Tribalism and Political Power in the Gulf: State-Building and National Identity in Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE 9781838606084, 9781838606114, 9781838606091

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Tribalism and Political Power in the Gulf

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Tribalism and Political Power in the Gulf State-Building and National Identity in Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE Alanoud al-Sharekh and Courtney Freer

I.B. TAURIS Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, I.B. TAURIS and the I.B. Tauris logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2022 Copyright © Alanoud al-Sharekh and Courtney Freer, 2022 Alanoud al-Sharekh and Courtney Freer have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. viii constitute an extension of this copyright page. Series design by Adriana Brioso Cover image: Souq al Mubarakiyah in Kuwait, 2015. Courtesy of Nasser Al-Ghanim. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-8386-0608-4 ePDF: 978-1-8386-0609-1 eBook: 978-1-8386-0610-7 Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

Contents List of Figures Acknowledgements 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Introduction The historical relationship between badū and ruling families The social evolution of the tribe Heritage production and branding of the modern badū in state formation Tribalization of traditionally non-tribal actors and future impact of the resurgence of tribal rhetoric Electoral tribalism Tribal intersections in the digital age Conclusion

Notes Bibliography Index

vi viii 1 21 47 65 95 117 137 153 164 200 221

Figures 1

MP Faisal al Duwaisan quoted on Awwal Kuwait News, tweeting on how Iranian workers built the wall of Kuwait in 1770 to protect the city from the ‘ambush of the deserts’ in an example of how the ‘wall’ and its connection to the inner city hadar versus outer districts bedouins divide is still an identity politics issue to this day. From AwwalKwt news Instagram account (2017) 2 The Kuwaiti ‘Boum’, a ship that exemplifies the sea-faring heritage trope used as an identity marker. Courtesy of Hala Shaaban 3 The dallah (Arabian coffee pot), one of the more universal images associated with the Arabian Gulf and especially the Badu. Courtesy of Hala Shaaban 4 Diorama from Kuwait’s National Museum taken on April 2019. The scene depicts a traditional school. Courtesy of author 5 Diorama from Kuwait’s National Museum taken on April 2019. The scene depicts a merchant selling wares in the old souq. Courtesy of author 6 Kuwait’s National Assembly building designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon is across the street from the Arabian Gulf. Courtesy of Hala Shaaban 7 In an example of ‘desert diplomacy’, this image from the Al_Saud_ instagram account, shows Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman hosting a dinner at the Camel Festival in Tayef in September 2018 for UAE Crown Prince Shaykh Mohammad bin Zayed and his brothers Shaykhs Sayf and Nihyan bin Zayed, and Prince Nasser bin Khalifa from Bahrain, Shaykh Abdallah al Sabah from Kuwait, Prince Khaled bin Faisal from Saudi Arabia and Sayed Asad bin Tariq from Oman 8 Image drawn by a Qatari cartoonist, meant to illustrate Saudi Arabia’s perceived meddling in tribal affairs over the course of the GCC crisis (2018) 9 An account that claims to be representing the interests of members of the Mutayri tribe in Kuwait Oil Company advertises a committee

57 67

71 73

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75

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Figures

10 11 12

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15 16 17

that will ensure a representative from the tribe in the union board of 2020–2022. Both the Twitter and Instagram accounts were shut down An Al-Qabas newspaper archive article describing how pre-election banquets raised the price of sheep in Kuwait in 1996 Table from Al-Qabas newspaper showing the number of voters per major tribe in Kuwait in 2018 Social media platforms highlighted an incident allegedly involving members of the ʿAjman tribe in Kuwait’s National Petroleum Company, despite local newspapers not mentioning the tribe; this post was shared widely on Twitter and WhatsApp in 2017 Tweet by Sarah Alajmi in response to the murder of Fatima Alajmi where she says that re-educating tribal men is the moral responsibility of the tribal shaykhs since allegiance is to the tribe and not to the state in Kuwait (2020) Tweet by Fatmah Alajmy in response to the murder of Fatima Alajmi and Hajar AlAasi decrying the silence of tribal shaykhs and tribal social media accounts around the murder of tribal women, which she compares unfavourably to tribal blood money drives to release male murderers A map detailing the larger tribes of the Arabian Peninsula from the UAE history kin website Cat meme with caption ‘Shaykh of the tribe’ (2018). This account is now closed but the meme itself was widely shared A candidate from the Shammar tribe declares that he will be in the service of his tribe ‘and its interests’ when he is elected to office (2020)

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115 123 140

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145 151 152

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Acknowledgements The germ of the idea for this book came from a lecture at Nuqat Cultural series in 2014, and so this project represents the culmination of many conversations with colleagues across the Arabian Peninsula. We are indebted to everyone who agreed to be interviewed for this project, as well as those who assisted with images, namely Hala Shaaban and Nasser al Ghanim. The support of LSE’s Kuwait Programme, generously funded by the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS) and led by Professor Toby Dodge, was instrumental in undertaking this project, particularly through providing assistance with fieldwork, feedback on drafts and encouragement throughout the process. The team at LSE’s Middle East Centre also more broadly facilitated the drafting of this book, hosting a workshop on tribe and state in the Middle East gathering several experts on the topic in June 2018, which helped both authors clarify the scholarly contribution we hoped to make. Sophie Rudland at IB Tauris has been a pleasure to work with, being patient with us throughout the long drafting process and providing us with encouragement and helpful suggestions. We are also indebted to the anonymous reviewers, who provided us with substantive and thoughtful feedback that ultimately improved the manuscript considerably.

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Introduction

The small states of the Arabian Peninsula have sometimes been disdainfully described as ‘tribes with flags’,1 and most scholars agree that ‘the tribe is the principal building block of these societies’.2 Nevertheless, the specific means by which powerful tribes have shaped the political structures and environments of these states is rarely explained; rather, it has often been simply taken for granted. This book seeks to address these analytical gaps by examining tribes as modern, policy-relevant actors in what some have dubbed ‘bedouinocracies’3 of Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In so doing, it will demonstrate the ways in which participation in tribal affairs provides a significant means of individual involvement in the local politics of small rentier states, while also comprising an important part of these governments’ legitimation strategies. In addition, we will analyse the changes in the historical relationship between ruling elites and nomadic tribes, particularly as affected by the discovery of oil and the proliferation of oil rents that in many ways transformed these states into archetypal rentiers. By analysing the role of tribes as political units, this book will grant such traditional groups agency as modern political actors. Where much of the existing scholarship suggests that political life in the Arabian Peninsula is underdeveloped (at least outside of Kuwait which houses an active parliament), it is in fact in many ways merely under-institutionalized, as much of it remains based on informal institutions, some of which are managed by tribal populations. Indeed, tribal units often provide important means of bypassing cumbersome bureaucratic structures present in many small rentier states,4 in addition to providing strong and reliable social networks. This book will also answer the following questions about the nature of tribal politics in states with under-institutionalized political systems. Do tribes hinder or advance popular participation in government by enhancing uninstitutionalized means of citizen involvement? Has the strength of tribes prevented the growth of independent political parties in such states? In what ways does identifying the

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political capital of tribes change our understanding of the small rentier states of the Arabian Peninsula? The book will also examine how the governments of three Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE, which, at first glance seem quite similar, in terms of demographics and levels of wealth, have handled the continued prevalence of tribalism in their domestic government policies using a variety of methods. The book will thus contribute to the advancement of our understanding of the internal politics of the Arabian Peninsula, in particular going beyond the traditional rentier framework by granting political agency to internal actors, even those existing outside of state political institutions, and organized groups within such states. In discussions about state-building and national identity, the role of tribalism and tribal identity is often dismissed as being merely a social formulation, rather than one with unique and important political consequences. In countries like Iraq, Libya and Yemen, where the modern state project appears to be failing for a variety of reasons, including state fragility and failed international interventions, the resurgence of the political salience of tribal identities has been noticeable in the resultant political vacuum. This re-emergence of tribal powers at the time of state collapse suggests that these tribal affiliations are masked by state structure rather than assimilated into it to the point of erasure. As a result, it is important to examine the degree to which tribes influence political discourse in rentier states of the Arabian Peninsula, which have relatively large and powerful governments. In what follows, we hope to analyse how citizen-state relations are shaped (a) in rentier states with strong central governments and (b) in states with salient tribal identities, with particular focus on whether these formulations will lead to a greater stake in policy making and in social life more broadly.

What is the qabīla? The term qabīla is most often translated simply as tribe, yet can also denote status as qabīlī, or claiming descent from some of the oldest tribes in the Arabian Peninsula. Qabīla thus represents the highest level of organization for tribes of the region and is further subdivided into smaller clan units of tighter circles of consanguinity such as fakhith, ʿashira and batan, until the lowest level of organization, the baīt or home.5 People claiming affiliation to a certain tribe or status as qabīlī, however, are not necessarily classed as badū – another term used to describe tribal populations. Though the term badū was initially used to describe nomadic members of unsettled tribes, today, with the Arabian Peninsula

Introduction

3

largely settled and urbanized, its meaning is less obvious, having become more a mark of identity than of location or occupation as it once was. The definitions of terms therefore become more difficult to understand in the modern era, as they had vague implications even from their origins. As Richard Tapper explains, [u]nfortunately, Middle Eastern indigenous categories (of which perhaps the commonest to have been translated as tribe are qabila, ta’ifa, quam, and il) are no more specific than are English terms such as ‘family’ or ‘group’ [….] As with equivalents in English practice the ambiguity of the terms and the flexibility of the system are of the essence in everyday negotiations of meaning and significance.6

Philip S. Khoury and Joseph Kostiner agree: ‘[B]ecause the term tribe has been used to describe many different kinds of groups or social formations, a single, all-encompassing definition is virtually impossible to produce.’7 We use the term qabīla or its adjective form qabīlī to refer to claims of a specific tribal heritage or background, one that claims deep roots within the Arabian Peninsula, while we use the terms badū and bedouin interchangeably, as both were initially used to describe segments of the population who earned their living by raising livestock rather than having a settled agricultural or urban base,8 to describe segments of the population who classify themselves as having a tribal background or identity, either identifying with or associated with nomadic, rather than settled, ancestors in the Arabian Peninsula. And yet the term qabīlī (meaning descended from pure tribal lineage) has deviated from being merely an indicator of ancestral status, instead9 used now to signify a higher status in socio-economic and socio-political terms, to bestowing a set of privileges that are not associated with a bedouin, or badū, lifestyle, and in fact may indicate its opposite. In historical terms, the Prophet Muhammad himself was descended from the powerful Quraish tribe, a tribe of the city, of trade and commerce,10 which stood in diametric opposition to the usual desert-bound associations of bedouin tribalism. To complicate this matter further, contemporary use of the term qabīla and its plural qabāʾil in places like Kuwait is no longer indicative of ancestral status; instead, it is used to signify tribe size and indicate a certain socio-political behaviour, for example, in reference to the al-ʿAzimi (sometimes known by their plural form, al-ʿAwazim) or al-Rushayda tribes. These tribes may see themselves as bedouin, whereas others who self-identify as bedouin might not classify them as such. As a result, it is important to keep in mind that these definitions are both subjective and dynamic; they have also changed considerably with the introduction and growth of the modern state. Further, the

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level of tribal organization or social and political cohesion varies widely, with smaller tribes often far less cohesive than their larger counterparts regardless of their status as qabīlī. Existing political science literature about qabīla and badū in the Middle Eastern context has tended to focus on the role played by tribes in the formation of modern states. Less research has been done into how these tribes behave once they are incorporated into such states, however, aside from some examinations of their ability to contest elections in states like Jordan and Kuwait.11 Importantly, though, one’s designation as badū has serious political and social consequences, especially when compared alongside the haḍar, or settled, populations of the region. As Miriam Cooke explains, ‘like the Medicis in sixteenth-century Italy and the Vanderbilts in nineteenth-century America, the Arab Gulf tribes in the twenty-first century are asserting both tribal superiority and family privilege’.12 As a result, the tribal, though initially associated with origins and history of the Arabian Peninsula, has become ‘integral to the modern’, as part of the social hierarchy, but also as part of political systems and hierarchies, largely co-opted by the nation state, as discussed below.13

Existing Literature A considerable amount of the existing scholarship concerning tribes in the Middle East juxtaposes the systems of government and organization by tribes with those perpetuated by the modern nation state system, suggesting that tensions between the two are inevitable. Fourteenth-century historian Ibn Khaldun is best known for the first detailed elucidation of the relationship between tribe and state. His introduction of the term asabiyya, most often translated as ‘group solidarity’ based on tribe or clan, demonstrates not only the importance of shared familial background and blood but also of mutual socialization, which allows for unrelated clients and allies to be included into the same ‘group feeling’ as members of the same tribes. As Ibn Khaldun puts it, ‘the affection everybody has for his clients and allies results from a feeling of shame that comes to a person when one of the neighbours, relatives, or a blood-relation in any degree is humiliated. The reason for it is that a client-relationship leads to close contact exactly, or approximately in the same way, as does common descent’.14 Ibn Khaldun goes on to describe the asabiyya based on common descent, however, as the most stable type and therefore an important part of bolstering a stable and secure regime.

Introduction

5

Indeed, religion mixed with kinship, in Ibn Khaldun’s eyes, makes for the strongest government. As he explains, ‘[l]eadership over people, therefore, must, of necessity, derive from group feeling that is superior to each individual group feeling’.15 Ibn Khaldun’s explanation of the strength of tribal loyalties has led many scholars to view tribes as the building blocks of modern nation states. Still, their roles have changed substantially over time and in different political environments, as well as from tribe to tribe. From this we may also conclude that the relative power and importance of a tribe depend on many factors, such as size (and within that how many members of the tribe identify and respect or adhere to tribal ties), proximity to the local rulers or to colonial powers (whether through kinship or other forms of symbiotic alliance), their geographical prominence across a certain state or across state lines, and increasingly, how electoral politics bind this tribe into a single unit for the purposes of political clout within a legislative body. Despite the fact that tribal groups tend to be organized hierarchically, Charles Lindholm considers the ideology of asabiyya to be far more egalitarian than other forms of kinship. As he puts it, asabiyya ‘is not merely a mask for class domination, but is deeply embedded in the kinship structure [….] the ideology of kinship fundamentally opposes acceptance of the intrinsic superiority of any group or person’.16 Mark Allen similarly explains in his book Arabs that there is a high measure of equality within a tribe and that the shaykh of the tribe is, as Thesiger also noted,17 a ‘first among equals’.18 Within the context of increased politicization of tribal patronage systems within the modern GCC states discussed here, this may seem like a romanticized vision, yet it reflects the ways in which each tribe exists as a fairly autonomous and organized, though technically informal, institution. Due to the equality implied for all people linked by tribal ties, Steve C. Caton points out the fundamental disconnect between tribal societies and ruling families, even though both coexist in the GCC states under study. As Caton explains, [t]he problem of the royal tribal state is that it founders on its own political contradictions – an urban civilization that ultimately tears apart the sturdy Bedouin solidarity created in the close blood ties of the desert, a burgeoning bureaucracy that alienates the ruler from his own house, and so forth. The way to transcend these contradictions is to establish the state on some firmer footing than common blood. For Ibn Khaldun, the new state must be founded on prophecy and the religious law that prophecy reveals.19

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Caton, while suggesting ways in which a tribal monarchy can be politically resilient, fails to mention specific examples of the coexistence of the two, with the best instances arguably in Jordan and the Arabian Peninsula. This study will elucidate how and why tribalism, monarchical regimes and even electoral schemes coexist inside the remarkably stable states of Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE. Richard Tapper’s contention that it is not asabiyya that leads to cohesion, but rather ‘the hope of material gain and the absence of material cause for conflict’ that has the same effect, seems to foreshadow discussions of rentierism and strong states of the Arabian Peninsula.20 Tapper ultimately concludes that asabiyya is not powerful enough to secure political loyalty and thus that tribe and state remain fundamentally at odds with each other. In his words, tribe and state are best thought of as two opposed modes of thought or models of organization that form a single system. As a basis for identity, political allegiance, and behavior, tribe gives primacy to ties of kinship and patrilineal descent, whereas state insists on the loyalty of all persons to a central authority, whatever their relation to each other. Tribe stresses personal, moral, and ascriptive factors in status; state is impersonal and recognizes contract, transaction, and achievement. The tribal mode is socially homogeneous, egalitarian, and segmentary; the state is heterogeneous, stratified, and hierarchical. Tribe is within the individual; state is external.21

Such a description in fact demonstrates the extent to which rentier states, many of which historically lacked elected parliamentary systems and therefore have somewhat personalistic political systems, can successfully integrate, and in some cases even manipulate, tribal systems. While the state in its purest form is as impersonal and contractual as Tapper describes, the state as seen in the close-knit societies of Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE takes on a different character, leading us to expect it to have a unique type of relationship with tribes – one which current scholarship in English has yet to describe. Despite efforts to understand how asabiyya affects political form in the nation state, the relationship between tribe and state remains difficult to understand, in terms of whether the two challenge or reinforce each other’s power. Khoury and Kostiner posit that tribe and state mingle and sustain each other; each part changes owing to the other’s influence; and sometimes they seek to destroy one another. The nature of this dialectic emanates not only from tribal military prowess and political organization but also from tribal values and lifestyles and the wide range of influences they exert

Introduction

7

on society. Even in the absence of a common definition of tribe, some scholars seem to agree that as a collective, tribal society possesses what Fuad Khuri calls a ‘cultural substance,’ namely, a typical mode of behaviour and a value system, or what Tapper calls a ‘state of mind’.22

Indeed, even in modern nation states, tribes have managed to sustain their social and political roles. And, as Bassam Tibi explains, ‘though the tribe as an actual social structure has declined in significance, the tribe as a referent for social identity and loyalty has persisted’.23 Where the state monopolizes authority in terms of military and economy, it cannot do so in society. In particular, in the smaller GCC states, because tribal origin has been so important for the ruling families’ rise to power, as will be discussed in chapter two, it is logical for it to be re-emphasized as a type of ruling myth. Kostiner’s later work, focused on the Arabian Peninsula and included in Uzi Rabi’s edited volume largely dedicated to Kostiner’s early work, points out that kin-based groups, either of large business families or tribal groups, became ‘durable, political, and state-sanctioned’, due to ‘the legitimacy of the family like groups’.24 He therefore sees the relationship between GCC states and tribalism as symbiotic – a symbiosis that was only made stronger, rather than challenged, by the introduction of oil rents. While ruling families of the Arabian Peninsula had long subsidized powerful tribes to maintain their loyalty, the allocation of welfare funds, and almost free provision of services were widely used as means to create bases of social support, and to ameliorate conflict between sectoral, occupational, economic, and social groups. State institutions and tribal corporate groups thus became even more interwoven. In the Gulf ’s tradition, families, clans, and other tribal groups were regarded as legitimate for boosting and befriending. Hence, once again, it was the merchant families, tribal political groups, and middle-class families that thrived on the ‘rentier’ economy on the one hand, and intensified its clientelist bonds with the state on the other.25

Therefore, much like Steffen Hertog predicts, distributive states create limits on their power through ‘micro-level distributional obligations that are difficult to reverse’.26 Having empowered tribes and large merchant families initially, then, it is difficult to reverse this relationship. And despite the historical symbiosis between state and tribe, which Kostiner believes is common to all rentier states, politicized or clientelized tribalism still does not lead to the creation of ‘common nation-like narratives’ throughout the GCC.27 In the same edited volume, Philip Carl Salzman appears to challenge the symbiosis that Kostiner describes by emphasizing what he views as innate

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tension between tribe and state: ‘Tribal values, which were creative adaptations to stateless regions and pre-modern states, tend to inhibit and block modern, consent-based governance, and to resist universalist, rule-based policies and polities. Tribal values, constructive in their times and places of origin have become problematical in modern society.’28 Salzman’s argument echoes many concerns voiced in Kuwait and in Qatar in the discussion of elections about the role of tribes in potentially undermining democratic institutions. While we recognize that tribes are often used to circumvent institutions of the state, we also recognize that they have adapted over time, as have state policies towards them, meaning that ‘tribal values’ are likely not as static as Salzman describes. Not enough scholarship specifically examines the political role of tribes inside the rentier states of the Arabian Peninsula. In fact, their continued existence challenges Michael Ross’s claim that rentierism threatens the formation of independent social groups. In a 2001 article, he asserts that government funds can be used to help prevent the emergence of independent social groups in wealthy rentiers. Ross explains: ‘as governments increase in size (relative to the domestic economy) they are more likely to prevent the formation of civic institutions and social groups that are independent from the government, and that the absence of these groups will hinder a transition to democracy’.29 This stipulation assumes, however, that independent groups emerge only after the formation of the government and thus does not apply to tribes of the Arabian Peninsula that have inhabited the region for centuries, prior to the institution of rentier policies. Indeed, statements like the following are not always applicable when it comes to tribes: ‘[W]hen oil revenues provide a government with enough money, the government will use its largesse to prevent the formation of social groups that are independent from the state and hence that may be inclined to demand political rights.’30 To test for the presence of this effect, Ross uses the portion of GDP accounted for by government activity; in essence, ‘the greater the government’s size (as a fraction of GDP), the less likely that independent social groups will form’.31 Simply because groups do not challenge the economic dominance of governments in such states, however, does not preclude them from influencing its policy or grassroots notions of identity. In fact, Hootan Shambayati points out that it is the economic dominance of governments in rentier states that makes cultural opposition the most likely to emerge. He contends that, because economic grievances are unlikely to spur political mobilization in states that provide handsomely for their citizens, cultural and religious rallying points become the primary modes of independent political

Introduction

9

expression.32 As a result, a major part of regime legitimation involves tying rulers to the cultural heritage of the state. In Shambayati’s words, ‘by appealing to golden age myths, rentier states try to create a semblance of legitimacy. The unintended consequence of this move is that culture and ideology become the main arenas of conflict between the state and civil society.’33 Previous studies have demonstrated that Islam is used by the state in a similar way to bolster its legitimacy and that, as a result, independent movements of political Islam become important means of mobilization in rentier states.34 Promoting tribal heritage is another means of state promotion of national identity and cohesion under the ruling family’s leadership, which can be at odds with popular conceptions of the appropriate place and role of tribalism – a topic also discussed in this volume. Miriam Cooke’s Tribal Modern demonstrates ways in which tribes in the GCC states are fundamentally modern groups in the present day, using a sociological perspective. Cooke describes the political and social hierarchies of the Arabian Peninsula as comprising, at the top, the ruling family, with the social clout associated with tribes diminishing the farther they are from the top of the hierarchy.35 Tribal structures therefore determine the social hierarchy which also informs one’s economic and political position, despite the sedentarization of these tribes. As a result, Cooke concludes that in today’s Gulf, tribe becomes race for exclusive citizenship; race becomes class for a larger share of the national wealth; wealth subsidizes the production of an essentialized tribal culture, a national culture appropriate for insertion into the twenty-first-century world where these Gulf states wish to play a major role. These transformations of tribe into race and then class – especially the urban, cosmopolitan class – produce the privileged national citizen.36

Cooke’s conclusion harmonizes the existence of tribalism with rentierism by folding tribes into the client-patron relationship with the rentier state government. Indeed, perhaps because only in wealthy rentier states is citizenship accompanied by material benefits, it is logical that tribal status is used to exclude others from such benefits economically, politically and socially. As long as this remains the case, and as long as political systems remain underinstitutionalized, a change in this system remains unlikely. Reflecting a similar conclusion about the salience of tribal identity, Kuwaiti sociologist Khaldoun al-Naqeeb coined the phrase ‘political tribalism’ to describe the origins of political legitimacy for rulers in the GCC.37 He rightly identifies that ‘[t]he retention of kinship nomenclature helps in strengthening the primordial attachments which serve as a powerful tool of motivation and

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Tribalism and Political Power in the Gulf

mobilization of individuals and social groups’.38 Al-Naqeeb goes on to imbue the phrase with meaning in three primary ways: it allows for ‘group cohesion;’ it constitutes ‘an organizing principle’, and it encompasses ‘a general (popular) mentality, which governs all forms of political relation’.39 Political tribalism can therefore explain political, economic and social behaviour in rentier states. Further, political tribalism is flexible and can adapt to existing circumstances, untethered from a nomadic lifestyle.40 Al-Naqeeb also highlights that, in the Arabian Peninsula, political tribalism is ‘very closely and organically tied to religion, which endows it with an additional source of legitimacy’.41 Tribalism and religion, then, become primary modes of justifying the continued rule of GCC monarchs. In the Arabian Peninsula, he contends, concepts of citizenship and state responsibilities are non-existent due to the strength of the central government, with tribal rulers instead relying on concepts of shūrā and the Qurʾan.42 The case of Kuwait complicates al-Naqeeb’s conception of the tribal rentier state as one without participatory government, since it houses a politically active parliament. Nonetheless, political tribalism, supported by Islamic legitimacy, does seem to perpetuate strong states, as predicted by Ibn Khaldun. In al-Naqeeb’s view, ‘those states in which social integration was attempted by means of secular nationalism are less stable than monarchical states based on religious legitimacy’.43 The events of the Arab Spring, in particular the resilience of monarchical states of the GCC, even in the face of limited protest, revealed the extent to which this assertion is true. Sulayman Khalaf and Hassan Hammoud also recognize the ability of tribal connections to support the strong governments of GCC states. They describe the undergirding political structure inside such states as a coalition of ruling family, merchants and tribal leaders.44 As they explain, ‘[t]he process of coordinating and balancing the interests of such social and political groups did not rest only on a particular system of economic stratification, but was at the same time supported by the existence of a mixture of tribal sentiments and religious Islamic ideology’.45 The three pillars of state legitimacy are thus defined, in Khalaf and Hammoud’s view, as tribalism, Islam and, in the post-oil era, oil welfarism; the combination of the three, they contend, is required to guarantee survival of the strong states of the GCC, reflecting Kostiner’s earlier hypothesis about the symbiosis between rentierism and tribalism.46 Tribalism and rentierism, in Khalaf and Hammoud’s view, also appear to reinforce one another. Tribalism is critical in this formulation, in particular due to the ability of tribal language to personalize and informalize politics in small states since such language is, ultimately, ‘a political language’.47

Introduction

11

Patricia Crone crucially points out, however, that tribal links have also informed economic relationships in GCC states, in addition to holding political capital. Indeed, tribes were initially organized not only by locality, but by occupation, since their members engaged in pastoral or agricultural nomadism.48 Importantly, ‘[i]t is not for nothing that Arab tribes excluded all specialists (such as smiths and entertainers) from membership. The more differentiated and dispersed a tribe becomes, the less well the principle of collective responsibility works and the more diluted tribal solidarity will accordingly become.’49 With the development of commercial industry, class came to displace tribe affiliation, forcing members of nomadic tribes to readjust. With the rise of the commercial, or merchant class, labour came to be proletarianized and tribal values came to be challenged, as described by Khalaf and Hammoud.50 Certainly, as they describe, when the tribe ‘ceased to exist as a self-sufficient, self-perpetuating unit of production’, tribes were transformed into ‘units of occupational stratification involved in different kinds of labor’.51 Existing literature has made great progress in linking tribalism increasingly to modern life and practices in nation states, with this linkage having been made even more explicit through the perpetuation of certain state activities. Indeed, ‘[t]hrough elections, National Day celebrations, and the social prerequisites by which access to the state and its resources is achieved, individuals are increasingly called upon to express and utilise the consanguineal linkages of tribe’.52 Ali Alshawi and Andrew Gardner document this process in the Qatari case, emphasizing that ‘[t]he idiom of the tribe serves as a framework by which this form of social power is established and aggrandised’.53 Tribes, then, serve as a means of organizing and classifying what are otherwise somewhat homogenous citizen populations, as other academics have noted. Also echoing the sentiments of earlier scholarship, Alshawi and Gardner highlight that badū is today more a marker of identity than of a way of life, and that this identity has increasingly become linked to national heritage, with tribe, bolstering rather than challenging the power of the nation state.54 Indeed, reference to tribalism becomes a means of reaffirming rootedness of ruling families in relatively recently independent states. As Alshawi and Gardner explain, ‘tribes were viewed as an adaptive social form specifically configured to socially and politically organize people distributed across the vast territories required for pastoral nomadism on the arid Arabian Peninsula.’55 Today, tribes seem increasingly linked to the pre-oil history of the Arabian Peninsula, something that ruling elites have in turn connected to authenticity and heritage, and which allows for exclude certain classes of residents (namely large expatriate populations) from the benefits of citizenship.

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Tribalism and Political Power in the Gulf

Despite the lack of literature on the specific political role of tribes, scholars of the Arabian Peninsula have long described it as a traditional or tribal society. Rarely has this tribal character been analysed in the region in terms of political relevance, however, except in countries with weak central governments like Yemen. In such states, ‘the strong presence of tribes […] is due to the corruption and weakness of the state institutions. The tribes in Yemen provide social order outside the formal system [….] they provide basic rule of law in the form of conflict resolution and regulation.’56 Because smaller states of the GCC have strong and relatively effective governments, the same dynamic does not exist there. Rather than maintaining their role as service providers, then, tribes in other parts of the GCC tend to find a role in supporting or challenging the existing rulership. F. Gregory Gause III cites tribalism and Islam in the GCC as ‘important arms of the state, providing institutional support and ideological legitimation to the regimes’.57 As a result, he explains, GCC governments tend to grant the use of public space and arguably greater political freedom primarily to these groups. Limiting freedom to movements except for tribal and religious actors has led most independent political groupings, logically, to form around the tribal or religious lines, as mosques, religious schools or tribal meetings are the easiest locations (outside of private homes) for people in the region to gather relatively freely, regardless of political restrictions. As Gause explains, ‘[e]stablishing state authority has necessarily meant subordinating Islamic and tribal institutions to state supervision, if not outright control. However, that does not mean that those institutions, and the rhetoric and symbols that accompany them, are politically unimportant.’58 This political influence, however, is often informal and thus dismissed in literature about politics in the Gulf which tends to focus on regime politics. Consequently, it is still unclear how or when tribes exercise influence on policymaking. It also remains to be seen the extent to which tribal institutions, in particular the majlis (plural majālis) or dīwāniyya (plural dīwāniyyāt or dīwāwīn), will be able to survive in an era when populations are growing and becoming increasingly urban.59 Still, the UNDP has recognized the majlis as ‘an important forum for local social and political development’, thereby solidifying the institutional importance of such informal forums for discussion.60 Uninstitutionalized meetings of dīwāniyyāt and majālis still are the primary modes of civil society in the GCC, despite civil society movements, whether state-funded or independent, becoming increasingly influential in some states. The majlis remains a traditional tribal element of political life, with the ruler’s majlis ‘the final court of appeal on all important matters’, yet it has expanded beyond merely association with tribe

Introduction

13

or its leadership.61 The informal institution essentially constitutes ‘the substance of day-to-day government’.62 Nonetheless, domestic political debates continue largely through private majlis meetings, which are the site of ‘political giveand-take and consensus-building’ on social, economic and political issues.63 The meetings also solidify the status of those who attend: ‘Regular attendance to the weekly majlis of one or more of these potentates confirms one’s status and credibility as a member of an influential elite group.’64 Further, the majlis system has moved to the business world, with managers often using such forums to provide employees a relatively informal space to voice their concerns.65 The system, while allowing an informal mechanism of popular participation in political life, also appears to support the traditional hierarchy that ultimately bolsters ruling families in the region. Although rulers were traditionally considered first among equals, as Eran Siegal points out, ‘[t]he tribal element is basically more one of control and criticism than of primus inter pares as it is mythically perceived’.66 Other scholarship by Calvert Jones has traced how, in the case of the UAE, the government has self-consciously sought to convert bedouins, or badū, who once populated the country into ‘a new kind of citizen, one who is more modern in the eyes of rulers, more globalization-ready, and better prepared for the post-petroleum era’.67 She therefore introduces the important concept of social engineering when it comes to examination of the rentier states of the GCC and how they have essentially sought to modernize their states by modernizing their populations in a way that nonetheless preserves local culture and tradition. Ultimately, Jones uses the phrase ‘entitled patriot’ to describe the population that has emerged from the state’s social engineering efforts that have in fact made these populations more aware of their privileged social and political position as citizens, a distinction often linked to their shared tribal past.68 Courtney Freer has also examined the role of tribalism in elected bodies in the GCC, coming to the conclusion that tribes are far more than mere clients of rentier state governments, as has often been assumed by past scholarship.69 She concludes that ‘because political life in the Gulf is so linked to social life, due to the lack of institutionalized political openings, tribes remain the most influential informal institutions in the region and are reliably turned to when governments are considered unwilling or unable to answer citizen grievances’.70 As such, these groups function as nascent civil society organizations, yet enjoy equally strong social and political pull. As can be seen in this review, much of what is recorded about desert life and tribal heritage in academia currently comes from the works of Western

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explorers, and then from Western academics who lived and worked in the region. These descriptions and analyses are filtered through their own cultural lenses and their experiences were often limited, as they were likely not often exposed to the inner workings of the tribe due to language, cultural and social barriers which greatly limit their exposure to and interactions with women in particular. Many Arab scholars have since sought to examine these biases in books such as Ammar al Sanjari’s Al-Bedu through Western Eyes,71 in which he claims that the majority of those who came to explore the Arabian Peninsula had links to colonial ambitions in the region and were for the most part unflattering in their portrayals of the badū and of tribal practices in general. The reliance on Western documentation of tribal and bedouin life is being increasingly challenged as marred with ‘misunderstanding or misinterpretation’72 by local academics, many of whom come from tribal or bedouin backgrounds themselves, and many of whom are now offering their own views of the interaction between the tribe and the state today, such as Mohammed al Bughaili’s book on Tribes and Power: Tribal Political Activism in Kuwait.73 Others such as Abdelrahman al-Ibrahim are seeking to find a more nuanced approach to the role of non-state actors such as the tribe as a ‘balancing power’74 and by publishing in English offer a direct alternative to texts published by Western academics. Abdulrahman al-Ibrahim also points out the problematic practice of applying Eurocentric terms like feudalism and bourgeoisie to the unique contexts of the Arabian Peninsula,75 and so, although we rely primarily on English scholarly sources, we also use the Arabic terms commonly applied in the region to avoid confusion and to more accurately describe and analyse the states under study. This book is intended for a Western audience, and so we have focused on English language sources for the most part, yet this study has also been careful to include established and emerging voices from the region itself, whether in scholarly works or in interviews, articles from traditional and new media sources, and a number of interviews conducted with nationals within the three states under study.

Case selection Though all GCC countries are often considered as a single unit, Michael Herb makes an important distinction between the wealthier and less populous (in terms of national citizens) rentier states of the GCC (Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE) and their neighbours (Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia), explaining that the former group has managed to use petroleum windfalls to perpetuate the

Introduction

15

strongest support system for their citizens.76 In addition to providing extensive social welfare benefits, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE had ‘fail[ed] to wean citizens from dependence on public sector jobs’,77 making employment part of the rentier package.78 These wealthy states can also afford to employ large numbers of expatriates to fill private sector positions, as well as jobs in service industries that nationals consider undesirable, leading the state to employ some nine out of every ten citizens.79 Further reinforcing the privileged position of nationals, the governments of the wealthiest GCC states have constructed systems of disbursements to citizens so extensive that Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE provide the best examples of rentierism in the Gulf. Freer has thus distinguished them as super-rentiers.80 Rentier state theory would lead us to believe that these states are the least likely to house independent politically active groups of any type, and so the existence of politically powerful tribes in such states challenges traditional understandings of their government systems. Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE are also Sunni majority emirates. They were all influenced by British rule in varying degrees, and enjoy relatively stable internal political environments. Nonetheless, these cases demonstrate a spectrum of political activity among the GCC rentiers. The study of Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE will be used to dispute the premises of rentier state theory by demonstrating the political capital held by major tribes in these countries, even though each case is unique. Indeed, one reason for the case selection is the variety these states provide. Kuwait is in many ways an anomaly – a wealthy rentier state with a vocal parliament historically containing political blocs ranging from Salafis to secular leftists. In such an environment, where electoral politics forms the centre of political life, tribes have managed to maintain their political standing through informal institutions like dīwāniyyāt81 and (technically illegal) tribal primaries in which tribes determine which candidates they will support in parliamentary elections. Kuwaiti tribes have thus adjusted to their political climate, maintaining cohesion in a system which has historically fostered ideological, rather than clan, identification. In response, the government has tried to mitigate tribes’ political power in recent years by occasionally cracking down on previously outlawed tribal primaries, for instance in 2008, in and by redrawing electoral districts. Nonetheless, tribes have persisted as influential political actors in the GCC’s most participatory state. Qatar’s political system is less institutionalized and more personalistic than that of Kuwait, with political power largely centralized in the hands of ruling al-Thani family. While Shaykh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani (r. 1995–2013)

16

Tribalism and Political Power in the Gulf

and his  successor Shaykh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani (r. 2013-present) have repeatedly voiced their intention to institute an elected legislature in the form of a Shura Council (elections are now scheduled for October 2021), the only elected body at present is the Central Municipal Council, responsible primarily for local, and largely apolitical, issues such as road maintenance and public health. In this environment, informal actors like tribes are the primary political agents. The lack of political institutionalization and prevalence of tribal identification in traditional Qatari society thus enhance their political role. Indeed, the use of traditional tribal gatherings of majālis,82 even by the amir himself, to discuss political issues demonstrates the degree to which Qatari tribes function as agents of civil society and thus are influential in policymaking in that state. The UAE contains the most segmented tribal environment of any of the three states under study, considering its division into seven emirates with six different ruling families. With the only elected body, the Federal National Council, chosen by a small number of the population and having limited legislative power, informal politics prevails. Tribes in particular exercise their influence at the emirate level through appointed councils in those localities, as well as informal majālis. At the federal level, tribal rivalries among different emirates also inform policy decisions and have arguably helped to maintain national cohesion. As in Qatar, the absence of a formal legislature allows space for tribes to assert substantial political influence; unlike Qatar, though, tribal cleavages often run alongside borders of individual emirates, in some ways contributing to their importance. Because these cases present different models of tribal engagement in the smaller GCC states, they are instructive in demonstrating the degree to which tribal politics influences policymaking and the political landscape of the Arabian Peninsula’s super-rentier states. Further, variation among these cases highlights the extent to which domestic politics in wealthy small GCC states is often oversimplified, particularly in literature linked to rentier state theory. All three of these states have introduced forms of electoral democracy that tribes have managed to penetrate, at least to a certain degree, and they therefore provide us with interesting examples of how the interplay between tribalism, rentierism and electoral systems, as well as a comparative political study among three of the most economically similar states of the GCC. We will also examine the role of small versus large tribes, as well as intra-tribal conflicts, and the use of bedouin traditions and symbols by non-badū members of the population, thus illustrating the persistent power of bedouinism and bedouin culture. This

Introduction

17

discussion will lead to a scholarly consideration of whether societies in the small GCC states have become re-bedouinized in the modern era and, in particular, whether the influence of bedouinism has slowed these states’ progress towards more representative political systems.

Goals of this book Given the extensive scholarship already conducted on tribes in the Arabian Peninsula, this book is not attempting to look into the ancestry, anthropology or sociology of tribes in that region. Instead, through this interdisciplinary study, we hope to look into the modern usage of the terms tribe and tribalism as a set of socio-political behaviours, which exist, perhaps against all odds, in the framework of super-rentier states. To that end, we wish to examine super-rentier governments’ selective use of tribes and the ways in which these policies have either bolstered or fragmented national identity, as well as the ways in which national branding and heritage projects focused on a desert past equates with bedouinism and so-called ‘tribal values’. We also want to understand how superrentiers choose to engage with their tribal populations and the consequences of these choices, as well as how tribal populations view these interactions and their political as well as social consequences, in addition to how they have adapted tribal practices to what we call ‘bedouin lite’, a concept which we elaborate on throughout this book. In the chapters that follow, we will demonstrate that independent sociopolitical groups do exist in super-rentier states, much to the consternation of traditional rentier state theory and that tribes are primary among them; we will then demonstrate the ways in which both tribes and tribalism persist in the rentier states of the GCC today, but have adapted since these states’ independence. Kuwait features an extreme manifestation of tribal autonomy, even in the present day, with tribes acting essentially as political parties and in so doing exerting political pressure in parliament. Qatar appears eager to avoid instituting tribalized legislative elections, given the extent to which municipal council elections have yielded tribally informed votes, and so tribal influence remains politically influential as well as arguably omnipresent socially. The UAE, because of its segmented tribal populations across seven emirates, has made the most efforts to control what could be seen as competing tribes and tribal influence, reasserting the place of the state and its institutions even as elections continue to run largely along tribal lines.

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While there is substantial historical and anthropological scholarship about the tribe as a social unit, the modern super-rentier state has evolved considerably even over the past decade, and so now is the time for a re-examination of tribes and how states control or are controlled by tribes. Further, as the states under study face the prospect of lower oil rents, most immediately due to the Covid-19 pandemic and in the long-term due to diminished demand for hydrocarbons, tribes could also potentially become more powerful in their attempts to preserve material benefits for their members, turning to self-interest as Salzman posits is inevitable. In what follows, we re-examine the very real political and social roles of tribes in the GCC’s super-rentier states, with a view to understanding the interplay between rentierism and tribalism, as well as the intermingling of the social and political in states whose institutions are complemented by very real informal institutions, often informed by tribal or other family relationships. By demonstrating the mechanisms through which tribes and tribalism exert political and social influence in super-rentier states, we shed light on means in which independent groups in these states exert real and sustained power independent of large state structures.

The way forward This book is divided into seven additional chapters. In the next chapter, we address the directly political role played by members of the so-called badū population, in particular examining ways in which Kuwaiti, Qatari and Emirati ruling families interacted with these populations before and immediately after achieving political independence. The chapter will also address the relationship between members of the badū tribes and settled merchant populations of haḍar, specifically how the state has managed and in some ways has encouraged segregation between these groups. Analysis of citizenship laws will be helpful in determining ways in which states of the GCC have perpetuated a separate badū political identity, aside from the pre-existing social identity. Chapter 3 will involve close examination of the ways in which tribes, which predate nation state formations, have evolved socially to accommodate and at times subvert the new rentier state models to their advantage. It will examine how these badū tribes were rejected or embraced by post-settlement tribes in coastal cities and how that dichotomy between inner-city and outer-desert tribes continues to shape citizenship debates today. To that end, it will trace the development of tribes

Introduction

19

in Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE from primarily political groups to socially coherent bodies with shared political views and interests. It will pay particular attention to describing the process of badū integration into state structures and broad-ranging state-provided welfare systems as these emerged in the twentieth century. The fourth chapter will analyse efforts, by citizenry and by the state, both to define badū identity and to harbour its perpetuation through heritage production and promotion. It will describe these in detail and identify points of tension between grassroots and state-led efforts to promote badū identity for political means, and specifically to boost a sense of shared national identity. In particular, this chapter will address the underlying tensions, as well as areas of commonality, existing between the state and tribes, both in terms of the political roles they envision for themselves and the social values they promote. Chapter 5 will highlight the political and social importance of tribal tropes in Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE with specific examination of their references and particularly of state efforts to harness tribal power. It will show how the badū population has come to influence not only the non-tribal populations, but also the ruling elite, with the latter repeatedly referencing tribal tropes to enhance their legitimacy. Chapter 6 will examine electoral tribalism, or the degree to which tribal alignment influences voter choice through in-depth examination of electoral returns from the Kuwaiti National Assembly (parliament), Qatar’s Central Municipal Council and the UAE’s Federal National Council. Although only the Kuwaiti parliament holds substantial political authority at present, tribal affiliation is proven to influence voter decision-making in the other two bodies, suggesting that, even when fully elected legislatures are introduced in Qatar, as is planned for 2021, and the UAE, voter choices would likely not be greatly changed. This section thus posits that the existence of powerful tribes may hinder the development of democratic practices and ideological politics. Chapter 7, ‘Tribal intersections in the digital age’, will examine if and how tribes have adapted to become politically and socially influential through new media, including Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp. We will assess the impact of tribal social evolution online and off on tribal women and youth in particular. In the substantive concluding chapter, we will assess the political and social input of tribes in Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE, with specific focus on the extent to which tribalism and its importance hinder or help the creation of modern state project today. In short, depending on how it is being handled, it can either be an impediment to ‘progressive’ citizenship, or a way to access a greater (perhaps

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Tribalism and Political Power in the Gulf

fairer) stake hold in policy making in these rentier states. We will examine the unique interplay between tribalism, electoral politics and rentierism, with a view to determining the comparative political influence of each in Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE.

