262) and generated an estimated 10 billion U.S. dollars. This amount rose to nearly 12 billion in 1985, dropped precipitously in 1986 (at the height of the War) but recovered to $11.3 billion in 1987 (Metz, 1990: 261). Obviously, great shares of the oil revenues were being used to finance the Iraqi war machine: in 1981 and 1982-even before the height of the Iran-Iraq imbroglio Iraq’s estimated oil revenues were $9.2 billion and $10.2 billion, respectively. For those same years. the central government’s budget allocations for the “Economic Development Plan” were $6.7 billion and $7.7 billion, respectively (Europa, 1989: 475).

Economic ties between Iraq and Turkey have been important to both parties. In 1986 Turkey was one of Iraq’s chief trade partners, both with respect to imports and exports (Metz, 1990: 263). The importance of oil in this relationship deserves mention as a pipeline connects, and is important to, both states. For Turkey, it insures a ready supply of oil.


For Iraq, it provides the only sea outlet for petroleum export other than those on the Persian Gulf (where the emnity of the neighbouring countries leaves Iraq vulnerable to blockade.) An oil pipeline crossing Kurdistan from east to west and linking Iraq and Turkey is a symbol of the two countries’ shared commitment to keeping Kurdistan subjugated for the sake of each state’s economic stability.

6.10. CONCLUSION

The post-colonial state is all too often a hollow shell misgoverned by inept and aloof elites who are frequently corrupt and brutal as well (Verhelst, 1990: 38). The brutality practiced against the Kurds represents the institutional violence and assault on liberty found throughout the post-colonial world (and, to be sure, is true of the “advanced industrial countries” as well). The ethnic and ecological fragmentation engendered by the establishment of Mideast post-colonial states has been perfidious when it comes to the Kurdish case. International human rights groups and journalists have documented the use of nerve gas in at least 80 Kurdish villages during the late 1980s not to mention the application of defoliants, aerial bombardment and long-range artillery laying entire clusters of villages to ruin (Kashi, 1994; McDowall, 1992; Minority Rights Group, 1989; Nelan, 1992). As in the closed military zones of Turkish Kurdistan, Iraqi Kurds are subject to summary arrest, torture and execution.

The “safe havens” created for Iraqi Kurds on the border with Turkey during the 199 1 Persian Gulf War proved to be short-lived and checkered in effectiveness (Frelick, 1993) and were far from inviolate (Marcus, 1993). Among other injuries and indignities, the Kurds suffered the denial of entry to hundreds of thousands of refugees seeking sanctu- ary in Turkey from Saddam’s state terror. This resonated similar horrors of the recent past (Karadaghi, 1993; Kimche, 1975; Middle East, 1982a,b; Muhammad, 1980; Mur- ray, 1975; Naamani, 1968; O’Ballance, 1973; Saeedpour and Vanly, 1981; Vanly, 1968, 1980).

The Kurdish tragedy reveals the lengths to which submerged nationalities are willing to go to protect their social habitats and collectivity. It also reveals the debauchery that occurs when “the borders bleed” (Kashi, 1994) in post-colonial states and the loneliness of groups forgotten and betrayed when realpolitik is the order of the day (Bulloch and Morris, 1992).

6.10. I. Lessons of irreconcilable planning

The Kurdish tragedy provides insight to planners seeking to effect progressive socioeconomic change: regional planning must focus on regions that are historically, socially and ecologically defined, i.e. the territorial region rather than the functional region of space economies within state borders. The view of development from the aggregate

330 Progress in Plmning

perspective may bode well for the national economy, i.e. the state centre, but it does not assure and often serves to impede constructive change where it is most needed, in the peripheralized hinterland (Stohr and Taylor, 1981: 43).

Conventional approaches to development give way to planning that is (1) exogenously imposed, (2) impervious to the underlying socio-economic realities distorted under colonialism and perpetuated territorially and structurally in the post-colonial state, and (3) seeks to reduce the economic “friction” manifested by differences in place-specific conditions. The unifying principle of such planning is the maximization of regional comparative advantages and the “rationalization” of state economies. The result is “irreconcilable planning” that objectifies people and resources. Such planning may efficiently transfer resources from the periphery to state centres, but it has little to do with the underlying realities experienced by the marginalized communities. The sociospatial structure of the post-colonial state reflects an architecture created by imperial powers to maximize resource transfer from the colony to the metropole (Hellen, 1968). In states that are more or less isomorphic with the colonies that preceded them the endur- ing socio-spatial framework is irreconcilable with the realities of life-place (Anderson, 1983).

