Still a Fight between Nomad and Farmer?

Fighting in Libya, Syria, Sudan and the Yemen May 28 2011

Wars in Libya and Syria have been going on for months, but only this week do we see war engulf the Sudan and the Yemen. Affairs in Tunisia and Egypt are not so fraught, but unrest in these two revolutionary nations is rising. Fortunately, powers like the USA are feeding large sums of money into the accounts of Libyan freedom fighters. In Yemen, the US orders all dependents and tourists and students out of the country (May 25^th).

Libya -

The week of May-21-28 saw Russia move over to NATO's side, asking Col. Qaddafi to resign. Qaddafi has handed over management to his son and a few confidants while hiding himself. He says he's not in Tripoli. We think he's in Sabha, in the west central part of Libya. That's where Qaddafi went to high school, where he learned and practiced, high-handed brash revolutionary political ops.

Thanks to NATO's air strikes, Qaddafi can't concentrate his heavy weapons. Rebels in Mishratah (Misurata) have regained control over the port, and pushed Qaddafi's forces far beyond the range of his missiles, so humanitarian aid can get in, and ammo, and radios and sniper rifles, while the refugees and

the wounded can be evacuated.

To the east – some 500 miles - the Benghazi democrats have been parrying Qaddafi forces in what looks like a stalemate. But it is not. Time is not on Qaddafi's side. The rebels are pursuing a steep learning curve, and even in Tripoli, the streets are not safe for Qaddafi cranks, cronies and sycophants.

Syria -

Quiet returns after two months of daily manifestations, except there is much fear as young men are carried off by the Syrian mukhtabarat. To Damascus, it looks like Sunni Muslim Brothers are coming across in killer teams, over the Shouf, from Lebanon. The Syrian officials no doubt can find all the evidence they need for concluding that radical Islamist militants – extremists – are infiltrating Syria from all directions.

Damascus and Aleppo (Haleb) have been free of mass demonstrations, tying up city centers. Why? These cities house the political, cultural and economic elite – those backed by the regime. Secondly, the police were on the scene in minutes, breaking up unrest before it turned violent. But outside these two cities, unrest seethes amongst the people.

Yemen -

Once again everyone expected president Ali Abdullah Saleh to resign last week, but then he got cold feet, refusing to sign, saying he had to have in his presence, opposition leaders. For this was to be a transfer of power to a broad coalition of democratic actors. Naturally, tribal politics are involved: the war that broke out on the streets of Sana'a around the university, was largely between tribesmen of the Houthi federation and the army/police. We do expect Mr. Saleh to leave Yemen this summer.

Sudan -

Readers know our concerns re both countries: over the past month we've been issuing alerts re probable military confrontation over Abye (Abiyeh), an oil-flush town right on the border between north and south Sudans. Abiyeh's crude petroleum production was some 5,000 – 15,000/brls./day – peanuts.

There is also some fighting in the Kordofan plateau, between Darfur and the White Nile. The fighting involved several thousand troops. President Omar Akl Bashir must have reasons to rattle the Arab sword all through the south. He is a wanted war criminal.

The South is not united. Most of the local problems are between nomads, and farmers. Examining nomad-farmer relations is discipline in itself, a legal science going back some 10,000 years. The history books talk of all the (short) wars and raids between the two, as if they never got along. Well, the truth is entirely different.

The north African situation is a shared one. Except for Egypt, the countries featured a populated coast and a less populated interior – the Sahara. Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Sudan and Libya have tribal histories in which the power of the nomads trump the coastal emirs and pashas. The great Arab historian Ibn Khaldun saw the movement of desert nomads as one of getting soft and settling down, only to be usurped a generation (or less) later by a more more robust pastoral presence.

Egypt -

The government eases controls at the Rafah crossing so Gazan Palestinians can escape for a while. Israel's doctrine of collective punishment has won it a determined enemy. In the West, the Palestinians are seen as the bad guys. The Israelis, by contrast, look like we do and drive on brand new roads designed in perfect American format.

Libya -

It seems that NATO allowed Libyan democratic rebels a respite, used to train. Qaddafi can't concentrate much: US spy satellites are parked in geo-synchronic orbit giving real-time pictures. So satellites are being used to hunt down the two Qaddafis. Even in south Tripoli, there are clandestine teams trying to track him down. Qaddafi has likely flown the coop.