2

The historical relationship between badū and ruling families In this chapter, we endeavour to trace ways in which monarchical institutions came into place and in some ways either replaced or reproduced the informal tribal structures that preceded them in Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE. Ultimately, and rather unexpectedly, we find that tribal identity has in many ways been bolstered to maintain national cohesion and loyalty in the Arabian Peninsula’s ruling families discussed here.1 Combined with this dynamic is the rentier nature of these states, whose vast oil wealth allows their governments to provide handsomely for citizens; these states have therefore managed to successfully take over the distributive responsibilities previously held by tribes, a major step towards their consolidation of power. Nonetheless, tribalism remains politically and socially significant. As Mehran Kamrava puts it, ‘[t]hroughout the Arabian Peninsula, kinship, oil, and religion have coalesced to produce what appears to be a “tribal ideology” that permeates most institutions and practices. Though never formally articulated, this tribal ideology is not openly criticized either.’2 Indeed, despite their potential to challenge monarchical power, by emphasizing the importance of ascriptive identity, tribal markers can also signal proximity to the ruling family and so have become a particularly important part of social life as well as signifiers of social standing in the Arabian Peninsula. The country cases under study here reveal the prevailing political relevance of tribalism, but also highlight the variety of tribal relationships apparent in states that are very similar in many respects – even in terms of tribal composition. For instance, Kuwait, as a consequence of having its present-day capital city settled first of the three countries considered, has an entrenched urban merchant class with a distinct identity, both politically and socially, from those perceived as badū, or tribal; this division has become particularly influential and increasingly clear in the country’s parliamentary elections, as discussed in Chapter 6. Qatar and the UAE, however, were settled under unified political leadership after

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Kuwait and were arguably more substantively affected by British presence, which shaped both their initial sedentarization and coalescence into distinct states;3 the UAE’s tribal landscape is further influenced by the country’s organization into seven distinct emirates, which has informed how the national government has managed tribal populations. Below we trace the ties between the region’s monarchies and indigenous tribal populations.

Kuwait Members of the Bani Khalid tribe from the north-eastern segment of the Arabian Peninsula initially settled Kuwait City in the seventeenth century. As Jill Crystal notes, the al-Sabah ruling family are said to have been one of the first of the larger Bani ʿUtub tribes to settle in Kuwait from the Najd in the early eighteenth century. Initially, the family may have shared power in a rather informal division with the al-Khalifa (the current ruling family of Bahrain), who managed pearling and trade, and the al-Jalahimah, who were responsible for coastal security, leaving the al-Sabah with ‘responsibility for explicitly political functions such as city security and diplomatic, especially tribal relations’.4 In 1752, the al-Sabah family’s rule more formally began in Kuwait, when the shaykh of the Bani Khalid tribe and previous ruler, Sulaiman bin Muhammad al-Hamid, was succeeded by Shaykh Sabah bin Jabir al-Sabah. Under his rule, the al-ʿAzimi tribe (or alʿAwazim) became particularly important in protecting Kuwait City from attacks from the outlying desert hinterlands, while the al-Sabahs of the Bani ʿUtub were able to use their position on Kuwait Bay to secure their rule.5 Kuwait therefore transitioned to a settled state, at least with a sustained settled urban centre in its present-day capital, earlier than its neighbours, with the settlement primarily spurred by the growth of fishing, pearling and trade in Kuwait Port.6 The status of the Bani ʿUtub from the Najd, however, as ‘aristocrats of the desert’ was transposed onto urban society, with the Bani ʿUtub coming to form ‘the ruling class’ of the growing Kuwait City, taking control of fishing, pearling and trade, and critically important to the maintenance of al-Sabah authority.7 The al-Sabah family, unlike other families of the Bani ʿUtub, was oriented primarily towards the desert outside of the town centre, making them critically important in maintaining links with that part of the population.8 Notably, the al-Sabah is not the only ruling family of the GCC that belongs to the larger alʿAnaza tribal confederation of the Najd, as the ruling families of Bahrain and

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23

Saudi Arabia are also part of the same tribal coalition.9 The al-Sabah family, importantly, was able to come to power in Kuwait due to its ties to tribes, particularly the ʿAjman, in the hinterlands, which became critically important to political alliances.10 While many elite merchant families were oriented towards the sea for trade and commerce, then, the ‘Sabah family remained oriented toward the desert.’11 The al-Sabah family therefore always had important political connections, although it was among the least wealthy of the prominent families in what was Kuwait at the time.12 Because the ruling family depended on merchants for funds, however, ‘from the beginning governance in Kuwait was based on compromise and coalition-building, not extreme authoritarianism or brute force’.13 Further, al-Sabah rule ‘was based more on competence than on conquest or hereditary claims to greatness’, and the al-Sabah rulers themselves recognized that their power was dependent on gaining support from families of the Bani ʿUtub.14 Indeed, the al-Sabah rulers were not notably wealthier than other segments of the population and largely were ‘first among equals’. Al-Shamlan describes them in the 1800s: ‘[They] were not privileged from most of the Kuwaiti population in any way. They were similar to the sheikh of a tribe. There was no distinction between the sheikh and members of his tribe. The power of the ruler was limited, and there were some Kuwaiti leaders who had more authority than the ruler himself.’15 This egalitarian history likely influenced the consensus-driven character of political life in Kuwait, which houses the most powerful legislature in the GCC; indeed, merchant elites were more powerful than the al-Sabah arguably until the discovery of oil, as the ruling family remained dependent on them for funds until that time, and they benefited from Kuwait low customs fees16 and international trade routes. In 1899, Shaykh Mubarak al-Sabah signed an agreement with the UK which granted the British Government control over Kuwait’s foreign affairs as well as exclusive commercial agreements, a move which further cemented the alSabah family’s position in power.17 Still, British influence in Kuwait was not as wide-reaching as it was elsewhere in the GCC, as will be discussed at length later. The British did, crucially, support the Kuwaitis against Ottoman attempts to gain inroads; the UK in 1904 sent its first representative, a political agent, to be based in Kuwait.18 As Crystal explains, ‘[b]y the time Mubarak died in 1915, he had established a strong bond with Britain. Although this bond left Kuwait dependent on Britain, it also assured Kuwait’s political independence from its neighbors and, however inadvertently, Kuwait’s eventual emergence as an independent political entity in the international state system.’19 Further,

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Tribalism and Political Power in the Gulf

Shaykh Mubarak’s rule and his links with the British allowed Kuwait’s merchants access beyond the regional economy and into global markets.20 The merchants also remained powerful players domestically, even rebelling when Shaykh Mubarak implemented new taxes on pearling in 1909 which led to the revocation of this measure.21 The Battle of Jahrah in 1920 effectively solidified Kuwaiti independence, albeit with British assistance, and helped in negotiating land rights with Saudi Arabia’s King ʿAbdulaziz al-Saud (Ibn Saud) who sought to expand his influence in the region.22 Nonetheless, victory in this battle was an important step in subsuming tribal identities under a national Kuwaiti identity. As Claire Beaugrand points out, King ʿAbdulaziz al-Saud’s imposition of a blockade on tribal trade with Kuwait in 1921, which lasted until the mid-1930s, was another means in which he sought to aggregate tribal support to fortify his position.23 As Anthony B. Toth explains, ‘[p]ermitting access to the Kuwaiti market to some tribes during times of privation manifested the power of ‘Abd al-‘Aziz over the Bedouin just as much as denying them the same market during stringent periods of blockade’.24 King ʿAbdulaziz al-Saud attempted to bring under his control the al-ʿAjman, al-Mutayri (sometimes known by their plural form Matran), and alʿAzimi (sometimes known by their plural form al-ʿAwazim) tribes, for whom the blockade was particularly costly.25 The border between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait was therefore arguably only imbued with meaning in terms of economic value, particularly tribal access to markets.26 In his book on the history of Riyadh,27 William Facey describes the economic, social and political ties of the established city dwellers and the bedouin tribes as both symbiotic and predatory, where the latter sold certain animals and their products, including dried camel milk, wool, woven goods and leather, in market places and gained access to goods they would not be able to produce or procure otherwise, such as dates, rice, wheat, coffee, cardamom and more importantly weapons and ammunition, and household goods. However, at times of drought or military attacks, the city dwellers were likely to be engaged in fending off bedouin attackers, a cycle which continued until the formation of the modern GCC states and the somewhat enforced sedentarization of the bedouins. The discovery of oil in the 1930s spurred the formulation of more solid borders and further strengthened the position of the political leadership under the al-Sabah family who then had funds to back their claims to power; the alSabah leadership received its first payment from Kuwait Oil Company in 1935, at a time when the pearling industry faced major decline, when a trade embargo with Saudi Arabia severely damaged merchants’ livelihoods, and when the

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25

Great Depression was underway globally.28 Oil was discovered in commercial quantities in 1938, with the first barrels exported in 1946.29 Notably, it was merchants, rather than members of Kuwaiti tribes, who had been politically organized, at least in Kuwait City, first in the 1909 rebellion against taxation and later in 1938 when merchants formed their own legislative body to challenge leadership of the executive, especially in collecting and managing the new oil revenue.30 The al-Sabah family managed to dissolve this assembly, as it ultimately failed to find support outside the merchant elite; members of prominent tribes, for instance, remained loyal to al-Sabah leadership. As Farah al-Nakib explains, however, ‘the movement revealed that Kuwait’s rulers needed to legitimize their control over the country’s newfound wealth and the sudden and unprecedented level of government intervention in economic and social affairs, particularly once oil revenues increased exponentially under Abdullah al-Salem’.31 Indeed, in 1951, Shaykh ʿAbdullah (r. 1950–1965) made a 50–50 profit-sharing agreement with the Kuwait Oil Company, meaning that, by 1953, revenues increased to $169 million and continued to increase every year.32 From the start of the oil era, the government became focused ever more on expanding the provision of social services to a larger number of Kuwaitis to secure and in a sense justify their control of the state’s oil coffers. In a largely homogenous ethnic environment, with the majority of the national population Sunni and of Najdi origin, the major division in Kuwait exists between fully urbanized long-time citizens (ḥaḍar) and newly naturalized tribal figures (badū or bedouin), many of whom became naturalized in the 1960s, Kuwaitis bi-l-tajnis, as opposed to Kuwaitis bi-l-ta’sis, considered the country’s ‘original’ inhabitants. A ḥaḍar is defined as a Kuwaiti ‘whose forefathers lived in Kuwait before the launch of the oil era (1946) and worked as traders, sailors, fishermen, and pearl divers’.33 Badū, in contrast, are, or are perceived to be, ‘immigrants, mostly from Saudi Arabia, who used to live on animal pastoralism’ and relocated to Kuwait between 1960 and 1980.34 In the words of Crystal, tribal identity in Kuwait has remained important, not due to policies of the British, as was arguably the case in the UAE,35 but rather because of ‘its economic uses to the beduin and its political uses to the government’.36 Indeed, tribe has become the major social category in Kuwait and, as a result and as will be discussed later, has significant political consequences as well. Kuwaiti citizenship policies have sharpened the badū-ḥaḍar division, making it more overt there than perhaps in any other GCC state, though all states implemented stricter citizenship laws in the wake of newfound oil wealth. Kuwaiti nationality was initially defined in 1948 as belonging to those residents

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whose family had been in Kuwait since 1899, as well as people born in the state and Arabs or Muslims who had lived in the state for up to ten years.37 Following the state’s first census in 1957, it was revealed that 45 per cent of the population was expatriate; as a result of anxiety about this proportion, the 1959 nationality law did not grant citizenship to people who had been born in Kuwait or to longterm residents, but only to those settled in the state by 1920, the year of the Battle of Jahrah which led to the construction of the third defence wall around Kuwait City.38 Leading up to independence from the British in 1961, those who considered themselves Kuwaiti were forced to report to committees with documentation proving that they had been settled in Kuwait by 1920.39 This requirement, of course, excluded tribes that had not yet been settled and thus lacked documentation of their presence in the state. Beaugrand dubs the strict formulations of citizenship laws an ‘urban snapshot conception of citizenship’, which ‘failed to embrace the whole territory of the internationally recognised state, let alone acknowledge and think through the reality of nomadism and tribal sedentarisation’40 – a sentiment echoed by many Kuwaiti academics with a bedouin background today.41 Indeed, because Kuwait’s citizenship policies privileged settled urban populations, they led to the creation of a substantial population of people bidūn jinsiyya (without nationality), as they were ineligible to claim Kuwaiti citizenship and unable to return to their places of origin to claim citizenship there. Excluded from the rights of citizens, members of this population are consequently also barred from welfare benefits that citizens enjoy. Lacking identifying documents from any country, members of this population often cannot find employment in their home countries or cross borders to seek jobs elsewhere. Kuwait is estimated to house some 100,000 bidūn.42 This issue has today become highly politicized, with charges that members of certain tribes agitate for naturalization to inflate their own representation in parliament and with the speaker of parliament, Marzouq al-Ghanem, having put forward much contested new legislation in November 2019 to address the issue.43 After independence, only approximately one-third of the Kuwaiti population were granted ‘original’ citizenship and were classed as founding citizens, the majority of whom had been settled in towns or villages prior to Kuwaiti independence.44 Some badū managed to gain citizenship later and thus have been dubbed citizens through naturalization.45 Though fundamentally equal before the law, members of the naturalized category were barred from voting or running for parliament for thirty years – a requirement later reduced to twenty years.46 Further, these tribal populations tended to be housed outside of the

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urban centre, again solidifying their identity as distinct from the haḍar elites. As al-Nakib puts it, ‘[t]his segregation contributed to fixing haḍar and badū as mutually exclusive, and spatially bounded, social categories’.47 Such division remains today and has major political consequences because these areas have historically tended to receive government services of lesser quality than did inner districts48 and because tribal voters tend to be concentrated in the present day outlying Districts IV and V.

Tribal identity in Kuwait today As a whole, the Kuwaiti Government strives to encourage national identification above that of subnational loyalties like those of clan and tribe through its management of the heritage sector discussed in greater detail in Chapter 4. Tribes have historically been rarely mentioned publicly aside from during electoral campaigns,49 but this has been changing over the last decade as will be examined further in this book. Insofar as the government encourages tribalism, it is to use symbolism of tribes to encourage loyalty to the Kuwaiti state. As Longva explains, While effectively undermining the structure of the tribe, among other things through the housing and education policies, the state is careful to cultivate the external diacritica of tribal identity (e.g., tribal names) and the emotions they elicit. At the same time, the badu are perfectly aware that the source of their material well-being nowadays is the state, not the tribe. Increasingly, their allegiance goes to the state, although the tribe conveniently provides the idiom and imagery through which to experience and express this allegiance. We are witnessing a shift in identification and loyalty from tribe to nation, deftly staged and managed by the state, which appeals to both universalistic and particularistic values to achieve its aim.50

And yet this shift has been disrupted recently by both electoral and selective governmental tribalism, as well as tribalized housing policies that led to entire blocks of government houses being occupied by members of a single tribe.51 The shift away from tribe and towards state has therefore been both self-conscious and incomplete in the Kuwaiti case as well as in the others under study in this volume. Uniquely in the Kuwaiti case, tribes have coalesced to form political blocs contesting parliamentary elections. Initially, tribes in Kuwait tended to promote ‘service MPs’ who would secure material benefits for their constituents, a trend which cemented haḍar beliefs that members of tribes had a transactional view of politics. Indeed, while many members of the Kuwaiti haḍar population

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consider tribes to be primarily interested in maintaining ties with the ruling elite to maintain their access to state benefits, as suggested by Longva above, Kuwait’s tribes have more recently become increasingly oppositional in their outlook. Nathan Brown argues that Kuwait’s largest tribes (al-ʿAzimi and al-Mutayri, followed by al-Rushayda, al-ʿAjman, and al-ʿAnaza) have become increasingly aware of their political capital, specifically their ability to unite in order to block government initiatives they oppose.52 As he explains, ‘[t]he tribes themselves have grown far more sophisticated and demanding with regard to their political agendas [….] Tribal primaries have allowed tribal members to use their votes in a more united manner [….] And no longer can tribal deputies be bought cheaply – they represent sizeable constituencies now and do not follow the government blindly.’53 Al-Nakib, in many ways updating Longva’s earlier observations about tribes’ reliance on the state, or at least perceived reliance upon it, explains that ‘while the state’s spatial policies to keep badū segregated was key to maintaining a political balance between loyal and oppositional forces, the fact that the badū were not only spatially isolated but also excluded through inferior benefits and services made it difficult to maintain their long-term loyalty’.54 Indeed, tribal loyalty can no longer be depended upon, and increasingly tribal figures, most famous among them Musallam al-Barrak, have worked with non-tribal members of the opposition to push for political reform which many members of the haḍar population, eager to maintain the status quo, have opposed, in a reversal of the previous arrangement in which merchants served as the primary check on al-Sabah authority which was bolstered by its tribal allies. In fact, Alsharekh argues that, after the 2012 protests that were mainly led by tribal MPs and their constituents, Kuwait’s ruling elite turned towards cultivating a political relationship with a ‘new’ state-sponsored merchant elite as a means of balancing the newly oppositional tribal population.55

Qatar Jill Crystal traces present-day Qatar’s modern history to 1766, when portions of the Bani ʿUtub clan, the al-Khalifa and al-Jalahima, left what is today Kuwait for Zubarah on the western coast of present-day Qatar to establish a settlement.56 Before that time, few settled towns existed in the interior of the Qatari peninsula, aside from small fishing villages that were not completely sedentary.57 The alThani, now the ruling family of Qatar and hailing from the Bani Tamim tribe, are said to have migrated from Najd in present-day Saudi Arabia to the eastern

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portion of present-day Qatar in the early eighteenth centuries;58 although they may have been politically prominent prior to 1766, the arrival of the Bani ʿUtub in Zubarah undermined any authority they had amassed, as Zubarah became a successful trading port and pearling centre in its own right.59 In fact, Zubarah became so successful that Persian and Omani troops attacked it, leading the Bani ʿUtub from Zubarah and Kuwait in the 1770s to retaliate against both and ultimately capture Bahrain in 1783.60 Many members of the Bani ʿUtub, namely the al-Khalifa family who rules Bahrain today, left to settle on the island. Crystal describes the departure of the Bani ʿUtub as critically important to Qatar’s development, since it led to the end of political and trade alliances with other members of that tribe.61 Further, their departure created a political vacuum; as a result, in her words, ‘Qatar did not develop the centralized authority and strong leaders that characterized its neighbors in Kuwait and Bahrain.’62 The al-Jalahima returned to Qatar after clashing with the al-Khalifa, and Bahrain, through its al-Khalifa rulers, continued to exert limited influence over Zubarah and other settlements on the Qatari peninsula; in fact, the UK had signed protection treaties with Bahrain concerning the Qatari peninsula, which was under Bahraini control, reflecting al-Khalifa predominance in that period.63 In the mid-nineteenth century, the al-Thani migrated to Doha from Fuwairat but did not come to power in an organized or undisputed manner. Indeed, politics of the Qatari peninsula were, until the end of the nineteenth century, largely defined by outsides powers’ ambitions, namely those of the British, Ottoman Empire, al-Saud, Oman and Bahrain.64 According to Fromherz, the al-Thani became the uncontested ruling family after the establishment of dynasties in Bahrain, Kuwait and the UAE, with their rule initially limited to the area of present-day Doha, with Bahrain claiming Zubarah, and with other tribes claiming much of the land north of Wakra, the only other urban development at the time.65 Unlike Kuwait, in which the ruling family rose to power through its ties to tribes in the hinterlands, Ottoman and British authorities played a role in helping to solidify al-Thani rule, leading to support, at least in Western scholarship, for intertwining the rise of Qatar and the rise of the al-Thani family.66 Furthermore, due to the prevalence of pearling in Qatar’s nascent economy, the settled community of Doha emerged at the end of the nineteenth century, with the earliest settlement in the pearling town of Zubarah on the north coast that dates to the eighteenth century. As Crystal explains, in contrast to Kuwait, Qatar’s location outside of main trade routes, as well as its ecology, dictated that

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it did not become as large of a global port as did Kuwait City, leading to generally less trade and, as a result, a smaller merchant class.67 In her words, [t]he different economy in turn affected the relative strength of social groups. The basic actors were the same – the ruler, his family, Britain, the merchants, the pearling workforce – but their size, strength, and consequently political role and bargaining power differed from that of their Kuwaiti counterparts. In particular the merchants were a weaker group. They were fewer in number and, completely dependent on pearling, had fewer economic options [….] the merchants lacked monopoly on trade, some of which was handled by the foreigners, some by the ruler himself.68

In addition, many tribes from outside Qatari peninsula came to graze in that area during the winter, further delaying permanent indigenous settlement.69 In fact, many such tribes were loyal to the al-Saud, hailing from the al-Murrah and al-ʿAjman tribes, leaving Qatari authorities little control over the interior of the peninsula, especially given the strength of King ʿAbdulaziz al-Saud.70 On the whole, Qatar’s state apparatus developed later than did Kuwait’s. As Crystal explains, ‘[h]istorically, the majority of Qatar’s inhabitants lived at subsistence levels and depended for their livelihood on the desert or the sea. As late as the middle of the twentieth century, Qatar’s total population remained less than 30,000.’71 In contrast, Kuwait as early as the late nineteenth century was growing and prospering.72 During this period of the eighteenth century, in Crystal’s words, ‘Kuwait was already a political unit. Qatar was not, it had no central authority. The peninsula consisted of a few sleepy fishing villages governed informally by local Shaikhs, transitory nomadic camps, and two recent and growing settlements tied to Bahrain.’73 By 1862, the small settlements of Bidaa, Doha, and Doha al-Saghira (all of which comprise present-day Doha) were united under Muhammad bin Thani and a Bahraini governor from the al-Khalifa family.74 By 1867, the relationship between Muhammad bin Thani and the governor had deteriorated, leading the al-Thani family to confront Bahrain.75 In 1868, Colonel Pelly negotiated an agreement with Muhammad bin Thani, the first time the British formally recognized Qatari partial autonomy from Bahrain,76 following Bahraini attacks on Qatar, which had violated the 1835 maritime truce and therefore required British attention. At the end of the nineteenth century, the al-Thani family, who hailed from one of the oldest and largest tribes in the Arabian Peninsula,77 gathered power on the east coast of the Qatari peninsula, despite Crystal’s claim that it had not historically been prominent or even had a long history in Qatar itself (she suggests that the al-Sudan was arguably the most powerful settled tribe in Qatar at the time).78

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Nonetheless, the al-Thani family managed to secure their position of power largely by their mercantile prowess which allowed them to amass a considerable fortune and social standing,79 and by developing ties with the Ottomans who built a fort in Doha after occupying Hasa in 1872, and later with the British.80 Qatar, however, lacked a powerful indigenous merchant class. Because of the lack of small merchants of the type seen in Kuwait and Dubai, there was a vacuum of power for the al-Thani family to enter.81 Meanwhile, on the coast, Qatari pearl divers tended to resist what they considered unfair labour practices due to their ties to tribes that granted them mobility, arguably weakened the merchant class, and limited political authority of the rulers at that time.82 In the words of then ruler of Qatar Muhammad al-Thani to Palgrave, ‘we are all from the highest to the lowest slaves of one master, pearl.’83 Because the al-Thani family traditionally exerted control primarily around Doha, formerly Bidaa, which had a population of around 12,000 people before the discovery of oil, there were, according to Rosemarie Said Zahlan ‘[c]ontextual documents of the British and Ottoman powers, both of which were interested in legitimizing Al-Thani rule and ignoring or sidelining the rival claims of other tribes, largely support a narrative of complete codependence of the rise of Qatar and the rise of the Al-Thani’.84 The presence of an Ottoman threat also allowed Shaykh Jassim, the son of Muhammad bin Thani, to use rivalry between them and the British to help secure power for himself and his family.85 Indeed, ‘[i]f Qatar’s conflict with Bahrain helped to consolidate Al-Thani power, Qatar’s assertion of independence from its major inland colonial protector – the Ottomans – provided Jassim Al-Thani with an aura of authority’.86 Following the Battle of Wajbah in 1892, when Shaykh Jassim al-Thani managed to bring together Qatari tribes, notably the Bani Hajar, one of the largest tribes on the Arabian Peninsula,87 to defeat the Ottomans, he was considered the country’s founder.88 Furthermore, this event led to ‘a final halt to Bahraini claims over Qatar; never again was the authority of the Al-Thani in Qatar to be seriously questioned by the Al-Khalifah’.89 The Ottomans ultimately renounced their claims to Qatar in 1913, and in 1916 Qatar was brought into the trucial system when Shaykh ʿAbdullah bin Jassim al-Thani signed a treaty with Britain.90 Shaykh Jassim, in addition to having helped solidify Qatar’s independence from Bahrain, is today seen as the country’s founding father.91 Despite such changes, al-Thani rulers enjoyed limited authority beyond Doha before the discovery of oil, and in fact tribal disputes were often resolved by a tribe simply leaving, demonstrating the continued fragility of settled life.92

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For instance, after the shaykh of the al-Ainain, then in Doha, had a dispute with the Bahraini ruler, members of the al-Khalifa destroyed their settlement and threatened to force their move to Bahrain; they moved to Wakrah to avoid this fate.93 Further complicating governance was the fact that ‘[t]here was simply no known tradition of dynastic succession in Qatar before the treaty of 1868 between Muhammad bin Thani and the British Colonel Pelly’.94 Similar to the situation of ruling tribes in other Gulf states, by the 1860s, the al-Thani were considered first among equals.95 By 1913, territorial expansion under King ʿAbdulaziz al-Saud came closer to Qatar, leading Shaykh Abdallah bin Jassim al-Thani (r. 1913–1949), the new ruler of Qatar, to sign a formal protectorate agreement with the British through the Anglo-Qatari Treaty of November 1916, with outside threats once again threatening Qatari-British ties.96 British presence in Qatar, as in the UAE, ‘helped solidify the status quo tribal arrangements’.97 It was during this period, then, that al-Thani power and independence from Bahrain were institutionalized. In fact, the treaty’s third article granted Shaykh ʿAbdullah sole authority to make personal arms purchases from Oman, which were to be used by him and his so-called dependents, yet he was prohibited from arming other, non-al-Thanilinked tribes.98 This treaty with the UK, then, managed to ‘redefine and stabilize the identities of local political units. They forged the first link between political sovereignty (previously extended over tribes) and territory. The treaties also gave power and legitimacy to the particular signatory Shaikhs.’99 Qatar’s dependence on pearling, as well as its late settlement under a unified political leadership, nearly led to economic ruin in 1929 due to the worldwide economic depression, which coincided with the introduction of Japanese cultured pearls, ushering in ‘a period of unprecedented hardship’.100 Indeed, with the collapse of the pearling industry in the 1930s due to the introduction of the Mikimoto cultured pearl in Japan and due to global economic decline, much of Qatar’s merchant population migrated.101 While almost half of the Qatari population is estimated to have been involved in pearling, only 25 per cent of the Kuwaiti and 31 per cent of the population of the present-day UAE were involved, leading these ports to become home to other types of trade.102 The collapse of pearling in Qatar, however, nearly wiped out its population.103 Kamrava explains that it was the arrival of oil, which was discovered in 1939 and exported in commercial quantities in 1949,104 rather than indigenous tribal ties or British influence, which ‘hastened the transformation of the Qatari state from a quasi-tribal institution to a comparatively more bureaucratic one. Prior to oil wealth, one of the primary means of securing patronage had been through

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land distributions – a practice that continues to this day – resulting in the emergence of the Al Thanis as large landowners, as early as the 1950s.’105 Similar such practices took place throughout the GCC as a means of further solidifying state power in the face of known tribal threats, and today state ownership of land remains a major policy issue in Kuwait,106 as well as Bahrain.107

The Al-Thani family’s rule The ruling family in Qatar has historically been notably fractious. Lacking a rule of primogeniture, succession has rarely been uncontested.108 When Shaykh ʿAbdullah bin Jassim al-Thani took power in 1913, his twelve brothers turned to Saudi Arabia for support to challenge him, which in turn led Shaykh ʿAbdullah to rely on British support.109 Shaykh ʿAbdullah’s successor Shaykh ʿAli bin ʿAbdullah al-Thani (r. 1949–1960) faced even more opposition as oil revenues increased, meaning access to the ruler had monetary value. To maintain his position and stability, Shaykh ʿAli ‘limit[ed] the civil list to the ruling family and formalis[ed] the practice of granting larger allowances to those most closely related to him’.110 Nonetheless, Shaykh ʿAli hesitantly abdicated in favour of his son Ahmad bin ʿAli al-Thani (r. 1960–1972) in 1960 to prevent his nephew Shaykh Khalifa bin Hamad from taking power, yet Shaykh Khalifa eventually ousted his cousin ʿAli in 1972 in a bloodless coup shortly after independence.111 Shaykh Khalifa bin Hamad al-Thani (r. 1972–1995), to protect his branch of the family’s position, named his son Hamad crown prince, which spurred family resentment and led to a coup attempt that was uncovered in 1983.112 Shaykh Hamad bin Khalifa in turn deposed his father in a bloodless coup in 1995, only to thwart an allegedly Saudi-backed coup attempt in 1996. Notably, each of these coups had distinctive tribal elements: In each of these coups, members of different factions of the ruling family turned to different tribes for support (including the al-Murrah in 1996), and sometimes to rulers of other countries (typically Saudi Arabia). With each succession, the relative weight of the tribes shifted, depending on their allegiances. But the overall process of succession through coups reinforced the relative power of the tribes in Qatar in ways that other Gulf states did not experience.113

Also shaping this unique dynamic is the fact that the al-Thani family is the largest in proportion of the total local population, amounting to 20,000 people or half the Qatari population in the 1980s, in Fromherz’s estimation, making divisions among their members less surprising.114

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Because the family has been historically divided, tribes at times have provided cover for the ruling family; for instance, in 1963, when Arab nationalists demonstrated in Doha after the overthrow of ʿAbd al-Karim al-Qasim in Iraq, tribes patrolled the streets.115 Fromherz explains: ‘[I]t was tribes external to Al-Thani family, not the fractious Al-Thani family itself – which was as much a problem as a help to the Emir – that helped guarantee the security of the Emir.’116 Fromherz further posits that there are seven reasons for the successful al-Thani dynasty in Qatar: the length of their reign, continuity of succession, persistence of their settlement, a vacuum of political authority, British and Ottoman intervention, traditional forms of allegiance, and their function as a unifying symbol for diverse peoples of Qatar (Shaykh Jassim in particular is seen as having decisively united the people of Qatar and led them to victory).117 All of these factors have contributed to the very strong institutionalized political position of the al-Thani family.

Tribal identity in Qatar today As in the other two states under study in this volume, due to the handsome disbursements granted to citizens, Qatari citizenship laws have been strict. Beginning in 1961, citizens of Qatar were required to have lived in the country since 1930 and have ‘regular legal residence’ inside the country for the same period. In 1963, the government issued legislation restricting foreigners from buying real estate and demanding that businesses be majority owned by Qataris. Around the same time, Amir Shaykh Ahmad (r. 1960–1971) ‘fortified the position of Al Thani by granting members preferential access to land or real estate development in addition to their allowances and domination of leading positions in the government and nascent administration’.118 These measures resulted in part due to demands from the National Unity Front, which emerged in 1963 uniting ‘Qatari workers, low-ranking Al Thani shaykhs and disaffected nobles’ and called for a general strike, more social services, an elected municipal council, and preferential hiring for citizens in the public sector.119 Anxiety about the country’s growing expatriate population also led to the stipulation in voting law that a Qatari citizen can only vote in municipal council elections if his or her family has been living in the area before 1930, the start of the oil era.120 Further, legislation introduced in 2005 specified that Qatari citizenship could not be granted to more than fifty applicants per year.121 Kuwait’s 1959 citizenship law also specified that only fifty people could be granted citizenship in any single year,122 amended to 4000 in 2019.123

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Qatari society, like Kuwaiti, has traditionally been divided into badū and haḍar, even though both groups were historically transitory, with badū migrating to Qatar for the winter and haḍar leaving Qatar for the summer pearl diving.124 The haḍar generally were more often involved in pearl diving but also included craftspeople, many protected by the al-Murrah tribe.125 The hwala historically comprised another significant group among the haḍar, as they were Arabs from areas in Persia where Arabic was spoken and who migrated back and forth, including many prominent members of Qatar’s present-day merchant class.126 Some members of the haḍar were also professionals, like Islamic scholars or healers.127 The badū, in contrast, were more homogenous ethnically, primarily Sunni and generally nomadic; they tended to herd livestock and move seasonally, remaining primarily in the interior and with many returning to Saudi Arabia.128 When they did settle, however, they did so largely by tribe,129 as will be detailed later. The al-Murrah emerged as one of Qatar’s most powerful tribes, yet preserved many cross-border connections, with some members serving as border guards for Saudi Arabia and regularly crossing the border into the 1950s.130 The Bani Hajar were also historically linked to the kingdom yet defended Qatar alongside Shaykh Jassim in the Battle of Wajbah against the Ottomans; other tribes were considered loyal to the al-Khalifa family of Bahrain, and so have not managed to become prominent in Qatar.131 Notably, most of Qatar’s other tribes are also from outside the present-day Qatari peninsula, like the al-ʿAjman from Hasa province in Saudi Arabia and the al-Mansuri (often referred to as their plural, al-Manasir) from Trucial Oman and the UAE.132 Interestingly, then, though all GCC states face the challenge of managing tribes that have members across borders, Qatar faces the additional challenge that nearly all tribes, aside from the Bani Hajar and Kaban, had other primary residences elsewhere and so owed allegiance to other leaders, typically the Saudis, making it historically difficult for Qatari rulers to exert control since members of these tribes could always leave.133 Considering this fact, it is remarkable that the Qatari population today is considered homogeneous. Still, divisions do exist; Crystal claims that Qataris of bedouin origin tend to find employment in the police and in the military,134 perhaps more readily than other segments of the local population. Indeed, Fromherz points out that badū members of the population had provided protection to the leadership as a security force; today they are also politically useful yet in a different way – essentially, as Fromherz puts it, ‘to shore up “heritage” identity’.135 While in the past, members of badū populations provided reliable pillars of support for the ruling family, today their loyalties remain less clear, largely since the dawn

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of the oil era has obviated the need for tribes to provide materially for their populations.136 Qatar today is largely urbanized, with more than 95 per cent of its population in cities, around half in Doha alone.137 Further, new settlements sprung up around oil wells in Dukhan, and Doha spread to overcome nearby towns of Bidda, Rayyan and Wakrah.138 New jobs also attracted foreigners, leading to the creation of the Nationality Law of 1961, which granted Qatari citizenship to anyone who could prove their family had lived there prior to 1930; later laws solidified greater property and business ownership laws to Qataris, as well as granting them ‘exclusive or preferential access to free or subsidized healthcare, utilities, education, and a range of other services’.139 Tribes have remained the country’s most powerful organizing principles and retained their own independent leaders; the government’s settlement policies in Qatar, as in Kuwait, also contributed to the resilience of tribal lines. Indeed, a single tribe typically settled into a single neighbourhood or town – for instance the al-Murrah in Rayyan, the Al bu ʿAinan in Wakhrah, the al-Sudan in Fareej al-Sudan and the al-Khulaifi family into the Khulaifat neighbourhood.140 These settlements, like badū neighbourhoods in Kuwait, are self-sufficient, housing mosques and majālis, and more such settlements were built over time.141 Indeed, beginning in 1961, the Qatari Government took up a programme for resettling badū; this process was meant to diminish ‘the economic basis of tribal organizations’, yet members of the same tribes still tended to resettle in the same areas where they had lived historically.142 Ironically, and rather unexpectedly, then, settling tribes did not have a major effect on their strength and in some ways in fact reinforced it. The Qatari Government tried to urbanize tribes by settling them in the early twentieth century, mainly by offering free housing and jobs, especially those in the military. Complicating these efforts, however, was the fact that the Saudis were implementing the same policy at the same time, leading tribes to have shifting alliances, as seen with the al-Murrah.143 Ali Alshawi points out that the Qatari Government at times seemed to be encouraging rivalry between tribes.144 He notes that the government granted bureaucratic positions to a number of tribal members to breed competition rather than cooperation, which would then allow the government to serve as mediator; specifically, the government fostered competition between the al-Murrah and Bani Hajar tribes, the latter more favourable to the al-Thani family since they had historically been loyal to them.145 By employing an increasing number of foreign workers, who lack access to local patronage and social networks, the Qatari Government managed

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to exert more control; it also managed to control religious messaging by relying largely on a non-indigenous clergy,146 something which has raised questions in recent years about the religious and political orientation of the Qatari leadership. The state also managed to use oil revenues to aid the creation of a strong business sector by passing on opportunities to members of the al-Thani family or smaller merchant families.147 To strengthen ties with all Qataris, the government provided state employment and more government services, in addition to advancing citizens’ rights. A 2004 labour law allowed Qataris to form trade unions and even the right to strike.148 Further, the government hoped that elections could diminish the political relevance of major tribes, while appointed bodies have tended to hold members of major tribes yet do not always have significant power in the policymaking process.149 It is worth noting that Qatar, perhaps more so than its neighbours, has long been forced to incorporate expatriates, at least to a certain extent, into domestic life. Zahlan makes the important point that even before oil was discovered nearly half of the population was non-local, comprising slaves (of mostly African ethnicity), Iranians, Baharna (Shi’i Muslims historically from the eastern portion of the Arabian Peninsula) and nomadic tribes; further, most of Qatar’s tribes actually hail from outside of the peninsula itself, calling into question claims of original citizenship.150 Perhaps for this reason, the Qatari Government has abandoned efforts to completely diminish the role of tribes in Qatar and instead has sought to bureacratize them due to what Zahlan considered in the 1970s a lack of ‘corporate identity’ on behalf of the al-Thani ruling family and the relative autonomy of large tribes.151 For instance, though the major tribes were resettled by the state, they retained cohesion by settling together.152 Indeed, ‘[t]he emerging bureaucracy of Qatar today is a hybrid of the old tribal world and the new world of management and job descriptions’.153 Tribe, as Fromherz explains, remains the major identity marking in Qatar, although after the start of the GCC crisis in 2017 national identification increasingly came to the fore.154

The UAE The UAE’s tribal profile differs from those of the other countries discussed, due in large part to its division into seven semi-autonomous emirates under a federal system. Abu Dhabi primarily housed members of the Bani Yas tribal grouping; Dubai traditionally housed the Al Bu Falasah of the Bani Yas; Sharjah and Ras al-Khaimah were ruled by the al-Qassimi (sometimes referred to by

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their plural form, Qawasim); Ajman was under the control of the al-Naʿimi, Umm al Quwain ruled by the al-Mualla who are descendants of the al-Ali tribe,155 and Fujairah was under the control of the al-Sharqi (Sharqiyin) yet traditionally dependent on Sharjah for trade and the second largest tribe in the Trucial States after the Bani Yas.156 Indeed, the collection of emirates was formerly known as the Trucial States and was grouped together primarily due to a series of treaties with the United Kingdom. As in Qatar, due to the scarcity of water and lack of available fertile land, large numbers of the early tribal population moved to coasts during parts of the year, leading to ‘a seminomadic pattern’ in some emirates, and ‘a great deal of versatility among the tribes’.157 Until the 1960s, despite the discovery of oil, the present-day UAE was by and large ‘a collection of small settlements situated along inlets that formed natural harbors for maritime activities’.158 Each settlement was under the notional control of tribal shaykhs whose authority rarely extended far beyond the port and areas immediately outlying, and was symbolized through the construction of a fort.159 If one such fortress was captured, the ruler was effectively overthrown, leading to a period of what Andrea B. Rugh refers to as ‘continuous warfare’ in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, largely between tribal leaders defending their land, resources, followers and trying to extend their sphere of influence.160 During this period and even before it, each ruler’s diwan, comprising the shaykh’s appointed advisors (many from the ruling family) and more informal majālis were the primary instruments of government, with references to the majlis’s importance as ‘a vibrant forum for debate’ in Dubai’s ruler and UAE Vice President Shaykh Mohammed bin Rashed’s personal website161 and ‘as an “open house” discussion forum’ drawn from ‘Arab Bedouin traditions of consensus and consultation’ on the UAE’s US Embassy website page.162 Historically, the majlis system allowed what Christopher Davidson calls ‘mobile democracy’: if a member of a tribe disagreed with a decision of the ruler or was dissatisfied, he or she could move, essentially ‘voting with his feet’, as happened historically in Qatar as well, adding to the political insecurity of this era in what is today the UAE.163 Demonstrating that patterns of patronage predated the establishment of the state, tribal rulers often used subsidies to guarantee their own influence and protection.164 Taxes were also collected from local populations to raise funds for different projects at the local level, demonstrating the extractive capacity even of tribal units.165 Davidson points out that the increasing sedentarization of life within the UAE necessitated the expansion of government function as well, something that British administration of the Trucial States largely facilitated.166

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The Trucial States’ overall tribal fractiousness was encouraged and manipulated by the British during their period in residence, as tribes became critical to their ability to delegate power and allocate rents.167 The UAE, due to its arrangement into distinct emirates, some of which like Dubai and Sharjah have for centuries engaged in trade, while others had remained more inward-looking, has also led to a segmented merchant class. Furthermore, ‘the merchants’ influence was weakened by tribal divisions and regional division among the different emirates. Overall, the result was the creation of a new merchant class, sometimes out of the old merchant class, sometimes out of other social groupings.’168 By and large, then, differentiation among the emirates has concerned tribal structure, rather than issues of class or standing.169 Unlike in Kuwait and Qatar, however, the British played an important role in expediting the settlement of Emirati towns during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.170 In particular, British endorsement of a local ruler’s authority was a boon, allowing rulers to use British mechanisms to enforce the status quo and, to a certain extent, political quiescence: ‘[W]here they had previously relied on personal persuasion to achieve their goals, they now had to impose British fines on their followers.’171 The fines were so contested that entire segments of tribes would often leave town to avoid payment; this practice led to the imposition, in 1879, of a British treaty prohibiting pearl workers from moving to another jurisdiction to avoid payment of outstanding debts.172 By the 1950s, the British sought out tribal shaykhs to help manage certain areas – a move which essentially led tribal relations to be ‘frozen in time’ since that period, according to Rugh.173 Further, British-led militias in the Trucial States were often called upon to protect these tribal leaders, further enhancing their position.174 The British payment of oil and air-landing concessions to tribal rulers personally again enforced their authority, as it rendered them independent of their local populations for financial support.175 The trajectories of Emirati ruling families, then, ‘are partly the result of … the particular distribution of political power at the moment the British were looking for local administrators’.176 In fact, the current structure of the UAE reflects ‘a deliberate lack of British involvement in the Trucial States’ internal affairs until a late date, leaving tribal loyalties and structures largely unaffected’.177 When British authorities initially became involved in managing the foreign affairs of the Trucial States through a series of treaties in the nineteenth century, they essentially froze in place the existing tribal power relationships at that time, with the Bani Yas eventually overtaking

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al-Qassimi as the primary tribal force in the country.178 In this way, then, the British managed to prevent indigenous challenges to the new arrangement, ‘thereby bringing an end to the previously described ebb and flow of tribal politics’.179 Treaties with the British also, as described by Davidson, formalized the primacy of coastal tribes and towns over those in the interior, which in turn allowed these coastal rulers to more easily gain control of land from the interior.180 As William A. Rugh summarizes, ‘[t]he political system functioning today in the UAE is essentially tribal and authoritarian. Each of the rulers of the seven emirates holds his position because he is the senior personality in the leading tribe of that emirate, and he is likely to be succeeded by his eldest son or brother.’181 Furthermore, then as now, leaders put in place ‘heavy subsidies to buy influence and protection from other tribes’, with Lorimer describing the historical practice of granting gifts to tribal leaders to maintain control over them.182 While in the past, emirate leaders resorted to taxing their citizenry to raise necessary funds, today the financial reserves of certain emirates, particularly Abu Dhabi, have become ‘a mainstay for the federation’s continued cohesion [….] the issue was rarely whether giving to the “have nots” was generous enough; but rather that the “have not” tribal leaders did not want to give up any of their sovereignty in exchange’.183 In fact, rather than demanding material benefits from the central state, the constituent emirates initially hoped to maintain their independence – with Ras al-Khaimah retaining its own military until 1996, the same year the provisional constitution was made permanent.184

