The Beduin of the desert, born and grown up in it, had embraced with all his soul this nakedness too harsh for volunteers, for the reason, felt but inarticulate, that there he found himself indubitably free. He lost material ties, comforts, all superfluities and other complications to achieve a personal liberty which haunted starvation and death. ā¦ In his life he had air and winds, sun and light, open spaces and a great emptiness. (Lawrence, 2000, 18)
This quotation captures Bedouin life in the early twentieth century from the perspective of a British official who had extensive experience with Bedouinsāspecifically, T. E. Lawrence, the famous āLawrence of Arabia.ā The life of the Bedouins in general has been evolving at a rapid pace since Lawrenceās time, especially after the discovery of the vast petroleum reserves that transformed the region in the past century. The lives and culture of these people, who today live alongside other ethnicities in dozens of countries, isāor should beāof concern to those living in and outside the region, both because Arabia has been a source of conflict that has spread around the world over the past half-century and, more positively, because it is the cradle of the Islamic faith and of cultures that have enriched the world for millennia.
This book is addressed in large part to Western readers interested in understanding the Bedouin and the region that they inhabit in addition to their wider influence on cultural, social, and economic life in the Middle East over the centuries. Research remains scant on the Bedouin, though rare academic studies have focused on their sociocultural and historical settings and their influence on Islam (see Bailey, 2018; Jabar & Dawod, 2003). Furthermore, leadership in the Middle East region has been the subject of only a few articles (see Metcalfe & Mimouni, 2011), so there is a need for further academic studies of the topic set in this part of the world.
My aim is to help the broader world community to appreciate the Bedouins as a people in their various contexts and to encourage the forging of partnerships with them to take the place of the hegemonic relations that have long characterized their interactions with other peoples. My hope is to promote interest in and understanding of the Bedouin in ways that will contribute to the development of the region, its economy, and its people through the building of business partnerships. It is also my hope that Bedouin readers will find that this book depicts their world accurately and offers fresh insights into it.
Arabs and āthe Orientā
At the outset, it is important to be clear about terminology. The words āArabā and āMuslim,ā to begin with, have long been problematic for Westerners, who tend to confuse these distinct concepts, using them as if they were interchangeable. In point of fact, the Bedouins are a significant Arab ethnic group, most but not all of whom are Muslims, that is, adherents of the Islamic faith (though a few tribes are Christian, Druze,1 or adherents of other religions). While the Bedouins have not been studied as intensely as many other Arab peoples, there has been some research into their culture and history, particularly in relation to their influence on Islam as a religion. The purpose of the present book is to build on this work by exploring the dynamics of leadership within Bedouin communities.
Arabia is the land of Arabs, whose native language is Arabic; in this sense, the term describes not only the Arabian Peninsula but all of the area from the Arabian (or Persian) Gulf and Arabian Sea in the east to the Red Sea in the west and from the Indian Ocean in the south to the Syrian steppe (Badia) in the north. In recent years, this area has come to be referred to in the language of diplomacy, finance, and academia as the Middle East North Africa (MENA), which is considered to encompass all of the Arabic-speaking countries in Arabia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, and North Africa. The Arab countries of North Africa, where the Bedouin are concentrated, are Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania. Currently, a range of termsāArabia, MENA, Near Orient, Arab countries, Middle East, Greater Middle Eastāserve to describe the region, each reflecting a specific historical and cultural perspective. The use of these terms interchangeably clearly does not promote a nuanced understanding of the land and the peoples who inhabit it.
Scholars in recent decades have documented the tendency in the West to represent Arabs as the āOther.ā Edward Said (2003) in particular revealed the ways in which āOrientalismā has defined the totality of that which is considered Arabia, Arabic, and Islam, including the Bedouins. Thus, he argued, Orientalism served as
One of the starting points for my research on this project was the insight that Saidās discussion of Orientalism could be useful in explaining the unique Bedouin concept of leadership to Westerners.a way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based on the Orientās special place in European Western experience. The Orient is not only adjacent to Europe; it is also the place of Europeās greatest and richest and oldest colonies, the source of its civilizations and languages, its cultural contestant, and one of its deepest and most recurring images of the Other. In addition, the Orient has helped to define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience. (p. 12)
My personal experiences as a native of this often troubled region have naturally shaped my view of the issues discussed in this book. Thus, in designing, conducting, and presenting the research for this project, I have been keenly aware of my position as an individual whose cultural and religious identities and place of origin position him at the center of what is often seen as a āclash of civilizationsā between Arabia (or MENA, the Middle East, etc.) and Western countries (Huntington, 1996). Being born into and growing up in this context, I cannot help but feel the growing hate, suspicion, and racism coming from highly visible non-Arab and non-Muslim individuals whose cultures, religions, and ethnic identities seem to differ so greatly from my own. Thus, I have found myself craving acceptance from Westerners, constantly seeking to prove that I am a ācivilized Otherā who can be trusted rather than one of the villains portrayed in the media. This kind of inferiority complex affects nearly all Arabs who find themselves living in the West.
I became interested in the role of imagery in leadership while growing up in Syria under the totalitarian regime of Hafez al-Assad, the father and predecessor of the countryās current ruler. The regime compelled its citizens to treat Assad as something akin to Almighty God; thus, his image was omnipresent on the streets, in the media, even in schoolbooks. Weaned on this intrusive political propaganda, I grew skeptical of it even in childhood, though I was at the same time fascinated by the cult of Assad and the use of imagery to contain and control what I later came to identify, after exposure to the philosophy of Michel Foucault, as the docile bodies of the Syrian people.
It was the experience of this dystopia, a prominent part of which was the constant fear of incarceration, that drew me to Foucaultās work. For a while Foucaultās star may have dimmed somewhat in the West in recent years, his writings remain revelatory for people like me seeking to make sense of life under oppressive leadership. His studies of the origins of modern prisons in the West, therefore, provided me with a powerful way of looking at the Assad regimeās use of discourse, in particular visual discourse, to control the thoughts of those over whom he rules. What Assad has accomplished, irrespective of his ruthlessness and destructiveness, is remarkable: he has managed to control and manipulate an entire nation for the benefit of a chosen few, in part by harnessing the patriarchal culture that obtains in Arabia. This culture tends to produce situations in which a few elite families control the wealth and political decision-making and the dominant social relations remain based on familial relationships. The constant barrage of propaganda that helps these families to sustain their power has, therefore, reinforced the patriarchal system on which it relies. Sharabi (1992) usefully described this reimagining of traditional Arab culture as an alternative to the secular and industrial cultures of the West as a āneopatriarchy.ā
I therefore approach leadership as a social phenomenon in which, as with most social phenomena, visual, textual, and auditory means of communication serve to reproduce and to strengthen established power relationships. My specific focus here, as alluded to earlier, is on understanding the use of visual symbols as products of social context by leaders in their efforts to maintain and/or extend their influence. My project thus includes uncovering and deciphering hidden meanings that the visual manifestations of leadership are meant to convey when leaders seek to manipulate the thoughts and actions of their followers. At the same time, it is my belief that my perspective as an āinsiderā researcher entrenched culturally in this region adds real value to the findings presented here owing to my deep under...