The defection of Libya's oil minister was a carefully scripted designed as a sop for the oil companies and world financial markets. It may mean that Libya's oil industry will be prserved. We are still concerned when two weeks ago, the oasis of al Kufrah in Libya's extreme south east, fell to Qaddafi loyalists. Al Kufra is a small place, with a tiny bit of Americana for the oil workers. The oil fields, however, represent some two fifths if Libya's known oil stocks. They are practically inside the town. The well heads can be easily blown. Qaddafi has not reached “I'll destroy it if I cannot have it.” In fact, Qaddafi may have scripted his own disappearance. If he's not at Sabha, he must be in the steppe plateau regions between the coast and the Saharan desert. These roads run roughly parallel to the main coastal road, up to 50 km in. Qaddafi has built quite a few emergency basis in this steppe zone.

Let us conclude this section by referencing the tribes – those involved in Libya, Yemen, Sudan and even Syria. The larger tribes are split between the impatient young, and the elders. Unless you are a nomad in the desert, you can take and make of it, what you want from the tribe.

The heroic sieges of Mishratah, Zawiye and Zintan saw ordinary people defend their lives and properties with a battlefield coherence that suggests strong tribal involvement. Those three cities are each named after a Arab-Berber tribe. Libyan tribes had their own places in which to settle.

Maybe you saw the footage of Qaddafi (taken around the 22 of May) kissing the tribal sheikhs, one by one. All those sheikhs were overweight, and no amount of thoub could hide their obesity. I don't expect these tribal leaders to have any kind of shelf life after the Qaddafis go. As we speak, young men are fighting off a professional military acting in their name “as if I asked you to kill me.” By fleeing to the desert, Qaddafi frees himself from many obligations. That means the government can and will fall without him.

Notes on Pastoral Nomadism - Abel and Cain

Libya is a country with a strong pastoral dynamic, even after modernization. Others nations, too, show the remote hin terland as the well-spring of authentic culture, in all these lands. The cities are much too corrupted to serve as cultural centers.

First, we know that even Paleolithic humans (ca 100,000 yrs.) on all six inhabitable continents practiced trade: archaeology is filled with 'material anomalies.' Obvious such trade could not go on without the cooperation of various nomadic tribes. Very few empires could secure all the roads and paths that our forefathers trekked over. On occasion, superior forces from towns and cities might vanquish and chastise nomadic tribes, but most of the time, the nomad confederations ruled everything outside of the towns and villages and hamlets.

Knowledge of how pastoral nomadism shaped the world in which we live can only arise amongst those few social scientists who have actually lived and traveled with nomads. The blogger received a 1973-74 Thomas Watson foundation fellowship “for the study of the oral epic poetry of Central Asian nomads.” I did my research in Russia, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey.

In Russia and Uzbekistan I studied how the Soviets used traditional oral epic genres to drum up support for socialist ideals and initiatives. I spent a year in Afghanistan, where I traveled with the nomadic Pushtuns in Wardak, the Tekke Turcomen from Afghan Turkestan, and the Kyrgyz in Badakhshan. In Pakistan, I conducted interviews with Balouch and Brahmi nomads. In Iran, I worked with the Qashqai in the south and the Turcomen in the east. In central Anatolia, I traveled with the Yoruk. Later, I carried on these researches in Arabia: Syria, Jordan and Palestine, with the Bedouin, with whom I spent some special days and nights. I paid for most trips by buying and selling textiles.

These minimal qualifications in the much-needed science of pastoral nomadism and its interactions with settled folk and with long-distance traders. The best empires seem to be those imposed by a nomadic elite. Why? First, they're only 1/10 or less the population as the regional towns and villages and faring estates. Lacking skills in governing of farmers, the nomads usually left that governance in the hands of the people themselves. The 'big man' was not so big with nomads around.