The individual emirates Abu Dhabi, today the most politically powerful emirate and the country’s capital, is under the leadership of the al-Nahyan family, which has long had connections with inland tribes, strengthened after 1948 when Shaykh Zayed bin Sultan alNahyan (r. Abu Dhabi 1966–2004; r. UAE 1971–2004), became then-Abu Dhabi ruler Shaykh Shakhbut’s (r. 1928–1966) representative in the Al-Ain oasis, as ‘throughout the late 1920s and 1930s, Sheikh Zayed’s thirst for knowledge took him deep into the desert, living alongside Bedouin tribesmen to learn all he could about their way of life and connection to their surroundings’.185 Through that position, Shaykh Zayed earned the respect and loyalty of the settled tribes in the area, as he worked to improve conditions in the oasis.186 Notably, the al-Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, in addition to the al-Maktoum of Dubai, trace their lineage to the Bani Yas federation, which comprises ‘20 subsections

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originally centered around the Liwa Oasis’.187 Andrea B. Rugh asserts that, if kin members of large tribes became politically problematic, they could have been relegated to the category of outsider. Outside tribes, though not central to decision-making, were important in maintaining security. For instance, tribal rulers of present-day Dubai after its establishment in 1833 relied on the support of the al-Qassimi to the east and the al-Nahyans to the west who were more powerful. Indeed, Dubai lacked ‘military’ power yet had appealing harbour facilities which neighbours often used in return for defending the emirate.188 On the other hand, Dubai, under control of the al-Maktoum family, remained ‘totally preoccupied with the development and emergence of its port as the only one on the Trucial Coast’.189 As in Kuwait and Qatar, the shortage of fertile land made settlement challenging and led people to coalesce around the coast; some people even worked seasonally for the pearl trade before retreating into other areas for other parts of the year.190 As pearling became more lucrative, ports grew as did coastal towns alongside them. Still, the hierarchy of tribes that existed in the desert was essentially mapped onto port cities and the pearling industry, meaning that urbanization by no means ended tribal organization.191 As in Qatar, where pearling was even more popular, a large number of expatriates lived and worked in the UAE to staff the pearling industry.192 As late as the midtwentieth century, then, as Frauke Heard-Bey puts it, the creation of a state with fixed boundaries was ‘out of tune with the traditional conduct of local politics given that sovereignty over people was far from permanently binding, let alone sovereignty over territory’.193 As elsewhere in the GCC, there was no tradition of primogeniture, yet the oldest male relative of the previous ruler was often chosen for the position, leading to considerable tension among male family members.194 This dynamic led to violent successions in the al-Nahyan and al-Qassimi families, since they were the most powerful and in the larger emirates; the stakes were lower elsewhere, and so successions tended to be more peaceful.195 Indeed, the alQassimi and Bani Yas, of which al-Nahyan was a part, were the primary tribal groups in the present-day UAE through the end of the nineteenth century, with the al-Nahyan traditionally ‘a land power’ and the al-Qassimi focused on trade and maritime battles with colonial forces at sea.196 Once treaties were signed with the British, however, the al-Qassimi’s power began to wane without a similar decline of the authority of the Bani Yas in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, who instead became the primary tribal grouping by the end of the century.197 Indeed, the British alleged that al-Qassimi’s so-called ‘piracy’

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harmed trade in the Arabian Gulf, while members of the al-Qassimi family, such as the current ruler of Sharjah Shaykh Sultan bin Mohammed al Qassimi in his book The Myth of Arab Piracy in the Gulf,198 have asserted that the British actually wanted to stymie their maritime power to expand the East India Company; as a result, the British demolished the harbour of Ras al-Khaimah in 1819 to destroy the al-Qassimi fleet.199 The British, by virtue of their protectorate agreement, imposed a series of treaties on local tribal leaders to stop maritime battles, the most important of which was the Perpetual Treaty of Maritime Peace in 1853, which led to the granting of British exclusive economic rights to the Trucial States in 1892.200 The British divided territory once under al-Qassimi control by recognizing the independence of Ajman and Umm al-Quwain; some locals consider this measure as punishment for their having resisted British power.201 Due to British pressure, the al-Qassimi empire dissolved into the two separate emirates of Ras al-Khaimah and Sharjah, while the al-Nahyan has come to control over 85 per cent of the total land mass of the present-day UAE.202 When oil was discovered in Abu Dhabi, yet trace amounts were found in al-Qassimi lands, it reinforced the power dynamic in favour of al-Nahyan. Ultimately, the British managed to freeze the principal power relationships of tribal groupings. Thus, the Al Qawasim family and the Bani Yas tribal confederation which controlled what are now the northern emirates and the emirate of Abu Dhabi, respectively, were confirmed as the dominant elements within the Trucial States. The Bani Yas eventually gained the upper hand in their rivalry with the Al Qawasim, largely because the latter’s naval power had been eclipsed by the British and because the Bani Yas were a broad, land-based confederation.203

Furthermore, because the British dealt with the Trucial States as a single unit, their union into an independent state in 1971 seemed more natural.204 Indeed, the British signed agreements with various tribal rulers from the Trucial States, first with the rulers of Sharjah – in exchange for surrendering their own fleet of ships, the British would provide protection.205 In so doing, ‘by the midnineteenth century Britain had found a cost-effective means of maintaining a strong influence over the area while containing indigenous power bases and trade networks’.206 In Lord Palmerston’s words, ‘[a]ll we want is trade and land is not necessary for trade; we can carry on commerce on ground belonging to other people’.207 Despite British disinterest in internal affairs, gaining support from the British became crucial to Emirati tribal rulers; without it, it became difficult for some tribal leaders to retain their power.208

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Emirati independence and the institutionalization of tribal hierarchies In December 1967, a Westminster white paper called for the closure of British bases east of the Suez by 1971; the response from the ruling elite of the UAE ‘was one of intense disappointment, as many felt that much of the recent development work would stall or be undone without further British support’.209 During this period, the seven Trucial States, in addition to presentday Bahrain and Qatar, endeavoured to come together as an independent state. When Bahrain decided to withdraw from the coalition over worries about losing its independence, Qatar did the same, leaving the seven states of the present-day UAE to negotiate among themselves. As Malcolm Peck describes, this ‘process was elite-driven, quintessentially top-down. So long as the rulers maintained the support of their extended families, clans and tribes, they could act freely’.210 Once the provisional constitution was drafted and finally formally approved in 1996, institutions came in place to replace what had previously been managed by less formal institutions, such as a Supreme Council of Rulers composed of the rulers of the seven emirates, a Federal National Council that acts in many respects as a nation-wide majlis and federal offices in Abu Dhabi to manage a united military, education system, healthcare and utilities.211 Abu Dhabi was undoubtedly at the forefront of ensuring the union’s success, with Abu Dhabi leader Shaykh Zayed al-Nahyan initially paying more than 90 per cent of the federal budget.212 The arrangement of a federal judicial system also took away from tribal rulers their traditional role of settling disputes through customary tribal law, which had primarily been implemented to reconcile parties previously at war, rather than punishing criminal offences.213 After the start of the oil era (oil was first discovered in 1958 and began to be exported in 1960),214 as in the other GCC states, the balance of power in the UAE began to shift in favour of the ruling families, as they were able to provide services and funding rather than relying on the population for tax money.215 As a result, ‘many of the traditional extractive institutions fell into decline, and eventually a new rentier relationship was born between the rulers and their populations, a relationship that is still in evidence today’.216 Because the leaders’ fortunes were increasing at the same time that pearling was suffering, many merchants were actively in need of government assistance, which in turn led them to ‘request their rulers to share their wealth and to allow much more of it to be managed by the community in the interests of improving social

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conditions and boosting indigenous development’.217 This dynamic spurred the emergence of the merchants’ majlis movement in Dubai agitating for greater public participation in political life. This movement, like early movements in Kuwait for greater political participation, was led by merchants and claimed that all Emirati citizens have ‘a vested interest in the continued integrity of the traditional society with tribal shaykhs and rulers at its apex’.218 It should be noted that the UAE, like Kuwait and Qatar, also instituted a tiered citizenship system to distinguish locals with ‘full citizenship rights’, as those who could trace their families to the UAE to 1925 or before, locals with passports who do not have full citizenship rights since they could not trace their lineage to that date, and a bidūn population without any Emirati documentation or documentation from any other country.219 Again, citizenship and access to state resources were mediated on one’s familial connection to the land. Due to the prevailing prevalence of tribal structure, leadership that has been justified on the grounds of tribal links has increasingly come to focus on material interests and patronage.220 This material wealth, notably, is unevenly divided among the emirates, leading Abu Dhabi in particular to subsidize the northern emirates.221 Social norms also vary among the emirates, largely due to their different histories; indeed, Abu Dhabi is considered to be more conservative with a more overt lingering tribal structure, as opposed to the more liberal and historically outward-looking port of Dubai.222 Initially, neighbourhoods throughout the emirates were arranged by tribe; ‘[r]ulers reinforced the homogeneity of their neighborhoods by assigning lands on the basis of tribal affiliation’.223 During the period of initial settlement into towns, ‘the mix of tribesmen, merchants, Arabs, and non-Arabs requires stronger authorities to keep peace, while the accumulated wealth and manpower gave chiefs the resources to enforce order’.224 As a result, urbanization actually helped perpetuate tribal power, at least initially, as in Kuwait and Qatar. Over time, however, Emiratis sought housing not according to tribe but often according to wealth, leading them often to live in compounds with non-kin.225 Nonetheless, because the federal government has come to supply healthcare, education and employment to the vast majority of Emiratis, tribal links have become more tenuous. Indeed, ‘[c]itizens no longer need tribal leaders or the weight of tribal membership to secure basic needs’.226 Tribal strategies of obtaining social and political capital, namely through marriage, conflict and the creation of indebtedness, are much less useful in the present day.227 Socially, the nomenclature of tribe has also been displaced with other allegiances, namely the national.228

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Further, and self-consciously given the individual emirates’ sometimes reluctant and gradual union, national branding has become stronger, especially in recent years with the introduction of a country-wide military conscription programme in place since 2014 – a rather remarkable accomplishment given that all emirates united their militaries only in 1996.229 Further, the Emirati Government dubbed 2008 the National Identity Year, with the Ministry of Culture, Youth, and Community Development charged with ‘reinforc[ing] national efforts to protect and promote national identity’.230 Demonstrating the extent to which such efforts have been effective, Emiratis seem to be able to coalesce behind certain political leaders, namely Shaykh Zayed, who is seen as the founder of the modern country, with Frauke Heard-Bey opining that the response to his death demonstrated the extent to which statehood, rather than tribal affiliation, had become of great importance.231 Tribalism, then, while important in the justification of certain leaders’ positions, is not relevant on a day-to-day level in the way it once was; it is more an ascriptive marker than a determinant of social or political behaviour, while in the past tribal affiliation was more often linked to political alignment. Indeed, Calvert Jones explains the ways in which tribal affiliation has largely been replaced through state efforts at social engineering to convert bedouins, who previously had the option of ‘voting with their feet’ and leaving a locality into a ‘loyal bourgeois’.232

Conclusions The histories of tribe-state relations in the countries under study undoubtedly differ considerably. Nonetheless, in all three states, despite the shift from nomadism to sedentary city life and despite the change in primary sources of wealth from pearling and trade to primarily hydrocarbons, tribal identities remain of critical social, and in some cases, political, significance. Tribes today, though no longer providing the same level of material subsistence and political protection they once did, still grant members a powerful social affiliation akin to class in other political settings, proving their resilience even in super-rentier environments. Further, by housing ruling family councils in Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE, all three of these countries have effectively reproduced a tribal structure in which a council reaches a consensus on who the tribe’s – and by extension the country’s – ruler should be. This can be regarded in a tribal context as an institutionalized concept of leaders as ‘first among equals’.233 Tribal influence in state formation

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can also be viewed through the lens of a ‘representative’ government, where the manner in which government officials are selected demonstrates the significance of tribal connections,234 by appointing members of the ruling family, and then members of tribes who are traditionally aligned with the rulers, whether this be from merchant or tribal elites. Even where an electoral system exists, then, rulers can often be seen as encouraging tribal practices within that system. Tribes therefore have been political and politicized both before and after oil yet within different structures and to varying extents, as will be discussed at length in Chapter 6. At its root, however, the power of tribes arguably stems from the social cohesion they have historically offered at a time such connectedness and unity were critical to survival in harsh desert climates. James Onley even argues that tribal codes of conduct, with their elaborate taxation systems and protection honour codes, formed the basis of the Pax Britannica, thereby underpinning colonial relationships in the Gulf region.235 In the chapter that follows, we trace the ways in which tribes have evolved socially since the rise of urbanization and globalization and how their social power has mediated both their political and social relationships across borders and with national leaderships at home.

3

The social evolution of the tribe

Adherence to a tribal lifestyle in the Arabian Peninsula initially centered on strict kinship policies, seasonal migration and securing access to water. From a historical perspective, the social evolution of members of bedouin tribes has followed a pattern of movement between the interior and the coast. To think of interior tribes as insulated and socially enclosed within a desert enclave with their kin is to understand only one part of their lives, however. A significant factor in the development of interior tribes, even the most apparently insular, has always been their interactions with others. Such interactions were historically necessary to survival, since the majority of supplies, such as weapons, foodstuffs and medicine, needed to weather the harsh conditions of desert life, and were procured through trade rather than found in the desert itself. Further, consider that, ‘prior to the discovery of oil, social life in Kuwait was shaped by two dominant themes of the environment – the desert and the sea. Agriculture had a very minimal influence’.1 The social evolution of tribal actors in Kuwait was thus affected by three interlinked dynamics: the desert culture that dictated social customs and political practices, the mercantile traditions of maritime urbanites, and the immense changes that occurred with the discovery of oil and changed state-citizen relations, introducing the concept of state-led modernization projects to state citizens. With the exception of some agricultural tribes in parts of the UAE and Yemen2 – a distinct set of bedouin society that can be clearly differentiated from the group as a whole insofar as such a concept may be applied – we can say that a very similar set of these influences can be applied the social evolution of tribes in Qatar and the UAE.

Social evolution and migration to the coast Members of tribes historically migrated from the inner peninsula to coastal cities to trade or to seek seasonal work as fisherman and pearl divers. In the

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1800s, many of these tribes stayed in coastal areas after arriving to take advantage of the booming pearling trade and the influx of colonial administrations that needed new skill sets and access to the inner hinterlands. The rates of social and political integration of desert tribes into the many city states that appeared on the coast of the Arabian Gulf varied in the three countries under study, with Kuwait City becoming cosmopolitan at a faster rate than Doha and Abu Dhabi, as documented in the previous chapter. This distinction was somewhat due to its geographical proximity to Iraq, as the ‘upper reaches of the Gulf were a strategic transit point for ships trading between Mesopotamia (new Iraq), the Indian subcontinent and Africa’.3 Indeed, in Kuwait’s case, an urbanization project was implemented well before the discovery of oil, with the ‘transition from nomadic to sedentary settlement well underway by the middle of the 18th century [….] By 1910, however, the population had jumped to 35,000, and by 1938 to 75,000 primarily as a result of the settlement of tribes’.4 By contrast, Thesiger recounts that Abu Dhabi had only 2,000 inhabitants in the 1940s,5 and Dubai about 25,000, making it the largest city of the Trucial States.6 As for Qatar, the desert/ coastal divide was not as entrenched because many of the tribes present there were semi-sedentary, and some, such as the al-Naʿim, ‘would migrate by boat – with their camel, horses and sheep – to Bahrain’.7 Further, following the collapse of the pearling industry in the 1930s and due to a Bahraini embargo meant to re-establish its claim to Zubarah, David Commins estimates that as much as one-third of the population of present-day Qatar migrated to Bahrain, al-Hasa and other parts of the Arabian Peninsula.8 The historic emergence of city states along the coast and the rate of habitation and settlement varied throughout the Arabian Peninsula, depending on a variety of factors, such as the likelihood of raids, the abundance of watering holes and the frequency of use of the natural harbours around which these first cities were built. The ‘Bani Khalid, who were prominent in the overland trade by camel caravans that passed through Arabia into Mesopotamia’,9 were the first to create a settlement in the area of Kuwait City, establishing a summer base on the coast. The first to inhabit these city states on a permanent basis as settlers were thus not only of tribal origin but both merchants and warriors as well – a duality which differentiated many large tribes from the bedouins of the interior, who would herd cattle or raid to survive. Much like the Bani Khalids who once controlled vast areas of the eastern coast of the Arabian Gulf, the Bani ʿUtubs who had migrated from Najd in central Saudi Arabia and lingered on the Qatari peninsula arrived in Kuwait in the late seventeenth century. Even before this, however, there were traces of

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a fishing village that existed in the region,10 as ‘the waters of the Arabian Gulf also offered a livelihood to the fisherman based along Kuwait’s coastline’.11 This dynamic meant that the newly settled tribes from the interior needed an entirely different skill set that included ship-building, sea-faring and different types of fishing. Although the al-Khalifa family of Bahrain were ‘the dominant family in the Northern Gulf region’12 by the nineteenth century, the current rulers of Qatar, the al-Thani, managed to displace them by moving the centre of trade and economic power from Zubarah in the northwest to Doha in the south. Coastal cities thrived because there were natural harbours in Kuwait City, Doha and Dubai, which allowed all three to become entry points for the transport of ‘trans-shipping goods, as well as a port of entry for rice, spices, coffee and other commodities destined for the Arabian market’13 from a vast array of corresponding ports of trade. The arrival of goods at coastal cities built around natural harbour points also meant that there was a demand for bedouin tribesmen who were skilled at moving these goods. Other tribes and traders with already-established routes simply used these emerging cities on the coast as pit stops with ‘camel caravans moving between Arabia and Aleppo in Syria’,14 stopping at coastal cities on the Arabian Gulf to trade and seek provisions. As new-found affluence on the coast took shape and settled communities interacted with foreigners and non-tribal actors, these coastal tribes retained social and political behaviours developed in the interior, or at least modified versions of them in the new urban setting. They still interacted with inner peninsula tribes (bedouins), yet there was a clear socio-economic hierarchy: a ‘merchant’ class which was not exclusively tribal emerged and cultivated attributes and skills which were deemed more important in the city than tribal values based on the necessities of desert life. The relative abundance of coastal life would tip the scale towards the continued settlement and ‘cooperative’ intermingling with others outside of immediate kin, as tribes on the coast had to mingle with non-Arabs and other tribe members. This cycle of settled life in entrepôt city states and ‘desert’ tribalism has been documented as far back as Ibn Khaldun, who in the fourteenth century posited that tribal culture would be subsumed by urban civilizations that served their political and economic interests only as long as the state was strong – the underlying idea being that a weakened state could lead to a resurgence in tribal customs and more assabiya motivated behaviours. This dynamic was mainly due to the strong kinship ties between members of a tribe that were cemented by intermarriages, leading to a state of affairs even in settled areas where, as Laurent Lambert describes, ‘power configuration among the tribesmen was

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almost completely horizontal and participative, but not necessarily integrative of non-fellow tribesmen’.15 This structure also meant that there were now settled tribes on the coast, and a territorial system of social hierarchies within them according to the new skill sets developed, along with further seasonal arrivals from the interior coming to participate in new-found opportunities. As Abdullah al-Ghoneim documents in Kuwait [o]ur fathers who had lived through this difficult era of the Arabian Gulf ’s history would recount to us how many of the sons of the desert (tribal bedouins) who lived far from the sea would come to the Eastern shores and to Kuwait in search of work and in hope of gaining the riches that selling a large pearl and fulfilling their dreams (of prosperity) [would bring]. After each pearling season these young men would return to their homes and recount tales of their life at sea and the hardships they faced while trying to get sought after riches.16

Similarly, Thesiger documented that the badū of Liwa in present-day Abu Dhabi emirate would go to Abu Dhabi city in the summer to ‘join the pearling fleet as divers’.17 The transient nature of some of the bedouin tribes’ interactions with the new coastal cities was also evident in Qatar, where the ‘majority of non-transient tribes who grazed their stock … owed allegiance to the Saudis, whom they paid jizya (tribute)’.18 It was not only the chance for a better life that forced tribes from the interior to the coast, but also harsh conditions and a scarcity of water and food could lead badū to migrate in great numbers, like their ancestors had done before them. Even as late as the 1940s, drought caused a famine in the interior, and ‘a large number of Bedouin migrated to the wells at Jahra, Subaihiyah and Subaih [in Kuwait]’, meaning that the tribal connectedness to land that persisted for centuries, continued even after the beginning of the oil era.19

Sedentary life and urbanization It took more than two centuries for these small settlements to develop into city states with a clear demarcation between inner city tribes and other urbanites (hadar) and the exterior desert tribes (badū), and with varying levels of mistrust between them, despite their historic social, economic and political interdependence. One of the major shifts in this relationship came with the availability of water to settled urbanites in one of the most arid and water-poor regions in the world. Whereas in the desert the few wells and

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natural water sources that existed belonged mainly to the tribe controlling that territory, water relations in the city had to be more sustainable so that the settlement could flourish; this is a prime example of the manner in which tribes living in a settled area would eschew their insular world view in favour of prosperity.20 Some anthropologists have argued that the need to band together to find water and grazing land in the desert and protect those precious resources from outsiders historically made it necessary for each tribe to ‘restrict membership in order to preserve its sense of solidarity’.21 In coastal cities, however, this attitude was not beneficial or applicable. Certainly, ‘[f]resh water was always at a premium throughout Kuwait, especially as the population grew, not just in the desert hinterland’.22 This scarcity affected agricultural cultivation and relations with more fertile and water-rich neighbours, so that the coastal population had to learn cooperation and trade to sustain their lifestyle, especially as the wood and other materials used to build their vessels had to be imported, namely from India and East Africa. Unlike in the interior where oasis-owning tribal shaykhs enjoyed considerable power, water relations were more egalitarian in nature in the coastal cities, although generally still dominated by powerful merchants or traders. Lambert finds that water resource management in both Kuwait and Abu Dhabi showed a similar pattern in their evolution from settlement to coastal villages23 in that, ‘in both locations, during the nineteenth century, virtually all water wells supplying potable water belonged to a particular tribal group or extended family … to a specific community defined upon kinship’.24 Tribal dominance was therefore transposed into urban life in some sense through the arrangement of water supply in these areas. Further, pearling – which existed as a trade and an industry on the Gulf coast for millennia and involved both slaves and non-Arab agents – was also seasonal, running from April to September, and, like life in the desert, was full of dangers and hardships. This had a long-term effect on the manner in which members of interior tribes engaged in the trade adapted to either city life or seasonal change, and also defined social relations along the coast in communities where it dictated a schedule, routine and reliance on income. Jonathan Fryer explains: ‘The divers’ return … was eagerly awaited by families and traders alike, as their success or failure would have critical economic consequences for the community as well as for individuals.’25 Prices fluctuated according to international demand, and rulers levied taxes on pearls that were essential to state finances. As a result, rulers ‘had to be careful not to appear to be demanding too much from the pearl traders, who occasionally threatened to leave Kuwait and transfer their

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operations to Bahrain or elsewhere’.26 Even in Qatar, whose settled merchant class developed later than that of its neighbours, some tribal families had settled before the al-Thani ruling family and received ‘exceptional rights and privileges, including exemption from pearl taxation’,27 a facet of the relations between rulers and traders which highlights the importance of commerce from pearling to community members at all levels. It should also be noted that one part of the social hierarchy of the pearling economy included enslaved peoples, many from Mozambique and Tanzania, due to the scale of the pearling enterprise. As Matthew Hopper recounts, By 1905, the value of pearls produced in the Gulf exceeded the production of all other parts of the world combined. At the peak of pearl production, the Gulf pearl banks were worked by more than three thousand boats that employed tens of thousands of men from Muscat to Kuwait. The pearling industry was the largest source of employment in the region, and chronic shortages in labor for diving created a demand for slaves. Enslaved divers from Africa became a common sight by the late nineteenth century and were universally regarded as the region’s best and most valued divers.28

Notably, the British ‘turned a blind eye’ to practices of slavery that persisted in the Indian Ocean until pressure came from the League of Nations in the 1920s.29 After the manumission of slaves in the mid-twentieth century and independence of the three states under study, many former slaves were naturalized into GCC populations; further, they were given the choice to adopt the names of the tribes or families which had enslaved them, allowing them to assimilate into the national environment and challenging notions of nationality as linked to ethnicity in the GCC.30 Qatar’s Bin Jelmood House at Msheireb Museums notably traces this history of slavery in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf states’ involvement in it.31 The coastal network of pearl merchants and traders, like the nomadic tribes before them, extended across the coast of the Arabian Gulf, as did its influence, and therefore, even before oil, hinterland tribal people with no access to independent wealth were sometimes seen by coastal rulers as a more suitable ‘security’ choice than merchant elites, in part due to the dependence of these tribes for resources as opposed to the relative independence of merchants. Thesiger refers to ‘the chronic insecurity of these parts, where jealous and often hostile sheikhs relied on the uncertain support of the Bedu to maintain their position’.32 It is this historical relationship that contributed to stereotypical notions of members of the badū population working in the military or police and being particularly reliant on ruling families for their livelihoods.

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Colonialism and the evolution of tribes and rulers Even though not involved in daily life or management within the states under study, colonial intervention played a crucial role in the evolution of certain tribes and the disappearance of others, with Kuwait arguably experiencing the least intervention due to the late development of colonial interest in it, unlike the coastal states to the south of the peninsula which had to contend with colonial intervention for at least a century prior. As Sulayman Khalaf and Hassan Hammoud put it, ‘[t]he overall political structure was made up of an alliance among the three traditionally influential groups: the ruling family, the merchants, and the tribal chiefs, all having their power relations balanced and coordinated within a wider framework of British Imperial Gulf politics.’33 Trade with India accounted for much of the commerce in Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE, and in 1877, the government of ‘British India had direct responsibilities for relations with the Gulf, including Kuwait. As evident from British records, the viewpoints of the Indian Office regarding Kuwait and the wider Gulf did not always concur with those of the Foreign and Colonial Offices, and this could lead to friction between them’.34 This conflict of agendas and interests would also lead to friction between coastal and hinterland tribes themselves, as the coastal tribes vied for the colonial representative’s confirmation of their position – one that was constantly being threatened by interior and exterior assaults on their authority. Large tribes also remained concerned about Ottoman interference, as the fates of some tribes had been predetermined by their interactions, especially in the north-eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula. Tribal leaders and city state rulers thus had to manage relations both with world powers and local tribes as a way of safeguarding themselves and assuring the security of their people. For example, some could argue that ‘without the intervention of the British in 1868, either Bahrain or Saudi Arabia may have subsumed the Qatar peninsula under the al-Khalifa or al-Saud’.35 After 1899, when Kuwait became a protectorate of the British Empire, mostly to prevent German or Russian expansion in the region and the continued Ottoman and Saudi threats, it became clear that these arrangements were often made with other ambitions or interests in the local rulers’ minds. Fryer explains: ‘As Sheikh Mubarak was also involved in various feuds with tribal leaders in Arabia, there was also some exasperation in London about the way he seemed to be getting Britain entangled in the region’s affairs.’36 Qatar officially became a British protectorate later than its neighbours, in 1916, yet the al-Thani

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relationship with the British dates back to 1868 once Qatar was regarded as independent from Bahrain, and so the British provided Qatari leadership with greater domestic power. Indeed, ‘[o]il allowed the ruler to increase his distance from the merchants, but to distance himself from the [tribal] shaikhs, he needed British support’.37 In the case of the UAE, ‘following a series of raids against British ships and other difficulties with local groups … the British signed a truce with various Arab [tribal] leaders in the Gulf, hence the new name the Southern Gulf region had acquired: “The Trucial States”’.38 Leasing land to the British fleet, which marked the beginning of oil colonialism, meant that the politics of inter-European competition in the area during the First and Second World Wars would also play a considerable role in cementing some tribal leaders and city state shaykhs as winners and displacing others. This dynamic would also have a variety of repercussions on many tribes’ semi-nomadic lifestyle, effectively ending it for some and perpetuating it for others into a situation of uncertain or fluid citizenship that persists among some tribal populations today. For example, the British High Commissioner to Mesopotamia, Sir Percy Cox, reacted to Saudi King ʿAbdulaziz al-Saud’s territorial claims at a joint conference by ‘drawing lines on a map himself ’, designating two areas at the southern and western extremities of Kuwait, which he said would be officially neutral, buffer zone. In principle it was to allow nomadic Bedouin herdsmen to continue to have access to water and grazing without hindrance. But later Sir Percy intimated that he suspected there was oil in the neutral zones and that he believed that their designation as neutral territory would mean that more than one country would benefit from sharing the oil resources.39

The impact of the discovery of oil and with it an increased level of colonial intervention would hasten the social evolution of modern tribalism and new power relationships in Kuwait first, and in Qatar and the UAE later. Thesiger argues that a ‘state of anarchy [in the desert] is necessary to Bedu society’ but also points out that the ‘desert has been pacified, and raids and tribal warfare had been effectively prevented [across the peninsula]’.40 By the mid-1940s, the encroachment by colonial powers and emergent independent states was a further blow to this ‘necessary’ state of disorder; in combination with a consideration of the geographic and social segmentation that was occurring due to both trade and governmental interference, it is easier to understand how tribal customs, which relied on a desert environment for both relevance and balance, could become confused, disruptive and even obsolete. Indeed, it is a testament to their strength that this was not always the case.

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The rapid post-oil urbanization of the GCC states and the economic and functional transformation of ruling elites and governance strategies affected both the settlement behaviour and social networks of the bedouin tribes in these states, with many of them forced to change their traditional seasonal migrations and take on a static and sedentary urban lifestyle. Essentially, the borders that had been arbitrarily decided (in all three cases by a British colonialist agenda) forced these nomadic tribespeople to adopt nationalities, and they were therefore forced to take a ‘side’ by tying their fortunes and futures to one ruling family instead of being free to deal with a number of them to the tribe’s advantage, and in a manner that might allow the tribe-first social values derived from nomadic desert lifestyle not to interfere with the tribe’s ability to prosper. This was one obvious hurdle to the tribal concept of citizenship, as it divided loyalty between a state and a tribe (and sometimes even a family), and in many cases, despite urbanization and a high degree of social integration, it is loyalty to the latter that often persists, at least socially and in some cases politically. This dynamic is problematic, particularly if we consider the fact that these two forces would often be in opposition to one another.

Rulers, tribes and post-oil social evolution The relationship between coastal state rulers and the tribes they ruled was historically tenuous, marked by betrayals and shifting sides, until the discovery of oil and later natural gas introduced modern state formations and changed the situation to benefit ruling elites. Thesiger explains: Previously the great Bedu tribes of the Najd and Syrian desert had dominated central and Northern Arabia. All traffic between the oases, villages and towns, the pilgrim caravans, everyone in fact who moved about Arabia, had to pass through the desert, and the Bedu controlled the desert. They levied tolls on travelers or looted them at will; they extorted blackmail from villagers and cultivators and from the weaker desert tribes.41

Although some tribes had to pay the rulers in Saudi Arabia a form of tax for protection from raids by other tribes, most maintained their independence to some degree, with Thesiger even recounting tales of well-known ‘outlaw’ bedouins being part of Shaykh Zayed bin Nahyan’s entourage in the 1940s before he became ruler of Abu Dhabi; these groups also often mediated between parties more than they enforced a particular law.42 As Thesiger explains, ‘[e]ach of the Trucial Sheikhs had a band of armed retainers recruited from the tribes, but

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only Shakhbut [al-Nahyan] had any authority among the tribes themselves, and he maintained his power by diplomacy, not by force’.43 Similarly, the role of the ruler in Kuwait was one that ‘guaranteed security and administered justice in the community, while the merchants concerned themselves with Kuwait’s material prosperity and raising funds for the Ruler, in an effective partnership that characterized the dynamics of political power in Kuwait until the development of oil three centuries later’.44 A member of Kuwait’s merchant families recounts a tale told to him by his paternal grandfather that the bedouins were not trusted to spend the night within the walls of old Kuwait,45 although there were some exceptions made for those who had come from long distances and were hosted inside the homes of the merchants with whom they traded. Abdallah al-Ghunaim, President of the Center for Research and Studies on Kuwait, recalled that these bedouin traders were required to leave their guns outside the city walls according to a historical text, but he had a different explanation for them not sleeping inside the walled city. In his opinion, they pitched their tents beyond the walled city because within it there were limited public spaces that were in constant use, and there were no inns in which they could or were likely to stay.46 These tribal bedouin groups were distinct from local bedouins, and lived in tents around the walled city. These tribal networks were used by the merchants of the city to trade goods that they brought with them from the Levant and Baghdad and were paid because they knew the difficult roads through the deserts and protected the merchant caravans from other nomads. A transactional relationship thus emerged between these badū and the settled urban population within the walled city, as even the ruling shaykhs would negotiate with them for the protection of certain territories for which they were responsible. This did not stop the practice of raiding parties however, and there are photographs of bedouin raiders outside of Kuwait’s city walls taken by the former British agent H.R.P. Dickson that are included in Claudia al Rushoud’s book on his wife’s life in Kuwait Dame Violet Dickson: ‘Umm Saud’s’ fascinating life in Kuwait from 1929–1990.47 As Khoury and Kostiner explain in the region more broadly, ‘[t]he bond between the [tribal] chief and society are not necessarily institutionalized; they tend more often to be based on personal or ad hoc arrangements’ to ensure a ‘considerable degree of political manoeuvrability and cultural and economic autonomy’.48 When the last wall was torn down in Kuwait during the 1950s post-oil boom and more tribes settled into an urban lifestyle, much of their independence and purpose were lost, although they retained some characteristics of the tribe

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Figure 1  MP Faisal al Duwaisan quoted on Awwal Kuwait News, tweeting on how Iranian workers built the wall of Kuwait in 1770 to protect the city from the ‘ambush of the deserts’ in an example of how the ‘wall’ and its connection to the inner city hadar versus outer districts bedouins divide is still an identity politics issue to this day. From AwwalKwt news Instagram account (2017).

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despite the new ‘civilian’ state they had assumed as citizens, namely their tribal family names and amir al qabīla, loyalty to a tribal shaykh distinct from the ruling shaykh of the country in which they settled. Some social characteristics were also retained, like al-ʿaniya, which is a community chest for the tribe that is used by the tribal shaykh to help members of the tribe in need, especially for costs associated with marriage. This is sometimes contributed to by the ruling family in a specific country. Importantly, the removal of actual walls, which happened only in Kuwait, illustrating how sharp the division between townspeople and outsiders was, a division that is still being brought up by politicians today, and the shift in trade that came post-oil boom helped to blur the lines between tribal actors who had formerly been clearly distinguished on the basis of a purpose which was now lost, or which had changed beyond recognition.

Post-oil relationships The unease with which the ‘bedouins,’ as previously described, were regarded did not disappear when they settled, even amongst their urban neighbours the haḍar, and this discomfort coloured much of the socio-political divide that plays out in tribal politics that will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 6. It is important to realize that the social assimilation and political aspiration of these tribes were also disrupted by the accumulation of wealth and social evolution of other larger, ruling tribes. In fact, in Qatar, ‘[t]he commercial activities in the 1950s caused an increased politicizing of the al-Thani. … These initiatives created a political elite and new policy departing from the traditional socio-cultural patterns’.49 So now a new class emerged with a special signifier of ‘shaykhdom’ privileges, but without any of the previous responsibilities associated with that word. A similar dynamic unfolded in Kuwait and the UAE in the post-oil era, although the UAE is of course divided among six ruling families. Nonetheless, ruling elites were positioned in both a clear socio-economic band above both their citizens and tribes, and thus were also burdened with justifying the centralization of authority by providing rentier benefits to citizens – excesses that have proved very costly two generations on and have caused further fragmentation due to some instances of unequal division of these resources, particularly among outlying tribal communities.50 The question of allegiance, of the contract between a citizen and the state to which he/she belongs, and the duty that a tribe member has to his/her tribe,

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has been a constant fault line in relationships between haḍar and badū citizens as modernization projects mature and as globalization changes the social compositions and economic positions of these states. If, as Emile Durkheim argues, states are based on a ‘mechanical solidarity’51 where cooperation between different ethnic, political and economic groups is necessary, tribal societies must let go of much of their ethos to assimilate and become a cohesive part of new states. The argument that has been most pervasive in differentiating between the loyalties of tribal citizens to their kin and those of haḍar is that the latter doubt where the former’s loyalty lies because tribal people have another shaykh they need to obey and other neighbouring countries where their tribe extends, and this dual, and often transnational, loyalty may cause them to have agendas that are not necessarily country-first in terms of orientation, let alone communityfirst. Further, financial support comes from the tribe as well as from the country, and so financial incentives for obedience come from both state and tribe, whose coffers do not always align and may frequently run at cross purposes. As a result, the social evolution of the tribe has meant that to some extent there is a tribal community within the greater citizens’ community, with its own government within a greater government system, even as far as crimes are concerned – what Bassam Tibi has referred to as the ‘simultaneity of the unsimultaneous’.52 It should be noted that concern about membership of a transnational group undermining loyalty to the state extends beyond GCC anxieties about tribe and has indeed extended to some of their policies towards members of transnational Islamist organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood.53 For tribal shaykhs, there is an interdependence with the ruling elites that belies this seemingly independent state, as tribal leaders have to ‘attract the interest of more powerful rulers or heads of state, who could offer these leaders official recognition’54 and gain access to petrodollar wealth in order to both maintain their status as tribal leaders and replenish tribal coffers, as well as to keep the tribe in check, especially in times of political strife. Consider an example of this as when, during Kuwait’s 2012 Karamat Watan protests, many shaykhs of large tribes stood with the government and ruling family against the actions of largely tribal protesters who demanded political reform, thereby ignoring the stance of tribal leaders. Similarly, in 2011, the al-Shehhi and al-Zaabi tribes in the UAE held ‘spontaneous’ rallies to show support for the government after the very high-profile arrests of five Emirati activists, some of them members of these tribes.55 With the more recent political divide between Qatar and Saudi Arabia during the Gulf Crisis, the Bani Hajar56 and al-Murrah57 tribal shaykhs

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lost their Qatari citizenships after their refusal to denounce the actions of Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Other tribal members of Qatar’s ethnically bedouin, and therefore migratory, citizens ‘even managed to secure dual nationality, enabling them to continue seasonal migration between Saudi Arabia and Qatar’;58 this dual citizenship for some non-migratory tribes is also found in Kuwait, although it is technically illegal. As much as tribes wield independent social and to a degree political clout, they are also conscious of the need to foster peaceful relationships with ruling families on whom they have come to depend for their well-being and protection. Indeed, the advent of oil wealth in many ways ushered in the symbiotic relationship between ruling families and tribes described by Kostiner.59

Social change within the post-badū tribal cities As Khoury and Kostiner explain, ‘[o]nly since the mid nineteenth century have tribal populations in these areas [including the Arabian Peninsula] begun to be incorporated, at different speeds and with different rhythms, into the modern states that grew up in the Middle East’.60 The bedouin populations of the GCC states did not differ in their post-urban evolution compared to other bedouins, but they have retained a strong sense of identity, differentiation and a series of cultural traditions: from poetry recitation and traditional sword dances to playing traditional bedouin musical instruments, to camel riding and camping in the desert, many of these becoming seasonal and luxurious pursuits in which more and more non-bedouins engage. Trade, commerce and a maritime economy meant that the city dwellers of entrepôt pre-oil Arabian Gulf citadels, the haḍar, would require a measure of assimilation from any tribal bedouins who wished to remain in the city and prosper socially and financially. In Kuwait, the merchant Helal Fajhan alMutayri (from the al-Mutayri tribe) married into and worked alongside the merchant elite, so, despite their last name, his children became essentially haḍar. This is one of the major themes in the assimilation of members of bedouin tribes and their social integration into the coastal city structure; they needed to have material means or a patron who elevated them socially and politically so they could act as if they had means by proxy. In the June 1939 issue of Picture Post magazine, the Swiss journalist and lawyer A. R. Lindt contributed two pieces on the pearl merchants of Kuwait, whom he had met during his visit in 1937. He mentioned that Helal al-Mutayri would remark

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angrily when questioned about leaving some of his vast wealth to charity: ‘I have given much to my tribe! Is there a single Mutayri left hungry? What have I to do with other tribe’s members?’61 Thus, even after assimilation, the social expectation of a degree of taʿasub, or bias towards one’s kin persisted, and in this case, kin can mean an entire tribe. As Sultan al-Qassemi points out, even in the twenty-first century, ‘[p]erhaps the biggest disadvantage is that tribalism is sort of an elite club that outsiders can never truly belong to’.62 The rapid modernization of the post-oil state brought with it many changes to the social fabric of these small countries, especially with the introduction of universal education and other benefits of the rentier state, such as free government-subsidized goods and housing. As Thesiger put it, ‘[a]fter the First World War, cars, aeroplanes, and wireless gave government for the first time in history a mobility greater than that of the Bedu’.63 The changes introduced by the encroachment of modern technology on the region effectively led to the anthropological extinction of nomadic badū except for tiny numbers in parts of the UAE; as with behaviours that had to be dropped in order to prosper in an urbanized environment, prized badū skills that had once meant the difference between survival and death began to become obsolete, inefficient and unnecessary; they have also increasingly become performative, as discussed in the chapter that follows. Economically, tribes could no longer barter their skills or allegiance for financial gain: In northern and central Arabia, whilst the structure of tribal life was breaking down as a result of the peace which had been imposed on the tribes and because of administrative interference from the outside, the economy of Bedu life was collapsing. Deprived of their inaccessibility, the tribes could no longer blackmail the government into paying them large subsidies for their good behaviours.64

Despite these developments, for tribes that came late to these newly wealthy city states, there persisted issues of belonging and loyalty that caused them to agitate politically. For some, the fluid social position of the tribe within a state itself and within intra-state relations means that they can continue to operate as if they are in the desert and are able to bargain through ballot boxes or inherited prestige with ruling elites much like they did in the past. In the discussion of what tribal identity references in the GCC today, we must look at the ways in which some parts of the lifestyle have been retained or abandoned with settlement and urbanization. In any discussion of the development of tribal attitudes and bedouin symbolism, we must first start by

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looking at how the two words, badū (bedouins) and qabāʾil (tribes; singular qabīla) are sometimes used interchangeably, and the subtle but important differences between them. Bedouin is a descriptive word that is mostly a romantic notion linked to an anthropologically distinct nomadic lifestyle. Qabāʾil has emerged as the political word of choice to describe these former nomads in Kuwait and parts of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE, and is an exclusionary social marker because it at times negates, or at best demotes, the tribal and historical ancestry of haḍar citizens. Both Ibn Khaldoun and Iraqi social scientist Ali al-Wardi have described the destructive force of this tendency to favour those from the same tribe, taʿasub, when brought from desert life into the city. The first step in the tribes’ social evolution would then be to abandon tribal nepotism, as modernity and urbanization brought them into close contact with a more cosmopolitan community, and a more merit-based, trade-oriented identity becomes more important than a lineage-based tribal identity or even nation state identity. Some would argue that this type of nepotism remains necessary to ensure social justice for tribal citizens, who would otherwise not be given a fair chance due to continued economic and social marginalization, despite the natural evolution from nomadic life to urbanization. After the influx of oil money into state coffers in the 1950s, some members of Kuwait’s ruling elite challenged traditionally wealthy merchants with a change in the nature of their alliance with bedouin tribes who were outside the city walls. For instance, some tribes were granted Kuwaiti nationality (with the rentier perks of free housing, government jobs and the like), so that they would vote with the government during elections.65 Consequently, these tribe members, much like their counterparts in the rapidly modernizing Qatar and the UAE of the 1970s, would enter urban life through citizenship. However, even as they settled into this sedentary citizenship, they retained tribal practices within urbanized spaces of territorial claims, such that members of a tribe would take over a particular neighbourhood, either by design or through encouragement from the land-dispensing authority within the state. As a result, for instance in Qatar, we find that ‘Doha neighbourhoods are effectively tribal neighborhoods and the family council, or majliss, makes decisions about both personal and community matters’.66 Though such arrangements have some clear benefits to the tribes, they also pose some serious questions about inclusive citizenship, as ‘tribal members who reside in tribally uniform neighbourhoods have more uniformly pro-tribal voting practices [ ….] Similarly, tribesmen who marry within the tribe also favor candidates from the same tribe’,67 thus perpetuating an insular and isolated social and political existence which is clearly marked geographically as well.

