Controlling mobility
Via AKMA - who asks “could any modern state tolerate the existence of a distinct, mobile, self-determined people within their borders?” - comes Jerusalem Syndrome: Bedouin Issues photo-essay
Much of the land around Beer Sheva [Israel] has been the Bedouins’ for centuries; both the Ottoman Empire and the British Mandate allowed them to assert and maintain claims over their ancestral land.
In 1951, just after Israel won independence, the new government determined that the Bedouin were not legitimate owners of Jewish land. Rather, they were intruders, and the small villages in which they lived would not be recognized by the Israeli Government.
The government has been trying to move people into a number of recognized townships or reservations - larger towns/small cities. About half of Bedouin live in these iyyarot now.
Those who don’t move to the iyyarot say that they don’t want the erosion of their tradition and culture that comes with urbanization, that the iyyarot are full of drugs and other urban problems, and, fundamentally, that they don’t want to give up their land to the government. Those who stay in unrecognized villages do so not because they don’t know what else is out there, but for deeply political reasons.
To be not-recognized means, among other things, that they have no access to water, electricity, public transportation, access roads, schools, hospitals, or a number of other public services. It also means that the government can tear down their houses whenever it likes, as they are technically illegal.
We went to one unrecognized village around which an industrial complex (called Ramat Hovav) has been built up. Ramat Hovav is, basically, a toxic waste dump. There’s also a nuclear reactor not far from here. The death rate in this village has been documented as being 65% higher than it should be, with cancer, miscarrages, asthma and the like being very common.
I recently spoke on how settled peoples have historically controlled nomadic peoples - something often overlooked in our push for total technological mobility. Stories like this should serve to remind us, among other things, that relationships between mobility and stability are not without tension.