In polities such as Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey significant “minorities” do not identify with the state centre (Gotlieb, 1981, 1982; Nisan, 1991). For these submerged nationalities the relationship between the state centre and their life-place is no different from core-periphery relations existing between colony and metropole. From the Kurdish perspective this has meant socioeconomic exclusion, cultural denigration and the loss of communal autonomy. In the absence of a reasonable alternative collective resistance to the centralizing forces of the state is a matter of collective survival.

The repair of societies broken by poverty cannot be accomplished by pretending that state borders represent cogent social formations. Rather, in cases such as the Kurds, state borders represent severe fractures in an integral human and ecological whole. Planning that neglects state-periphery conflicts inevitably leads to folly or disaster.

6.11. REFERENCES

Adamson, D. (1965) The Kurdish War. Praeger, New York. Amin, S. (1990) iMaltie~elopment: Analom)~ of u Global Failure. United Nations University Press and Zed Press,

London. Anderson, B. (1983) Iluaginetl Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nafionalism. Verso Edi-

tions. London. Beblawi. H. (1987) The rentier state in the Arab world. In Tlte Rentier Stare, V II: The Foundations of the Arab

Sfate, eds Beblawi, Hazem and Giacomo. Croom Helm, London. Bengio, 0. (I 989). Mered HaKurdim B’lruq [The Kurdish Rebellion in Iraq]. Kav Adorn, Kibbutz Hameucad

Publishers for the Daydn Center, Tel Aviv (in Hebrew). Bulloch, J. and Morris, H. (1992) No Friends But the Mountains: The Tragic History of the Kurds. Oxford

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CHAPTER 7

Conclusions: Frontiers, Planning and Indigenous Peoples: Conflict or Coexistence?

Tovi Fenster and Oren Yiftachel

Is it possible to reach definitive conclusions from this journey into various locations around the globe, with such different geographical, political, economic and cultural set- tings? It is clear we have to highlight both similarities and differences between the case studies as a basis for these conclusions. We argue that along with the fundamental differences between the places, a common pattern of relations between governments and indigenous people has emerged. The five case studies clearly emphasize how, no matter what the indigenous background, the effects of frontier development on indigenous people have been invariably negative, These effects are couched in different terms in each of the papers “internal frontiers”, “core-periphery” relationships, “internal colonialism” “capitalistic development ” “under-underdevelopment” but their significance is similar: indigenous people are in most cases excluded and marginalized by frontier development. It is hoped that analysis of the differences could shed new light on the complicated dynamics of state-indigenous relations, which will help in determining new approaches and policies. What we aim to do in this conclusion is to point up the similarities and differences in the case studies in this issue, in order to suggest policies and planning innovations with a more enlightened foundation.

7.1. THE COMMON GROUND

Frontier development in all the areas examined was largely a result of white settlers expansion into areas already occupied by indigenous people. This was the case in the development of the Eastern Cape frontier in South Africa, the regional planning of the Negev Desert in Israel, the location of the Swan Brewery on Aboriginal lands in Perth, Australia and the industrial development in the northern Chita in Russia. The case of the

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Kurds represents perhaps the most complex and drastic example in which the economic, social, political and cultural assets of an indigenous people were disenfranchised by the new states of Iraq and Turkey, and in each state the Kurds suffer a similar experience of oppression and marginalization.

In all cases, one of the tools of control and oppression is the very process of urban and regional planning, which regulates land use and housing and development policies. It is a tool which meets the needs and aims of the majority, primarily for economic expansion, while ignoring the needs and desires of the indigenous local population. In the introduction we used the term “internal frontiers” to link frontier development to policies and practices of urban and regional planning. Internal frontiers represent the two central func- tions and ambitions of settler societies: nation building and economic development. The creation of internal frontiers was very much evident in the Eastern Cape Frontier in South Africa, which underwent a historical process of white eastward expansion from the mid- 17th century, characterized by economic and military oppression. This is also true of the Swan Brewery development on sacred Aboriginal land in Perth, Australia. The interests of capitalist acquisitiveness and urban development forces clashed with traditional, cultural and spiritual interests, and prevailed. Likewise, in Israel the dominant interests of the Jewish majority very much dictated the development of the frontier Negev Desert, although in this case not only economic interests but also the need for land led to oppression of the Bedouin. The use of “territories of traditional natural use”in northern Chita, Russia, was another tool of control with the inevitable result being a lack of regard for indigenous rights. In the case of the Kurds, de-Kurdification was adopted for economic exploitation and land expropriation, backed by political repression and military force.