In short, trade routes were only practical when the nomadic tribes cooperated. Rash military actions against nomadic federations usually just bred feelings of vengeance. Rulers of farming regions did better when they admitted nomads into their armies and navies. Yes, navies: there are sea nomads just like there are land nomads. Mankind knew how to sail before he/she learned to domesticate, train, ride and maneuver horses. The Arabs, who trace themselves back to the present bedouin, were also an advanced maritime culture along some 40,000 miles of coasts in Arab lands. Three thousand years ago, the Phoenicians colonized the Med and the Atlantic coasts of Portugal and Morocco. They even reached the New World, buying furs. That world featured the power of Tarshish, again, an Arab maritime power, according to the Bible, and Ugaritic texts.

Mecca had its own seaport – Jeddah. Trade routes ran along coasts and up rivers. The Red Sea offered intimate contacts between Yemen and Saudi Arabia and the Sudan and through Egypt and Palestine to the European world. Such sea routes generally paralleled the land routes. There were horizontal trails across the Saharan, as well as the five south-north trails which, over the past 1,500 years, brought much gold, many slaves and ostrich feathers up through Arab Spain and into Europe.

Another 'world' was the Persian (or Arabian) Gulf. Here, Baghdad was tied to Surat, in Gujarat, and points south. Arab fishing communities dot the western littoral of the Gulf, while pearl divers had a world monopoly till the Japanese introduced cultured pearls in the mid 20^th C.

The Mediterranean has its own worlds: the Aegean, the Black Sea, island emirates and kingdoms. But these worlds were brought under the sway of nomadic groups coming from Central Asia. Great 'positive' empires were largely nomad-led. The Seljukid, Golden Horde and Chagatai empires are examples. The most efficient and effective (rich) empire before modern times was the great Mongol empire. The nomads policed trade routes and encouraged gift giving and trade.

One cannot see the tribes acting in the news – it's all behind closed doors. Remember, tribes usually insist on strict conformity of its members. The tribal chiefs usually do hold huge amounts of land. But in this day and age of the Virtual Tribe, such wealth becomes a liability. Social media will eventually inform and organize many if not most human protests.

This week it was announced that the Serbian war criminal Ratko Mladich was apprehended. Another brutal killer in Rwanda and the Congo, head of the dreaded Interhamwe, was tracked down and detained. Ossama bin Ladin was killed by US SOF on May 2, while Qaddafi's time is coming up soon.

Men who get their way only by causing suffering to others are called hasnomuses, and must be watched. They can be in business as well as in the military and the government. We seen enough of the lawlessness engineered, it seems, by wealthy people wanting even more.

                           -John Paul Maynard

                               May 28 2011

My main studies are found at http://middleeastspeculum.blogspot.com. Some of my translations from the Arabic, Persian and Turkic are found at http://hafizshirazi.blogspot.com.

Will revolutions degenerate into sectarian civil wars?

الفوضى غالبا ما يولد الحياة ، عادة عندما يولد النظام. -- هنري جيمس

Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit. -

- Henry James

The photo shows Libyan rebels tracking confused Qaddafi officers after NATO attack. 

Major events – state-ordered and organized VIOLENCE – afflicts Libya, Sudan and Syria. 

Yemen features constant confrontation, into its 4th month, with pro- and anti-regime protesters separated by the army. Ali Saleh almost signed a transition agreement, but balked, probably because all his family members have to get out of Yemen before he goes. Tunisia and Egypt enter critical phases, as we will see. Palestine and Israel deserve comment, and the United States, too. But let us re-trace our tracks back to the source – where this unrest took a visible form, to then spread.

Unrest and revolution in the Arab world is a year old. About this time last year (May 20 2010) the POLISARIO stage-managed near-constant demonstrations in the four huge refugee camps, centered on Tindouf, in the extreme SW of Algeria. The issue galvanizing the bedouin/Berbers is simply independence for the Western Sahara, a Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. 

After 12 years of delay, the Arab/Berber Sahrawis assumed that Morocco would obey the UNO directive to hold an independence referendum. That referendum was part of the ceasefire agreement stitched together by the American James Baker, in 1991. Baker, too assumed that the Moroccan king would honor the referendum.

Twenty years later Morocco has ignored all attempts at referendum, putting its faith is five huge berms, one built after the others, as Moroccan annexed more and more. Today it claims the whole of Western Sahara as its Southern Provinces. POLASARIO forces, jeep mounted and numbering only some 2,000, doesn't have the ability to make war. Algeria pulls their strings.