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In Kuwait, the division between the urban population and bedouins is more solidified, and proximity to Basra and al-Zubair in Southern Iraq has arguably made the merchants and urban dwellers more similar to the populations of Arab capital cities like Baghdad, Beirut, and Cairo. The evolution of tribal bedouins in Qatar and the UAE therefore differs from the process in Kuwait because of this trajectory, which affected their social evolution on a broad scale. Sara Assami claims that only since 2007 have ‘different tribes started to mix and live together in single neighbourhoods. Qataris have also started to live in areas and neighborhoods populated with expats.’68 This may be due to a mixture of new central jobs that require a long commute from their traditional neighbourhoods, and inflated land prices forcing others to abandon central neighbourhoods and move farther away.

Conclusions Some scholars and local interlocutors insist that tribalism and tribal practice are a question of lineage, and that these are only associated with certain families of bedouin descent, so a last name, for example, al-Mutayri in Kuwait, al-Murrah in Qatar or al-Mansuri in the UAE is the best indicator of being tribal. However, this oversimplifies the issue and largely overlooks the social evolution of tribes after their settlement. Indeed, geographical and socioeconomic intersections must be taken into account, such as how integrated into the greater urban fabric an individual with a tribal family name is. In Kuwait, living within inner districts among mostly haḍar is one indicator, while another is whether children are enrolled in public or private schools. All of these factors are also indicative of the possession of certain financial means, just as with the first bedouin tribal members trying to ingratiate themselves with the haḍar city settlers a century before was a mark of social status. As more members of these citizen populations become intermixed, the divisions between tribal badū and haḍar are likely to diminish further, even when the tribal haḍar distinction has often also marked a class division as well or has been strategically politicized. Nonetheless, some actors work to reproduce these divisions; for instance, a video surfaced of Saudi Islamic scholar Saleh al-Fawzan at a conference in 2019 where he discussed a hadith which places the witness testimony of a bedouin at lesser value than that of a town-dwelling haḍar, and provided justification for such a statement by stating that haḍar are more educated than their bedouin counterparts.69

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Although the distinction between badū and haḍar has persisted even through the evolution both of tribes and of countries of the GCC, and in some ways has been encouraged, some aspects of tribal life have undoubtedly been lost. In place of former practices and in an urban setting, then, we see an increasing adoption of so-called bedouin-lite traditions and some efforts on behalf of these states to institutionalize or memorialize their countries’ tribal pasts. The negotiation between tribe and state therefore appears to be ongoing, as tribes remain the largest independent groups in these countries that are still able to exert autonomous power, albeit in different ways today than in the pre-oil and pre-settlement past. Looking at tribal social evolution through this lens, we can see how these governments’ selective use of tribes has resulted in both the fragmentation and bolstering of national identity. When desert tribes most recently settled in modern states in the Arabian Peninsula, many retained a duality that harkens to their more independent past in when they were both friends and foes to the coastal city states, and were always politicized, and which al-Wardi argued can be internalized into a psychological struggle within one’s character.70 Across the three country cases, regardless of social standing or political system, most major tribes have also historically granted important political buy-in and support for ruling families of the region, leading increasingly to the identification of tribal affiliation with national belonging. Perhaps nowhere else is the prevailing importance of these states’ tribal pasts better preserved than in state-funded heritage projects. National and local museums of all three of these states focus considerable attention on scenes from these states’ tribal pasts, and so-called heritage sports like falconry and camel-racing continue to enjoy prominence as homage to these states’ histories, which will be discussed in greater detail in the next chapter.

4

Heritage production and branding of the modern badū in state formation Introduction What Eric Hobsbawm refers to as ‘invented traditions’ aptly describes the use of tribal practices as markers of heritage in the GCC states, which, though linked to former practices as well as to supranational identities, have today become central to the construction of national narratives.1 In Dawn Chatty’s words, ‘[i]nvented traditions set up, support, and maintain kinship, oligarchy and other institutions [….] Created or invented rituals and traditions serve several purposes: they may establish or symbolize legitimate relations of authority or particular institutions, and they also may be used to inculcate a set of beliefs or conventions of behavior.’2 These invented traditions, then, are intended for both domestic and international audiences and often, particularly in the three countries under study, follow the pattern of these states’ tribal and desert-oriented pasts, which have been reinvented and repackaged since independence. As outlined in the previous chapter, relationships between large tribal groupings and ruling families in Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE have been critical to the maintenance of a stable political status quo. After analysing the histories of the states under study, we concede that, as Partrick posits, ‘selective re-imagining of the past cannot avoid tribal identity.’3 Nonetheless, such an identity often has been selectively inclusive of the identity of merchant elites who constituted settled populations in port cities before the sedentarization of bedouin populations. As a result, it has been necessary to find a way to unite citizens of these new ‘modern’ states into one mutable ‘model history’ in light of the contrast between a history that relied on both desert culture and maritime trade. Miriam Cooke discusses the phenomenon of instrumentalizing and modernizing tribal identity at length, with particular focus on how political leaders in the Arabian Peninsula have used tribal coherence to forge relatively united states in the present day

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which pursue projects dedicated to heritage and preservation of their local culture, often centred on these states’ tribal pasts.4 So-called bedouin pursuits that are explicitly protected manifest themselves in modernization projects managed by the state. Further, the persistent importance of tribal identifiers is apparent with political appointments of members of particular tribes and through public rhetorical references to a shared tribal past; at the level of national identity through symbols of state with activities such as falconry (where the falcon acts as a state symbol as well) and at the level of education and in national curriculum planning – all of which are discussed further in this volume. There is certainly room to assess the extent to which the notion of what Cooke dubs the ‘tribal-modern’, a tribal identity that is no longer linked to a lifestyle or to an occupation, has fostered or hindered a sense of national unity. Indeed, modern desert sports, such as sand-surfing and off-roading, and the more exclusionary but still popular pastimes of camel racing, falconry and nabati poetry contests, are still widely prominent, yet historically excluded some segments of the population. These three states are also involved in some competition to project power on the international stage and propel their new-found wealth and distinct national identities outward, often using tribal tropes reminiscent of their pre-oil pasts to aid national branding. Evidence of how these symbols function internationally can also be found in the preferences of the ruling elite in these states to take falconry trips to Iraq, Mongolia and Morocco, eliciting reference to their part of an ancient shared, transnational tribal past. The more problematic aspects of these symbols are also exemplified through such pastimes, in particular through their relation to the neo-patriarchal values of the newly wealthy elite. Regarding falconry specifically, Natalie Koch explains, ‘by precluding female participation and embodying particular nationalistic narratives, falconry is argued to be an “ethnicised”, gendered and altogether politicized practice, providing a way for “Gulf nationals” political claims to their homelands … [to be] constructed and affirmed through the ostensibly “apolitical” language of heritage and sport.’5 Indeed, the fact that the practice of so-called heritage sports is often limited to members of citizen populations makes them increasingly important in fostering a nationalist foundation. Falconry across the Arabian Peninsula is ‘a homeland narrative that hearkens back to an imagined primordial Arab way of life’,6 while on the other hand ‘the ethno-nationalist, masculinist, and elitist practices surrounding Gulf falconry today suggest that it is certainly not a fixed ancestral pastime, but firmly embedded in very contemporary power structures.’7 Falconry, then, like many other tribal practices and tropes

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promoted across the GCC, is both firmly part of a shared past among nationals and explicitly woven into existing state power structures. In a similar way, camel festivals and camel racing have been relaunched in modern ways, particularly in Qatar and the UAE. Sulayman Khalaf points out that camel racing was not indigenous to the Emirates. Nonetheless, referring to the ‘invention of camel culture in the celebration of annual camel festivals’,8 Khalaf argues that ‘the camel racetrack is a large stage upon which culture is played out, reconstituted, or invented’ and where ‘collective representation and a shared memory of an “imagined community” are played out’.9 The performative aspect of national identity often appears linked to tribal traditions and tropes, although in the case of Kuwait, heritage practices have been mostly linked to the state’s maritime past, with the seafaring ‘Boum’ dhows being a state symbol on currency and other official emblems.

Figure 2  The Kuwaiti ‘Boum’, a ship that exemplifies the sea-faring heritage trope used as an identity marker. Courtesy of Hala Shaaban.

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What is clear from a consideration of the history and origin of the badū from antiquity to the current tribal-modern stratification is that the relationship between tribalism and national branding is difficult to define. This is clearly visible in the context of the representation of badū in media, poetry and Western accounts of the Arabian Peninsula, where the bedouin is often romanticized in fiction or stereotype whilst being ostracized in real life with no apparent consciousness of this effect displayed on the part of either media creators or consumers. In the 1940s, Wilfred Thesiger described this dichotomy vis-à-vis townspeople who disparaged the poorer bedouins as ‘uncouth and savage’10 while simultaneously admiring their ‘courage and their unbelievable generosity … the hungry ragged men whom they had just been reviling had been transmuted into the legendary heroes of the past’.11 Facey makes similar remarks about the townspeople’s admiration of certain qualities of their shared past with the tribal bedouins who lived on the outskirts of the settled cities of the Najd, while simultaneously harbouring a deep resentment for many of their behaviours.12 In a more recent example of the confusion surrounding badū heritage, an interview with a group of Kuwaiti urban private high school girls13 showed a consensus that their generation had no need for tribal practices or any other form of ‘bedouinism’. They felt that this part of their heritage should be confined to museums, textbooks and history lessons in the classroom. Attitudes towards badū heritage in the context of national branding would thus seem to point towards a favouring of bedouin-lite as it were: a subjective appropriation of tribal customs within an unstable modern paradigm according to social whims, as evidenced by the more incoherent aspects of ‘tribal-modern’ social practices. National dress, which is presumed to represent pre-oil dressing practices, is another important marker of nationality and belonging. Khalaf traces how, in the UAE, though common throughout the GCC, many nationals began adopting Western dress to proclaim their modernity: ‘[H]owever, this social trend was halted in the early 80’s. Emiratis as well as other Gulf nationals have now taken the cultural position that you can be modern while at the same time adhering to national dress, as dress has gained significant cultural and political meanings that relate to the making of Emirati national identity.’14 While definitely a marker of nationality and therefore in some ways class, its connection to a shared bedouin past is becoming contested. Newspaper articles written in Kuwait have suggested that the red checkered headdress is ‘alien’ to Kuwait, linked instead

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to nomadic tribal populations,15 even though the red checkered headdress and collared dishdasha remain a common choice among Kuwaiti men from all social backgrounds. Rana al-Mutawa finds that it was the burqa rather than the abaya, which has origins in the Najd, that was worn in the UAE in the pre-oil era and that national dress today is far more homogenized than it was in the pre-oil era as a means of fostering a sense of unified national identity, which excludes, for instance, Persian headdresses, in order to ‘promote an image of a pure Arab and Bedouin heritage and tradition’.16 Idil Akinci also confirms, through interviews with young people in Dubai, the extent to which national dress helps to ‘(re)produce and consolidate the boundaries [of] Emirati identity which is popularly imagined as Arab, tribal and Bedouin’.17 In the Kuwaiti context, Anh Nga Longva describes the importance of wearing national dress for women specifically ‘to illuminate the expatriates, not least the men, on the attitude to adopt when interacting with Kuwaiti women’.18 With the influx of large non-national populations in all three of these states, which house expatriate majorities, national dress therefore provides a marker of status and distinction as ‘original’ inhabitants of these states. Tourism has in turn placed an inordinate amount of focus on heritage in this bedouin-lite sensibility, as it waters down some of the more problematic and older tribal values of the desert in a manner designed to appeal to a wider market; it also, crucially, as mentioned above, separates the ‘natural’ citizen populations from the perceived newcomer citizens and essentially ‘outsider’ majority expatriate populations. In addition, emphasis on a tribal past which is somehow considered more authentic or at least more rugged undermines traditional understandings of the rentier state and rentier citizens, which is that, as Beblawi puts it, ‘reward – income or wealth – is not related to work and risk bearing, rather to chance or situation’.19 By emphasizing the hardships of a tribal past, these states demonstrate (a) how much they have developed under the leadership of their ruling families and (b) how much their wealth has been earned after decades of hardship. Tribal tropes are therefore projected outward, perhaps because of the orientalist assumption that this part of the world lacks cultural capital.20 Local and international tourism has driven forward the heritage industry, which has largely relied on tropes from the past like camel racing, poetry, falconry, pearldiving and storytelling.21 Indeed, the first generation of national museums recorded the ancient and recent past side by side and were ‘determinedly local in their agenda of capturing and presenting traditional lifeways and archaeology’.22

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New national museum projects on a much larger scale are considered to be ‘representing a “regime of globalisation” and a form of secular modernity that excludes the singularity of the local’.23 Sites of heritage, then, have become increasingly marketed to international audiences, taking into account the power of such institutions for national branding as well as the importance of nonnational populations in these states. Matthew Gray theorizes that the GCC states’ different experiences with globalization dictate how they have constructed and expanded their heritage industries, positing that Dubai was earlier exposed to the global economy than was Qatar, and so has been relatively more open about accepting mass leisure tourism and as a consequence has become more socially liberal than its neighbours.24 Certainly, despite some similarities across heritage sectors, each country, and arguably even each city, within the GCC has a distinct branding effort: Dubai aims to be ‘the friendly, modern, open face of the Middle East and is harmonious with Western culture, big events, and consumerism’, while Qatar has concentrated on using its foreign policy and diplomatic initiatives, as well as attracting major sporting events, to project its image abroad; Kuwait, on the other hand, has invested less in the heritage industry and aims to be a regional mediator and humanitarian partner rather than tourism hub.25 In all of these states, however, as Karen Exell and Trinidad Rico point out, ‘“the bedouin” is a key interlocutor in the heritage imaginations of the region, as members of tribal populations demonstrate the marginalization of a pre-existing ecology and livelihood, the stakeholders of legitimate ancestries and an authentic cosmology that need to be performed, though the heritage representation of the “Bedouin” as a single group from the past ignores complex tribal and ethnic differences.’26 Below, we assess some of the most recent heritage efforts across the three states under study to demonstrate the extent to which tribal tropes remain important. As Gabriella Elgenius explains, this use of tribal and bedouin symbolism is significant because of ‘the strategic use of symbols in identity and recognition politics, which is in turn connected to debates and struggles about membership, nationality, citizenship and integration’.27 It is worth noting that these symbols have become prominent even beyond the heritage projects outlined below. Indeed, Rania Kamla and Clare Roberts have documented the rise of traditional symbols such as pearls, dhows, coffee cups and dallahs (traditional coffee pots), horses and hawks even in financial reports of annual reports of GCC companies listed on local stock markets.28 Below, however, we detail how tribalism has aided state-building and heritage preservation projects of the three states we examine.

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Figure 3  The dallah (Arabian coffee pot), one of the more universal images associated with the Arabian Gulf and especially the Badu. Courtesy of Hala Shaaban.

Kuwait Perhaps the earliest example of how bedouin symbols took the international stage as state symbols was the use of camels by the Kuwaiti national football team, the first Gulf team to ever qualify for a World Cup, in the 1982 tournament. An anthem for the team entitled ‘Our Camel Lovely Camel (Our Camel is a

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Winner)’, and the mascot Haydoo, a live camel, were widely circulated.29 Drawing additional attention to the desert motif, the head of the Kuwaiti Football Association said the team would withdraw unless it was allowed to bring its mascot to the tournament in Spain; as a result, a camel was flown from Morocco and housed in the backyard of the hotel in which the team was staying.30 Since that time, Kuwait’s heritage sector has certainly expanded and evolved, and its national branding has moved on, but the new iterations have not made an impression on the global stage in the same way. While Qatar and the UAE have increasingly competed to host prestigious and high-profile national museums and branches of international museums, the Kuwaiti state has invested notably less in preserving its tangible heritage through such museums. In fact, Kristy Norman documents how, after antiquities stolen by invading Iraqi forces were returned to Kuwait and after much of the country’s National Museum, which was first opened in 1957,31 was destroyed, it remains in the process of being fully reconstructed and currently houses only one section on heritage.32 This section, notably, primarily consists of dioramas depicting daily life primarily in Kuwait City’s souq and port, thus hearkening back to a pre-oil past. The current museum initially opened in 1983 was designed by well-known French architect Michel Ecochard, representing substantial state investment in the project, but proved to be unpopular, as people felt it was ‘forbidding, and had little relation to its cultural environment in terms of material or design’.33 As a result, we have seen other new heritage-linked buildings in Kuwait, discussed below and like heritage buildings in the other states under study, linked explicitly to the country’s architectural past or its geographical landscape. For instance, the roof of Kuwait’s National Assembly building, according to Danish architect Jørn Utzon, ‘references the iconic tent construction of the Arabian Bedouin people’.34 Lawrence Vale argues that the ‘billowy tent-like canopy possesses none of its bedouin prototype’s crucial sense of impermanence’ and that ‘the covered plaza hearkens as much to ship sails and a tradition of water-based merchant trade as it does to nomadic desert tradition, an ironically appropriate, if unintentional, homage to the actual source of modern Kuwait’s cultural and economic success.’35 In a sense, then, GCC citizens are now seeing their culture articulated through the eyes of Western architects, much as it has previously been articulated by Western travellers to the region. Relatedly, Farah al-Nakib has documented ways in which the advent of oil wealth altered urban forms in Kuwait, in many ways erasing the pre-oil past. The government sought in the 1950s to create a new city, removing the past and justifying doing so by portraying the pre-oil age as ‘a period of suffering and

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Figure 4  Diorama from Kuwait’s National Museum taken on April 2019. The scene depicts a traditional school. Courtesy of author.

hardship, which in turn contributed to legitimizing the new role of government’.36 In fact, in 1970, the Council of Ministers invited several members of merchant families to discuss their position on banning traditional dhow boats from Kuwait City’s waterfront, since they were linked to the country’s pre-oil past and not to the state’s modern future.37 By the 1980s, however, after implementing a Master Plan that largely destroyed Kuwait’s old town centre, the government recognized that heritage would be important in attracting tourists and in demonstrating how advanced Kuwait had become since its pre-oil days. Al-Nakib explains: Tourism aside, the retention of pieces of the past on the urban landscape and the creation of a deliberate contrast between old and new would unequivocally prove just how far Kuwait had advanced in such a short amount of time. Visual

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Figure 5  Diorama from Kuwait’s National Museum taken on April 2019. The scene depicts a merchant selling wares in the old souq. Courtesy of author. reminders of the more austere life of the pre-oil town would throw the city’s lavish new structures […] into sharp relief.38

Reminders of the past would also demonstrate the extent to which the government had managed Kuwait’s newfound wealth and had aided its transformation into a modern state. Qatar and the UAE appear to have taken largely the same approach, increasingly seeking to integrate new structures, often designed by internationally renowned architects, with traditional architecture like souqs in what al-Nakib dubs an ‘image-driven approach to oil urbanization after 1950’.39 In the 1980s, then, Kuwaiti heritage preservation became increasingly important with the creation of Qaryat Yawm al-Bahhar (The Seaman’s Day Village) on the coast across from parliament as

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Figure 6  Kuwait’s National Assembly building designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon is across the street from the Arabian Gulf. Courtesy of Hala Shaaban.

a recreational space in which traditional courtyard houses and coffee shops, and reenactments of pre-oil maritime scenes such as shipbuilding and the return from pearling were ‘displayed and performed in great detail’. Like the souq, the historic life of the city’s seafront became musealized in a confined and controlled space in which Kuwaitis were invited ‘to experience their past in actuality’.40

Souq al-Mubarakiyya, Kuwait City’s largest souq, was restored following the Iraqi invasion and today is not only a social gathering place for both Kuwaitis and non-nationals, but also sells a variety of food and clothing items, including some traditional items related to desert life. Sulayman Khalaf tracks Kuwaiti efforts to preserve national heritage through a yearly government-sponsored celebration commemorating pearl-diving, rather than the state’s tribal past: ‘[K]uwaiti sea pearling heritage (turath al-ghuos) has become appropriated by the state as a kind of state folklorism.’41 Khalaf goes on to describe pearling as ‘an invented tradition’, which is used to forge national unity, as well as to portray the amir ‘as both the guardian of heritage and tradition and a state modernizer, whose wise vision helped in the rapid development and

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creation of a caring welfare society’.42 The primary heritage trope in Kuwait, then, appears linked more to its seafaring past than to desert and camel culture which is emphasized more strongly in Qatar and the UAE, as described below. In his analysis of the use of the dhow in particular in Kuwaiti heritage projects, Gilbert points out that the boat ‘represents a past when Arab wealth came from more glamorous endeavours than selling oil’, noting that Kuwait’s mercantile prowess was intimately tied to the use of the dhow which connected it across the Indian Ocean; it is therefore also a symbol of Kuwait’s mobility and demonstrates how connected it was with the rest of the world even in its early days, rather than the inward-facing desert motif often presumed to dominate the Arabian Peninsula.43 In addition to government-led initiatives to preserve Kuwaiti heritage through pearl-diving exhibitions and the souq restoration, efforts on behalf of well-connected Kuwaiti individuals to retain heritage also exist. Sadu House, built in the 1870s, today continues to house a collection of traditional weaving, having been revived in the 1980s by a member of the al-Sabah ruling family as a means of retaining this aspect of their heritage and passing them on to new generations of Kuwaitis.44 Notably, UNESCO added Arabian Peninsula al-sadu weaving to its Intangible Heritage list in 2020.45 In the view of the president of Sadu House, Shaykha Altaf al-Sabah, no true bedouins remain, but we should place importance on the tribal value system which has been left in their place, particularly the aspects which are cultural rather than political in nature, and as a result Sadu House today remains a space in which the next generation of Kuwaitis and non-Kuwaitis can learn about traditional weaving.46 The Dickson House, where the British Political Agent H.R.P. Dickson once lived, and the American Mission Hospital, today the Americani Cultural Centre, also provide examples of older architectural forms that survived renovation of the city centre and thus are considered important to heritage protection, though not explicitly linked to tribal tropes. Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyya, like Sadu House, was established by members of the ruling family and is professionally curated and named after one of the world’s finest collections of Islamic art.47 Nonetheless, Radhika Lakshminarayanan points out that there is great potential for Kuwaiti heritage to be used more effectively to foster what is still a relatively nascent tourism sector that would aid economic diversification away from hydrocarbon resources.48 As she explains, at present ‘many of Kuwait’s museums emerged from private collections, and their significance and value were constructed through the collector’s interest and patronage.’49 Indeed, Kuwait lacks a ministry of tourism, suggesting that much of the heritage preservation work has been done both by and for domestic populations. Madeenah is one example of a grassroots

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citizen-driven effort to preserve Kuwait City’s specific urban history through a variety of curated walking tours.50 In the words of its managing director Deema AlGhunaim, ‘many people in Kuwait exclusively navigate the city by car, and spend their leisure time inside privately-owned spaces like the home, diwaniya, and malls. Madeenah helps challenge these norms by stepping outside, slowing down, and experiencing the city at a personal scale.’51 Although Kuwait has done less to preserve tangible heritage through, for instance, a large and prominent national museum, heritage and national identity of course remain important. Longva traces the use of specific speech patterns, as well as ‘the careful choice of children’s names, the strict observance of marriage rules, were some of the mechanisms used to produce what was, at any particular moment, consensually defined as Kuwaiti identity.’52 An example of such a signifier of bedouin ancestry that many members of the tribal population have retained – and that some ruling and political elites adopt as a measure of ‘authenticity’ – is their accentuated pronunciation of certain words and letters, which differs from haḍar pronunciation. For example, in Kuwaiti, when the letter jīm, usually pronounced as a ‘j’, is not changed into a yaa in words like rajal [man], this is a signal of tribal bedouin pronunciation. These quotidian markers of identity and belonging, which hearken back to Kuwait’s pre-oil past, serve as an important part of cementing a distinct Kuwaiti identity and demonstrate that not all aspects of Arabian Peninsula culture are easily encapsulated in the traditional Western museum format, an observation also made by Exell and Rico, which leads to a misjudgement common in Western critiques that ‘there is no heritage’ in these states.53 In 2018, the world’s largest new cultural complex, the Sheikh Abdullah Al Salem Cultural Centre, opened as part of Kuwait’s National Cultural district. The centre houses a natural history museum, science museum, space museum, Arabic Islamic science museum and a fine arts centre. The structure itself is hyper-modern, as is the second site attached to the cultural district, Al Shaheed Park, which houses a Remembrance Museum and Habitat Museum, the first focused on critical moments in Kuwaiti history and the second focused on Kuwait’s natural habitat. The third component of the cultural district, the Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Cultural Centre, whose design was inspired by Islamic architecture, was completed in 2016 and hosts a variety of cultural events, particularly concerts. None of these new sites is specifically focused on heritage preservation, however, in contrast to the large museum complexes built in Qatar and the UAE, and there is no specifically national museum in this complex. Instead, there appears to be a focus on linking Kuwait to the broader world

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through natural history and science, specifically Arabic Islamic science, as well as putting in place smaller locally focused collections. Again, unlike Qatar’s national museum and the UAE’s Zayed Museum, the design of this complex is not based on a tribal or desert motif, suggesting perhaps a desire to move beyond the tribal and local at least in heritage discourse and focus on Kuwait’s past and present role as a regional entrepôt.

Qatar Qatar has more self-consciously than Kuwait sought to use its heritage, particularly as linked to its past, to distinguish itself from its neighbours. Similar to Kuwait’s earlier introduction of Haydoo the camel, Qatar’s symbol when it hosted the Asian Games in 2006 was ‘Orry’ the Oryx – an animal indigenous to the Arabian Peninsula whose statue remains prominently displayed on Doha’s corniche. More recently, since the National Museum of Qatar, which opened in 2019, was constructed, at the design of Jean Nouvel, in the shape of a desert rose, this symbol has become increasingly used in national branding. It is also, critically, as Suzi Mirgani points out, a symbol distinct from the camel, oryx, dallah coffeepot, and falcon since it is a symbol only used by Qatar among its neighbours (although not necessarily unique to Qatar alone) – something increasingly important to Qatar over the course of the GCC crisis between 2017 and January 2021.54 Further, the desert rose is being used in promotional videos for the Qatar-hosted 2022 World Cup: one such video features a young Arab boy walking through the desert and picking up a desert rose before coming upon an oryx and then reaching the sea.55 Alexandra Bounia explains that this symbol was selected carefully, as it is the geological result of what happens when land and sea meet – in essence uniting the tradition of the desert (badū) and of the sea (haḍar); she goes further to posit that it also is more inclusive of non-Qatari populations because it is a new symbol, rather than one linked explicitly to the country’s past. In her words: The desert rose becomes a very convenient social and political symbol that takes the emphasis away from the ‘two culture’, the Bedouin people and the Hadar/ town people, or away from the division between Qataris and the ‘others’ living in their country. Desert roses with no particular cultural value in Qatar before, have been identified as the right symbol for the new era. They take the emphasis away from the traditional symbols of local culture to something neutral, reworked, but at the same time something that brings the attention back to the land, the

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natural environment and the ‘deep’ relationship of the people to their land. It makes the claim to origins that is very familiar from national museums in other parts of the world as well, it makes the point that Qatari people are related to the sand, ‘are ‘ancient’ and ‘naturally’ local but also rare, valuable and fragile. It thus provides a material focus that aims to generate sentiments of national belonging and emotional attachment to the nation, becoming a tool of ‘political pedagogy’.56

The construction of the National Museum of Qatar itself and the fanfare at its high-profile opening in 2019 demonstrate a concerted effort on the part of the state to preserve Qatari heritage in museum form. In fact, the museum houses within it the site of Qatar’s first national museum, constructed in 1975 at the site of the original amiri palace and thus is a self-conscious effort to subsume Qatar’s history under an al-Thani-focused narrative; it also seeks to bring together under this narrative both the tribes who lived in the desert and the merchants who focused on pearling and the sea for subsistence. Qatar Foundation also recently created four museums in Mshreireb Properties, housed in an area that historically has been home to expatriates and is today being re-vamped, much like Doha’s Souq Waqif, to its former state. The Msheireb Museums include the Mohammad bin Jassim House, which explains the restoration of Msheireb as a means of restoring and preserving ‘architectural heritage;57 the Company House, which traces the history of the discovery of oil in Qatar through ‘first-hand accounts of the men who laboured not just to provide for their families but also to lay the foundations for their emerging nation;58 the Radwani House, which replicates a traditional Qatari home; and the Bin Jelmood House, which traces the history of slavery in the Arabian Peninsula and Indian Ocean. The project, rather than focusing on a shared tribal past, outlines some of Qatar’s pre-oil past through preservation of the Msheireb area, as well as demonstrating how oil changed the state and shedding light on hardships linked to both the oil industry and to international trade when slavery was still common in the Arabian Peninsula and Indian Ocean. Other projects seek to link Qatar to the broader world. Katara, a development with art galleries, restaurants and a beach, as part of the Cultural Village Foundation, is named for the ancient name given to the Qatari peninsula, thus invoking its ancient past.59 According to its website, it ‘serves as a guardian to the heritage and traditions of Qatar and endeavours to spread awareness about the importance of every culture and civilization’ as part of ‘the most multidimensional cultural project of Qatar’.60 In a similar war, the Museum of Islamic Art, designed by IM Pei based on inspiration of the Ibn Tulun Mosque of

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Cairo, focuses on Qatar insofar as it is part of the broader Islamic world. There is a tendency then, to move away from shared tribal tropes to the creation of new symbols and to emphasize Qatar’s place in the broader Arab and Islamic world. This trend also reflects Qatar’s efforts, particularly under the previous Amir Shaykh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani (r. 1995–2013) to enhance Qatar’s global standing through such endeavours, as well as through an activist foreign policy.61 Qatar’s efforts at national branding have therefore been self-consciously pursued and projected onto the global stage. Tarek Atrissi, who was responsible for creating a unique font for Qatar’s branding, was directed to make Qatar appear modern and progressive but also reverent of its traditions and cultural heritage. It must be characterized not by blind growth but by sustainable development and refined luxury. It should be clear that Qatar held a unique position ‘at the heart of the Arabian Gulf, a meeting point for East and West’ [….] Finally – and perhaps above all, given the frequency with which this directive appears in Atrissi’s project documentation – Qatar’s identity had to stress its ‘Arabic flavor’.62

This desire for so-called ‘Arabic flavour’ has often been translated into the use of Arabic calligraphy or architecture, or in the reproduction of desert-associated objects like the desert rose, dallah or camel. In this way, Qatar has taken a different tack by reintroducing the symbol of the desert rose, one which connects Qatar to natural place but not necessarily to tribal life; it also self-consciously brings together both desert and port-focused life as a geological representation of the result of the meeting of land and sea.

The UAE As Frauke Heard-Bey notes, heritage and identity in the UAE are complicated compared to their neighbours due to their division into relatively autonomous emirates until 1971 and their traditional loyalty to tribe which has historically pledged allegiance to one of the emirates’ rulers rather than necessarily to the country’s leadership.63 She goes further to explain that: In a federation, in which the basis for the individual member states was the historical allegiance of the tribal people to the leader of their society, the challenge to the coherence as a national entity is rooted in the strong attachment, which each national retains to his or her ‘home’ emirate. This attachment is bound up with the traditional role of the individual in his tribal society as well

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as with diverse new economic opportunities, which the Rulers of the individual emirates have sought to encourage over recent years. Yet this strong regional identity is being amalgamated into an equally strong national Emirati identity.64

As in the other two states under study, the UAE houses side by side the modern and the tribal. As an example, the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority announced in 2004 plans to develop Saadiyat Island’s Cultural District to include the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, the Zayed National Museum and Performing Arts Centre, with a separate Maritime Museum. Zayed Museum, dedicated to Emirati history, is also meant to include a falcon conservation centre, thus including the traditional and tribal alongside the cosmopolitan and modern.65 It is important to note that museums that are not exclusively focused on national history or tradition, like the Louvre and the Guggenheim, can also be used as national images, as has arguably also been the case with the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.66 Indeed, Jean Nouvel designed the Louvre Abu Dhabi, which opened in 2017, specifically to tie the structure to its setting within the UAE. Nouvel, who also designed the National Museum of Qatar, devised the building as ‘“inspired by the cupola, a distinctive feature in Arabic architecture” but also “from the palm trees of Abu Dhabi.”’67 The design was intended to create ‘a moving rain of light, reminiscent of the overlapping palm trees in the UAE’s oases’, again underlining the importance of connecting national museums to the national environment in which they are situated – particularly if they are designed by non-nationals.68 The design of the Zayed National Museum by Norman Foster is meanwhile based on feathers of a falcon and is thus meant to create ‘an iconic symbol for the nation’, much in the same way as the desert rose in Qatar.69 Indeed, the falcon is even in the UAE’s (and Kuwait’s) official national emblem, as well as the national bird of Qatar. Falcons were once critical for hunting, and so falconry was not merely a sport a generation ago; rather, falcons were a sign of wealth among bedouin families.70 The UAE has positioned itself as a leader globally in falconry, housing the world’s largest falcon hospital and hosting the International Hunting and Equestrian Exhibition (ADIHEX) in Abu Dhabi.71 What was once critical to the survival of individual and independent tribes has become ornamental – and state-funded. Dubai, in contrast to Abu Dhabi, has appealed more to the increasingly globalized world and ever more international crowd it attracts.72 Further, because it is not the state capital, it perhaps has less of a burden to provide symbols for the nation. Dubai has diversified its economy through its focus on tourism,

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finance, logistics and ports and real estate. Shaykh Rashid al-Maktoum, ruler of Dubai until 1990, was said to have been very aware of the need to diversify; as he explained, ‘[M]y grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel.’73 In Dubai, then, as in Kuwait, the leadership brought in foreign assistance to plan Dubai along essentially ‘a clean slate’.74 Dubai Tourism Vision 2020, launched in 2013, was focused on making the city a top choice for international business and leisure.75 Marketable authenticity is preserved in specific locations: Heritage Village Dubai in the Al Shindagha neighbourhood provides a replica of traditional Emirati life, and a similar such village exists in Abu Dhabi. Further, the restoration of Bastakia in Dubai provides a representation of old, pre-oil Dubai.76 Matthew MacLean notes that, in 2014, heritage festivals were held in Qasr alHosn in Abu Dhabi, Fujairah Heritage Village, Ras al-Khaimah, al-Qattara Oasis in Al-Ain, al-Wathba in Abu Dhabi and Liwa.77 As Oliver Picton documents, such heritage villages ‘become places where nationals can practice imagining the nation and manage their local and global identity [….] They provide a means through which the state can produce and appropriate heritage knowledge and control its dissemination to the public. This is an exercise of statecraft, using heritage in state formation.’78 It is also, at least in the individual emirates, a means of maintaining their distinct identities vis-à-vis the leading emirates of Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Local heritage villages allow for the recreation of local scenes often untouched by the presence of the federal state itself. In Abu Dhabi, seat of the country’s capital, however, camel culture, in addition to falconry discussed above, has become increasingly important through camel festivals and races run by the ruling family. As documented by Khalaf, ‘[f]raming these cultural celebrations with Badu poetics and cultural aesthetics gives greater credence to the idea of asala (cultural authenticity) for the Emirati national community, which currently perceives itself as seriously threatened by shifting and powerful global forces’.79 He further explains that ‘Badu complaints about the loss of their traditional camel wealth and skills are balanced by the timely insights and realization of the national leaders that the preservation and revival (ihyaʿ) of camel traditions are perfect cultural material for building the state’s ideological and political identity.’80 Indeed, even the camel racing stadium is constructed to resemble a tent, demonstrating the extent to which it is meant to call back to a pre-oil, and very much tribal and bedouin past, all through a state-led and state-funded effort.81

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Aside from camel culture, the traditional form of nabaṭī poetry is also explicitly preserved throughout the UAE. Million’s Poet on Abu Dhabi TV, organized by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage and sponsored by Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Shaykh Mohammad bin Zayed al-Nahyan,82 grants large cash prizes to the poets judged to be the most skilled.83 On his personal website, Shaykh Mohammad bin Rashid, ruler of Dubai, states: Nabati poetry has been a feature of life in the Arabian Peninsula since the sixteenth century. In certain eras, this poetry was the only record of historical events […] Nabati poetry shows the natural creativity of the Gulf ’s inhabitants and represents their roots in this land. It is their everyday dialect. A strong dialect, slightly removed from classical Arabic. It should be studied so that it may be preserved.84

Again, we see efforts to preserve intangible components of Arabian Peninsula heritage as a means of strengthening national cohesion and identity. Another interesting instance of this revival of nabaṭī poetry is the ruler of Dubai and Emirati Vice President Shaykh Mohammed bin Rashid’s release of several poems in the nabaṭī style, often praising various rulers of the UAE and commenting on current events, including the GCC crisis, discussed in detail in Chapter 5; these are available on his website and are often also published on his Instagram page.85 Notably, other members of the GCC ruling elites have attempted to demonstrate their poetic abilities as well, perhaps most publicly Prince Khalid al-Faisal bin ʿAbdulaziz al-Saud, governor of Mecca province in Saudi Arabia.86 Heritage sports and the practice of traditional poetry also help provide a means of anchoring Emirati national identity in something unchanging, fixed and certain, within an otherwise increasingly cosmopolitan and culturally chaotic world. In this context, the sport provides a means of not only maintaining a sense of Emirati national identity amidst rapid modernization and globalization by providing strong links with the UAE’s ancestral past, but more specifically emphasizing the cultural authenticity of the minority Emirati national community who feel ‘seriously threatened by shifting and powerful global forces’.87 The barjeel, or wind tower, is another symbol common to the GCC but used mainly in Emirati heritage preservation; it was initially brought to the Trucial States from Bandar Lengeh in present-day Iran88 to provide ‘a pre-electric form of air conditioning’ and as such as a symbol of wealth and the ability to maintain a permanent residence.89 It has become a symbol of national identity, particularly in Dubai but used less in areas like al-Ain and Liwa, which were affiliated with

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land-based bedouinism rather than sea-based merchant identity.90 In fact, as MacLean documents, criticism of the barjeel intersects closely with an understanding of the Emirati national identity as essentially bedouin, relegating the Ajam, Baluch, and other Emiratis to a secondary status. As one Emirati told me, ‘We are pure Emirati. We never lived anywhere else but here …. Lots of what people call Emirati dialect is foreign … but only pure locals can point out the mistakes.’91

This statement reflects the dichotomy between local and foreign or imported which remains to this day and which affected in particular the assimilation of the UAE’s very sizable majority expatriate population, discussed in greater detail below. It is worth noting that heritage practices and traditions vary across the seven constituent emirates of the UAE. As MacLean points out, in smaller emirates like Umm al-Quwain and Ras al-Khaimah, which attract fewer Western expatriates than Abu Dhabi and Dubai and which have experienced relatively slower development due to their lack of hydrocarbon resources, ‘there is less immediate need for state-driven heritage preservation. In some respects the creation of heritage districts resembles gentrification.’92 Picton also notes that Sharjah in particular has sought to maintain status as the UAE’s cultural capital through its designated heritage area and ‘tends to represent Sharjah’s culture and heritage as something distinct with an essence and geographical boundary’.93 Each of the individual emirates, then, has the freedom to elaborate on its own cultural traditions, which are, notably, not always linked to a tribal past yet also do not directly challenge the role of the leading ruling families of al-Nahyan and alMaktoum; instead, they affirm social distinctions across emirates and allow for the preservation of a variety of heritage practices.

Common tribal tropes As described in detail above, all three governments of the countries under study are currently engaged in sponsoring projects that attempt to wed past and present, and which are also used to construct a contemporary national identity through the union of these two aspects of cultural heritage. Further, the national identity they are seeking to promote undermines notions of rentier citizens benefitting easily from their country’s natural resources; by revisiting and

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highlighting the hardships of the past, this trope of rentier citizens is rightfully called into question, and a more nuanced vision of these states’ histories and of citizens’ relationships to natural resources therein has emerged. As the fostering of unique national identities and nationalisms in all three of these states currently operates from the top down, however, the selective embrace of bedouin pursuits has made tribal activity the standard by which others measure their sense of belonging. This may in turn have led nationals of bedouin descent to more openly cling to tribal practices despite social and economic changes; it might also contribute to the additional ‘othering’ of nonnational populations living in these countries. Further, what is often painted as an authentic maintenance of badū heritage is, in fact, subject to the needs of the modern tourist industry rather than the requirements of realistic historical representation. This is natural for a group of countries that relies on a specific image to drive tourism, but the more harmful difficulty as a result of this image comes when national offices fail to recognize the disparity that underpins it, particularly in the inevitable process of editing involved in creating national museums and symbols. In the view of Sophia alMaria, for instance, ‘He [Shaykh Khalifa bin Hamad al Thani] did two things to ensure that Qatar would not lose its cultural heritage. He built an ambitious museum of the state and sea, and he strengthened his military by drafting the symbolic old guard of Arab honor, the Al-Murrah Bedouin: my family.’94 Al Maria goes on to describe a neglected display in the Qatari National Museum of the al-Murrah bedouins as a metaphor for both their historic use by ruling regimes and their current alienation.95 Meanwhile, Philip Khoury and Joseph Kostiner explain that ‘[a]fter the discovery of oil, nomadic tribes were forced to abandon their traditional way of life and integrate into the new petroleum-based economy.’96 Put simply, the difficulty in authentic heritage being represented in national branding efforts stems from the fact that state-led identity projects are interested in historical reality insofar as it can produce palatable and politically coherent displays in heritage villages, museums or at cultural festivals. The danger of this practice lies in a fundamental corruption of the accurate history behind national identity in a way that makes truth very difficult to untangle from fantasy. As Exell and Rico put it, ‘a homogeneous, timeless, “legendary” past serves to conceal potentially contradictory and politically awkward tribal histories’ which may undermine state-led narratives that have at the centre ruling families.97 The tribal tropes commonly used also complicate not only the historical ties these countries had with international populations but also their current relationships with their expatriate majorities.

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Nationalizing Bedouin-ism: Relationships with expatriate populations Ali Alraouf argues that a tribe’s ‘relation to the land is a form of existence and therefore, when you look at the heritage of urbanism, when you look at the traditions, the customs, the way of life in Qatar, you will see very clear physical manifestation … in specific areas’.98 It is reasonable to posit, then, that this physical connection explains why large regions within the three states under study are divided into neighbourhoods meant for specific tribes and why in all three states, the settlement of tribes happened to prevent tribal divisions, leading to a form of ethnic ghettoization.99 As Thesiger puts it, ‘[t] hey (bedouins) make no allowance for the stranger. Whoever lives with the Bedu must accept Bedu conventions, and conform to Bedu standards.’100 While certainly an exaggerated claim, the expectation to marry within the tribe is still viewed as a forgone conclusion for many, especially if these individuals want to retain their sense of specifically tribal identity, as well as strengthen local familial ties. Further, the emphasis of tribal tropes in nationalist discourse underlines the importance of a primordial connection to the land for citizens. Indeed, social underpinnings of nationalism are emphasized inside the Arabian Peninsula, often through tribal tropes; there exists ‘a nationalist-type sensitivity to the impact of foreign residents, who are perceived as diluting local identity’, perhaps best evidenced by citizenship laws in these states, discussed in the previous chapter.101 Taking into account the tribalism involved in geographic segmentation, it could therefore be argued that the practice of withholding citizenship from nonnationals married to national women is more of an enforcement of a tribal tradition rather than an Islamic one. Amal al Malki, Dean of Hamad bin Khalifa University – and a Qatari woman married to a non-national herself – suggests that it is an oftcited fear that granting citizenship to the children of a national woman married to a non-national will cause ‘demographic’ confusion, or diffuse national identity.102 Others argue that ‘tribal cohesiveness is also reflected in the efforts of the Gulf states to restrict citizenship … the tremendous influx [of non-tribal Arabs] since 1940, has caused the naturally restrictive nature of tribal society to reassert itself to prevent a further dilution of tribal identities.’103 Institutional encouragement of nationals marrying nationals, whereby nationals receive 2000KD each (6600 USD) upon marrying Kuwaitis,104 as well as free housing or a generous housing loan for a Kuwaiti couple, is an extension of this tribal mentality. Similar incentives are awarded for intra-national marriages in Qatar and the UAE.