The state perception of the role of urban and regional planning as a means of control is accompanied by a total lack of involvement of indigenous people in the development of their own traditional environments. Development frameworks in frontier areas have invariably worked for the interests of the state, not for the minority living there. Indeed, indigenous peoples frequently become invisible by being excluded from official statistics and plans.

Geographical segregation between settlers and indigenous people was a common pattern of frontier development in most cases in the text. The means of segregation was the special reserves in South Africa and Israel, the “territories of traditional activities” in Russia and the enclosure of the Kurds in military zones in Turkey. This system of segregation perpetuated economic and political oppression of the indigenous people, and thus were born the “internal frontiers”.

The issue of land use and landownership is central to the ongoing conflicts between authorities and indigenous people in most cases presented in the volume, especially in Israel, Australia and South Africa. What is most interesting in these cases is the similarities in the indigenous populations approach towards land use, landownership and territoriality. Their lives revolved around concepts which derive from their spiritual beliefs and relationship with the land, very different from the governments approach with their capitalistic modernist viewpoint.


7.2. POINTS OF DIVERGENCE

The cases presented in the issue portray government-indigenous people relations in different political regimes: Western oriented capitalistic countries such as South Africa, Israel and Australia, the former communist regime in Russia, semi-democratic rule in Turkey and a totalitarian regime in Iraq. On the surface it might be expected that different government approaches towards indigenous minorities would reflect their different political philosophies, so that more respect for indigenous rights would be displayed by democratic regimes as opposed to totalitarian or semi-democratic regimes. Reality shows, however, that in spite of the political differences, the practical situation of the indigenous peoples is similar in many respects. Most indigenous societies are impoverished and marginalized. This is especially expressed in the economic gaps between the majority and indigenous minorities in South Africa and Australia, and also to a great extent in Israel. It is hoped that the abandonment of apartheid in South Africa, and the harshness of life for the Kurds in Iraq will help the more enlightened democracies to reflect upon their own treatment of indigenous minorities.

Have indigenous minorities begun to gain enough power and recognition to dismantle the “internal frontier”? Their reaction to control and oppression is another important component in the discussion of frontier development. In the introduction we highlight the fact that conflict between states and indigenous people has recently been more open, direct and confrontational. In the cases discussed in the issue we can identify several forms of “bottom up” reaction. The Kurds display the most active hostility to oppression. The Blacks in South Africa eventually achieved their aims only with massive international economic intervention. The Aboriginals in Australia represent a relatively peaceful but active force against government planning procedures. The Bedouin in Israel and the Evenks in Siberia have been for the most part passive in their resistance to government planning.

7.3. CONFLICT OR COEXISTENCE? IMPLICATIONS FOR FRONTIER

DEVELOPMENT

Is frontier development by definition an abuse of indigenous human rights? Is it possible to plan or develop frontier (or other) areas from the capitalistic settlers’ perspective without fundamentally oppressing indigenous peoples? Or is there hope for a genuine process of democratization at work in settler societies?

What we are attempting to suggest here is a very basic notion of regional planning integrating standards of human rights. How can this be established? It is of course a complex task, necessitating long and in-depth research. To initiate this process, we wish to outline here some basic principles of human rights which need to be taken into account in regional planning and frontier development:

- Regional planning which respects human rights should acknowledge the cultural, economic, political and social differences of indigenous minorities as crucial factors in

Progress in Planning

the development of a region. This would take into consideration the different lifestyle, habitations, economies, cultural and traditional practices which have expressions in space. It would entail the arrangement of space according to the mutual interests of both majority and minority. The most efficient and effective way to reach this first goal is to allow for the involvement of an indigenous population by adopting the idea of the planning process as a dialogue. Participation in development has been lately acknowledged as integral to citizen rights and a necessary factor in dictating the future of the environments of indigenous peoples. Planning autonomy for indigenous people in their environment. This is a very crucial point which raises heavy questions as to what extent planning is politically motivated. The links between planning procedures and political actions are quite obvious, especially with regard to land use and landownership. It is also understood that the suggestion of granting autonomy within planning is probably not so realistic, even in democratic regimes like Australia and Israel, because of the political implications involved. But on the normative level, we point out here that a mechanism of planning autonomy in regulating indigenous environments could become a very useful tool in sustaining frontier development with more sensitivity to human rights. It is clear that the development of trust between states and indigenous peoples can only come with tools which allow for elements of mutual involvement and cooperation in planning.

In this issue we have highlighted five case studies demonstrating the intricacies of frontier development and indigenous rights. Of course there are many more cases around the globe to illustrate this. This issue only begins to shed some light on the complicated problems and conflicts within government relations with indigenous peoples. We propose to initiate further global research in this area so that new lessons in policymaking in regional planning and development may be learnt.

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