Morocco, however, has long traditions of control of 'the Southern Desert.' In fact all North African nations, concentrated on the coasts of the Med and the Atlantic, were nevertheless decisively influenced by their remote Saharan provinces. The West, too, was decisively influenced by all the gold coming up through the southern camel caravans: extra gold provided the metallic instrument by which Euro-capitalism flowered, first in coining – an anchor and means that led to the more risky paper money and bank drafts.

The 'victorious democrats' anxious to reform Egypt and Tunisia are at difficult point. Not only must they create a party with rivals, they must open dialogue with their enemies. Organizing new political parties takes years, but both want democratic reform in weeks. Older democratic parties are being submerged by Islamist groups, like the Justice and Freedom party, an umbrella for all Muslim Brotherhood organs.

There is also fighting in the Sudan, over the oil field at Abiye. Abiye is right on the border between North and South Sudan, so why the fight? Why not just split it? Well, the aspirations of both contestants require large amounts of petroleum.

Libya is at war with itself, and it does seem that Qaddafi is on his way out. His wife and daughter made it to Tunisia. He was running like a rat from private house to private house, but is now rumored to have escaped Tripoli. I suspect he's gone into the Fezzan, hustling up arms, ammunition and explosives from his friends to the south. His base is likely in or around Sabha, where he went to high school. 

Palestine too deserves attention: the American president calls for an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with possible land trade-offs to appease Israeli security concerns. Right-wing Israelis insist any recognition of Palestinian independence, or joint rule, will mean “more war and more killing.” They say this with a straight face, willingly ignorant of the fact that lethal Israeli 'collective punishments' have driven many Palestinians to violence.

American president Barack Obama gave a speech on May 19 in which he called for the creation of a Palestinian state basically with the 1967 borders. He then added that parties might want to trade tracts of land to meet security and access requirements. This is the same as the Israeli position in the past. But the Likud plays on racial fears, like Jim Crow America did.

Constantly one hears Israelis and their backers say “Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.” They forget to add that with the Arab Bedouin, chiefs (sheiks) are generally elected. I've been at meetings which concluded with a show of hands – and that's democracy. What about Kuwait? Qatar? Turkey? Algeria? Morocco? What about the expensive protests of Arab educated secular folk? Is not that democracy?

I suppose all the governments have weaknesses. Israeli democracy is very limited and prejudicial, ethnically and in religious doctrine. Democracy is good if you're Jewish in Israel, real good if you are 'an observant settler,' for then you do not have to work. American will pay for the new homes, homes outside the Jewish state. They call it the Jewish state, but a quarter of the population are not of Jewish faith or Jewish extraction . So Israel is a Muslim state also. Curiously, Israel's supreme court, and many Arab-speaking Israeli judges, do not hesitate to use fiqh and the Shari'a in adjudicating the management of the many waqf or 'dedicated' properties in Israel. As for the Palestinian people - they have Jewish blood, most of them - an estimated 28% of the genome. Remember, back then, there were Jews everywhere in the Middle East. And especially in Syria, Aleppo (Haleb) and Dasmascus (Ash Sham.)

Syria -شمعة تذوب في يدي

'Ash-Sham is melting hot wax all over my hand.'

'Sham' means candle, and Syria – it's the name of Damascus, also. Today, May 20^th, some 44 protesters were gunned down as 'peace-loving' police moved to break up demonstrations around the country. Then another 17 were shot dead at the funerals of the above. The democrats in Homs were hard hit. Too much blood has been shed, and all this violence against peaceful protests, deprives the Al Asad regime of the credibility and legitimacy it had won earlier, by protecting minorities, helping the destitute, educating them, staunching sectarian terror,  and the opening of private banks and businesses. Americans seem not to know that the Ba'ath 'Renaissance Party' is small-business-oriented. More in Syria than in Iraq.

Analysts fear a sectarian civil war: the Alewites, Druse, Christians and Jews fighting the majority Sunnis, which are backed by the Muslim Brotherhood. We see this rising sectarianism not just in Syria and Lebanon, but in Egypt and Tunisia as well. The much-heralded Tahrir Revolution was bracketed by violence against the Copts. (in Alexandria and then Cairo) At first, the protests were anti-sectarian: the Islamists played no role; but Muslim-dressed MB  teenage cadets and acolytes were common figures at the ensuing rallies. But after the army has neutralized the democrats, the mullahs step in. The MB's new party, Justice and Freedom party, will likely get some 43% of the vote in September's elections. They are just much better organized than secular groups.