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As Neha Vora and Natalie Koch highlight, ‘what makes nationalist discourse and nation-building agendas of the Gulf so powerful is the fact that they have relied heavily upon purifying the imagined citizen “self ” from the non-citizen “other” – often through recuperating the Western Orientalist repertoire.’105 Indeed, as they highlight, heritage sports and symbols of indigenous culture, like pearling, dhows, wind towers and features of desert, as well as the use of national dress, demonstrate in daily life the enforced and permanent distinction between citizens and non-citizens, which in turn shapes how heritage discourses are created and maintained.106 So strong is the division between so-called ‘original’ GCC citizens and non-nationals that Longva asserts that the GCC states could be dubbed ethnocracies: ‘that brand of nationalism that views the nation as a “natural” and ethnically “pure” community, as opposed to its liberal conceptualization as a community based on equal rights and duties.’107 Connection to the land and to a pre-oil bedouin past is thus a means of mediating between in-group and out-groups. Perhaps the present-day version of this demonstration of ‘rightful’ connection to the land is heightened populism, which is seen most clearly in Kuwait, in the face of the implementation of austerity measures. With Kuwaiti citizens concerned about the effects of austerity measures introduced after 2014 on their own well-being, there has been increasing focus on taxing expatriates rather than citizens who are seen to have more of a claim to the Kuwaiti state and even removing expatriates to address the state’s demographic imbalance; similar such language is emerging elsewhere in the GCC states as a means of avoiding consequences of austerity measures that governments now insist they will implement due to the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Former Kuwaiti Member of Parliament Safa al-Hashem was the most outspoken in her criticism of the expatriate population having gone so far as to call the demographic imbalance (the majority of the population is expatriate) an ‘unnatural invasion’;108 she has also opined that expatriates should be charged for ‘the air they breathe’ in Kuwait.109 Some measures to shift the financial burdens of austerity onto expatriates in Kuwait include the introduction of new health care costs for non-nationals,110 parliamentary approval to place fees on remittances,111 the introduction of fees on companies that employ ‘excess’ foreigners of over 50 per cent of their total workforce,112 and an increase in work permit and transfer fees for expatriate workers.113 This type of populist rhetoric and these policy changes have been welcomed by many in the Kuwaiti population, particularly those who want to preserve what they consider the tribal, or traditional, nature of the state.

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Notably, such populist, anti-expatriate language has intensified since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, with the GCC states increasingly pushing measures to nationalize their workforces as a means of ensuring that citizen populations do not bear the brunt of the economic downturn.114 Kuwait alone has pledged to decrease its expatriate population from 70 per cent to 30 per cent of the total,115 and parliament has finalized a bill to reduce the number of expatriate workers by allowing the cabinet to determine the maximum number of expatriate workers that the country needs in a variety of specialized fields.116 Similar policy measures are perhaps being taken throughout the GCC, with populist dynamics also at play, yet less easily observed since they lack parliamentary politics of the type seen in Kuwait.

Stereotypes and collective identity On a broader scale, modern Arabian Peninsula culture tends to be tied to two prevalent stereotypes of the region: first, that it is an area defined by tribalism, and second, that the construction of the modern state and its cosmopolitanism, have undermined and threatened this traditional culture in a very clear-cut conflict. In confronting these stereotypes, several key questions about the formation of national identity and heritage culture in the contemporary GCC emerge, especially where the management of this identity is closely linked with ruling elites’ ambitions for their respective countries and their continued control of the citizenship narrative. In Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE, the historicizing of national identity is intractably linked with the countries’ pre-oil pasts, which is seen as somehow more ‘authentic’ than the post-oil era; states foster collective memories of shared pasts and contemporary cultural expressions around a singular model of political cohesion, identity and authority, which is very much tied to the notion of ‘desert diplomacy’ and relies on the tribal model of a shaykh leading his qabīla as its heart. In an example of this tribal shaykh and desert diplomacy motif, this image from the Al_Saud_instagram account shows Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman hosting a dinner at the Camel Festival in Tayef in September 2018 for UAE Crown Prince Mohammad bin Zayed and two of his brothers Shaykhs Sayf and Nihayan, as well as Prince Nasser bin Hamad alKhalifa from Bahrain, Shaykh Abdallah al-Sabah from Kuwait, Prince Khaled bin Faisal from Saudi Arabia and Sayed Asad bin Tareq from Oman. The post, emphasizing historical ties between those countries and set at a heritage-linked

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Figure 7  In an example of ‘desert diplomacy’, this image from the Al_Saud_ instagram account, shows Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman hosting a dinner at the Camel Festival in Tayef in September 2018 for UAE Crown Prince Shaykh Mohammad bin Zayed and his brothers Shaykhs Sayf and Nihyan bin Zayed, and Prince Nasser bin Khalifa from Bahrain, Shaykh Abdallah al Sabah from Kuwait, Prince Khaled bin Faisal from Saudi Arabia and Sayed Asad bin Tariq from Oman.

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festival, demonstrates that ruling families of the region are grounded in historical and social legitimacy and also are linked by their shared past; indeed, they are portrayed behaving as members of the same family. It is also symbolic of GCC unity, despite missing a representative from Qatar since this was at the height of the Gulf crisis. Another example of the use of tribal tropes as a means of demonstrating the strength of personal and political ties among leaders of the GCC was illustrated in coverage of the growing friendship between Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2017. Their connection was widely reported in the Western press as having begun at an overnight desert camp in Saudi Arabia. As reported in The Wall Street Journal, ‘[t]he heirs to the throne in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates hardly knew each other until they enjoyed a beloved Gulf pastime together – an overnight camping trip in the vast Saudi desert, accompanied by trained falcons and a small entourage.’117 The desert is therefore reimagined by the Western press as a place where political leaders can engage in traditional pastimes and solidify their personal ties to one another. The Emirati Government in particular has focused its national branding energies on preserving and displaying a curated cultural heritage that is closely tied to a specifically ‘bedouin’ past, in which exhibits, symposiums and historical festivals reflect this desert-oriented nationalism, despite an otherwise largely seafaring history. In Qatar and Kuwait, national identity narratives also focus on the hardships that faced older generations, simultaneously promoting a nostalgia for the simplicity of the past and pride in the rapid economic development, growth and modernization of contemporary reality. An example of this can be found in Sulayman Khalaf ’s contribution to the body of work focused on both camel racing in the Arabian Peninsula generally118 and Kuwait’s pearl-diving heritage, which details the Kuwaiti Government’s attempts to (re)construct and (re)invent Kuwaiti identity through the annual Kuwaiti Seaman’s Day and Kuwait Desert (Bedouin) Day, and argues for the importance of these events in constructing a contemporary Kuwaiti identity.119 By revisiting and highlighting the hardships of the past, this trope of rentier citizens is also rightfully called into question, and a more nuanced vision of these states’ histories and of citizens’ relationships to natural resources therein has emerged. At times, state-led attempts to modify the construction of modern national identities in the apparent image of a set of ruling elites have – as mentioned previously – resulted in the suppression or erasure of other, nonconformist forms of indigenous Gulf, or khalījī, cultural expression and self-expression.

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This is due to the fact that, when a specific national vernacular and identity is favoured in all three countries, it is a tribal, bedouin-lite version that often excludes other demographic identities and subgroups as not being germane to its desired narrative and presented set of perceptions. Nonetheless, the growing demand for economic reform in the GCC highlights the varying impacts that economic development can have on national identity. This dynamic has become increasingly apparent to those concerned with the authentic creation of a national identity, as the treatment of tribal elites in the economic diversification projects of modern states has had a growing and direct effect on the relationship between political stability, economic growth and national identities. Consequently, debates about political reform, economic growth, the distribution of power and their impact on the constitution and negotiation of national identities continue to demonstrate a tension between the ‘ruling bargain’, so to speak, and the assemblages of political-economic power within tribal demographics, and socio-economic transformations that evolve with the advent of new citizenship models. The use of desert culture in the construction of national identity and citizenship values – and the emphasis on selective bedouin tribal customs in National Day celebrations and in other state-controlled means of national identity promotion – may have, as predicted by Salzman,120 negatively affected the evolution of a merit-based, tolerant and inclusive social ideology in the GCC, to varying degrees in its three wealthier states: Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE. Any examination of public and private attitudes towards non-tribal nationals, migrant workers and gender and familial roles in both a historical and contemporary context demonstrates the complex and dichotomous relationship between so-called ‘modern’ de-tribalized values and the reality of tribalism as practiced in the GCC today. To be clear, the political and personal reasons for the continued presentation of tribal and bedouin values as the cornerstone of an ‘authentic’ national identity in the GCC underpin some serious and obvious conflicts between these and urban modernization projects in the three states, global ambitions, the various sociopolitical consequences of these projects and ambitions, in addition to highlighting the ways in which modern states have failed to provide a robust enough sense of belonging to replace tribal values. The juxtaposition of state projects of glamorizing the bedouin ancestor and a fractured image of glorification and inherited mistrust can be seen in educational coverage of bedouin tribes, who are presented as folk heroes fighting with their rulers against other villainous bedouin tribes, who in turn are attempting to ransack urbanized centres and coastal towns.121

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The progression of GCC bedouin-ism on the regional stage On the main website of private Zayed University, under the heading of ‘The Story of the UAE,’ the prevailing mythology of bedouin values is woven into the formation of national identity as a decisive narrative, which is at once true and rather misleadingly over-simplified: ‘the Bedouin Tribe was the principal building block of the UAE.’122 Not only that, but the language used to describe these ancestral bedouins as ‘proud’ and ‘resourceful’ reveals the obvious preference institutionally bestowed on that history instead of on the fishing villages that are mentioned in the same sentence devoid of admiring descriptions, even though they may have been equally proud and resourceful. In fact, it is also a way to bind and promote the UAE and link it culturally to other countries, such as Morocco, by participating in events such as the UNESCO recognized Tan Tan Moussem Festival in South Morocco, which brings together more than thirty tribes and other nomadic people through ‘a showcase of music, popular songs, heritage games, poetry evenings, oral traditions and performances featuring horses and camels’.123 This bedouin-lite identity takes on an even more significant role in terms of the soft power marketing strategies of states like Qatar and the UAE due to their race to capture regional cultural capital space as briefly discussed at the opening of this chapter. Museums that focus on national heritage and document the story of the nation reinforce the need to homogenize that story, which makes bedouin identity central to that unique narrative. In short, ‘history, identity, culture and heritage are exploited in order to pave the way for social and national development.’124 The Vision plans of all three of these states, discussed at length in Chapter 5, further showcase the extent to which state-formulated notions of traditional values are incorporated even into plans for economic diversification. National Day celebrations across the coastal GCC states emphasize a seafaring bedouin template, displaying varying degrees of ‘a process of cultural fusion’,125 which was once a common factor in newly independent post-colonial states’ bids to assert an identity in which an oppositional occupying ‘other’ was no longer omnipresent. The bedouin desert cultural identity in itself is exclusive and hostile to outsiders outside of trading purposes, as it is based on genealogy; one is either born into it or is not. The urban sea culture identity allows for a multiethnic citizenship model, and to a certain extent, it is based on merit and mutual service; if enough financial success is accomplished, a family can, in this tradition, elevate itself to the merchant class irrespective of creed, tribe or ethnicity. The relatively late arrival of the badū to the new GCC cities and their inability to

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break into the merchant elites’ stronghold on most financial and commercial institutions, resulting in their perceived over-reliance on government salaries, has become an inflammatory topic today and has made bedouin youth especially susceptible to the political opposition, seen most clearly in Kuwait. Nepotism, which is inherent in tribal family values (one common refrain is ‘me and my brother against my cousin, and me and my cousin against the stranger’), also means that, to guarantee jobs within the government, urban dwellers looking to enter the labour market who are not of bedouin descent have sometimes formed coalitions that are based on family, ethnicity or belonging to an ideologically linked political party, which is in turn potentially threatening to social harmony and national equality. The erosion of a multi-narrative history in favour of the hegemony of bedouin family culture does not bode well for political and social rights of the expatriate majority living in the GCC states, nor does it produce a healthy social paradigm for urban bedouins, who are trapped in a clash between a featureless bedouin-lite tourist-oriented culture and an overly refined, unbalanced set of conservative values which are no longer naturally kept in check or even made necessary by desert life. National policies which entrench these bedouin family values, such as financial incentives for marrying nationals in Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE, or the negation of citizenship rights to children of national women married to non-nationals, can be seen as an extension of a tribal mentality that focuses on the need to preserve bloodlines and are sometimes in direct conflict with international treaties that many of the GCC countries have ratified. Further, as intra-GCC conflict emerged between 2017 and 2021, tribal allegiances were also increasingly instrumentalized, as discussed at length in Chapter 5. The patronage and quid pro quo assumptions inherent in the placement of bedouin family values within the GCC national structure, coupled with the welfare state’s provision of social services such as housing, education, medical coverage and even employment, in addition to tribal markers demonstrating one’s genealogical proximity to ruling families, have added to this sense of entitlement and the expectations of government jobs of a certain status irrespective of skill and qualification. The rise of an anti-migrant labour rhetoric and nationalization of labour policies that have gained a stronghold in some of the GCC states over the past ten years and that are presented as a solution to youth unemployment, instead of a much-needed overhaul of education and training, are examples of policies that could arguably stem from tribal family values and are not in the long-term interest of an aspirational region that wants to compete on a global level.

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Conclusions As GCC countries continue to open themselves up to international scrutiny by marketing themselves as financial, cultural and tourism hubs, and while some countries such as Qatar and the UAE invest heavily in residential projects marketed towards foreign investors, a re-evaluation of GCC tribal family values that underpin national identity becomes imperative from a security and planning perspective. We need to examine not only how tribal family values have shaped GCC citizens’ attitudes towards large foreign populations residing within their borders and affected human and labour rights for private and public-sector employment, but also how they have also governed relationships internally with other national groups considered less ‘authentic’ or ʿasil. Further, it is instructive to see the extent to which government-led heritage projects rely on traditional tribal tropes, whether as a means of recognizing the historical role of tribes or in hopes of co-opting tribes as independent centres of political and social capital. In light of recent political activity in the region, it is also important to assess whether the central alignment with ruling regimes still exists for most selfdefined bedouin families, or whether the tribal cross-border identity still take precedence, and if so, how national identity fell short of their needs. In many parts of the GCC, state-run media and education could focus more attention on alternative aspirational models so that young people can adopt work and social ethics that rely on personal competence rather than tribal allegiance or kinship. In imagining what this future citizen will look like, the re-examination of bedouin family values and its various intersections with national identity construction must be re-visualized in more implementable and inclusive strategies for the smaller GCC countries to be able to circumvent some of the issues discussed here, and for others that may find that the over-reliance on this singular, nostalgic and increasingly out-of-touch model is no longer the only suitable anchor for national identity. In the chapter that follows, we trace the ways in which tribal belonging and tribalism more broadly are increasingly integrated into the modern and cosmopolitan societies and polities of the GCC.

5

Tribalization of traditionally non-tribal actors and future impact of the resurgence of tribal rhetoric

As has been demonstrated in the preceding chapters, tribes, though no longer of critical importance as providers of material benefits to populations of the countries under study, remain significant in political rhetoric and social practice, as well as heritage discourse. Importantly, then, tribes in the Arabian Peninsula demonstrate the extent to which tribe and state can successfully coexist; indeed, as Dale Eickelman describes, ‘tribes in the GCC region have always coexisted with states and empires.’1 Further, as has been explained at length in preceding chapters, the British managed to gain a foothold within the Arabian Peninsula largely due to their connections with tribes; forging a relationship or signing a treaty with British authorities, in turn, granted tribes greater political access and social capital, and indeed tribes with which treaties were signed remain of critical importance today. Their importance goes far beyond merely the political, however, largely due to the fact that social and political lives remain very much linked in smaller states of the Arabian Peninsula.2 Further, the fact that tribes have coexisted so well and for so long with indigenous state structures in the GCC, which grew with the advent of oil wealth, demonstrates the flexibility and durability of these structures, in addition to calling into question assumptions often made about the activities and attitudes of tribes. Indeed, in Eickelman’s words, ‘[t]ribes in the GCC states can be remarkably urban, educated and transnational. Tribes may not always have official standing, but they remain strong in the social imagination and often are the only tolerated civic associations. Tribes and genealogies work and have a powerful resonance in linking the noble imagined past to the present, and make social life civil and predictable.’3 Not even long-standing tribal orders, then, are static in the Arabian Peninsula today. In this chapter, we demonstrate

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the ways in which tribalism remains relevant both to political and social life in Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE, with implications beyond these three states, influencing regional foreign policies and intra-GCC relations as well. In so doing, we examine the ability of tribal structures to influence policymaking, as well as culture and society more broadly.

The valorization of tribal values From a genealogical perspective, most of the ancestors of the native population of the GCC states – including the majority of their ruling families – are of tribal origin. For some segments of the national populations of these three states, such as with the majority of Qatar and the UAE, the evolutionary process from a nomadic bedouin lifestyle to settled urbanization in towns and cities is still relatively new, as discussed in Chapter 2. As Exell and Rico explain, ‘a single generation separates two distinct lifestyles, resulting in feelings of anxiety and a desire for preservation of “the past” on the part of the older generation and a lack of knowledge of this earlier lifestyle on the part of the younger generation.’4 Further, because of the shared genealogy of much of the citizen populations of these three states, the easiest point of reference in the formation of national identity has often involved the use of kinship blueprints and bedouin values, merging these with the necessary citizenship practices required by a functioning and modern state. In theory, this practice might allow a society to retain the best traditions necessary for authentic cultural preservation while also making room for progressive social practices to flourish. The official exaltation of bedouin family values and kinship traditions (such as a strong allegiance to blood lines, intermarriage and patriarchal hierarchy) and the prevalence and continued importance of those values in both public and personal spheres among urban and bedouin settled communities make the study of idealized ‘bedouin’ family values and tribal ethics essential to understanding the evolution, and probable future, of national identity in the three states, with wider implications for the other GCC states. In order to examine the extent to which bedouin ‘values’ are consciously used as a kind of standard template in the formation of national identity and state investments in encouraging so-called core values through social practices, state education, public policies and state-run media channels, the use of both personal interviews and a more comparative analysis is necessary. As Abdul Rahman H. Al Said puts it,

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[t]he process of national integration has been accelerated by the revolution in communications … the state’s ability to introduce visible and significant economic changes is augmented by its access to powerful and persuasive means of communication such as radio and television …. The reluctance to be a part of a larger unit was to a considerable degree curbed and neutralized. Earlier … the whole area was governed by a compartmentalized mentality, a result, to a large degree of the prevailing state of geographical insulation.5

Put simply, we must contextualize attempts to bind national populations together by merging bedouin pursuits such as poetry recital, camel racing and falconry, with the sea-faring and pearl-diving narrative of the urban dwelling merchant classes cast against the background of the tribal heritage of the ruling elite that govern these states – practices described in greater detail in Chapter 4. It is also important to consider the extent to which state-led efforts at heritage preservation have been successful in elevating bedouin-lite pursuits to a higher status and leading to the adoption of certain so-called ‘tribal’ or traditional values. Consider as an example how the mid-1980s onwards saw camel racing evolve into a method of reaffirming bedouin culture in opposition to global values, as well as a means of applauding the leadership of the UAE in particular, regardless of the extent to which it was historically relevant to the country or to the population that attended such events.6 Such an affirmation was particularly relevant as the expatriate population in that state steadily increased, making the Emirati population an ever smaller minority eager to maintain its distinctness. Tribal reaffirmation thus takes a number of – frequently contradictory – forms. These can range from emphasis on the equestrian prowess of Dubai’s current ruler and its crown prince to trans-global falconry pursued by members of ruling families and are also apparent in the reaffirmation of the need for ‘consensus’, or shūrā, in each amir’s visits to different ‘tribal celebrations to acknowledge the physical presence of a tribe’7 every National Day. The manner in which tribal elites and rulers make regular visits to tribal and merchant elite majālis also allows the ruling elites within each of these GCC states to perpetuate the notion that they are originally tribal, and therefore still somehow ‘bedouin’ and that the tribal practices are a crucial part of their identity, and by extension, vital to the country’s national identity and notions of citizenry. Visiting majālis also becomes a means of bypassing sometimes extensive bureaucratic red tape that exists in these countries to voice opinions to tribal leaders, who in turn can more easily communicate these issues to the ruling families.8 Celebrations surrounding National Day are also, importantly, centred on members of ruling families who united tribes or brought the nation together.

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Kuwait’s National Day, 25 February, marks the date in 1950 when Shaykh ʿAbdullah al-Salim al-Sabah, the eleventh ruler of Kuwait and the first amir of the independent Kuwaiti state, took power. Since 2007, Qatar’s National Day, on 18 December, has marked the date on which Shaykh Jassim bin Mohammed alThani became ruler in 1878 and is credited with having unified various tribes in the Qatari peninsula; previously, Qatari National Day was held on 3 September to mark Qatari independence from British protectorate status. Emirati National Day, 2 December, marks the UAE’s independence and unification under Shaykh Zayed al-Nahyan. Nonetheless, at each of these celebrations, citizens tend to organize by tribe, further demonstrating the re-emergence of this social form throughout the three states under study.9 As Alshawi and Gardener put it, referencing the Qatari case but relevant to all three under study here, ‘the day seeks to commemorate the ascendancy of a levelling nationalism over the varied pre-statal social topography.’10 It is interesting to note that the different, and sometimes competing, national identity projects in each state have simultaneously succeeded in convincing formerly nomadic tribal populations to assimilate into the new social structure of the modern state, while also advocating for certain traditions and practices centred on loyalty and obedience to the ‘shaykh of shaykhs’, the country’s ruler, to be upheld. The structures underpinning the value systems of traditional Arabian Peninsula families, as maintained by bedouin tribal people, such as family honour, tribal kinship allegiance and respect for patriarchal authority, have been adapted in creative ways to access power by both ruling elites and bedouin families through traditional and electoral political and social manoeuvrings. Again, as Alshawi and Gardner note, tribal power is still ‘located squarely within the state’, with membership to a certain tribe often mediating access to government jobs and other state resources; as a result, ‘[t]he idiom of the tribe serves as a framework by which this form of social power is established and aggrandized. In relation to the state, tribalism provides a mechanism by which a sub-statal form of solidarity is articulated.’11 The conservative and restrictive elements of traditional tribal family life, which dictate a clear hierarchal delineation between gender, generational and extended kinship roles, have been highlighted by the national identity construction processes implemented by these states, each of which hopes to find an integrated template for how far these traditional definitions and roles have changed with exposure to oil revenues, greater access to education and migration. This selective retention and homogenization have arguably led to the failure of national identity to displace ethno-tribal identity for families in Kuwait, for example.

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A distrust in the state’s ability to ensure social justice has also led families who have turned away from the extended bedouin tribal model and adopted the settled national citizen model to search for their bedouin roots or to become ‘tribalized’ themselves, in an attempt to access this powerful lobby as tribe becomes more influential in spite of its largely urban setting. In this context, the difficulties surrounding national branding and identity are made clearer as a source of their own continuing difficulties. As Gengler et al. posit in the Qatari case, which we believe is widely applicable throughout the three cases under study, [b]y engaging with other well-connected individuals in private, then, Qataris may be able to circumvent a bureaucracy in the public sphere whose inefficiency inspires more frustration than confidence. If one can resolve a personal problem or avoid governmental red tape by exploiting influential societal contacts, why wait in line at a ministry behind a dozen foreigners or, say, petition one’s local representative?12

The majlis system then provides a parallel means of accessing power, often through tribal lines but also through broader social networks as well. It is interesting to note that, even in these countries’ Vision documents, which outline their progress towards economic diversification, the importance of preserving ‘traditional’ values is still highlighted, demonstrating the hope that modernization will not diminish the importance of tradition, often linked to the tribal. Vision 2035 for Kuwait specifies the need to ‘preserve the values of Arab-Islamic identity’. Further, it identifies the need for the Vision to be implemented ‘under the umbrella of a supporting institutional body, which accentuates national values, preserves social identity and achieves social development’.13 More explicitly stated, the Vision also specifies the goal of ‘consolidating the values of society, preserving its identity, as well as achieving justice, political participation and freedoms’.14 Similarly, Qatar National Vision 2030 highlights a range of future objectives for the country, including the development of an education system that roots Qatari youth in ‘Qatari moral and ethical values, traditions and cultural heritage’, without identifying what exactly these values are and as economic development continues.15 The document goes on to state: the greater freedoms and wider choices that accompany economic and social progress pose a challenge to deep-rooted social values highly cherished by society. Yet it is possible to combine modern life with values and culture. Other societies have successfully molded modernization around local culture

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and traditions. Qatar’s National Vision responds to this challenge and seeks to connect and balance the old and the new.16

Qatar’s Vision therefore very self-consciously tries to balance Qatar’s past values and present modernization, without specifying what exactly constitute the past values or how they may conflict with or remain compatible with goals of modernization. While the individual emirates also have their own tailored documents addressing economic diversification, the national UAE Vision 2021 diligently promotes the civic responsibility of upholding ‘Emiratis’ solid national character as a main source of inspiration for the protection and preservation of national identity’ and describes the latter as a ‘crucial matter of national pride and social stability […] in the face of increasing multiculturalism’.17 To that end, then, intraEmirati marriages are specifically lauded: ‘Marriage among Emiratis is a vibrant facet of our culture and will remain fundamental to building strong and stable households, and bonding them together [….] Deep and enduring family ties will shape our nation’s future success and provide an essential anchor in an everchanging world.’18 Placing family at the centre of Emirati society reflects tribal values that promote family above all else, and the Vision even dubs families ‘the living fabric of our culture, and the guardians of our values’.19 To that end, the importance of elders within Emirati families is also specifically guarded in the Vision document, noting that ‘[t]heir central presence serves as a constant reminder both of where we have come from, and of where we must go.’20 Family once again remains at the centre of the document, as do ‘moderate Islamic values, and a deep-rooted heritage to build a vibrant and well-knit society.’21 The past is therefore positioned as the source of distinctly Emirati values that will propel the country forward; family, notably, is specified as being central to this project of modernization and economic diversification. By implementing ambitious Vision projects, the super-rentiers, then, endeavour to wean themselves off of their dependence on hydrocarbon wealth and in so doing perhaps put in place a new social contract with citizens, including potentially altering the formerly symbiotic relationship between state and tribe. In Saudi Arabia, one tribe has already clashed with the government over its projects related to Vision 2030, with the Huwaitat tribe claiming that the government seeks to build the megacity Neom on land belonging to the tribe and seeing Neom and the associated Vision 2030 as ‘an elite version of Saudi society, one designed simply to shut them out’.22 Although similar such clashes have not taken place so explicitly in the countries under examination here, it is possible that new state-led projects focused less on heritage and more on commercial,

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and specifically touristic, appeal could undermine state relationships with tribes and specifically with conservative tribal values. Further, even in modernized and highly globalized economies, there is still room for preference for tribal manoeuver. For instance, one large international oil company approached one of the authors hoping to understand more about tribal elders in Kuwait, in the hopes that the company would manage to be assisted in their operations through the support of a tribally represented Member of Parliament (MP). Tribal figures therefore provide a valuable entry point even for large-scale companies working in the region, despite efforts to even the playing field for all citizens in the economic sector and to modernize and diversify these economies more broadly.

Tribal values and the new citizen The above Vision documents demonstrate to the extent to which, as Alshawi and Gardner argue, ‘one of the building blocks of contemporary Qatari identity, [is] one that congeals around conceptions of family, clan and tribe.’23 This is true for all three countries examined in this volume. One important aspect of bedouin social culture for state-funded national identity construction revolves around loyalty and obedience to patriarchal authority; further, bloodline becomes an important means of determining one’s distance from power in a monarchical arrangement. An insular world view, in which identity is largely linked to genealogy, has been preserved and cultivated by the settled and urban citizen populations of the states of the Arabian Peninsula, even as they have abandoned many of the other trappings of tribal bedouin life, including some which might naturally exist to balance out this insularity, but which no longer have a place within the new artificially pressured construction of ‘tribal-modern’ social practices. Others remain very much in place, with the tribal adage of keeping marital relations and material wealth within close cousins: ‘our oil stays in our pan’. Both emphasize the importance of retaining loyalty and resources within close-knit kinship-based alliances in a manner which has very real repercussions to the individual’s concept of what citizenship consists of at any given moment, as well as the citizen’s concept of the role of the state and the extent to which it can be trusted. The bedouin ethos of self-censorship, tribal honour and regulated social hierarchies were all crucial for survival in the desert, and for that and for religious reasons, communal strife (fitnah) is avoided at all costs in this culture.

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Especially in times of strife or geopolitical strain, there is a constant reminder that obedience to walī al ʿamr, literally translated to ‘commanding guardian’, as both an Islamic value and a core national value in the states of the Arabian Peninsula. It is important to note that this blind allegiance is not actually common in traditional bedouin or tribal life, where consensus, or shūra, is of critical importance. This consensus is often downplayed in national identity construction. The bedouin tribal leader is not necessarily the eldest male but tends to be chosen since he is deemed to be the wisest, with the warrior leader or shaykh al-shidād being lower in the hierarchal structure than the social needs leader or service leader, or shaykh al-bayān.24 The emphasis on service and the needs of the tribe above individual needs has manifested itself in Kuwait’s electoral process through the creation of the aforementioned ‘service’ MPs, many of whom have hailed from bedouin-tribal backgrounds and have at least historically tended to privilege the housing, medical and employment needs of their own kin before those of other members of the electorate in their respective districts. In recent years, again seen most clearly in Kuwait, bedouin tribal values of freedom, individual choice and the prevailing importance of the bloodlines and defending ‘inherited honours’ have re-emerged in oppositional rhetoric within political bedouin-ism. The bedouin values around which this rhetoric revolves may easily be exploited and re-ignited in times of frustration or crisis, as seen in the last round of protests in Kuwait (2010–2013). As previously mentioned, this phenomenon also has a polarizing effect politically, resulting in tribal cohesion as the result of animus from outside the immediate community benefitting from a certain MP’s actions. While Qatar and the UAE lack elected parliaments with the political power of Kuwait’s, and so tribal blocs as political parties have not emerged, tribal political ambitions still exist, as they remain important representatives of their communities in what elected bodies do exist, described in detail in the next chapter, and in informal institutions like majālis.

The political Badū Given that the states under study are highly urbanized, ‘bedouin’ and ‘tribe’ are now more political and social terms that are used to inspire a romantic notion of a certain code of behaviour, to designate socio-economic value to an individual or group, or to inform certain reformulations of heritage used by the state. The tribe today is essentially a social phenomenon, and in light of the rapid changes

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occurring in the region and the deep-rooted xenophobia and bicultural anxiety deriving from the influx of both modernity and large numbers of expatriates who have not been assimilated into the community, the importance of tribal allegiances has been passed on and revered even among youth groups as a cornerstone of national identity. For instance, when former Kuwaiti Education Minister Saud al-Harbi of the al-Harb tribe was questioned in parliament, he used poetry of the traditional style as a means of defending himself, while other MPs pointed out his connection to the tribe, demonstrating how omnipresent tribal connections are even in institutionalized political life.25 Further, those without tribal lineage, or ʿasīl, continue to be designated a lower rung in the sociopolitical hierarchy across most of the GCC states. Consider the following as a further elucidation of this phenomenon: The coming of oil revenues at the end of the 1940s marked a new turning point in the history of the Bedouin and the state. The recruiting of Bedouin into state institutions, in particular through the creation of the National Guard and the religious police, become more widespread and helped to propagate among the nomads the image of the state as a redistributor of wealth which in turn aided in accentuating state intervention and discernibly modified the economic system of the Bedouin tribes. The modernizing ideology did not aim at settling different tribes together in the same locality. On the contrary, it was thought that tribal homogeneity would further enhance the chance of success of these programmes.26

In the absence of recognized political parties in all three states, and particularly in Kuwait which has the most active and independent elected body, the tribe has for many become a powerful lobby group in spite of urbanization and modernization and has caused further confusion within the national identity debate as we have previously discussed. The somewhat ad hoc nationalization of bedouin families in Kuwait27 has made the electoral structure of Kuwait’s parliament more easily manipulatable by a resurgence of tribal kinship policies, and ironically, led to the most powerful and vocal opposition movement in the GCC, spearheaded by bedouin MPs, which resulted in the historical removal of a ruling-family Prime Minister, Shaykh Nasser al Sabah, in 2012. As Shafeeq Ghabra explains, The tribes that once barely scratched out a living in Kuwait City have become a new center of power. Because of their high birth rates, bedouins today account for an estimated 65 percent of the total population. Although they have become the numerical majority, the former urban majority – in particular, the leading merchant families – have remained the dominant political and economic group,

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retaining control of the private sector. This new and evolving reality has created social tensions and political contradictions that have contributed to the rise of oppositional politics and populism among the bedouin majority.28

In grander terms of GCC national identity projects, bedouins have been difficult for national governments to handle, since they span across geographical borders, and their allegiances can be to the tribal leader, rather than necessarily to the sovereignty of a specific nation or ruler. It is indeed interesting for that reason that state heritage projects excepting Kuwait’s have tended to glamorize and promote the badū past. The issue of dual citizenship and contested loyalties can arise when border disputes are at stake or in the revocation of Kuwaiti citizenship from a former bedouin tribal MP and two of his family members.29 It can also become a problem when an opposition grows too powerful or can arise in the form of a neighbouring country’s attempt to control and influence political decisions in another state, such as through bedouin political representatives with dual citizenship in national assemblies and parliaments able to act in two different countries at once. The transnational nature of tribes has further manifested into a major logistical and social problem for tribes and states as the GCC crisis between Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt on one side, and Qatar on the other persisted between 2017 and 2021, resulting in the fracturing of interconnected tribes along citizenship lines over the course of the crisis.

Political influence of tribal markers: The rise of tribalism in international affairs When it comes to domestic political life, tribal structures are critically important in propagating informal institutions like dīwāniyyāt and majālis as well as in determining the compositions of cabinets and often mediating access to key decision makers. Further, we demonstrate in Chapter 6 the way in which tribal ties influence electoral behaviour in states with and without parliamentary elections. Of course, in the Kuwaiti case, tribal campaigns are far more organized than elsewhere, since campaigns there tend to centre on political blocs, rather than on personalistic and largely apolitical campaigns seen in Qatari and Emirati elections at present. Nonetheless, we find that tribal links to candidates make people more likely to vote in their favour, even when tribal blocs do not exist, discussed at length in the chapter that follows. In recent years, while the level of the influence of tribal affiliation in the political sphere has arguably remained somewhat steady, it has become

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increasingly important in international affairs, particularly over the course of the GCC crisis that lasted between June 2017 and January 2021. The use of tribal identifiers was documented during times of crisis, as demonstrated in previous chapters where we have examined instances when tribes have come to the defence of governments, particularly during the protests of 2011, described in greater detail in Chapter 6, and the 2017–2021 GCC crisis is no exception. Indeed, over the course of the crisis, which saw Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE cut off land, sea, air and diplomatic ties with Qatar in June 2017,30 we saw the extent to which tribal ties could be re-energized, with both sides aiming to deploy tribal actors to bolster their positions. Because tribes are, by their nature, transnational, certain tribal actors were co-opted by one side of the crisis or another to mobilize support for their cause. For instance, in September 2018, the al-Ghufran clan of the al-Murrah tribe of Qatar, which also has many members in Saudi Arabia, called on the United Nations Human Rights Council to take action on a complaint it submitted about the Qatari Government, claiming that the tribe had, between 1996 and 2004, experienced ‘racial discrimination, forced displacement, denial of return to their homeland, imprisonment and acts of torture that led to psychological damage and death within the Qatari intelligence prisons’.31 Leaders of the tribe further claimed that 6,000 members had their Qatari citizenship revoked, most notably that of Shaykh Taleb bin Lahom bin Shreim in August 2018 and fiftyfour members of his family belonging to al-Murrah tribe.32 Shaykh Sultan bin Suhaim al-Thani, a member of the Qatari ruling family living abroad, called this situation ‘the largest forced displacement in the world’, in terms of population proportion since the total population of Qatari nationals at the time of the expulsion of 5,000 members numbered around 200,000.33 Also in September 2018, the al-Ghufran clan accused Qatar of building stadiums for World Cup 2022 on land belonging to it, submitting a letter of protest to FIFA demanding that Qatar be stripped of its right to hold the tournament.34 A delegation of the tribe organized a protest at the Broken Chair in Geneva, and the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights held a meeting focused on this issue on the margins of the UN Human Rights Council in September 2018.35 The roots of conflict between the Qatari Government and the al-Ghufran clan can be linked to domestic politics. Initially, 118 officers from al-Ghufran clan serving in the Qatari military were said to have been involved in trying to restore the rule of Shaykh Hamad bin Khalifa’s father Shaykh Khalifa in 1996 after Shaykh Hamad had overthrown him, and twenty-one of these were ultimately taken to court or jailed.36 Many members of al-Ghufran have

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left the country since that time, claiming that they faced discrimination in finding employment.37 In fact, in 2005, before a Saudi-Qatari rapprochement, Qatar expelled thousands of members of the al-Ghufran to Saudi Arabia after removing their Qatari citizenship, leading many to settle in the eastern al-Ahsa region of Saudi Arabia where many remain today.38 Perhaps most explicitly, Shaykh Taleb bin Lahem bin Shraim, the head of alGhafran tribe, is said to have fled to Saudi Arabia after his citizenship and that of fifty-four of his Qatari relatives were revoked; he also claimed to have been penalized for refusing to insult Saudi Arabia.39 Shaykh Taleb was one of many al-Ghafran leaders who met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman in September 2017 in Saudi Arabia; at this meeting, Shaykh Sultan al-Murri is said to have accused Qatar of resorting to ‘lies and attempts to distort the tribes of Qatar in order to tear up the tribal social fabric in favour of the minority of Iranians’.40 The al-Murrah tribe more broadly is said to have supported a coup attempt to overthrow Shaykh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani in 1996 and thus has arguably been deployed against the Qatari regime in the past. One article in The Washington Post goes so far as to trace the entire GCC crisis to efforts made by al-Khalifa family of Bahrain, with help from the al-Nahyan family of Abu Dhabi, to overthrow the al-Thanis in 186741 (a similar article was published in Arabic on Al Jazeera).42 The article, like many others, places the blame for the recent crisis on ancient tribal feuds without taking into consideration new geopolitical realities and personal rivalries. While tribal arrangements certainly affect politics and international relations in the GCC states, they are rarely the sole determinant of behaviour. Nonetheless, the al-Murrah tribe became very publicly entangled in the GCC crisis, with some fifty members having been expelled from Qatar, discussed at length above. While this act shows the extent to which national power has subsumed tribal authority, it also highlights the degree to which tribal membership is still considered an important identifier in modern GCC states to the extent that it can be instrumentalized by national governments to suit narratives linked to regional rivalries. Demonstrating efforts to make the reign of Shaykh Hamad and his son the current amir appear contested, in September 2017, at the start of the crisis, Emirati and Saudi media were promoting Paris-based businessman Shaykh Sultan bin Suhaim al-Thani as a potential replacement for Shaykh Tamim.43 In September 2017, he was shown on Al Arabiya television addressing thousands of members of the Bani Hajar branch of the Qahtan tribe in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, many members of which live in Qatar; he called for a crackdown

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on  Qatar during that appearance and thus seems to have been involved in efforts to mobilize other members of this tribe, some of whom have historically held two GCC nationalities against Qatar.44 On the Qatari side, members of the Bani Hajar tribe signed a statement proclaiming their loyalty to the amir Shaykh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani in June 2017, with clans within that tribe signing onto the statement that was issued largely in response to Saudi efforts to mobilize fellow tribe members against Qatar.45 Over the course of the blockade, there was greater emphasis in Qatar on the state serving as the tribe in a revival of nationalism; in National Day celebrations of 2017 for the first time, all tribes came together under one tent instead of in their traditional tribally segregated arrangement to dance the ʿardah, a traditional dance usually performed by men wielding swords.46 Further, the hashtag #Gbeelty_Qatar (my tribe is Qatar) emerged on Twitter shortly after the imposition of the blockade, with many users changing their surnames to al-Qatari or al-Qataria to emphasize national rather than tribal or familial loyalty.47 As depicted in the below cartoon by Saad al-Muhannadi, a Qatari cartoonist for al-Watan newspaper, there was a feeling that the Saudis instrumentalized a revival of tribalism to isolate Qatar. In another instance demonstrating the comingling of national and tribal identities, Nawaf al-Rashid, who is of Saudi origin yet became a Qatari citizen,

Figure 8  Image drawn by a Qatari cartoonist, meant to illustrate Saudi Arabia’s perceived meddling in tribal affairs over the course of the GCC crisis (2018).

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from a clan that had historically existed in rivalry with the al-Saud and is now bound by kinship and intermarriage to them, was ‘kidnapped’ in May 2018 in Kuwait at a gathering of the Shammar tribe of which he is a ‘prince’, and returned to Saudi Arabia at the request of the Saudi government.48 It remains unclear if members of his tribe or state forces were behind this act. This incident recalled the 2003 ambush killing of his father Talal al-Rashid, on a hunting trip in Algeria.49 Sultan al-Qassimi recounts how then Saudi Crown Prince Sultan bin ʿAbdulaziz sent a private jet to bring Talal’s body back to Saudi Arabia to indicate respect not only to the al-Rashid family but to the Shammar tribe more broadly, as well as to quell conspiracy theories about the killing.50 Such incidents can be taken to demonstrate the extent to which tribes today are under the control of state structures and can potentially be used by them, yet it should not be overlooked that these states still need to at least maintain the appearance of, if not supporting, at least not completely alienating major tribes on the international stage. On the whole, when examining the political role of tribes extending beyond the non-tribal, the GCC crisis demonstrates the clearest example of a conflict that was not at its base about tribal distinctions yet increasingly became entangled with tribal loyalties. It also shows ways in which tribal loyalties can selectively be emphasized and mobilized depending on political circumstance, not only domestically but also across borders. Perhaps more obviously, tribal practices continue to be promoted even in the non-tribal mainstream, suggesting that states find at least a limited degree of utility in emphasizing a tribal past. One example of this use of tribal practice in the mainstream, specifically in the GCC crisis, was Dubai ruler and Emirati Vice President Shaykh Mohammed bin Rashed al-Maktoum’s use of nabaṭī poetry to address issues with Qatar. In June 2017, at the onset of the crisis, he posted a nabaṭī poem on his Instagram account entitled ‘The Clear Path’, in which he urges Qatar to return to the fold of the GCC: ‘Of one origin, people, existence / one flesh and blood, one land and faith […] Yet Qatar turns to the nearby stranger, to the weak.’51 Notably, Shaykh Mohammed bin Rashid in his poem highlights a familial and inescapable connection among the states of the GCC, suggesting their recent rift had at its root the issue of Qatar looking beyond the Arabian Peninsula and its affiliated tribes for alliances. This use of poetry and emphasis on familial links, or ‘blood’ ties, are not limited to this poem or to poetry more generally, but rather have become increasingly widespread, as described in detail below. Since the end of the GCC crisis, interestingly, we have seen less public discussion of the role of tribes and tribalism in foreign policy, suggesting its role, at least in Western public imagination, is confined to conflict rather than its resolution.

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Tribal social practice Despite the manipulation of tribal identity for domestic political or geopolitical gain, the influence of tribal social practice into the non-tribal sphere has been largely an organic process, considering the fact that much of these states’ citizen populations identify with tribal backgrounds. More recently, however, such efforts to reintroduce the tribal or traditional into spheres not usually associated with either have become re-energized, often by state authorities themselves, as described in detail in Chapter 4. It is unclear whether this revival of the tribal is directed from a grassroots desire to become more connected with local traditions, especially as expatriate populations grow, or whether they are part of state-sponsored efforts to brand their countries in a way that is palatable to local populations. Because school curricula today tend to be standardized, students do not receive formal education about genealogical data for their own tribes or others. This has led, in Eickelman’s view to a significant decline in the ‘local knowledge’ needed for many young adults to manipulate the specifics of their genealogical ties, but a rise in an ‘invented tradition of genealogical heritage that ties many citizens to the modern state. Put another way, there has been a recalibration of what constitutes valued social and economic knowledge. Claims of ‘noble tribal descent, like citizenship in a country in which the majority of inhabitants are non-citizens, is a marker of prestige and higher social status that does not necessarily replicate the ability to link the wider claims to heritage, hierarchy and ‘tradition’ with local knowledge or contemporaries.52

It is perhaps precisely because local knowledge of this type is not prized in knowledge economies that it is being revived in other realms. Efforts to reinvigorate the field of traditional nabaṭī poetry have been very public, particularly in the UAE. While the UAE’s Million’s Poet is a show as well as monthly magazine focused on poetry and cultural heritage, Prince of Poets is another Emirati television programme aimed at explicitly reviving the art of nabaṭī poetry in the present day.53 These poems use nabaṭī or badū dialect, with competitors seeking to win a cash prize. These poems were also seen as expressions of nationalism in the post-blockade political environment, and the work of Maryam al-Kuwari has documented the ways in which the use of traditional tribal shela songs were used as means of demonstrating one’s Qatari identity during the GCC crisis described in detail above.54 Further, attempts in the UAE have also been launched to preserve al-Shehhi dialect of Emirati Arabic

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traditionally used exclusively by that tribe, which traditionally has inhabited remote areas of the UAE in the northern emirates.55 Beyond poetry and dialect, a variety of heritage projects described at length in Chapter 4 often tend to promote narratives of Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE as, at their nature, tribal, Sunni and masculine. Stories in newspapers throughout the Arabian Peninsula document the merits of efforts to preserve certain tribal-linked heritage activities, including, for instance, sword dancing in the UAE,56 the ʿardah in Qatar,57 camel racing in Qatar58 and falconry in the UAE,59 to name a few. That so many of these activities are promoted across borders demonstrates the extent to which they trace their origins to tribal, rather than national, history. Today, however, such practices can be promoted as components of unique national identities, rather than simply being reproduced specifically by or even for tribes. Nonetheless, features of tribal life are ubiquitous in state-managed heritage revival projects, with the state today even consciously working to promote tribal practices which in the past may have been considered threatening to their power. A small portion of scholarship on rentier state theory addresses state efforts at promoting shared identity. Hootan Shambayati highlights the oft-overlooked importance of cultural issues in these countries: ‘Under normal conditions challenges to the state are economically motivated. Under rentier conditions, however, moral and cultural issues form the basis of the challenge.’60 Despite this statement, which underscores the need for GCC governments to provide ruling ideologies or national myths for their populations, the field of literature on rentier state theory largely neglects the importance of culture and heritage in states benefitting from natural resource wealth, which has led to general scholarly neglect of the pervasive role of tribes in social life and in national identity. Indeed, as acknowledged by Alshawi and Gardner, ‘[t]hrough elections, National Day celebrations, and the social prerequisites by which access to the state and its resources is achieved, individuals are increasingly called upon to express and utilize the consanguineal linkages of tribe.’61 We now see the extent to which tribal links have pervaded both political and social life in the GCC states under study, despite these states’ advancement in many other ways. That states now are able to manage national myths, and particularly the role of tribes within them, highlights the extent to which tribal identity has been co-opted by, or at the very least changed by, national governments in the present day. This dynamic does not mean, however, that tribal identity will become any less relevant in the coming years. In fact, the appeal of this tribal identity seems to extend beyond than the confines of those from tribal descent, or merely as part of a national identity

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project, and attach itself to some deeper level of belonging. As Shafeeq Ghabra explains in the Kuwaiti case, Tribal people [in Kuwait] came with an interest in assimilation in the beginning of the 60s and the 70s. There was a universal trend towards ‘melting pots’. Now there is power and privilege in a political system where there is a refusal of assimilation. These identity politics include a backlash of the marginalized. Political differentiation is based on family background [tribal/merchant] with statements such as ‘al-balad qamat ʿala ahl al-dīrah’ (translation: the country was built by inner city folk, meaning the urbanized ḥaḍar). This tribal phenomena is mutable rather than static, for example the Al-Kandari family are not tribal in origin but are increasingly behaving like a tribe.62

Ghabra references the al-Kandari family, an increasingly politically powerful family in Kuwait with four MPs in the 2016 National Assembly and two in the 2020 National Assembly, as well as the former Secretary General of Kuwait’s National Assembly. The family, as Ghabra explains, has come to mimic tribal political behaviour associated with larger tribes by using their numbers and connections to promote a sense of Kandari solidarity, especially during elections. As Lambert notes, ‘[t]he Al Kandari … a small tribal group that had migrated from Persia at the beginning of the twentieth century; were occupying the professional niche of water carriers in the city of Kuwait.’63 Ali al Zoghbi, the former Dean of the college of Social Science at Kuwait University pushes this argument about the political instrumentalization of tribal practice further: Despite us being in the age of technology, we still find that the people are yearning to go back to past and trying to find an identity and origin (tribal or bedouin) to be a source of pride and a vehicle for electoral relations. In this particularly political use of bedouinism we find that there is a bias towards the nostalgic bedouin identity that has been discarded by our grandparents for a specific electoral political agenda. This bedouin cover is not exclusive to those who come from bedouin or tribal roots or those who are geographically bedouins, for example, the merchant elite candidates in districts too use it in their attempt to get votes in primarily tribal area such as Sulaibikhat.64

Although it may be amplified by the tribalization of political rhetoric in Kuwait, the persistent appeal of the tribal identity and certain tribal behaviours exists outside of the strictly political realm. The ‘stickiness’ of this tribal identity can be seen described in literature such as Kuwaiti poet’s Sulaiman al Huwaydi’s famous poem from the 1960s ‘Ṣāḥibī Labs al-Burqa’ (my [special] friend is wearing a burqa), which describes how his female love interest suddenly took on the habit

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of wearing the face cover because she was influenced by her bedouin neighbour’s habits.65 This desire to affiliate with some or several of the behaviours and habits associated with people of tribal descent, to ‘tribalize’ a non-tribal identity persists today and is magnified by the use of social media (which is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 7). Further demonstrating the persistent role of large tribes, the al-ʿAzimi tribe is widely acknowledged to be the largest in terms of numbers in Kuwait,66 traditionally reflected that strength in numbers with representation in parliament and cabinet posts in government. In the spring of 2019, the al-ʿAzimi (or ʿAwazim) tribe negotiated the payment of 10 million KD ($34 million) to the family of a murdered female media figure that was killed by a policeman who was a member of the tribe in 2000.67 Notably, the tribe had received permission from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour to publicly hold this fundraising drive, setting a new precedent in Kuwait. According to The Kuwait Times, the campaign ‘succeeded in collecting the amount within a few hours through electronic payments to the Awazem Charity Foundation’,68 but what was even more interesting was the public show of support and donations from non-tribal Kuwaitis and other tribal Kuwaitis who did not belong to this tribe. For example, Kuwaiti makeup artist Hanan Dashti, who belongs to a Kuwaiti family of Iranian descent and has no kinship connection with the al-ʿAzimi tribe, was quoted on tweets on the AlMajliss69 account to have declared her intention to donate 15,000 KD ($50,000) to the fund to release ‘our brother’ because her success was built on the patronage of tribal female clients, and her donation was confirmed by the official appointed by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour to oversee the fundraising drive in an article in Al Rai newspaper.70 This show of solidarity with a tribe to which one does not belong and to tribal practices of which many in Kuwait disapprove (the backlash against the blood money drive is discussed further in the Conclusion) needs to be examined further to determine whether it is a survival or marketing tacit when there are clearly larger numbers involved, or if it is motivated more by admiration of this tribal communal strength and a desire to be associated with it. Mohammed al-Murr, a former Speaker of the UAE’s Federal National Council (FNC), argues that the UAE has not seen this same appeal for tribal behaviours because, although some regions like Abu Dhabi have tended to see voting on tribal lines during the course of the FNC’s tenure, the government does not promote those who provide preferential treatment to their kin, commonly known as service MPs, so it does not serve ambitious candidates to market themselves along tribal lines and recall bedouin folklore as it does in Kuwait.71

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In his opinion, in the UAE, this tribal nepotism is therefore not encouraged or at least not rewarded as it arguably is or has been in Kuwait. However, al-Murr does concede that there is some attachment or resurgence of some tribal practices in the UAE. He suggests that, since all traditional societies try to balance past, present and future identities, the pace of the change in the Arabian Peninsula can lead to an upheaval, especially in the age of the internet. Although the tribe may not offer the same political value as in Kuwait in a highly mixed environment like the UAE, with both naturalized and “original” citizens, the tribe gives one a sense of authenticity as a social value.72 The tribe is therefore a symbol of stability, but many of the manifestations of it in the UAE are more evident in folklore than in practical everyday life. In al-Murr’s opinion, there has been a seminal shift in the position of the tribe within the geopolitics of the Arabian Peninsula recently, since ‘after the Gulf crisis the nationality wins over the tribe.’73 And yet, the opposite sentiment surfaced as well. The rift between Qatar and Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE encouraged different shows of tribalism both online (discussed further in Chapter 7) and in real political terms even while pushing against the traditional tribal imagery cultivated in national identity and heritage revival projects. In the months following the start of the Gulf crisis, Qatar hosted a major modern art exhibition in Berlin called ‘Contemporary Art Qatar,’ which included 300 works reflecting the kingdom’s ‘rapid change into a cultural and commercial hub’.74 Although many of the artworks at the exhibition had a modern interpretation of tribal and bedouin symbols, the works showcased included non-national young artists residing in Doha. This desire to move away from a nationality underlined by tribal exclusion (discussed further in the Conclusion) towards a more globally appealing pluralistic nationality model has been motivated by the crisis and by the need to rely on solidarity from non-tribal Qataris and non-nationals residing in Qatar. The question of tribal identity as political currency resurfaced after the Arab Spring and the GCC crisis as one of national belonging; if nationalism is based on ‘loyalty’ to the existing ruling regime and tribes were expected to be both loyalist and royalist, it was easy to leave those who didn’t comply out of national identity. In Kuwait, it meant that some tribal figureheads involved in the protests would lose their nationalities75 as would their family members. These nationalities were only reinstated after years of bargaining and guarantees of shows of loyalty and repentance from these individuals and from the mostly tribal MPs who were lobbying the government for reinstatement, including backing down from political action that would target a member of the ruling

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family, after ‘growing tension between the government and the parliament amid threats by some lawmakers to grill the prime minister’.76 This dynamic carries with it complications for a future where many of these GCC countries position themselves as knowledge economies in keeping with their future Vision documents for their countries, whilst preserving traditional culture and values that are seen as critical to their national identity. Maryam al-Kuwari argues that what she considers the recent resurgence of tribalism, both domestically and in the international arena, can be explained by ‘the failure of states to implement viable projects of national identities in addition to pursuing contradictory policies in this respect’.77 In the context of the GCC crisis specifically, al-Kuwari argues that the blockading states were attempting to weaken the position of the Qatari Government and thereby create a power vacuum to be filled by tribes.78 More broadly, she also considers the inability of states in the GCC ‘to achieve economic diversity and social justice’ as rendering it impossible for these states to complete the social contract they entered into at independence, which leaves them weak in the face of resilient tribal political and social bonds.79

Conclusions The main questions raised in this chapter were related to the enduring appeal of tribal behaviours, even among traditionally non-tribal and even non-Arab actors, and to what extent they have been a disruptive force. While we cannot predict how this re/tribalization will be used and by whom, we can attempt to track the ways that it continues to manifest itself independently of states in ways that derail publicized national unity branding agendas. This chapter also tried to tackle the questions posed by the previous two chapters of whether ‘bedouin-lite’ branding still serves the state’s purpose in the knowledge economy era by making tribes static and a relic of the past if they can so easily manifest themselves or mobilize within and outside of the state’s designated role, especially if the use of desert tropes in national branding and heritage projects focus inevitably leads to the exaltation of bedouin and tribal values. Beyond that, appealing to a tribal identity as a prejudicial preference for representation can spill over into the tribalization of non-tribal families and entities. One example of this is a supposed attempt in 2019 by members of the Mutayri tribe in Kuwait Oil Company to ensure a tribal representative in the board of that company’s union.80

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Figure 9  An account that claims to be representing the interests of members of the Mutayri tribe in Kuwait Oil Company advertises a committee that will ensure a representative from the tribe in the union board of 2020–2022. Both the Twitter and Instagram accounts were shut down.

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Although tribes undoubtedly have lost a great deal of their political clout under the expansion of central state authority in the Arabian Peninsula’s rentier states, they still retain importance as the most coherent social and political forces in the region, even influencing foreign policy to some extent. Certainly, in a somewhat unexpected development, tribalism came to the fore in the recent intra-GCC division, as tribes were compelled to demonstrate their fealty to one state or another, demonstrating the extent to which, again, tribe, though subsumed into the state system, is still an important marker of identity and often of political preference. Further, as we will show in the chapter that follows, tribal membership appears to have significant influence in the outcomes of electoral politics in the Arabian Peninsula, with tribe often substituting for party brand in states in which political parties remain technically illegal.

6

Electoral tribalism Introduction: Elections and tribes in rentier states Substantial existing scholarship has argued that resource rents privilege political elites within the state while quelling independent political pressure from below – whether by repressing such groups outright or by obviating their need to exist in the first place. Michael Ross, in his discussion of the so-called ‘oil curse’, suggests that resource-rich governments are more likely to ‘prevent the formation of social groups that are independent from the state and hence that may be inclined to demand political rights’, although this may be a feature of authoritarianism more generally in the region.1 It also becomes less relevant when examining the lasting social and political impact of tribes which predated the discovery of oil and the formulation of modern nation states, as mentioned in the introductory chapter. Other studies outside of the rentier states of the Arabian Peninsula have demonstrated the degree to which clientelistic relationships, of the type described by rentier state theory, motivate political mobilization. In the Egyptian case, Mohammed Al-Ississ and Samer Atallah find, in their study of the 2011 elections, a strong positive correlation between public employment and political mobilization generally, and more specifically for voting in favour of the candidate associated with the regime.2 They discover that patronage had a stronger mobilizing effect than did political ideology, yet less of a mobilizing effect than did specifically pro-change ideology.3 Although Egypt is obviously a very different case from the states covered here, it is worth considering the implications of these results in GCC rentiers. Indeed, in rentier states, public sector employment for citizens has long been a part of the rentier arrangement:4 Kuwait’s public sector was reported in 2017 to comprise 74 per cent Kuwaitis,5 compared to over 75 per cent in Qatar as of 20206 and 60 per cent Emirati as of 2018.7 If government employment is positively correlated with political support

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for the political status quo, then, in these states we would expect substantial support for ruling regimes which has plainly not been the case in Kuwait, which experienced a widespread opposition boycott of parliamentary elections between 2012 and 2016. Work by Mark Tessler, Amaney Jamal and Carolina de Miguel further challenges the link between patronage and political leanings, finding through the Arab Barometer that ‘individuals who use patronage are not more likely to support the regime.’8 This conclusion, they posit, suggests that clientelism is primarily a material rather than political arrangement.9 Ellen Lust advances our understanding of the relationship between clientelism and elections by describing elections as providing an opportunity for competitive clientelism, rather than a meaningful means of reviewing policy options under certain conditions, which may be applicable to rentier environments. As she explains, in authoritarian contexts, elections provide elites and their supporters an opportunity to compete over special access to a limited set of state resources that they can then distribute to their clients [….] By doing so, elections aid ruling elites’ ability to grant special privileges to local elites, creating among contending elites and their followers a belief that they will have access to state resource – if not today, then in the future – and establishing an incentive structure that tends to return pro-regime legislatures.10

As a result, in Lust’s view, the political status quo tends to be protected through elections, rather than questioned through them, making a transition to democracy or even progress towards major political reform unlikely and thus delinking elections from democratization. In terms of the study of how the clientelism inherently involved in rentier arrangements intersects with elections and tribalism, conventional wisdom suggests that citizens vote for members of their tribes in an effort to secure either material gain or enhanced access to political power. As one Kuwaiti interviewee put it, ‘badū vote for their candidate, even if he’s a piece of wood.’11 The perception that the tribal vote is essentially a means to disburse goods or power to one’s own tribe and to preserve the political status rather than a means to pursue certain political ideological goals, however, is not entirely backed by empirical observations. In the below, we trace electoral patterns in Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE across different very elected institutions to demonstrate (a) the extent to which tribal voting patterns matter and (b) the degree to which they wield independent political power.

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The Kuwaiti case: Tribes in parliament Historical background Kuwait is an anomaly in the Gulf, a wealthy rentier state that nevertheless houses a vocal parliament historically containing political blocs ranging from Salafis to secular leftists. As described in greater detail in Chapter 2, with the majority of the citizen population Sunni and Arab, the major division in Kuwait exists between fully urbanized long-time citizens (ḥaḍar) and more recently naturalized tribal figures (badū, bedouin, or, more recently, qabalī), many of whom received Kuwaiti nationality only in the 1960s or after. As mentioned previously, Kuwaiti citizenship policies, which distinguished between people who had settled in Kuwait City before or after 1920, have sharpened the badū-ḥaḍar division, arguably more than any other state on the Arabian Peninsula, due to how entrenched the merchant population had been from an early era in particular.12 Citizenship policies notably excluded tribes that had not yet been settled and thus did not have documentation of their presence in the state, thereby limiting the number of people who received ‘original’ citizenship. Some badū managed to gain citizenship by joining the military or through ministerial decree; they were thus labelled citizens through naturalization. Though equal before the law, members of the naturalized category were barred from voting or running for parliament for thirty years. As a result, as Farah al-Nakib notes, ‘whatever the intentions, the nationality law’s emphasis on origin played a significant role in fixing the badū as newcomers. This was exacerbated by developments after 1967 when, in exchange for electoral loyalty to counter the nationalist opposition in parliament, the government began granting citizenship by decree to tens of thousands of nonlocal badū, mostly from Saudi Arabia.’13 State housing policies between the 1950s and 1980s further cemented the division between these two segments of the population, putting in place a physical segregation highlighting the existing social divisions between badū and haḍar.14 Bedouins were housed in areas farther from the city centre that were ‘self-contained’, obviating the need for them to leave their neighbourhoods and thus further isolating them socially from the ḥaḍar population.15 Because they generally lived in outlying areas that were developed later than the city centre, the badū tended to receive state services of lower quality than did haḍar, as well as smaller housing plots, though some new and improved housing projects followed the Iraqi invasion in the late 1990s.16 This geographic distinction has

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also, notably, meant that members of the badū population have been clustered in similar electoral districts (for example, present-day Districts IV and V) as a result. Despite the fact that tribal populations may have received government services of lesser quality than did haḍar, what services and employment the Kuwaiti Government has provided the bedouin communities in decades past are widely seen as fostering a greater reliance on the state, and particularly the ruling family. Coupled with the ḥaḍar’s alleged reticence to allow them into well-paying private sector jobs, bedouins are considered to be more reliant on government jobs than the average Kuwaiti – especially the military, despite the fact that all Kuwaiti citizens remain part of the welfare state. Longva observes that ‘a critical attitude toward the government is an important feature in the definition of hadhar identity. In contrast, badū are said to revere governmental authority and their attitude to the ruling family has been deprecatingly subsumed by several hadhar as “obsequious hand kissing.” Badu, they say, are brought in to serve the government’s purposes.’17 Although tribe-state relations have changed significantly since Longva’s publication, this reputation remains, particularly among much of Kuwait’s ḥaḍar population today, even while tribal and badū MPs are increasingly active in the political opposition. Interestingly, if this relationship were purely clientelistic, it would make sense for the badū population to have received more from the state than have the ḥaḍar, yet it seems that, instead, historic isolation and independence of the former group have led them to remain reliant upon independent informal institutions.

Electoral dynamics The arrangement of parliamentary elections, particularly voting districts, has taken into consideration both the political and geographic division between the ḥaḍar and badū, suggesting that the government is aware of the reputation of tribal populations traditionally being loyal clients. Notably, ahead of the 1981 elections, the first since the suspension of the legislature in 1976, the number of electoral districts was increased from ten (with five representatives each) to twenty-five (with two representatives each) arguably as a means of bolstering loyalist badū representation. The 1980 law thereby ‘effectively consolidated the trend of tribalism’ and increased political standing for a portion of the population that had historically been loyal to the government, thereby curbing opposition from liberals in parliament.18 The number of tribal constituencies increased, with the share of seats to badū increasing from nineteen in the 1963 polls to twenty-seven in 1985.19

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The process of simultaneously integrating the badū politically and segregating them socially and geographically may have initially fostered dependence on the state, making tribal populations a ‘safe’ constituency for the government to encourage to run for office, but eventually tribal groups began to recognize their political capital and demand power on their own terms. Following the Iraqi invasion in 1990 and the restoration of the Kuwaiti Parliament in 1992, tribes have moved to be less reliably loyal supporters of the Kuwaiti Government and more interested in pursuing their own interests within the political system. Brown suggests that, although the government had previously promoted tribal representation to insulate itself from criticism from the ḥaḍar, tribes have grown increasingly aware of their political interests and have at times have used their political clout and coherence to block government initiatives.20 Having traditionally garnered substantial parliamentary representation, tribal MPs changed their tactics, recognizing their substantial political capital and having come to realize the unequal treatment they had been receiving from the government. As al-Nakib explains, [t]he fact that the tribal deputies now represented such sizeable populations made it difficult for the government to buy them out, as MPs began listening to their constituencies instead. This resulted in numerous interpellations of cabinet ministers (popularly known as grillings) by tribal MPs; in 2007, for instance, Minister of Health Ma‘suma al-Mubarak was grilled for a fire that broke out in Jahra’s only hospital, killing two patients.21

Since the early 1990s and even more so during protests that emerged in Kuwait in 2012, some prominent tribes have become important components of Kuwaiti opposition. Musallam al-Barrak in particular is an important popular opposition figure. Though he hails from the al-Mutayri tribe, he has spoken out against the use of tribal primaries, described in greater detail below, as exclusionary22 and has attracted followers far beyond that group. And although other such tribal politicians do not always explicitly cite inequalities they have faced as members of the badū population, ‘decades of exclusion, marginalization, and inequality help explain why their badū constituents support them.’23 In a state lacking formal political parties, it is unsurprising that tribal identity has in many ways substituted for a party ‘brand’ and that tribal coherence has been critical to limiting competition in the general election to prevent votesplitting. Indeed, because they are social as well as political organizations, ‘tribes have greater capabilities in terms of organizing themselves and in coordinating between the different candidates to agree upon the tribe’s representative in the

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parliamentary elections.’24 One such informal institution is the organization of these tribal primaries, held in local dīwāniyyāt and aided by the fact that members of the same tribe tend to be concentrated in specific residential areas, which again contributes to their cohesion, both socially and electorally. Notably, such elections were initially organized only by the state’s largest tribes, such as al-‘Azimi, al-Rushayda, al-Mutayri and al-ʿAjman. Al-ʿAjman was the first to establish primary elections in al-Ahmadi constituency in 1975 in an effort to gain a seat in an area traditionally dominated by al-‘Azimi tribe, but the practice has spread since that time.25 As Ghanim Alnajjar explains, From only two such primaries in 1975, the number rose to 15 in 1996. Tribes who controlled more than 15% share of votes in a district could consider holding a primary. Most tribal candidates who won primaries then won comfortably in the general elections. The government, for its part, had found the method favourable to its political ends, since tribal candidates had generally been loyal to the government. However, the tide shifted and some tribal candidates became critical of the government, while many tribesmen expressed opposition to the primaries as anti-democratic, mostly because of the unfair competition within the tribe itself. The general public mood turned against the continuation of tribal primaries. As a result, the 1996 Parliament issued a law banning primary elections in general, and tribal primaries in particular.26

Since the 1970s, then, tribal dīwāniyyāt have hosted primary elections some two months ahead of the official parliamentary polls, at which time the dīwāniyya ‘is transformed into an operations room’, demonstrating tribes’ ability to adapt to modern political structures.27 Leading up to the polls, tribal leaders establish committees to recruit and announce candidates, as well as to run and count primary votes. Members then cast their votes, with each getting two, at a separate meeting of the dīwāniyya, after which the top two are declared winners.28 Once the winning candidates are announced, tribe members pledge their support in the elections for these figures. Such activities have become advanced with new technology, as tribe members can cast votes via text message or by taking photos casting their votes with telephone cameras.29 There was even discussion in 2009 about holding a tribal primary for the newly united Shammar-Zafir tribes in the fourth district on a commercial airline flight as a means of avoiding security personnel who have periodically sought to crack down on tribal primaries which remain technically illegal.30 This level of organization encouraged the Salafi Community to create primaries in the 2000s.31 Political blocs tend not to announce their candidates until after tribal primaries have been completed, in an effort to determine their

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Figure 10  An Al-Qabas newspaper archive article describing how pre-election banquets raised the price of sheep in Kuwait in 1996.

prospects of winning in tribal constituencies: if they are unlikely to win, such blocs often do not participate in the polls. On the other hand, ‘sometimes in consultation with the different tribal groupings, these political organizations

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announced their candidature in specific constituencies if they felt that there are higher prospects of winning the election.’32 Salafi and Muslim Brotherhood political blocs have even managed to make inroads in tribal primaries, especially where the candidates are also members of the tribes in question. Notably, the electoral system shifted in the 2008 elections, following the 2006 mobilization of the Nabiha Khamsa (We Want Five) movement, which advocated for a decrease in the number of electoral districts from twenty-five to five as a means to reduce opportunities for gerrymandering and vote-buying, particularly through service MPs. Almost immediately, however, electoral results raised concerns of some observers that subsequent parliaments would be ‘overwhelmingly Islamists and tribal’ and that ‘tribalism and sectarianism were [still] strong during … campaigns’.33 Generally, though, secular left-leaning or independent candidates have opposed tribal primaries on grounds that those who win elections are seen as representatives of their tribes rather than of their constituency as a whole, undermining democracy in Kuwait by promoting a ‘tribal’ rather than democratic political mentality.34 Likewise, the influence of the larger tribes can limit the ability of candidates from smaller tribes to win elections. The system of tribal primaries, then, influences the workings of elections beyond the coordinating effects of tribal identity on its own. Still, while tribal primaries make it more difficult for candidates outside of these affiliations to win seats in parliament, several youth activists and former MPs have in recent years spoken out against tribal primaries, refusing to take part in them. Perhaps most notably, Musallam al-Barrak managed to win a seat in parliament in 2009 despite having boycotted the primary on grounds that it was exclusionary.35 Further, ‘youth groups and activists made their presence felt by holding seminars to raise awareness of the issue, and announcing their support for candidates who refuse to take part in the primary processes.’36 The government has also taken limited action against tribal primaries in recent years, although they have technically been outlawed since 1998.37 Tétreault observes that ‘it is unclear why the law against tribal primaries was suddenly applied for the first time in the unscheduled 2008 election campaign, but the most likely reason is that the large tribes, whose choices had the best chances of finding themselves in parliament, had become too strong to ignore.’38 Tribal leaders protested this crackdown in the 2008 and 2009 electoral campaigns yet have continued to face pressure in preserving this informal institution, which has spurred something of a sea change in tribal politics in Kuwait. Despite seemingly moving towards the broad-based opposition, Kuwait’s larger tribes suffered losses in November 2016 – the first election that most of

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the opposition took part in since the introduction in 2012 of a single nontransferable vote system (SNTV); under the previous system, each citizen was granted four votes. Smaller tribes asserted themselves for the first time, at the expense of the larger tribes that tend to dominate with their sophisticated system of primaries. Because Musallam al-Barrak remained in prison for insulting the amir at the time of the election, his al-Mutayri tribe was divided about whether to run, and only one member of the tribe won a seat – a major setback for a group that tends to hold about four seats. Three of the other largest tribes in Kuwait – al-ʿAjman, Matran and al-‘Azimi – also faced losses, winning only seven seats instead of their usual fifteen.39 These large tribes took on new strategies like listing candidates by name rather than tribe, which appeared to have failed.40 The al-‘Aniza tribe, which usually has one or two seats, gained four in the 2016 election, and tribes that usually go unrepresented won at least one seat each.41 Jahra, which comprises almost one-third of the fourth, tribal-dominated constituency, won six of the district’s ten seats, as opposed to its usual two to three.42 In the fifth constituency, the al-ʿAzimi and al-ʿAjman which used to win four seats each of ten won one (al-ʿAzimi) and two (al-ʿAjman). The December 2020 parliamentary election saw further representation of large tribes, with tribes winning twenty-nine of the fifty elected seats compared to twenty-six seats in 2016. Notably, the composition of tribes changed in this election, with large tribes doing particularly well in Districts IV and V, traditional tribal strongholds, at the expense of smaller tribes, suggesting better vote coordination in the more recent election, despite restrictions put in place due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Overall, al-ʿAzimi won seven seats, compared to three in 2016, al-Mutayri six compared to two in 2016 and al-ʿAjman four compared to three in 2016; these gains on behalf of large tribes demonstrate their continued political capital, especially when compared to smaller tribes which had made temporary gains in the previous election. Notably, however, tribal dominance is not complete, with two Islamist candidates winning seats in the predominantly tribal Fifth District despite having not participated in tribal primaries.43 Freer and Leber have also found, analysing data from the Arab Barometer collected in 2014, that tribal populations of Kuwait do not appear to have a different understanding of democracy as more transactional than do non-tribal members of the population.44 Further, using statistical analysis of voting returns, they find that tribes are over-represented in districts where their votes overall are under-represented by size of districts (Districts IV and V).45 There is variation among tribes, however; the introduction of an SNTV system led smaller tribes

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to be overrepresented and larger tribes underrepresented in the 2016 election. As they explain: In 2016, for example, tribe-affiliated Kuwaitis made up around 75 percent of voters in Districts IV and V but took 19 seats (95 percent) in parliament. Yet despite the fact that voters in District IV and V made up an estimated 55 percent of the electorate in 2016, they competed for just 40 percent of available seats (i.e. 20) in the National Assembly.46

As a result, they conclude that tribes do not have an unfair advantage over other Kuwaiti political blocs yet point out that their ability to coordinate votes is a reality of the Kuwaiti system, even if tribal agendas may be shifting away from solely tribal loyalties to more focus on ideological issues.47 The extent to which tribal primaries impose so-called ‘party’ discipline is contested, then, with the 2016 election demonstrating issues with large tribes uniting around solely around the candidates who won primaries. The Kuwaiti case, on the whole, however, reveals the extent to which patronage efforts have not always aligned with traditionally loyalist groups; in fact, because the government provided less handsomely for people in outlying districts, these badū became increasingly politically organized and today have become part of a broad-based political opposition. Weaknesses of the state, or at least shortcomings in services provided in badū areas have helped to fuel tribal political consciousness in this case. When the political system is considered inefficient or unresponsive, tribes, as essentially informal social and political institutions, are considered more effective in caring for their constituents. And today we see increasingly oppositional large tribes willing to take on the state and in so doing take on additional roles from the previous generation of ‘service MPs’, who tended to focus less on political reform and only prioritize securing material benefits for their own tribe. In advance of the 2020 parliamentary elections, tribes still used informal (and technically illegal) primaries to narrow down the number of candidates they put forward in the polls, particularly in Districts IV and V, despite restrictions in place due to the Covid-19 pandemic.48

The Qatari case Historical background Because Qatar’s settled merchant population emerged in Doha later than in Kuwait City and because of the large size of the ruling family relative to the citizen

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population, privileged clients have tended to come from within al-Thani family and from a small number of merchant families, rather than a large organized merchant or tribal elite. As in Kuwait, tribes in Qatar have traditionally been considered a support base for the ruling family, perhaps because they have not historically been involved in ideological politics and have been important in the military and police. As in Kuwait, at least until arguably the 1990s, tribes in Qatar also have served as important supporters of the political status quo and further guarantors of al-Thani authority. Nonetheless, because Qatar’s merchant class has historically not been as cohesive as the Kuwaiti, tribal support was never critical to maintenance of alThani rule or of political stability. While merchant elites periodically organized themselves, as in the 1960s alongside the region’s Arab nationalists, as discussed in Chapter 2, there has never been a major domestic threat to the political status quo, at least from outside the al-Thani family.

Electoral dynamics Qatar currently lacks an elected legislative authority, political parties and meaningful independent political civil society organizations. This arrangement is set to change, however, with Amir Shaykh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani having announced in November 2019 that a committee was formulated to make preparations for an elected Shura Council, as is stipulated by the constitution.49 In November 2020, the amir confirmed that Qatar would hold elections for the Shura Council in October 2021, recognizing this change as ‘an important step towards strengthening Qatari advisory traditions and developing the legislative process with wider citizen participation’.50 Elections for the country’s Central Municipal Council (CMC) are, as of 2021, the country’s only polls. The CMC was first elected in 1999, with polls held every four years thereafter (1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015, 2019) under suffrage for Qatari citizens over eighteen. The body has twenty-nine members whose role consists of advising the Ministry of Municipal Affairs about issues in the country’s seven municipalities. Because the body is an arm of the Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning and because political parties remain outlawed, candidate’s campaigns are apolitical and focus on ‘local issues such as road building, family life and improvement of public health and the environment’.51 The body itself therefore differs greatly from the Kuwaiti parliament, as it is ‘[r]esponsible for municipal affairs, agriculture, buildings and road, food quality, garbage disposal, and public health’.52

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In terms of electoral structure, Luciano Zaccara calls these polls ‘technically faultless’.53 The country is divided into seven municipalities: Ad Dawhah, Al Daayen, Al Khor, Al Wakrah, Al Rayyan, Madinat al Shamal and Umm Salal. These districts have largely been drawn according to the tribal districts that predated them, making it unsurprising that many Qataris vote along tribal lines.54 Fromherz explains the extent to which these elections facilitate and in fact highlight the prevailing importance of ties to powerful tribes: ‘While the Municipal Council remains relatively powerless, those elections thus can be an effective way of diffusing and dividing the claims of non-royal Qataris. In the same way the tribal Emirs were transformed into Rais al-Baladiyya […] but given no real power, so too will tribes themselves be transformed into geographical constituencies for a body with no real power.’55 As a result, the state, while actively bureaucratizing tribes, has not eliminated them completely. As Fromherz points out, ‘one’s extended “tribe” or family’ remains the fundamental determinant of an individual Qatari’s social position and future.’56 While we have documented the ways in which this is true in other sectors of life in Qatar, it is most easily traced through election returns, wherein certain candidates have withdrawn due to pressure to support the family or tribe’s preferred candidate.57 Ali Alshawi’s study of the 1999 CMC elections demonstrates the unique mobilizational capacity of tribes. Indeed, he discovered that 62 per cent of his tribal respondents voted and that 64.45 per cent among them voted for a member of their own tribe versus 33.44 from another tribe and a mere 2.11 per cent for a candidate not affiliated with a tribe.58 In his study, the al-Murrah tribe was the largest winner (and also the largest tribe).59 Similarly, Qatar University’s Social and Economic Research Institute confirmed the importance of personal connections in voting. Survey data in 2015, which was collected from 811 Qataris who were asked about why they vote revealed that 14 per cent responded that their relationship to the candidate was the deciding factor.60 Zaccara has discovered additional information about those who contest CMC elections using data from the 2003 polls. These data revealed that the majority of successful candidates were civil servants working either in ministries or municipalities.61 He suggests that such positions grant greater ‘exposure’ to candidates or that they hope to use their position on the Council to become closer to policymakers and gain access to better jobs.62 While the majority of candidates do not appear to be from tribal backgrounds, they do tend to have this characteristic in common. Further, and importantly, CMC representation seems to be balanced with other political institutions in the state: no member of the ruling family or major merchant families tend to participate in CMC polls,

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Determinants of Voter Behaviour in Qatar, 2015 “Qatar Central Municipal Council,” SESRI Policy, Policy Snapshot No. 1 (June 2015): sesri.qu.edu.qa/web6/publications/documents/1-CMC-English. pdf.

since they are represented in government, largely through appointed positions in the Cabinet or Shura Council.63 It will be interesting to observe how this shift in representation is affected by Shura Council elections. Although the CMC has limited political power, again marking its difference from the Kuwaiti elected body, its members have voiced definite preferences for certain policies, specifically for expanding the body’s remit. Indicating its desire to hold more sway, in 2014, the Council requested that the Ministry of Municipal affairs and Urban Planning grant it the right to ‘probe, detect violations of law, collect evidence, and refer the matter to the authorities concerned’ – a request that was ultimately denied.64 As a means of increasing its power among local constituents, however, the CMC created an online platform to collect complaints directly to members.65 Nonetheless, of those 166 recommendations made over the course of its tenure, only 59 (35.5 per cent) were addressed by the authorities, while the remaining 109 are still ‘under consideration’, revealing how little power the body has to effect policy changes.66 During the most recent elections, held in April 2019, local press covered calls from Qatari citizens to expand the power of the CMC beyond merely advising the ministry.67 Some of the CMC’s requests also reflect a desire for a more conservative social environment, which would align with so-called ‘tribal’ or traditional values discussed in the previous chapter.68 Some of these requests involve

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calls for greater gender segregation through, for instance, the reinstitution of so-called family days in Qatari malls that prohibit the entry of single blue-collar males into shopping centres,69 an increase in the number of female taxi drivers and female-only seats in public buses,70 and the enforcement of a 2011 directive banning men from selling women’s clothing and other products for women.71 That the Ministry of Municipality and Environment chose in 2016 to implement a ban on men from Al Khor Park twice, rather than once, per week, with a ban on unaccompanied men, implies that it is aware of CMC and other Qataris’ social preferences.72 Because elections are not based on political blocs and because election returns do not have a major effect on political life, perhaps the best example of tribes exerting political pressure in Qatar is not through the ballot box, yet more closely related to regime politics. As previously mentioned, the al-Murrah, Qatar’s largest tribe, have proven particularly difficult for the government to manage due to their traditionally powerful position due to their size and their historic relationship with Saudi Arabia. As Kamrava explains, however, ‘[t]he state’s efforts aimed at marginalizing the Al Murrah tribe have ironically led to their increasing self-awareness and, at times, expressions of grievance against the state.’73 The al-Murrah tribe’s political role was again highlighted in the Gulf crisis, as discussed in the preceding chapter.74 As in Kuwait, tribal substructures allow Qataris access to power through different, uninstitutionalized means. By using tribal ties, Qatari citizens, like Kuwaitis, can bypass state structures that are often slower to respond and more cumbersome to access, leading to a much more personalized (and sometimes more effective) system.75 Reflecting the belief that tribes are effective power brokers and informal institutions in the Arabian Peninsula is the fact that a group of Yemeni families in Qatar petitioned the amir in 2016 to allow them to form an officially recognised tribe, al-Yafaʿi.76

The Emirati case: A segmented tribal landscape Historical background As mentioned previously in greater detail, the tribal structure of the UAE differs from that of the other super-rentiers due to the state’s federal system which divides the country into seven distinct emirates with six ruling families, who joined forces to form an independent federal state. At the emirate level, rulerappointed executive councils have been instituted in all emirates, with Umm

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Al-Quwain the last to do so in 2011.77 In each, ‘the mix of personalities would still today not be very different if the members were chosen by the ballot box, because tribal leaders are trusted representatives of their communities, and a local businessman, who has made good, may be entrusted with public affairs.’78 Such councils thus serve as a means of managing emirate-level affairs while also granting a seat at the table, so to speak, to notables, particularly those from large tribes. Local authority is also preserved through article 23 of the Emirati Constitution, which states that ‘the natural resources and wealth in each emirate shall be considered to be the public property of that emirate’.79 In other words, constituent emirates are not required to share their wealth with other members of the union. This proviso has sparked considerable domestic political debate, as the leading emirates could potentially use it as a means of guarding their wealth from the poorer emirates. Further, it should be noted that ‘[a] network of close family intermarriages also connects all members of the Emirates’ ruling families without exception [….] this inter-marriage network has been overlooked as an element that has no doubt contributed to the survival of the UAE as a federation.’80

Electoral dynamics The UAE houses one partially elected body, the Federal National Council (FNC), which is chosen by a percentage of Emirati nationals and, like the Qatari CMC, holds non-binding advisory power in a variety of federal government matters. The council is more limited in scope than is the Qatari body, however, as the government-appointed Council of Ministers determines which issues the FNC can debate and is not legally bound to heed the FNC’s suggestions.81 As a result, at its inception, the FNC ‘resemble[d] more closely a traditional consultative diwan [council] or majlis [assembly] than a modern representative body’.82 Nonetheless, article 93 of the Emirati Constitution grants the FNC the right to question ministers and request explanation of issues related to its jurisdiction.83 Further, the Ministry of State for Federal National Council Affairs has voiced a desire to ‘establish a supportive environment that encourages political participation among UAE citizens’ and ‘empowers the FNC to fulfil its role as a support unit for the executive authority, while remaining close to the people and their issue[s]’.84 The body itself has forty members from all seven emirates, half of whom since 2006 have been elected to serve four-year terms and the other half appointed

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by the Supreme Council of Rulers, which comprises the leaders of the seven emirates and is an important policymaking body federally. Forty delegates were considered sufficient since the electoral college had been selected ‘among the leading merchant families and tribal elders, who had always had the confidence of their people and were seen as the community leaders’.85 By law, Abu Dhabi and Dubai must each have eight seats in the FNC, while other emirates have either six or four seats each. As of 2011, the Federal Election Council has been promoted as a means of raising political awareness, particularly among voters under forty years old who are some 60 per cent of eligible voters.86 Aside from the federal distinction, FNC elections also differ from polls held in Kuwait and Qatar in that universal suffrage for citizens is not implemented; rather, an electoral college is used to vote for members of the FNC and has gradually grown over time. In the first elections in 2006, the electoral college comprised only about 1 per cent of the total Emirati population of voting age, yet the pool was expanded in 2011 to about 13 per cent of the population, again in 201587 to 224,279 members, or less than half of the Emirati national population,88 and most recently in 2019 to 337,738 members.89 Despite increases in the voting pool, one 2015 study revealed survey results to random sample of 1,800 Emirati members of the electoral college, which revealed that 73.3 per cent of members were from Abu Dhabi and that 44.8 per cent worked in public sector jobs, revealing a somewhat common profile of elected members of the FNC, not dissimilar to the profile of Qatari CMC candidates in their tendency to be publicly employed.90 Notably, the FNC was the first legislative body in the GCC to elect a female Speaker in 2015, and in 2018, President Shaykh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan stated that female participation in the FNC would be increased to 50 per cent in the next election in October 2019, stating ‘women are half of our society: they should be represented as such.’91 This top-down endorsement of women in political leadership meant that in the 2019 elections 35 per cent of the newly elected FNC members were women.92 FNC elections demonstrate the degree to which tribal ties and family relations affect voting patterns in the UAE. As Sultan al-Qassimi notes, ‘it was not uncommon to read of voters who proudly pronounced that they only voted for family members and no one else. In fact, in Abu Dhabi, the largest of the seven emirates, members from the al-Ameri tribe won three out of the four available parliamentary seats.’93 This dynamic, which yields benefits for large tribes, may be part of the regime’s strategy in selecting the small portion of the citizen population on whom it has bestowed the right to vote.94 Survey data from 2015 confirmed that emirate of origin for FNC candidate was a major