One common complaint behind the Arab unrest is the lawlessness, be it random criminality, or organized by civilians, clergy, the soldiers and/or the police. How can these security officials be put to use? How can they be vetted? Who is the enemy? Unfortunately, the new democrats see Israel and the USA as their enemies.

For the Salafis, democracy is taboo – because it believes people should govern people, while they think only God rules. Of course they have a special hook-up with the Almighty, so they see no need to obey earthy laws. They are above the law, in their view, or/and very selective. For example they appeal to the Shari'a not realizing that those ancient judges and jurists would have hung them from the nearest tree. For several reasons, mocking God not being the least.

If you desire new understanding of Islam, you might read two (2) short papers. One is “Islam under the Knife: Reform Brings Power” which shows that those 'Islamic' laws which so bother non-Muslims, were not part of the original revelation channeled by Muhammad Qurayshi. That is, laws of stoning, cutting off hands and noses, repressing women, dishonoring non-Muslims, plotting to overthrow governments, murder, and jihad. None of these are part of Muhammad's system worked out in Medina.

The second paper is “Land-use and Land-ownership in Islamic Civilization.” Here we isolated and 'lifted' the original seven forms of land tenure. We see that in true Islam, ownership was shared just like they bought shares in overseas or cross-desert ventures. If twelve family members live in a household, then there are 12 sections of the pie, though uneven. Of course this is not practiced today, because in just about everywhere in the Muslim word, men own the houses, if not the women themselves.

Finally, in Yemen, a transfer agreement has been agreed upon, (May 21 2011), but failed because Ali Abdullah Saleh needs iron-clad legal defense, an international agreement prohibiting any prosecution of him and his family. His excuse: members of the democratic opposition must be present at the ceremony. Dem leaders see such witnessing to be the kiss of death, so unpopular is Mr. Saleh. He'll come around in a week or too, we hope.

For the destiny of the Yemen is too link region to region: they are all different, different cultures. It seems that the new de-centralized democratic government, has a better chance to hold Yemen together than a president in a palace. No one tribe can dominate.  Democracy gives a better chance at this, because they're using non-government channels to communicate  (like cell phones, Facebook, e mail, twitter, text messaging, sat phones, wirless web and short wave radio). Nor will they be so bent by centralizing power.

Democracy may eventually do wonders in the Yemen. Tribal affairs are interrupted by Islam and by socialism and by secular education, but terms are being worked out, even as tribes split. The democratic forces from Makallah to Mocha, from Aden to Sana'a, can and will fit together, and not press rivalries and corruption. Some  dissident groups, except al Qaideh and the other MB cells, may not find themselves under this new democratic 'tent.' Lurking behind the scenes, are tribal and Islamist splits, like tornadoes, or a chain of winds dancing for dominance. Will the new rulers of the Yemen march against terrorist Anwar Awlaki? If Yemen does not move against al Qaidah of the Arabian Peninsula, then the Saudi, Omans and Americans will. Awlaki is an America who targets his home country.

Following huge demonstrations in Syria and Yemen, protests and riots broke out in Madrid, Spain. Young Spaniards just don't have jobs because the jobs are often taken by immigrants. Their situation is not all that different from that pertaining on the other side of the Straits of Gibraltar – Morocco.

Algeria once again serves as the spark, we suspect, for the May 21 demonstration in Madrid. It was the Algerian demonstrators who proved (Jan.1-2 2011)  that it was possible to disobey state orders. Democrats in Tunisia and Egypt saw this as a critical step.  Disarming the army and police was the critical move.


We read all comments carefully.

        John Paul Maynard

             Amherst, Massachusetts May 20 2011

SPECULUM NEWS: Starting in July, I will be the moderator for an on line discussion group on Islamic civilization, open to the 37,000 living graduates of the GSAS, Harvard University, world-wide. We have already restored links with our old department, CMES/GSAS.