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voting criterion for 50.5 per cent of Emiratis, suggesting that people are more likely to have personal connections, granting candidates from Abu Dhabi an advantage due to the history of that emirate redistributing its resources, its position as the country’s capital, and the fact that it is the most populous and largest of the seven emirates.95 In line with the trend of voting for someone with whom the voter has a personal relationship, 47.3 per cent of Emirati voters expressed that personal knowledge of or relationship with a candidate influenced their vote.96 The survey also revealed that 43.4 per cent of Emiratis consider kinship with the candidate in voting, demonstrating the prevailing importance of tribal and family ties even in institutionalized political life.97 The same survey revealed that winning candidates in the 2011 polls did not come from large tribes, suggesting either the limited influence of large tribes, their inability to agree on a single candidate as seen in Kuwait in 2016 or that these tribes are represented in other bodies of government, such as the Cabinet or emirate-level councils.98 Nonetheless, the FNC, like Qatar’s CMC, has often favoured conservative policies of the type traditionally supported by members of the badū or of Islamist groups.99 In 2014, for example, the FNC called for legislation to ban women from working late at night in shisha cafes and advocated for the addition of a mandatory breastfeeding clause in a child’s rights law.100 One member also famously called for a federal law banning revealing clothing in 2012.101 The current FNC has voiced concerns on issues ranging from financial relief during Covid-19102 to the rise of bullying in schools.103 In addition to including some tribal notables, the FNC also traditionally included Emiratis with business interests.104 In J.E. Peterson’s words, ‘the government needs to pay close attention to the FNC because the council’s members are all fairly important people among the small number of UAE citizens.’105 Notably, and because of its composition, the FNC has by no means uniformly approved all laws submitted to it, with the body expressing particular concerns in the 1980s about the penal code and more recently about the vulnerability of poorer citizens, particularly those in the northern emirates, to economic changes.106 Still, the central government, rather than the FNC, determines spending priorities, making it difficult to confirm whether members of the FNC are striving to secure material disbursements of patronage. Instead, though the FNC has limited institutional power, ‘having a seat at the table ostensibly to look out for the interest of the community and also to ensure that the best representative of the community or tribe or Emirate is available in the decision-making circles.’107 Members of the FNC, many of whom are from large

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tribes, have periodically exerted pressure on the government by voicing their support or disapproval of certain policies, as well as their desire for greater institutional power,108 yet tribes have also played an important role in voicing their backing of the existing political authority, particularly during the Arab Spring when the government was under some pressure to implement political reforms. As previously mentioned, when five activists were imprisoned on charges of insulting the leadership (the so-called UAE5) after a petition was circulated demanding that the FNC be granted greater political authority, thousands of members of tribes gathered to reaffirm their loyalty to the president in May 2011.109 Interestingly, then, the tribes, who have at times been accused of disloyalty to nation states, in that instance helped to promote nationalistic sentiment. Tribes ranging from al-Shehhi – one of whose members is human rights activist Ahmed Mansoor who was one of the UAE5 – to al-Zaʿabi gathered to ‘show solidarity and support to the government’.110 It was also reported that most Abu Dhabi tribes gathered to file a joint lawsuit against the individuals known as the UAE5 themselves.111 Al Zaʿabi tribe went so far as to hold a rally, calling it ‘a spontaneous popular response to the calls lately to renew allegiance to the wise leadership of President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Vice-President and Prime Minister, Members of the Supreme Council and Rulers of the Emirates and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi’.112 Leader Ahmad Jumaa al-Zaʿabi went on to explain: ‘[T]he tribal meetings held recently are not strange or new to the traditions of the UAE. Tribes in the country spare no national occasion for renewing their loyalty to the wise leadership of the country.’113 Meanwhile, a leader of al-Shehhi, ʿAbdullah bin Leqios al-Shehhi, said that he believed in the authorities’ impartiality and thus trusted them to handle the case of fellow tribesman and human rights activist Ahmed Mansoor appropriately.114 He added that ‘all members of Al Shehi tribe pledge full loyalty to the government and leadership of the country and reject outright any act that violates such a relationship.’115 In addition, al-Hammadi tribe reaffirmed its support for the regime. Tribal leader Dawood al-Hammadi stated: ‘[W]e follow in the footsteps of the other tribes of the nation to show solidarity and support to the government and to file official complaints against the five individuals who insulted our national figures.’116 The tribes most eager to proclaim their loyalty to the Emirati leaders, interestingly, appear to have come from outlying areas, where traditional culture is more common than in cities that have grown quickly in the past few decades and have arguably eroded tribal culture to some extent.117

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Conclusions The arguments presented in this chapter do not provide a conclusive answer to whether electoral democracy and tribal policies are a bad fit or a natural progression, but the chapter does offer a glimpse of what electoral tribalism could mean for the future of more participatory governance in these three states. A closer examination of the evolution of tribal politics in Kuwait, which houses the most competitive legislative elections of the three states under study, indicates the extent to which tribalism influences voter choice and mobilization. Indeed, former MP Mubarak al-Duwailah says that now that competition and discrimination have become intra-tribal as the strongest fakhith, or segment of the tribe, forces its choices on the rest of the tribe during primaries. Having run in tribal primaries in the 1980s and legislated against them in the 1990s, al-Duwailah believes that their outcomes are unacceptable in terms of the quality of tribal MPs reaching parliament and that the ruling elite want to return tribes to their former servile position.118 This echoes sentiments that the tribal media figure Mohammed al-Wushaihi made following the 2012 Karamat Watan protests about tribes needing to stop the habits that make them seem dependent on the goodwill of ruling elites, including that of seeming eager to marry their daughters to ruling elite members.119 Some Kuwaiti academics assert that both tribal primaries and ‘service’ tribal MPs were created by the government to control votes. This structure of bartering services (which Professor Abdulhadi al-Ajmi designates as basic citizens’ rights) for allegiance means that these representatives are then forced into voting for the state’s benefit and not for the benefit of constituents. He makes an interesting suggestion that oil was not found within Kuwait City walls but in the grazing lands that traditionally belonged to nomadic desert tribes, who never asked for compensation for those oil rents.120 What happens, though, if and when tribes continue to gain more power through ballot boxes and make that a formal request, especially since tribal academics are now speaking openly about the matter on television? In response, Kuwait’s ruling elite has cultivated specific forms of electoral and cultural tribalism in order to circumvent the power sharing enshrined in its constitution. Now that these tribes have their own agendas, what will the state do to reassert control, and what lessons are in this evolution of tribal electoralism for other states? Ghanim al-Najjar argues that individualism, which is taking over even within the tribe, will be one of the greatest game changers. He believes that tribal MPs refusing to engage in primaries are becoming more in number

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and that change will come from this refusal and from the government as well, as tribes become increasingly confrontational and need greater funding provisions through medical, jobs and other service parameters that the state may be unable to bear.121 As illustrated by the above, tribal allegiances continue to have tangible political consequences, which are perhaps easiest to observe in elected bodies though by no means limited to them. Indeed, tribal affiliation and state-tribe relations have a major effect on relationships between governments and citizens, as has been shown in previous chapters. Further, it is logical that, in the absence of political parties, ascriptive identities like tribes come to the fore, and so the composition of these elected bodies is unlikely to change in the short to medium term unless electoral laws are altered and political parties are granted legal status. What is more surprising, and indicative of the power of the states under study, is the way in which ascriptive tribal identities have selectively been mobilized in support of state power and government control. The ‘spontaneous’ expressions of loyalty on behalf of tribes in the UAE have perhaps helped to cement their continued influence, as has their adaptation to the modern era through, for instance, the use of social media, as examined in the chapter that follows.

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New media in the GCC Social media platforms have become a sociopolitical game changer in the GCC, with civil society organizations, opposition groups, individuals, tribes and governments using these channels to exert influence and bring about change, and they are ‘growing in importance as a new tool for the royal families to have a dialogue with people effectively and win the hearts and minds of the citizens’.1 Further, with the Covid-19 pandemic having forced more and more aspects of social and political life online, such platforms are set to become only more important in the short to medium term. In technical terms, the region has the highest penetration of mobile phones in the world, alongside introduction of the latest 5G Technology which makes the internet fast, efficient, and readily available.2 According to the latest statistics, the GCC countries have the highest penetration rates in terms of social media platform users among their populations, especially Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.3 Qatar has the most active users on a daily basis, out of all Facebook users in the country, followed by the UAE4 (both countries have almost 90 per cent penetration),5 while, as of 2017, Kuwait had the highest penetration rates of active Twitter users with Kuwaitis generating most Tweets per day in the Arab region.6 As of January 2019, 98 per cent of the population (4.1 million out of a total population of 4.2 million) in Kuwait were internet users.7 Similar trends appear for Instagram use, with Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE leading the Arab region in terms of penetration.8 According to the latest statistics in 2020, 99 per cent of the populations of Kuwait,9 Qatar10 and the UAE11 are on social media. Across the region, most discussions on Twitter take place in Arabic12 and are often aptly described as the virtual ‘street’ for political movements. GCC users access Twitter and other social media sites mostly through their mobile phones,13

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and with most of the national population in the twenty-five and under age bracket,14 people in the GCC are often early adopters of social media platforms. Almost half of the people surveyed for the annual Arab Social Media Report stated that they owned multiple accounts on a single social media platform.15 Social factors such as gender segregation, formal hierarchies within families and the lack of physical public space for debate have led to these new technologies to become the marketplace for social, political and material wares. The novelty of ‘having a voice’ in politically restricted and socially conservative societies is especially important in a GCC context. Social media provide a platform not only for political discussions and political dissent (for instance, Kuwait’s Karamat Watan protests in 2012, the largest in Kuwaiti history, were organized through an anonymous Twitter account16) but also for bypassing social taboos, as a secret life can be conducted from the privacy of the bedroom and under a pseudonym without the watchful eye of a strict family. The usage of online social media forums through blogs and websites that held discussions on identity, socialpolitical discourse and a variety of topics concerned with religion, art, literature and history before social media tools became prevalent, makes it natural that questions of tribal identity should migrate online also. Fadi Salem claims that ‘informational flows taking place through social media have been informing – and misinforming – public opinion and influencing policy development and political communication.’17 He finds that during 2015 and 2016 especially, ‘social media played a critical role in shaping public opinion internationally and on national levels, during numerous major events with global implications.’18 In his opinion, as ‘big data’ and artificial intelligence (AI) applications mature and societal penetration rates increase, not only do these data-rich applications ‘provide deep insights into public views, sentiments, needs, behaviors and activities in numerous countries at unprecedented granular levels’,19 they also create new opportunities, as well as new risks, and will continue to do so as they increase in sophistication and insidious influence. These practices in the post-truth era of fake news and bots have ‘undermined traditional information mediums, triggered foreign policy crises, impacted political communication and disrupted established policy formulation cycles’.20 Work by Marc Owen Jones has confirmed the growing use of misinformation particularly on Twitter throughout the GCC, particularly the weaponization of bots in the wake of the GCC crisis between 2017 and 2021.21 So it is clear that there have been considerable political reactions to the impact of social media on patronage and sociocultural relationships in the GCC over the past ten years. In response, governments of GCC states have implemented a variety of

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new legislation, namely laws governing cybercrimes, to help govern these newly mobilized space of public discourse. When examining the roles of tribal factors online, there are many intersections between how the societies and governments of the GCC states use social media across the Arab region and how individuals affiliated with tribes are using them. The same factors that affect the adoption of social media across the Arabian Peninsula led to the importance of its adoption by tribes, especially as there is a political element to having a platform that is relatively unrestricted by borders or the whims of a specific ruling elite. Over the past decade, the growing impact of the phenomena on public engagement, online participation and social inclusion has provided a means for GCC citizens and expatriates alike to gain greater access to power and more attention from governments with regards to their needs. It has also proven an effective way for tribes to have a voice, a virtual extension of their territory online. And yet some problems persist despite the availability of this ‘open’ space, as, across the board, women remain underrepresented online,22 which can be seen as an extension of traditional gender roles to the virtual space and a continuation of tribal practices that seem to give women less of a voice than men. As social media users continue to influence governance and public policy in the region, are tribal forums online a way to show that the tribes matter (or should matter more) to the government in this space as well?

Tribes online and domestic politics The answer to this question may lie in examining tribal websites and Facebook and Twitter pages. There are thousands of sites dedicated to each tribe, and even to smaller clans within these tribes. The al-ʿAjman tribe, which in 2018 was estimated to have more than 35,000 voting members in Kuwait (see Figure 11),23 for example, has several websites with many forums and pages dedicated to poetry24 that glorify the tribe and its place in the history of the Arabian Peninsula, a calendar for events related to the tribe, and special pages that can only be accessed with a password once the user has been verified as a member of the tribe. The same site has its own Twitter account @alajman_net, but looking up the tribes name on Twitter or as a hashtag #‫( العجمان‬al-ʿAjman) reveals an endless array of news sites, historical sites and geographical specificity like ‫العجمان_في_الكويت‬# (al-ʿAjman in Kuwait). Searching for al-ʿAjman on Facebook in 2018 reveals the Iraqi arm of the tribe among many other personal and group pages, and an endless array of Instagram posts, including 605,000 posts just for

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Figure 11  Table from Al-Qabas newspaper showing the number of voters per major tribe in Kuwait in 2018.

the hashtag #‫( العجمان‬al-ʿAjman). Similar sites appear for the other prominent tribes such as al-Mutayri and al-ʿOtayba and for Qatari and Emirati tribes like al-Mansuri and Bani Hajar. Interestingly, the Saudi Ministry of Culture and Information in July 2019 banned the use of social media handles to represent specific tribes and regions of the country, demonstrating how popular such groups are presumed by governments in the region to be.25 As Thesiger explained in the pre-social media era, ‘Bedu are always well informed about the politics of the desert. They know the alliances and enmities of the tribes and can guess which tribes would raid each other.’26 Tribes in the information age are no different and can be seen displaying the same eagerness for dissemination and collection of information. The first part of this online migration of tribalism can be witnessed in online tribal forums, which have recently been converted into Twitter and Instagram accounts, as tribal networks move from the actual to the virtual and stake a claim to an equally important and active presence online. Richard Koch argues that the secrets to successful networks are when people with common interests join them, ‘the growth [will be] coming relatively easily from member activity’.27 When members of a certain tribe congregate on a social media platform, it is for the same reasons

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Figure 12  Social media platforms highlighted an incident allegedly involving members of the ʿAjman tribe in Kuwait’s National Petroleum Company, despite local newspapers not mentioning the tribe; this post was shared widely on Twitter and WhatsApp in 2017.

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they do so in real life, a sense of belonging, to share tribal news and to exchange information that is important to the tribe, especially calls for fazāʿa, which is a tribal call to arms in aid of a fellow tribe member. Reactions against these tribal practices and criticisms of how they disrupt the flow of work and social relations have been a constant theme in urban areas. Still, social media images and stories can be more widely shared across badū and haḍar populations. For instance, in Kuwait, social media highlighted an incident allegedly with members of the al-ʿAjman tribe in Kuwait’s National Petroleum Company, although local newspapers did not mention the tribe (see Figure 12). According to WhatsApp reports of this incident, when a young tribal man was denied access to the Mina Abdallah port refinery because he had an iPad with him (photography is prohibited), an altercation ensued with the officer on duty that led to the latter’s hospitalization after his kinsmen from a local dīwāniyya joined in to defend their fellow tribesman. Other manifestations of tribal behaviour online are interesting because they seem to involve exaggeration, perhaps because of the well-documented silo effect on online networks,28 of existing issues offline. There are many examples of this in the amplification of the badū/haḍar social dynamic, with a competing mistrust between the two, with ‘horrors’ and ‘revelations’ by the latter of an errant tribalism gone rogue.

Tribes online and international affairs Between June 2017 and January 2021, the GCC crisis, as discussed in Chapter 5, ignited its own cyber cold war, and tribes were largely caught in the middle of this struggle for dominance between Qatar on one side and Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE on the other. Tweets from 2017 that convey the opposing sides of the crisis were abundant, such as one that contained an alleged link to video footage of the Yam tribe, which has clan members across the Arabian Peninsula, designating Qatari Amir Shaykh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani ‘a traitor’,29 a problematic stance even before the resolution of the Gulf Crisis in 2021, as it encourages GCC citizens to openly criticize ruling elites. Simultaneously, there were Qatari tweets that promoted a sense of national unity with the hashtag ‘Qatar is my Tribe’ used on even topics that were not directly related to the crisis.30 The fragmentation of identities online meant that for the first time people could choose which state they want to belong to, despite even geographical differences – an arrangement that is troublesome when national loyalties are at stake. In

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fact, this fragmentation became codified, with the implementation of a law in the UAE in 2017 that made it illegal to ‘show sympathy’ for Qatar on social media or through other means.31 A quick online search for tribes of Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE reveals an Arabic Wikipedia page that claims to list tribal classifications in each country (only the UAE had a similar page in English), as well as many specific forums dedicated to a single tribe or tribes that belong to a specific region. Depending on the Wikipedia links chosen, the number of listed tribes in Kuwait as of February 2021 was nineteen, in Qatar they number thirty and fifty-four in the UAE. Some of these tribes like ‘Harb’ appear in all three countries, and others would appear in only two, like ‘al-Khater’ who appear in the listed tribes of both the UAE and Qatar. This list demonstrates how well-suited the transnational nature of tribes is to the cultivation of a cross-border existence online, as well as how codified and apparent their online existence is today.

Tribal social evolution and gender The desire to embrace a metropolitan lifestyle and reject the rules and contradictions of tribal loyalty is an issue that has resurfaced throughout the evolution of the Arabian Peninsula’s urbanized tribes. Modern GCC citizens of bedouin descent have tried to resolve this dichotomy with a foot in both worlds and have identified education and financial independence as vital to achieving this, as pointed out by Hessa Saad al-Muhannadi in her study of Qatari women and tribalism.32 She highlights differences even among tribes, stating that women from badū and haḍar tribes are affected by tribal customs and values, yet that ‘Bedouin tribes are more conservative in their acceptance and openness to women’s modern roles than the Hadar tribes.’33 It is important, then, to take into account internal variation when it comes to tribal attitudes towards women. Further, as Violet Dickson, wife of the British Political Agent H.R.P. Dickson in Kuwait, said in a 1972 edition of Saudi Aramco World, bedouin women and elders were, in a very real physical sense, trapped by their surroundings after the start of state modernization processes that led to sedentarization: ‘They feel trapped in there. And a Bedouin woman never had to learn how to keep a house clean. She’d no idea. She didn’t really sweep or anything, because she could just move their tent and get on a clean spot.’34 In general, women are subject to social pressure to conform to tribal values that often cost them considerable independence in practical terms; to understand this and to judge whether tribal values have a place in modern urban social units, we must

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examine the ways in which traditional tribal values and city life can both clash and complement one another. Is there a place for tribal custom in modern society, or does it need to be tempered to the point of total assimilation to allow tribal members to function in a modern, urbanized social unit? Hind al-Mutairi is a niqab-wearing poetess from a powerful Arabian Peninsula tribe. She caused uproar with her poem ‘Waīl al Qabīla’ or ‘Woe to the Tribe’ which she recited to a mixed audience at the 2015 Jeddah International Book Fair. This action led her to be banned by the then Governor of Mecca, Prince Khalid al Faisal, from participating in other cultural events. The poem is a feminist diatribe against the restraints placed on women within tribal society and caused many tribal men to demand her persecution; they also tried to force a formal apology for speaking ill of tribal customs, garnering a popular hashtag #hind_almutairi_reviles_the_tribe. The poetess responded to this attack in tweets and letters, demonstrating her unrepentant stance against the restrictions that many tribal practices place on women. She tweeted about her poem in

Figure 13  Tweet by Sarah Alajmi in response to the murder of Fatima Alajmi where she says that re-educating tribal men is the moral responsibility of the tribal shaykhs since allegiance is to the tribe and not to the state in Kuwait (2020).

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reaction to the forced divorce of a tribal woman – Salma – from her husband of thirteen years and father of her five children as he was of non-tribal background, and thus an unfit match by tribal standards.35 Another young woman fell victim to a bloodier fate due to the same crime of marrying outside her tribe in 2020 in Kuwait. Fatima Alajmi died after being shot in the head  by her brother while recovering in the intensive care unit of Mubarak Hospital after having been shot by another brother the day before. She was also pregnant, and the motive behind this double homicide was that she had married outside the tribe without her siblings’ consent, even though her father had accepted the match.36 Young women from the same tribe as the victim, like Sara al-Ajmi37 and Fatma al-Ajmy,38 took to Twitter to berate the shaykh of the tribe for not speaking up about such tribal ‘honour’ crimes which have been covered more frequently in the Kuwaiti press lately and question the validity of tribal allegiance if it surpasses that to the state and if it remains gendered and

Figure 14  Tweet by Fatmah Alajmy in response to the murder of Fatima Alajmi and Hajar AlAasi decrying the silence of tribal shaykhs and tribal social media accounts around the murder of tribal women, which she compares unfavourably to tribal blood money drives to release male murderers.

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not inclusive of the basic protection of women from family violence. Sadly, another tribal sister-killing incident occurred in December 2020, with the death of Kuwaiti Parliamentary Guard Sheikha al-Ajmi.39 While women are not invited into the tribal majālis and are not part of the traditional system of tashāwur or consultation that takes place within a tribe, social media has given them highly visible platforms from which they can make themselves heard both within and outside the tribe, thereby giving birth to a brand of tribal feminism that can only exist online. Another manifestation of this online tribal feminism can be seen in the hashtag #Kuwait’s-women-against(candidates)-elected through tribal primaries40 and corresponding movement to boycott the results of tribal primaries (in which tribal women do not get to vote) held prior to the 2020 elections in Kuwait, though it is unclear whether tribal women started this movement or whether it was started by women outside the tribes. Other evidence of the difficulty tribal mores can cause women offline, in particular in a modern urban setting, are plentiful. Haya al-Mughni has pointed out that such difficulties are pervasive in established urban tribes as well as the more recently settled bedouin population. She describes how the merchant class and elite Kuwaitis similarly control women through arranged marriages and by placing a great deal of responsibility on these women for the preservation of family honour: ‘[T]hose of the elite and the merchant class have been the most eager to preserve the kin relations from which they gain prestige and access to many privileges. Their loyalty to their own class has often superseded their loyalty to members of their own sex,’ up to and including issues surrounding their right to marry and bear children if a socio-economically suitable match is not available to them.41 This is particularly relevant to contemporary tribal women if we consider that in pre-urbanized tribal societies, marriage outside the tribe was only done out of necessity to forge an alliance, which meant that, ‘as a result, birth into the right family tended to be the only way to become a member of a tribe.’42 Latifa al Subaie – a Kuwaiti woman from a self-identified bedouin family – articulates this conflict as anxiety and a constant pressure to conform to tribal honour which forces young people, especially women, to be viewed and to view themselves not as individuals but as parts of a more important collective. Decisions in this system of strict hierarchy are often made for them and not by them.43 Shahd Alshammari explains how, in the fictional representations of bedouin women’s writing, value is assigned to female anatomy and sexuality. She describes this value as ‘simultaneously double-edged’, as it is ‘rendering women invisible, depriving them of any other function, equating them with horses that

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are meant to be kept, controlled, and made use of. Just as a horse’s bloodline is examined, and it is crucial for its value to be established, women’s value is derived from their linkage to purity and noble asl lines.’44 It may be easy in the face of increasing Westernization to take a negative attitude towards social customs that have, in some ways, outlived their usefulness, but let us consider how tribal habits can also complement urbanized life. Hissa al-Dhaheri from Abu Dhabi believes that there is a positive association between women of tribal ancestry and ideas of competence and dependability in contrast to the image of what we might call ‘spoiled urban girls’.45 Munira al-Kuwari, a member of a prominent Qatari tribe, also argues that maintaining tribal customs and units can confer benefits on social groups and neighbourhoods; these can include safekeeping and safeguarding of neighbours, keeping potentially damaging secrets, engaging in communal problem-solving, and being able to seek help from fellow tribal members at any hour of the day or night.46 It is perhaps doubly important to consider the community ties that arise from tribal mores as beneficial in an age when social media and the fast pace of life and technology are causing increasing alienation both within and without community groups. A Qatari student from a bedouin background described a patronizing attitude from some ḥaḍar urban women towards her and women like her, with an expressed desire to ‘save’ or ‘civilize’ them that did not take into account their deep identification and pride in their badu identity.47 However, some Qatari tribal women have voiced a desire for less tribal rigidity and more mixed neighbourhoods to force tribes to ‘adapt to different values and be embarrassed with covering up drug use and other anti-social behavior within the tribe’.48 For some women, the benefits do not erase the problems that an overly dogmatic adherence to tribal mores without regard for practicality and health-directed changes may cause. Sara al-Haroun finds that ‘social problems and health risks can increase as a result of having a tribe isolated in a single neighborhood [through increased] consanguineous marriages, which can sometimes result in birth defects.’49 Studies have proved ‘this centuries-old custom of intermarriage has had devastating genetic effects’.50 The social evolution of tribal women has also demanded that they retain tribal conservatism, sometimes at the expense of more practical customs. While men have retained some markers that hint at bedouin descent to some extent, the traditional burqa for women has given way to the more overtly religious niqab in Kuwait.51 In Qatar and the UAE, the batoola has seen similar changes, having fallen out of fashion with younger women completely. The clash between gender and assimilation in a tribal context is further complicated by the work

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of AlNajjar and Allagui, who argue that, in the UAE, women’s empowerment is part of the national branding project of the post-oil modern state.52 Since many of these branding projects rely on ‘invented tradition’53 that we dub bedouin-lite, the struggle between modernity and tradition in terms of gender representation takes place within a prism of retention, invention versus adaptation and historical revision. As Page puts it, ‘the Emirati woman is honored for her femininity, beauty, respect for tradition, and staying “in place.” It is stylish to be traditional. Modernity must be tempered by tradition.’54 The same sentiment applies where selective aspects of modernity are practiced to reproduce the tribal system with a modern sheen, often through bedouin-lite practices. A close examination of the rights that remain denied to female citizens of these states leads to the supposition that, despite supposedly modern advancements, including discussion of these issues online, urbanized tribal units with a strict adherence to tribal values suffer from the negative aspects of tribal culture, in spite of the modern tweaks that are made to such strictures in many cases, as discussed by Amal al Malki, Dean of Hamad bin Khalifa University, in al Jazeera interview.55 Women in these states are frequently denied the right to pass on their nationality to their children or to marry without the consent of a legal guardian as an enforcement of a tribal tradition rather than an Islamic one. Although tribal customs have a place in city life for those of bedouin origin, it seems clear that they must coexist with and assimilate into the requirements of modern urban life. Tribal mores evolved for a reason and do, in some ways, protect the health of communities, yet it seems that the cost of their retention is higher for women than men. In the context of tribal social evolution over time, it is thus clear that whilst some aspects of tribal custom have evolved to be retained in a changing world, other aspects remain confusingly, and at times destructively, at odds with contemporary social needs; social media provides a means of discussing these issues more openly than ever before and so could spur change.

Tribes, youth and society In a similar vein, Alshawi and Gardner posit the question: ‘[N]ow that most of people in question are no longer attached to this particular pastoral/nomadic mode of production, why does tribalism persevere?’56 They argue that ‘by Khaldun’s logic, economic well-being should correlate with the erosion of tribal solidarity.’57 They apply the same principle to increased education and a so-called ‘modern’ lifestyle and identity, but if we consider the wealth and depth of history

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that lies behind tribal social norms – as well as the efforts of governments to perpetuate select elements of this in pursuit of a stable national identity – the issue is not so easily addressed through pure logic. Tribal youth of both sexes continue to display some engendered practices in conforming to stereotypes that display tribal bias and traditional gender roles despite their urbanized status. In a study examining young voters’ attitudes to candidates based on gender conducted by Kuwait University in 2016,58 differences between the male and female candidates were found based on responses to the following question: ‘How important to you is tribe and tribal belonging? Is it very important, somewhat important, not important, or do you not belong to a tribe at all?’ Respondents who said that tribal belonging was important to them were statistically more likely to support a male candidate, and female candidates did not receive a similar boost from tribal respondents.59 This result can be explained by the way in which tribes organize candidates internally. Perhaps it is more difficult for female candidates to find their place in a tribal context, and thus ‘tribal students may be more likely to think that the male candidate will be successful and support him.’60 A similar study conducted at Qatar University a year earlier displayed similar results, such that it became clear that the question of gender roles within a tribal social frame is a persistent one across age groups. Bethany Shockley posits that, [i]t appears that the main issue that conservative and tribal students have with a female candidate is related to voting and electoral support and not in her inherent abilities or competence. Thus, an interesting puzzle emerges, if female candidates are actually rated higher than males for this measure of overall competence, why do these groups of students consistently favor the male candidate when it comes to actual electoral support?61

There are clearly changes in how GCC youth, including members of tribal populations, regard authority figures. Blind obedience is no longer the norm, as can be seen by the level of engagement of youth online in political debates. Nonetheless, the cohesiveness of the tribe as a social and political unit within the modern GCC state is not under threat by these more independently minded young people, and ‘although some tribes may trace their lineage to some heroic figure, the real identity of the tribe lies in the people that currently compose it. In the tribe lies an individual basis for his or her sense of self-esteem on the honor of the tribe as a whole.’62 We see many examples of how the revival of tribal identity by young people is now becoming a cornerstone for individual and collective identity on the social and political front among young people who

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have never experienced any tribal component to their lives besides an urbanized one. Tribal youth remain important as voters and revivalists of tribal practices, in addition to the invention of new ones such as the numbers recently used by young tribal men especially to denote their tribal allegiance (101 for al-ʿAjman tribe and 404 for al-Mutayri, for example).63 Though there are some theories about the origin of these numbers (radio frequency symbols for the regions inhabited by these tribes, or numbers assigned to these tribal members of the armed forces by the Saudi army), it remains unclear whether these numbers signify anything beyond the fact that they point to a resurgence of tribal identity amongst younger people. Further, although nuclear families are increasingly replacing extended family structures and tribal neighbourhoods in the three states under study, how far the respective countries and their nationals have moved away from ethnotribal identities and embraced the modern citizenship model still varies greatly, even within each country and across specific time periods. Further, with tribes adapting to modern life and to modern technology, it is less likely that tribal identity will become eroded. An Emirati website and Instagram page titled ‘My Ancestors; A Source of Pride and Glory’ (see Figure 15) that seems to be run by female high school students from Ras al Khaimah reaffirms the importance of tribal belonging, providing a breakdown of all the tribes in the UAE, a map of the most prominent tribal grouping in the peninsula, and even categorizes the national population of the UAE into different ethnic groups; Arab tribes, who are the ‘original inhabitants of the UAE’, and five other categories.64 And yet, Sultan al Qassemi argued in 2013 that tribal, and geographical, affiliations are diminishing in importance in the UAE, in an article entitled ‘In the UAE the only tribe is the Emirati’.65 Nonetheless, it remains to be seen whether those who still define themselves as ‘badū’ (second- and third-generation urban settlers from bedouin backgrounds) will rely on tribal identity in order to achieve social justice and political clout if the new wave of GCC leaders continues to move away from a conservative brand of identity and embrace a more fluid, inclusive, multi-ethnic one in future.

Conclusions As demonstrated above, tribes have successfully migrated online as cohesive units, granting them a means of communicating both with their members and with the national and international population more broadly. This online

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Figure 15  A map detailing the larger tribes of the Arabian Peninsula from the UAE history kin website.

presence also makes it more likely that their presence in political and social life across the Arabian Peninsula will persist. Nonetheless, members of tribal female and young populations are increasingly engaging in debates about the utility of continued adherence to tribal practices, which could contribute to their further modernization in the coming decades but is unlikely to lead to the demise of the importance of tribal social identity, and in fact social media appear to have, in some ways, enabled tribalism. Indeed, tribalism and familiar tribal practices may offer some sense of stability and continuity in a world that is rapidly changing, especially for young people, but could also increasingly exist in tension with, for instance, the creation of knowledge economies and propagation of feminism across the Arabian Peninsula. What remains to be seen is how much social media will duplicate the spread of tribal ideals and enable them. Indeed, tribal identity seems easily replicated across the internet. For instance, one popular cat meme includes a cat dressed in

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traditional clothing with a dallah, dubbing him shaykh al-qabīla (see Figure 16), demonstrating the extent to which tribal symbols have become a cultural shorthand easily and readily reproduced. Alternatively, social media could prove to be a space for pushback and pluralistic conversations that bring forth young and female voices that are not usually revered in tribal circles, as well as a safe and open space for non-tribal citizens to confront some of the tribal practices that they see as damaging to national unity, as discussed further in the next chapter. As tribalism continues to appeal to the young, and to the politically ambitious, it will be interesting to track whether tribal women are going to be able to simultaneously rebel against the tribal codes that discriminate against them in terms of leadership and limit their independence, while still retaining pride in their ‘bedouin roots’ and pride in their tribal ancestry.

Figure 16  Cat meme with caption ‘Shaykh of the tribe’ (2018). This account is now closed but the meme itself was widely shared.

8

Conclusion

In the Introduction of this book, we stated that this study would not be a review of the anthropology or ancestry of tribes, or the various definitions of ‘bedouinism’; instead, it has been an attempt to look into the modern usages of such labels as a collective set of sociopolitical behaviours within the framework of the super-rentier state. It is clear from a historical perspective that the clash between politics, geography and social norms in an urbanized environment that informs a large part of badū identity coheres with the issues surrounding questions of contemporary national identity. It also becomes clear through a long-term historical view of these questions that archaic aspects of tribal custom are not necessarily beneficial to the health of a robust national identity, even where that identity relies on an inherent tribal nature or structure. As Gardner explains, ‘[t]he baggage of anthropology’s abandoned preoccupation with a social evolutionary framework nonetheless reverberates into the contemporary era. Tribalism retains a connotation of primitiveness, and it continues to be framed as a social form antithetical to modernity or otherwise problematic to development.’1 Despite such ‘baggage’, it may even be reasonable to suggest, based on historical evidence, that, despite institutional meddling, tribal culture in urban environments will eventually regulate itself on the basis of the principle underlying its customs being one of a nomadic people; that is to say, tribal custom will eventually evolve to do what is best to perpetuate the health and prosperity of the tribe and its members, even when that means letting fall by the wayside customs which were once vital to the tribe, but now fall outside the realm of social evolution. However, this tribal evolution will always be coloured by the state’s agenda, and especially by what ruling elites think will serve their interests best. In fact, it was not uncommon for the very process of state formation to ‘encourage already existing tribes to reach an accommodation with the state authority in order to retain their autonomy or to create new tribes that might organize themselves around other, more dynamic loyalties … thereby enabling them to oppose the

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state and even seek independence from it’.2 Indeed, as Kostiner has highlighted, the relationship between tribe and state became symbiotic as GCC governments accrued enough wealth to take over the role traditionally occupied by tribes of providing materially for their members.3 In one opinion piece published in Kuwaiti daily Al-Qabas entitled ‘Tribe or Country?’4 the former editor-in-chief of Kuwait’s National News Agency, Iqbal al-Ahmad, argues that the resurgence of tribalism is a direct threat to nationalism and good citizenship values.5 This opinion has recently been echoed in a Saudi Shura council member’s suggestion that it become mandatory for all citizens to remove their tribal last names from their government-issued identity cards.6 Further, a bill presented to the Shura Council in Saudi Arabia in 2016 proposed fining those who boast about tribal ancestry to incite discrimination up to one million Saudi Riyals ($266,600) and a fifteen-year jail sentence among other measures to promote equality and respect in Saudi Arabia.7 The late Amir of Kuwait’s oldest son and the late ex-Minister of Defense Shaykh Nasser Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah declared in an interview with China’s National Television station as part of the move to modernize Kuwait and market the Silk City planned for the country’s north that he believes that tribal representation in electoral parliament results will ‘diminish soon’.8 This could be seen as an indication that some members of the government in Kuwait also share the concern that tribalism and tribal practices are an impediment to the ‘progress’ embodied by future development plans like Kuwait’s Vision 2035. The coastal GCC city states encountered their first wave of population growth with inner peninsula tribe members joining the seasonal trade and pearling industry that brought with it social, economic and political adjustments, some more uncomfortable than others. Each newly naturalized wave of migrants to these growing states disrupted the political and social status quo, and much of the backlash that can be traced historically against bedouin and tribal populations can today be seen playing out against expatriate populations who have joined the workforce of the post-oil economy GCC states. Despite that significant demographic shift from bedouin tribal migrants to an influx of expatriates, much of the resentment and mistrust against the original ‘new settlers’ remain ingrained and have grown because of the latter’s growth in strength, visibility and numbers in places like Kuwait. The 2012 Karamat Wattan (A Nation’s Dignity) protests delivered with them some uncomfortable questions about tribe members’ loyalty to the state and those who rule it, especially with Musalam alBarrak’s infamous ‘we will not allow you’9 speech that was seen as a breach of the

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amir’s constitutional position of being above reproach and landed the MP in jail for two years, effectively ending his political career. The idolization of figures who have used tribal rhetoric and loyalties to gain political power has been a point of contention and part of the backlash against tribalism and tribal behaviour in Kuwait. Liberal journalist and political commentator Ahmad al-Sarraf ’s tweet on the displays of respect and reverence that the arresting officers from the Mutayri tribe showed Musallam al-Barrak by kissing his nose during his arrest demonstrate what he considers to be ‘erosion of national unity’ through ‘a government sanctioned’ promotion of tribal values over ‘loyalty to the country’.10 In a consecutive tweet on the matter, al-Sarraf holds the government and ruling elites responsible for allowing tribal primaries and allowing geographic and social tribalism to thrive. This tension between the modern placement of tribes in the GCC states and the needs of ruling families and nation states to preserve and readjust the status quo has been grappled with in other scholarly works that attempt to identify their place within the shifting identity politics of the region. The proceedings of one academic workshop on the topic summarize these debates well: While the basis of tribes in economic scarcity and nomadism have been eliminated by policies of sedentarization, urbanization, and state building, ‘political tribalism’ – a concept first outlined by the Kuwaiti sociologist Khaldoun al-Naqeeb – is very much a reality. Indeed, one participant [of the workshop] argued that leadership in the Gulf is an extension of tribalism in modes of governance, providing a mentality and set of relations where political roles and resources are distributed, in part, on the basis of kinship.11

Patronage from the government or from ruling family members is seen by many as being directly involved in cultivating tribal identity. In Kuwait, tribes are encouraged to hold intra-tribe football cups12 and partake in an annual inter-tribal football cup in Jahra. Najla al-Homaizi posted an angry tweet on 1 November 2017 in reaction to the suggestion of creating a tribal shaykhs’ council in Kuwait that would look after the needs of each tribe – a recommendation put forth by a distant member of Kuwait’s ruling family.13 Al-Homaizi, who belongs to one of the more prominent merchant families in Kuwait, stated in her tweet that, if haḍar or Shi’i Kuwaitis had made a similar suggestion, it would have caused an uproar and provoked accusations of discrimination and sectarianism. This sense of tribalism being both uniquely threatening to national values and uniquely positioned to question them is the crux of fears about sustained tribal influence. Concern about the role of tribes in political life in Kuwait led

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thirty-three Kuwaiti civil societies and NGOs to sign a petition to fight against the practice of tribal ‘billboards’ seen at Kuwait University in June 2018,14 which aimed to offer services to high school graduates from specific tribes. The petition decried these billboards as discriminatory and in violation of Articles 7 and 8 of Kuwait’s constitution.15 Such actions, however, have not discouraged some

Figure 17  A candidate from the Shammar tribe declares that he will be in the service of his tribe ‘and its interests’ when he is elected to office (2020).

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2020  parliamentary election hopefuls from repeating that same technique in their tribal majority districts (see Figure 17). Following the al-Azimi blood money fundraising campaign that was discussed in Chapter 5, many voices joined the chorus criticizing tribal practices, especially when the Bani Malik tribe of Iraq took offence at a statement made by the Kuwait-based shaykh of the al-ʿAzimi tribe, which led the latter to issue a formal apology and send a tribal envoy to Basra to reiterate his apology after the Kuwaiti Consulate there was attacked in response.16 In this way and in others discussed elsewhere in the book, inter-tribal issues can travel across borders and complicate regional relations for modern states, perhaps seen most clearly in the GCC crisis. Without a doubt, Kuwait’s electoral politics have shown that for many this anti/pro tribal stance has political currency and major consequences to the electoral landscape of that state.17 Musallam al-Barrak, who was once considered the most potent symbol of tribal opposition to Kuwait’s government and who often received the overall highest number of votes when he was running for office despite voting against women’s political rights in 2005, demonstrates that even someone as charismatic and politically deft as he is still feels the need for a ‘tribal’ background story for demographic clout, which is symptomatic of what Lambert calls the ‘new tribal urban politics’.18 Kristin Smith Diwan has a different outlook on the same issue; for her, al-Barrak represents a different type of tribal politician, as his appeal has extended beyond his al-Mutayri tribe.19 He has refused to participate in his tribe’s primaries, on grounds that they are undemocratic and has sought cross-ideological political allies in his fight against corruption rather than merely relying on his tribe’s support, perhaps signalling a change in mobilization tactics among prominent members of Kuwait’s large tribes. It is not surprising that the most visible of these tribal resurgences and the reactions against them have thus far taken place in Kuwait. Besides the obvious benefits of ‘identity entrepreneurship’, whereby political actors fan these movements to ‘construct differences and reinforce boundaries between their own groups and other groups’,20 Kuwait has a longer history of open political debates, both inside and outside of parliament, than the other two states discussed in this study. Kuwait’s demographic reality also comes into play with tribal politics, since the number of haḍar youth is lower than that of tribal districts.21 This imbalance has made the tribe of more significance economically, politically and socially.22 Nonetheless, the manifestation of tribalism undoubtedly exists socially, with wasta (favour based on kinship or nepotism) particularly effective for members

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of large or well-connected tribes. Indeed, government-provided employment exists in all three states, meaning that jobs are often granted not on the basis of merit, but rather on the basis of being members of certain tribes or other well-connected social groups; in Kuwait, for instance, MPs who represent tribal constituents often refer to merchant elites and the government ‘oppressing’ other demographics.23 Further, the national branding projects of these states made it imperative to focus on a homogenous story tied into a tribal bedouin past as demonstrated in Chapter 4, but this has been problematic because not only do such narratives deny the background stories of the non-national majorities of these populations, but they also deny the different ethnic backgrounds of nontribal nationals and tribal nationals who do not come from the Arabian Peninsula. And yet, as we have seen, some scholars like Shafeeq Ghabra believe families like al-Kandari, described in Chapter 5, have become ‘tribalized’ by electoral politics and now behave like a bedouin tribe would in terms of allegiance to kinship in voting matters and other aspects.24 Many tribes in Qatar and the UAE also come from hwala backgrounds, meaning that they are coastal tribes from Arab descent that have migrated to and from present-day Iran at various times, but such populations are often excluded from national identity projects. The adoption of AI and automation will force a measure of meritocracy on job hires and other governmental processes which will have a disruptive effect on the forces that contribute to and control tribal political identity. As Richard Koch explains, ‘[t]oday the world’s twenty richest cities are magnets for talent with high concentrations of knowledge and money.’25 If nationalism is based on loyalty and jobs awarded on that basis, it is very difficult to reconcile this premium on ‘loyalty’ with the ambitious development plans of all three states governments. As it stands, the status quo, with an emphasis on nepotism and tribal or other types of wasta is the antithesis of the necessary foundation for a knowledge-based economy, which is a stated goal of all three states examined here. Changes to foster such economies and diversification projects are particularly urgent, as dependence on oil revenues does not seem to be as stable an income guarantee for the state as it was in the past, especially in the post-Covid-19 era. The need for economic diversification has led to real estate for residency programs in both Dubai and Doha,26 even though there has been much resistance from the native population to give further rights to even half Qatari non-nationals as a threat to ‘national identity’.27 Interestingly, the UAE, in January 2021, became the first state in the GCC to offer a path to citizenship for non-nationals with specialized skills, including investors, medical doctors, engineers and artists, who can, in the words of Shaykh Mohammed bin Rashid,

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‘contribute  to our  development  journey’.28 While none of its neighbours has followed suit, this change will likely contribute to further conversations surrounding national identity and belonging, examining ‘tribal values’, as well as the role of expatriates in the GCC, particularly after the Covid-19 pandemic. This desire to make the GCC states friendlier to foreign investments and foreign residents is only likely to continue, as the focus on becoming more economically competitive increases. As Koch predicts, ‘[b]y 2030, more than 70 percent of the world’s people will live in cities, with most of them located within fifty miles of the sea … the demographic concentration, economic weight, and political power of today’s coastal megacities makes them … the key units of human organization.’29 When we examine the somewhat antitribal evolution of Dubai in comparison to Abu Dhabi, Doha or Kuwait City, we might get a glimpse of what the future of the GCC coastal cities looks like if they want to appeal to a wider global audience and not just their local and regional demographics. In order to feed their growth and development during the modernization phase, GCC countries have attracted huge numbers of expatriates over the past five decades, causing them to have the highest population growth rates as a region (from 4 million in 1950 to 46.5 million in 2010)30 according to UNFPA. In order to become competitive on a global level and to attract high-skilled innovative workers, global cities rely on their ability to attract global talent: ‘As the number of global migrants surges, connected and open cities feature ever-higher percentages of foreign-born residents.’31 Though this was somewhat already the case in GCC, it may be challenged by a resulting revival of tribal thinking and initiatives that are aimed at ‘preserving’ national identity by continuing to favour nationals over non-nationals and tribal nationals above all others. Because tribal identities and affiliations remain important social and political markers even in a modern and urbanized Gulf, it has become increasingly difficult to define what exactly is ‘tribal’. Certainly, the tribe is less in evidence as a tangible political structure than in the pre-oil era, yet its influence is still felt in political institutions of the state, as well as in social life more generally. The tension between tribe and state, as has been shown, however, is not unresolvable, and, in fact, in some ways the relationship is symbiotic. Although tribes initially, like states, aspired to sovereignty and self-sufficiency, today they have been incorporated into structures of the rentier states discussed here as government power has grown with the advent of hydrocarbon wealth in the 1950s. While in situations of government breakdown like Libya and Yemen tribes have demonstrated their ability to surface as autonomous groups providing the

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same services that weak governments are unable to provide, they still serve as important markers of citizenship, especially in the GCC states, and their members can become important partners to ruling families. As Steffen Hertog explains, oil-linked development has altered the preexisting social order most drastically when it comes to tribes; in his words, ‘states are omnipresent and social groups have become subservient to and dependent on them. The history of Arabian state-building is a history of the political decline of independent social groups – and tribes, however important they remain as social identity markers, are at the sharp end of this process.’32 In a similar way, then, merchant classes that once provided loans and even collected taxes for the state in some cases have been replaced largely by apparatuses of the modern rentier state, although merchants have been more easily able to continue their commercial endeavours than were tribal populations that relied on animal pastoralism for their wellbeing.33 Pockets of influence nonetheless remain for merchants and tribes alike, yet their ability to influence politics and political decision-making tends to be mediated by ruling families, who have sometimes hoped to avoid becoming entangled with tribal or family ties by hiring technocrats without such backgrounds.34 Hertog describes state co-optation of tribes in Saudi Arabia as the process of bureaucratizing these groups: governments ‘locally empowered select sheikhs through the assignment of administrative functions (e.g. giving them the right to attest individuals’ personal status) and the ability to act as intermediaries vis-à-vis the state on behalf of their tribe. These local privileges have declined over time, however, as states have grown and increasingly become able to reach out to all part of society directly.’35 Further, in 2008, King Salman bin ʿAbdulaziz, then governor of Riyadh, wrote an official letter in response to a discussion about the al-Saud family’s tribal roots on a Saudi television show to clarify the family’s tribal affiliation, demonstrating that such ties are important even for those in the centre of political power.36 This dynamic is slightly different in smaller states of the GCC examined here, since leaderships tend to be more easily accessible in the smaller states than the larger countries of the Gulf. Even in the largest state in the GCC, Saudi Arabia, however, the Ministry of Information has clarified that no one other than officially sanctioned religious and tribal leaders can call themselves shaykhs, with the Ministry of Interior in control of determining who qualifies as a shaykh, a clear state co-optation of tribal titles and perhaps more broadly indicative of the state’s authority over that of tribes.37 Because they have adapted to newly constructed political and even urban structures, tribes today are in fact quite modern, a claim explored by other

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scholars yet often centring on the state’s role in propagating or promoting tribal identity rather than the role of tribe members themselves in this process. Certainly, we see evidence of this claim through tribes’ use of social media, branding and the increasing prevalence of tribalism and tribes in tourism, particularly in Gulf states, as well as their involvement in key political issues of the day like the GCC crisis. While Cooke is correct in her assertion that ‘the tribal is not the traditional and certainly not the primitive’, she seems to portray the tribal as exclusively instrumentalized by the state when in fact tribal tropes are recreated by and perpetuated from the grassroots as well.38 Indeed, tribes remain socially the most important organizing factors within the Gulf, with tribal alignment taken into account often for marriages, hiring decisions and with tribal structures even used at times to mediate conflicts or to influence policymaking.39 In Cooke’s view, however, nationalism and tribalism remain at least somewhat in conflict, since the former is under control of state governments: ‘Nationalism did not erase tribalism so much as shift its focus. Nationalizing tribal identities while still insisting on their importance, modern regimes held tribal lineage in affective tension with the national identity.’40 Cooke cites state efforts to manage tribal identities to demonstrate the political salience of tribes by discussing, for instance, Qatari Law No. 21, which banned some public sector employees, particularly those in the diplomatic service or armed forces, from marrying non-Qataris, as well as the Emirati policy of providing a 10,000 Dirham ($2,700) dowry for marriages between Emirati nationals.41 In fact, Qatar’s Shafallah Medical Genetics Centre shows that 30 per cent of marriages are between cousins, demonstrating the power of tribal or at least familial structures in determining marriage matches.42 Tribes remain important socially, Cooke contends, since ‘the idea of the tribe connotes aristocracy, and it remains absolutely salient for symbolic power and wealth distribution at home.’43 Beyond that, however, tribes also remain significant avenues for access to economic and political power, as demonstrated in the previous chapters, as well as more simply and at a more granular level providing social networks. Both Cooke and Calvert Jones discuss the role of the state in sponsoring projects focused on heritage and therefore often on the tribal. Indeed, Abu Dhabi’s Heritage Village, Sharjah’s Museum, Dubai Museum, as well as the national museums of all three countries portray the largely tribal, Sunni and masculine origins of these states, with particular focus on activities like camel racing, falconry and pearl diving, some of which continue to be organized in these states and are usually linked with members of the ruling families, as documented in the Koch’s work. While Cooke may overstate the power of heritage

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symbols as ‘undergird[ing] modern political power’, that these symbols are propagated and reproduced at the state level implies their importance to the political leadership.44 Cooke opines that ‘tribal and family kinship idioms and vocabulary are used not only to personalize political relations and secure greater allegiance to the state in such a small country, but also because kinship language is, after all, a political language, and as such remains meaningful to large segments of the population.’45 We have argued, however, that kinship language is not solely political, but also social. Because the political and social tend to be connected in tight-knit societies, and especially in states with few institutionalized means of political participation, tribal social power becomes politicized. In the Kuwaiti case, we see how tribes adapt to political environments with organized electoral campaigns for parliament, with the other cases demonstrating how even less politically consequential elections provide opportunities for the political salience of tribes to become clear. Voting for a fellow tribe member, for instance, is at once a political and a social act, and it is very difficult to divorce one from the other in the case of tribes of the Arabian Peninsula. Further, it is worth pointing out that this type of blind political allegiance on the basis of social ties rather than merit is being labelled as tribalistic and deleterious even in the West. US Senator Jeff Flake in October 2018 famously called for American politics to reject ‘destructive partisan tribalism’.46 He went so far as to state that ‘tribalism is ruining us. It is tearing our country apart. It is not the way for sane adults to act and most importantly, ultimately, the only tribe to which any of us owed allegiance is the American tribe.’47 Even in the American context in which most citizens do not have a tribal past of the same type as the Arabian Peninsula, then, allegiance to a body other than the state is portrayed as problematic and linked to tribe, illustrating the extent to which the notion of the tribe as exclusivist and divisive exists in the political lexicon globally. In the Arabian Peninsula specifically, however, Jones, in her discussion of ‘the making of citizens, 2.0’, provides important insight into the state’s role in crafting nationalism and citizens themselves yet falls into the mistake of, in our view, discussing the instrumental aspect of tribal identity without taking into consideration that tribal tropes are reproduced socially at a grassroots level. She makes a valuable contribution to the literature about social engineering in the GCC, focusing on the role of Emirati leaders in converting their citizenry from bedouins into ‘a new kind of citizen, one who is more modern in the eyes of rulers, more globalization-ready, and better prepared for the post-petroleum era’.48 In so doing, she discusses at length the variety of educational, symbolic and rhetorical efforts of the Emirati state to engender nationalist sentiment of the

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type that is considered beneficial to the Emirati state, yet she largely overlooks that state’s tribal history. As she explains, ‘social engineers are succeeding in making citizens more proud and more nationalistic’49 as she discusses the ‘new paternalism’ of the state, which envisions itself as nudging its citizens towards change for their own good and using what she dubs ‘“feel good” nationalism.’50 Part of this nationalism and broader sense of khalījī identity has undoubtedly involved the reproduction of tribal tropes. We began this book with the goal of breaking down the meaning behind oft-repeated statements about the essentially tribal nature of the smaller states of the Arabian Peninsula. By first tracing the historical relationships between rulers of these states and their tribal populations, we revealed ways in which the state has helped to propagate certain tribal identities even in the modern era. We then assessed the ways in which heritage projects like those cited above invoke tribal identities, clarifying the extent to which they are produced as primarily state initiatives or from the grassroots. The book then focused on five areas of tribal influence in the present-day Arabian Peninsula: the social sector, the political sphere, the electoral arena, online through social media and in influencing non-tribal identities. In our examination of the role of tribes in Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE, we have found that qabīla in the twenty-first century remains potentially the most important determinant of social and political behaviour. It is therefore crucial that we continue to study the ways in which tribes have evolved and continue to adapt to new circumstances in the states they inhabit. Ultimately, tribalism as a concept remains very relevant in all the states of the Middle East, even though tribes themselves have limited power in stable states of the region like those studied here, wherein governments have taken over the functions that were once the purview of tribes. The relationship between tribe and state is therefore neither static nor predictable, and definitions of tribe, badū and qabīla can mean different things to different people at different times, being at once personal and communal. As a result, such markers often manifest themselves at the intersection of the state and the individual, making the continued study of this relationship all the more important to anthropologists, sociologists and political scientists alike.

Notes Chapter 1 Neil MacFarquhar, ‘Tahseen Bashir, Voice of Tolerance in Egypt, Dies at 77’, The New York Times, 13 June 2002, https://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/13/obituaries/ tahseen-bashir-voice-of-tolerance-in-egypt-dies-at-77.html. 2 Frauke Heard-Bey, ‘The Tribal Society of the UAE and Its Traditional Economy’, in United Arab Emirates: A New Perspective, ed. Ibrahim al-Abed (London: Trident Press, 2001), 101. 3 ‘Whispered Dissent in the UAE: No Sheikh Up There’, The Economist, 17 March 2012, https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2012/03/17/no-sheikhup-here. 4 Justin Gengler, Mark Tessler, Darwish al-Emadi, and Abdoulaye Diop, ‘Civic Life and Democratic Citizenship in Qatar: Findings from the First Qatar World Value Survey’, Middle East Law and Governance, vol. 5, no. 3 (2013): 7. 5 Scott J. Weiner, ‘Kinship Politics in the Gulf Arab States’, The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, Issue Paper 7, 22 July 2016, 3–4. 6 Richard Tapper, ‘Anthropologists, Historians, and Tribespeople on Tribe and State Formation in the Middle East’, in Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East, ed. Philip S. Khoury and Joseph Kostiner (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 56. 7 Philip S. Khoury and Joseph Kostiner, ‘Introduction: Tribes and the Complexities of State Formation in the Middle East’, in Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East, ed. Philip S. Khoury and Joseph Kostiner (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 5. 8 Dawn Chatty, ‘The Nature, Role and Impact of Bedouin Tribes in Contemporary Syria: Alternative Perceptions of Authority, Management and Control’, in Tribes and States in a Changing Middle East, ed. Uzi Rabi (London: Hurst, 2016), 146. 9 See Mark Allen, Arabs (London: Bloomsbury, 2007) for more on the differentiation of tribal lines along purity of descent. 10 Khalil AbdulKarim, Quraish: Min al Qabila Ia alDawla al Markaziya (London: Sina Books, 1993). 11 See, for instance, Gail Buttorf, ‘Coordination Failure and the Politics of Tribes: Jordan Elections under SNTV’, Electoral Studies, vol. 40 (2015): 45–55; Courtney Freer and Andrew Leber, ‘Defining the “Tribal Advantage” in Kuwaiti Politics’, Middle East Law and Governance (forthcoming). 1

Notes

165

12 Miriam Cooke, Tribal Modern: Branding New Nations in the Arab Gulf (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2014), 11. 13 Ibid., 10. 14 Ibn Khaldun’s the Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, translated by Franz Rosenthal, ed. N.J. Dawood (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969), 98–9. 15 Steve C. Caton, ‘Anthropological Theories of Tribe and State Formation in the Middle East: Ideology and Semiotics of Power’, in Tribe and State Formation in the Middle East, ed. Philip S. Khoury and Joseph Kostiner (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 87. 16 Charles Lindholm, ‘Kinship Structure and Political Authority: The Middle East and Central Asia’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 28, no. 2 (1986): 346. 17 William Thesiger, Crossing the Sands (Dubai: Motivate Publishing, 1999), 139. 18 Allen, 27. 19 Caton, 88. 20 Richard Tapper, 65. 21 Ibid., 68. 22 Khoury and Kostiner, 7. 23 Bassam Tibi, ‘The Simultaneity of the Unsimultaneous: Old Tribes and Imposed Nation-States in the Modern Middle East’, in Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East, 128. 24 Joseph Kostiner, ‘The Nation in Tribal Societies: Reflections on K.H. al-Naqib’s Studies on the Gulf ’, in Tribes and States in a Changing Middle East, ed. Uzi Rabi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 223. 25 Ibid., 224. 26 Steffen Hertog, Princes, Brokers, and Bureaucrats: Oil and the State in Saudi Arabia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011), 4. 27 Kostiner, 229. 28 Philip Carl Salzman, ‘Tribes and Modern States’, in Tribes and States in a Changing Middle East, 217. 29 Michael Ross, ‘Does Oil Hinder Democracy?’ World Politics, vol. 53, no. 3 (2001): 347. 30 Ibid., 334. 31 Ibid., 347. 32 Hootan Shambayati, ‘The Rentier State, Interest Groups, and the Paradox of Autonomy: State and Business in Turkey and Iran’, Comparative Politics, vol. 26, no. 3 (1994): 308. 33 Ibid., 310.

166

Notes

34 Courtney Freer, Rentier Islamism: The Influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gulf Monarchies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). 35 Cooke, 60–1. 36 Ibid., 63. 37 Khaldoun al-Naqeeb, ‘Political Tribalism and Legitimacy in the Arab Peninsula’, Paper presented to the Council on Foreign Relations, New York, January 1992, 2. 38 Ibid., 3. 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid., 4–5. 41 Ibid., 3. 42 Ibid., 6–7. 43 Ibid., 5. 44 Sulayman Khalaf and Hassan Hammoud, ‘The Emergence of the Oil Welfare State: The Case of Kuwait’, Dialectical Anthropology, vol. 12, no. 3 (1987): 349. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid., 351. 47 Ibid., 353. 48 Patricia Crone, ‘Tribes and States in the Middle East’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 3, no. 3 (1993): 357. 49 Ibid. 50 Khalaf and Hammoud, 346. 51 Ibid. 52 Ali Alshawi and Andrew Gardner, ‘Tribalism, Identity and Citizenship in Contemporary Qatar’, Anthropology of the Middle East, vol. 8, no. 2 (2013): 56. 53 Ibid., 56–7. 54 Cooke, 237. 55 Ali Alshawi and Gardner, 48–9. 56 Nadwa al-Dawsari, ‘Tribal Governance and Stability in Yemen’, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 2012, 4, http://carnegieendowment.org/ files/yemen_tribal_governance.pdf. 57 F. Gregory Gause III, Oil Monarchies: Domestic and Security Challenges in the Arab Gulf States (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1994), 11. 58 Ibid., 25. 59 Christopher M. Davidson, The United Arab Emirates: A Study in Survival (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005), 198. 60 Ibid., 198–9. 61 A. Ann Fyfe, ‘Wealth and Power: Political and Economic Change in the United Arab Emirates’ (PhD diss., Durham University, 1989), 14. 62 Ibid. 63 Shadi Hamid, ‘There Aren’t Protests in Qatar – So Why Did the Emir Just Announce Elections?’, The Atlantic, 1 November 2011, https://www.theatlantic.

Notes

167

com/international/archive/2011/11/there-arent-protests-in-qatar-so-why-did-theemir-just-announce-elections/247661/. 64 Abdulhadi Khalaf, ‘Rules of Succession and Political Participation in the GCC States’, in Constitutional Reform and Political Participation in the Gulf, ed. Gulf Research Center (Dubai: Gulf Research Center, 2006), 42. 65 Davidson, 199. 66 Eran Segal, ‘Political Participation in Kuwait: Dīwāniyya, Majlis and Parliament’, Journal of Arabian Studies, vol. 2, no. 2 (2012): 138–9. 67 Calvert Jones, Bedouins into Bourgeois: Remaking Citizens for Globalization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 11–12. 68 Ibid. 69 Courtney Freer, ‘Clients or Challengers?: Tribal Constituents in Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (2019): 1–20. DOI: 10.1080/13530194.2019.1605881. 70 Ibid., 20. 71 Ammar al Sanjari, Al-Bedu Bi’yoon Gharbiyeh (Beirut: Arab Cultural Center Publications, 2008). 72 Saud al Mutairi, ‘Relocating Our Popular National Heritage through the Writings of Western Explorers’, AlRiyadh, 27 June 2010, http://www.alriyadh.com/538518. 73 Mohammed al Bughaili, Al-Qabila wa-l-Sultah, Al-Hirak al-Siyassi al-Qabali fi-lKuwait, Afaq Books, 2012. 74 Abdelrahman al Ibrahim, Kuwait’s Politics before Independence: The Role of the Balancing Powers (Berlin: Gerlach, 2019). 75 Abdulrahman Alebrahim, ‘Problematising the Eurocentric Terminology in the Social History of the Gulf States’, LSE Middle East Centre Blog, 12 October 2020, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2020/10/12/problematising-the-eurocentricterminology-in-the-social-history-of-the-gulf-states/. 76 Michael Herb, ‘A Nation of Bureaucrats: Political Participation and Economic Diversification in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 41, no. 3 (2009): 376. 77 Ibid., 383. 78 Ibid., 382. 79 Michael Herb, The Wages of Oil: Parliaments and Economic Development in Kuwait and the UAE (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014), 2. 80 Freer, Rentier Islamism, 6–7. 81 A dīwāniyya (plural dīwāniyyāt) is an informal meeting, which has long been a part of Kuwaiti political life. Such gatherings, hosted by members of the ruling family, politicians, and private individuals, are most often convened in homes and cover topics ranging from social life to religious ideology to politics. With the Covid-19 crisis, many such gatherings have moved online, though tribal groups especially have continued to hold them in a physical space, defying governmental health measures that expressly forbid large gatherings.

168

Notes

82 The majlis (plural majālis), similar to Kuwait’s dīwāniyya, is a crucial element of civil society. Such meetings are hosted by rulers, as well as by private citizens.

Chapter 2 Mehran Kamrava, Qatar: Small State, Big Politics (Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, 2013), 110. 2 Ibid., 111. 3 Allen J. Fromherz, Qatar: A Modern History (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012), 18; Andrea B. Rugh, ‘Backgammon or Chess? The State of Tribalism and Tribal Leadership in the United Arab Emirates’, in Tribes and State in a Changing Middle East, 71. 4 Jill Crystal, Kuwait: The Transformation of an Oil State (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992). 5 Mohammed Suleiman Al-Haddad, ‘The Effect of Detribalization and Sedentarization on the Socio-Economic Structure of Tribes of the Arabian Peninsula: Ajman Tribe as a Case Study’ (PhD Diss., University of Kansas, 1981), 112–13. 6 Jacqueline S. Ismael, Kuwait: Dependency and Class in a Rentier State (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1993), 27. 7 Ibid., 23. 8 Ibid., 27. 9 Sultan al-Qassemi, ‘Tribalism in the Arabian Peninsula: It Is a Family Affair’, Jadaliyya, 1 February 2012, http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/4198/tribalismin-the-arabian-peninsula_it-is-a-family-. 10 Crystal, Kuwait, 75. 11 Ismael, 27. 12 Mary Ann Tetreault, Stories of Democracy: Politics and Society in Contemporary Kuwait (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 34. 13 Helen Mary Rizzo, Islam, Democracy, and the Status of Women: The Case of Kuwait (New York: Routledge, 2005), 11. 14 Crystal, Kuwait. 15 Al-Shamlan, Qtd. in Ismael, 35. 16 Hussein Sheikh Khaz’al, tarikh al-kuwait al-siyasi, Vol. 1, (Kuwait: Dar al Hilal, 1962), 18. 17 Ismael, 49–50. 18 Crystal, Kuwait, 12–13. 19 Ibid., 13. 20 Ibid., 14. 21 Ibid. 1

Notes

169

22 Anthony B. Toth, ‘Tribes and Tribulations: Bedouin Losses in the Saudi and Iraqi Struggles over Kuwait’s Frontiers, 1921–1943’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 32, no. 2 (2005): 145–67. 23 Claire Beaugrand, ‘Borders and Spatial Imaginaries in the Kuwaiti Identity’, Geopolitics, vol. 23, no. 3 (2018): 551. 24 Ibid., 149. 25 Ibid., 153. 26 Beaugrand, 552. 27 William Facey, Riyadh the Old City from Its Origins until the 1950s (London: Muze Media, 1992), quoted in Saud al Mutairi, ‘The Relationship between the Desert and City Dwellers of Najd before the Unification of the Kingdom’, AlRiyadh, 17 December 2019, http://www.alriyadh.com/1793769. 28 Crystal, Kuwait, 18–19. 29 ‘Brief History of Kuwait Oil Company’, Kuwait Oil Company, 2012, https://www. kockw.com/sites/EN/pages/profile/history/koc-history.aspx. 30 Crystal, Kuwait, 19. 31 Farah al-Nakib, ‘Kuwait’s Modern Spectacle: Oil Wealth and the Making of a New Capital City, 1950–90’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, vol. 33, no. 1 (2013): 8. 32 Ibid., 7. 33 Anh Nga Longva, ‘Nationalism in Pre-Modern Guide: The Discourse on Hadhar and Bedu in Kuwait’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 38, no. 2 (2006): 172. 34 Ibid. 35 Christopher Davidson, Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 19. 36 Crystal, Kuwait, 176. 37 Farah al-Nakib, ‘Revisiting Hadar and Badu in Kuwait: Citizenship, Housing, and the Construction of a Dichotomy’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 46 (2014): 11. 38 Ibid., 11. 39 Ibid., 12. 40 Beaugrand, 556. 41 See Professor Abdulhadi al Ajmi’s responses in Al Qabas TV’s Amma B’ad Show on ‘Kursi al Qabila’ https://alqabas.com/watch/5801258-. 42 Hamad H. Albloshi, ‘Stateless in Kuwait’, The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, 8 November 2019, https://agsiw.org/stateless-in-kuwait/. 43 For more detailed discussion of this legislation and of the origins of the bidūn issue, see Albloshi. 44 Al-Nakib, ‘Revisiting Hadar and Badu in Kuwait’, 12. 45 Ibid., 12. 46 Ibid.

170

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47 Ibid., 20. 48 Ibid. 49 Longva, ‘Nationalism in Pre-Modern Guide’, 176. 50 Ibid., 182. 51 Al-Nakib, ‘Revisiting Hadar and Badu in Kuwait’. 52 Nathan J. Brown, qtd. in Jamie Etheridge, ‘Kuwaiti Tribes Turn Parliament to Own Advantage’, Financial Times, 2 February 2009, http://www.ft.com/cms/ s/0/65994920-f144-11dd-8790-0000779fd2ac.html#axzz3qcIBNCWf. 53 Ibid. 54 Al-Nakib, ‘Revisiting Hadar and Badu in Kuwait’, 24. 55 Alanoud Alsharekh, ‘Youth, Protest and the New Elite: Domestic Security and Dignity in Kuwait’, in The Changing Security Dynamics of the Persian Gulf, ed. Kristian Ulrichsen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). 56 Jill Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf: Rulers and Merchants in Kuwait and Qatar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 26. 57 Ibid., 26–7. 58 Historical Overview of Qatar, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Website https://mofa.gov. qa/en/qatar/history-of-qatar/historical-overview. 59 Ibid., 27. 60 Ibid. 61 Ibid. 62 Ibid. 63 Ibid., 27–8. 64 Ibid., 33. 65 Fromherz, 17. 66 Ibid., 18. 67 Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf, 5. 68 Ibid., 5. 69 Rosemarie Said Zahlan, The Creation of Qatar (London: Croom Helm, 1979), 16. 70 Ibid., 17. 71 Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf, 38. 72 Ibid., 28. 73 Ibid., 33. 74 Fromherz, 54. 75 Ibid. 76 Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf, 30–1. 77 J. E. Peterson, ‘Tribe and State in the Contemporary Arabian Peninsula’, LSE Middle East Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, 12 July 2018, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2018/07/12/tribe-and-state-in-the-contemporaryarabian-peninsula/. 78 Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf, 38.

Notes

171

79 History Repeating … How Abu Dhabi and Bahrain placed Qatar under siege 150 years ago https://www.aljazeera.net/midan/intellect/history/2018/9/18/ ‫أبوظبي‬-‫حاصرت‬-‫هكذا‬-‫يتكرر‬-‫التاريخ‬ 80 Ibid., 39. 81 Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf, 33. 82 Ibid., 140. 83 Ibid., 28. 84 Ibid., 17–18. 85 Fromherz, 58. 86 Ibid., 60. 87 Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf, 39. 88 Fromherz, 61. 89 Zahlan, The Creation of Qatar, 48. 90 Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf, 39. 91 Fromherz, 61. 92 Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf, 40. 93 Ibid., 40. 94 Fromherz, 52. 95 Ibid., 52. 96 Ibid., 62. 97 Ibid., 66. 98 Ibid., 70. 99 Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf, 17. 100 Zahlan, The Creation of Qatar, 23. 101 Crystal, 5. 102 Zahlan, The Creation of Qatar, 22. 103 Ibid., 23–4. 104 ‘QP History’, Qatar Petroleum, 2020, https://qp.com.qa/en/AboutQP/Pages/ QPHistory.aspx. 105 Kamrava, Qatar, 110. 106 Ghassan Alkhoja and Wael Zakout, ‘Land Sector Reform Is Key to Successful Diversification of Kuwait’s Economy’, Arab Voices, World Bank Blogs, 26 August 2019, https://blogs.worldbank.org/arabvoices/land-sector-reform-key-successfuldiversification-kuwait-economy. 107 Cynthia O-Murchu and Simeon Kerr, ‘Bahrain Land Deals Highlight Alchemy of Making Money from Sand’, Financial Times, 10 December 2014, https://www. ft.com/content/b6d081a2-74b8-11e4-8321-00144feabdc0. 108 Zahlan, The Creation of Qatar, 18. 109 Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf, 46. 110 Ibid., 47. 111 Ibid. 112 Ibid.

172

Notes

113 Ibid. 114 Fromherz, 138. 115 Ibid., 145. 116 Ibid. 117 Ibid., 62–3. 118 David Commins, The Gulf States: A Modern History (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012), 188. 119 Ibid., 188–9. 120 Fromherz, 157. 121 Article 17, Law No. 38 of 2005 on the acquisition of Qatar nationality 38.2005, 2005, https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/542975124.pdf. 122 Rizzo, 47. 123 Amnesty International Country Report, Kuwait 2019 https://www.amnesty.org/en/ countries/middle-east-and-north-africa/kuwait/report-kuwait/. 124 Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf, 40. 125 Ibid., 40–1. 126 Ibid., 41. 127 Ibid. 128 Ibid. 129 Ibid. 130 Ibid., 41–2. 131 Ibid. 132 Ibid. 133 Ibid., 47. 134 Ibid., 43. 135 Fromherz, 37. 136 Ibid. 137 Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf, 44. 138 Ibid., 44. 139 Ibid., 45. 140 Ibid. 141 Ibid. 142 Ibid. 143 Ibid., 48. 144 Ali A. Hadi Alshawi, Political Influence in the State of Qatar: Impact of Tribal Loyalty in Political Participation (PhD diss., Mississippi State University, 2002), 94. 145 Ibid. 146 Birol Baskan and Steven Wright, ‘Seeds of Change: Comparing State-Religion Relations in Qatar and Saudi Arabia’, Arab Studies Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 2 (2011): 96–111. 147 Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf, 49. 148 Ibid.

Notes

173

149 Ibid. 150 Ibid., 43. 151 Zahlan, The Creation of Qatar, 136. 152 Ibid., 136. 153 Zahlan, The Creation of Qatar, 136. 154 Fromherz. 155 Umm al Quwain, The Official Portal of the UAE Government, https://u.ae/en/aboutthe-uae/the-seven-emirates/umm-al-quwain. 156 Hendrik Van Der Meulen, The Role of Tribal and Kinship Ties in the Politics of the United Arab Emirates (PhD Thesis, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, 1997). 157 Davidson, 11. 158 Rugh, ‘Backgammon or Chess?’, 63. 159 Ibid. 160 Ibid. 161 Official website of Shaykh Mohammed bin Rashed al Maktoum https:// sheikhmohammed.ae/en-us/RulingFamilyDubai. 162 Website of the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in Washington DC https:// www.uae-embassy.org/about-uae/history/sheikh-zayed-bin-sultan-al-nahyanfounder-uae. 163 Davidson, 16. 164 Ibid., 19. 165 Ibid. 166 Ibid., 21. 167 Gause, 22–3. 168 Jill Crystal, ‘Civil Society in the Arabian Gulf ’, in Civil Society in the Middle East 2, ed. Augustus R. Norton (New York: E.J. Brill, 1996), 262. 169 Frauke Heard-Bey, From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates: A Society in Transition (London: Longman, 1982), 162. 170 Rugh, ‘Backgammon or Chess?’ 71. 171 Ibid. 64. 172 Ibid. 173 Ibid. 174 Ibid., 65. 175 Ibid. 176 Crystal, ‘Civil Society in the Arabian Gulf ’, 266. 177 Malcom Peck, ‘Formation and Evolution of the Federation and Its Institutions’, in Perspectives on the United Arab Emirates, ed. Edmund A. Ghareeb and Ibrahim alAbed (London: Trident Press, 1999), 123. 178 Ibid. 179 Davidson, 31.

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180 Ibid. 181 William A. Rugh, ‘The United Arab Emirates: What Are the Sources of Its Stability?’ Middle East Policy 5, no. 3 (1997): 18. 182 Davidson, 19. 183 Frauke Heard-Bey, ‘The United Arab Emirates: A Quarter Century of Federation’, in Middle East Dilemma: The Politics and Economics of Arab Integration, ed. Michael C. Hudson (London: I.B. Tauris), 148. 184 Rugh, ‘The United Arab Emirates’, 21. 185 Website of the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in Washington DC https:// www.uae-embassy.org/about-uae/history/sheikh-zayed-bin-sultan-al-nahyanfounder-uae. 186 Rosemarie Said Zahlan, The Origins of the United Arab Emirates (London: Macmillan, 1987), 191–2. 187 Website of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashed al Maktoum, https://sheikhmohammed. ae/en-us/baniyastribe. 188 Rugh, ‘Backgammon or Chess?’ 61. 189 Zahlan, The Origins of the United Arab Emirates, 192. 190 Davidson, 11. 191 Ibid., 12. 192 Ibid. 193 Heard-Bey, qtd. In Kaja Kuhl, ‘Urban Citizenship and the Right to the City in Cities in the United Arab Emirates’, SSIM Paper Series, vol. 11 (2012): 10. 194 Rugh, ‘Backgammon or Chess?’ 62. 195 Ibid. 196 Zahlan, The Origins of the United Arab Emirates, 14–15. 197 Ibid. 198 Sultan Mohammed al Qassimi, The Myth of Arab Piracy in the Gulf (Routledge, 1988). 199 Rugh, ‘Backgammon or Chess?’ 63. 200 Ibid. 201 Ibid. 202 Ibid., 64. 203 Peck, 123. 204 Ibid., 124. 205 Davidson, 29–30. 206 Ibid., 30. 207 Ibid. 208 Zahlan, The Origins of the United Arab Emirates, 31. 209 Davidson, 44–5. 210 Peck, 128. 211 Rugh, ‘Backgammon or Chess?’ 67. 212 Ibid.

Notes

175

213 Ibid. 214 ‘Our History’, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, 2019, https://adnoc.ae/en/aboutus/our-history. 215 Davidson, 37. 216 Ibid. 217 Ibid., 39. 218 Frauke Heard-Bey, ‘The United Arab Emirates: A Quarter Century of Federation’, in The Arab Dilemma, ed. Michael Hudson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 147. 219 Manal A. Jamal, ‘The “Tiering” of Citizenship and Residency and the “Hierarchization” of Migrant Communities: The United Arab Emirates in Historical Context’, International Migration Review, vol. 39, no. 3 (2015): 602. 220 Heard-Bey, ‘The United Arab Emirates: A Quarter Century of Federation’, 147. 221 Ibid., 148. 222 Rugh, ‘Backgammon or Chess?’ 73. 223 Ibid., 71. 224 Ibid. 64. 225 Ibid., 71. 226 Ibid., 75. 227 Ibid., 76. 228 Ibid. 229 Heard-Bey, ‘The United Arab Emirates: A Quarter Century of Federation’, 135. 230 ‘Conference to Debate UAE National Identity’, Emirates 24/7, 7 April 2008, https:// www.emirates247.com/eb247/companies-markets/conference-to-debate-uaenational-identity-2008-04-07-1.216582. 231 Frauke Heard-Bey, ‘The United Arab Emirates: Statehood and Nation-Building in a Traditional Society’, The Middle East Journal, vol., 59, no. 3 (2005): 367. 232 Jones, Bedouins into Bourgeois, 38. 233 Thesiger, 139. 234 Helen Chapin Metz, ‘Tribal Nature of Gulf Society’, in Persian Gulf States; Qatar, ed. Helen Chapin Metz (Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 1993). 235 James Onley, Britain and the Gulf Shaikhdoms, 1820–1971: The Politics of Protection, Center for International and Regional Studies Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, Occasional Paper No. 4, 2009, 2.

Chapter 3 1

Khalaf and Hammoud, ‘The Emergence of the Oil Welfare State’, 343.

176 2

Notes

William and Fidelity Lancaster, ‘Tribal Formations in the Arabian Peninsula’, Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy, vol. 3, no. 3 (1992): 145–72. 3 Jonathan Fryer, Fueling Kuwait’s Development; The Story of Kuwait Oil Company (London: Stacey International, 2007), 17. 4 Khalaf and Hammoud, 345. 5 Thesiger, 128. 6 Ibid., 134. 7 ‘Tribal Society, Qatar’, Fanack Chronicles, 12 December 2016, https://fanack.com/ qatar/society-media-culture/society/tribal-society/. 8 David Commins, The Gulf States: A Modern History (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012), 150. 9 Fryer, 19. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid., 20. 12 ‘Tribal Families in Qatar’, Religious Literary Project, Harvard Divinity School, https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/faq/tribal-families-qatar. 13 Fryer, 20. 14 Ibid. 15 Laurent A. Lambert, ‘Water, State Power and Tribal Politics in the GCC’, Occasional Papers vol. 14, Center for International and Regional Studies, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service Qatar, 2014, 4. 16 Abdallah al Ghoneim, Transcripts from the Pearling Era (Kuwait City: Center for Research and Studies on Kuwait, 2017), 125. 17 Thesiger, 122. 18 ‘Tribal Society, Qatar’. 19 Fryer, 54. 20 Thesiger, 152. 21 Helen Chapin Metz, ‘Tribal Nature of Gulf Society’, Persian Gulf States; Qatar, Country Study Series, ed. Helen Chapin Metz (Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 1993). 22 Fryer, 21. 23 Lambert, 4. 24 Ibid. 25 Fryer, 24. 26 Ibid. 27 ‘Tribal Families in Qatar’. 28 Matthew S. Hopper, Slaves of One Master: Globalization and Slavery in Arabia in the Age of Empire (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015), 82. 29 Ibid., 11. 30 ‘The Multiple Roots of Emiratiness: The Cosmopolitan History of Emirati Society’, Open Democracy, 15 February 2018, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyondtrafficking-and-slavery/the-multiple-roots-of-emiratiness/.

Notes

177

31 ‘Bin Jelmood House’, Msheireb Museums, 2021, https://www.msheirebmuseums. com/en/about/bin-jelmood-house/. 32 Thesiger, 139. 33 Khalaf and Hammoud, 349. 34 Fryer, 25. 35 ‘Tribal Families in Qatar’. 36 Fryer, 28. 37 Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf, 112. 38 Fryer, 27. 39 Ibid., 37. 40 Thesiger, 31. 41 Ibid., 30. 42 Ibid., 149. 43 Ibid., 130. 44 Fryer, 20. 45 Author’s Interview, Kuwait, 26 September 2017. 46 Author’s interview with Dr Abdallah al Ghunaim, 20 December 2018. 47 Al Rashoud, Claudia Farkas, Dame Violet Dickson: ‘Umm Saud’s’ Fascinating Life in Kuwait from 1929–1990 (Kuwait: al-Alfain Printing Press, 1997). 48 Khoury and Kostiner, 8. 49 ‘Tribal Society, Qatar’. 50 Al-Nakib, ‘Revisiting Hadar and Badu in Kuwait’. 51 Ernest Gellner, ‘Cohesion and Identity: The Maghreb from Ibn Khaldoun to Emile Durkheim’, in Muslim Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 89. 52 Bassam Tibi, ‘The Simultaneity of the Unsimultaneous: Old Tribes and the Imposed Nation-State in the Modern Middle East’, in Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East, ed. Phillip Khoury and Joseph Kostiner (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990), 127.v 53 Freer, Rentier Islamism. 54 Khoury and Kostiner, 9. 55 Anna Zacharias, ‘Tribes in Show of Unity with the Government’, The National, 2 May 2011, https://www.thenational.ae/uae/tribes-in-show-of-unity-withgovernment-1.440622. 56 ‘Qatar Revokes Citizenship of Tribal Leader, Poet’, Saudi Gazzete, 1 October 2017, https://saudigazette.com.sa/article/518415. 57 ‘55 Members of Al Murrah Tribe Stripped of Citizenship’, Economist Intelligence Unit, 25 September 2017, http://country.eiu.com/article.aspx?articleid=1165924500 &Country=Qatar&topic=Politics&subtopic=Fo_5. 58 ‘Tribal Society, Qatar’.

178

Notes

59 Kostiner, 224. 60 Khoury and Kostiner, 2. 61 Abdallah al Ghoneim, 104. 62 Al-Qassemi, ‘Tribalism in the Arabian Peninsula’. 63 Thesiger, 31. 64 Ibid. 65 Khalil Haidar, ‘Dr Omar al Dosari and the Social Situation in Kuwait (9/10)’ AlJarida, 25 February 2017, https://www.aljarida.com/ext/articles/ print/1495646970367188600/. 66 ‘Tribal Families in Qatar’. 67 Alshawi and Gardner, 53. 68 Sara Assami, ‘Tribes and Neighborhoods’, Building Doha, 7 February 2017, http://sites.northwestern.edu/buildingdoha/2017/02/07/tribes-andneighborhoods/. 69 Sheikha bin Jasim (@SheikhaBinJasim) Twitter, 12 September 2019, https://twitter. com/ShaikhaBinjasim/status/1172013315104608256?s=08. 70 Mohammed Bazzi, ‘The Tribal System Is Iraq’s Key Asset in the Fight against ISIL’, The National, 15 October 2014, https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/the-tribalsystem-is-iraq-s-key-asset-in-the-fight-against-isil-1.605889.

Chapter 4 1

2

3 4 5

6 7 8 9

Eric Hobsbawm, ‘Introduction: Inventing Traditions’, in The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 1. Dawn Chatty, ‘Rituals of Royalty and the Elaboration of Ceremony in Oman: View from the Edge’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 41, no. 1 (2001): 39–40. Neil Partrick, ‘Nationalism in the Gulf States’, LSE Kuwait Programme, October 2009, 16, http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/55257/1/Patrick_2009.pdf. Cooke, 85. Natalie Koch, ‘Gulf Nationalism and the Geopolitics of Constructing Falconry as a “Heritage Sport”’, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, vol. 15, no. 3 (2015): 523. Ibid., 528. Ibid., 537. Sulayman Khalaf, ‘Poetics and Politics of Newly Invented Traditions in the Gulf: Camel Racing in the United Arab Emirates’, Ethnology, vol. 39, no. 3 (2000): 244. Ibid., 249.

Notes

179

10 Thesiger, 30. 11 Ibid., 31 12 Facey, Riyadh the Old City from Its Origins until the 1950s, quoted in Saud al Mutairi, ‘The Relationship between the Desert and City Dwellers of Najd before the Unification of the Kingdom’, AlRiyadh, 17 December 2019, http://www.alriyadh. com/1793769. 13 Author’s interview conducted in Kuwait, 6 October 2014. 14 Sulayman Khalaf, ‘National Dress and the Construction of Emirati Cultural Identity’, Journal of Human Sciences, no. 11 (2005): 235. 15 ‘The Shamagh in Summer Is a Foreign Phenomena That Is Intrusive on Kuwaiti Society, Only Bedouins Wear It’, Sabr Newspaper, 11 May 2011, http://www.sabr. cc/2011/05/11/3887/. 16 Rana Khalid Almutawa, ‘National Dress in the UAE: Constructions of Authenticity’, New Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 6 (2016): 3. 17 Idil Akinci, ‘Dressing the Nation? Symbolizing Emirati National Identity and Boundaries through National Dress’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 43, no. 10 (2019): 14. 18 Anh Nga Longva, ‘Kuwaiti Women at a Crossroads: Privileged Development and the Constraints of Ethnic Stratification’, in Arab Society: Class, Gender, Power and Development, eds. Nicholas S. Hopkins and Saad Eddin Ibrahim (Cairo: University of Cairo Press, 1997), 413. 19 Hazem Beblawi, ‘The Rentier State in the Arab World’, in The Rentier State: Nation, State and Integration in the Arab World, eds. Hazem Beblawi and Giacomo Luciani (London: Croom Helm, 1987), 52. 20 Karen Exell and Trinidad Rico, ‘“There Is No Heritage in Qatar”: Orientalism, Colonialism and Other Problematic Histories’, World Archaeology, vol. 45, no. 4 (2013): 670–1 21 Ibid., 674. 22 Ibid., 676. 23 Ibid. 24 Matthew Gray, ‘Heritage, Public Space, and Cosmopolitanism in Contemporary Dubai and Qatar’, Journal of Islamic Area Studies, vol. 9 (2017): 9. 25 Ibid. 26 Exell and Rico, 674–5. 27 Gabriella Elgenius, ‘National Museums as National Symbols: A Survey of Strategic Nation-Building and Identity Politics; Nations as Symbolic Regimes’, in National Museums and Nation-Building in Europe, 1750–2010, ed. Peter Aronsson and Gabriella Elgenius (London: Routledge, 2015), 146. 28 Rania Kamla and Clare Roberts, ‘The Global and the Local: Arabian Gulf States and Imagery in Annual Reports’, Accountancy, Auditing and Accountancy Journal, vol. 23, no. 4 (2010): 471.

180

Notes

29 ‘Haydoo.Our Camel, Lovely Camel’, 248am, 4 December 2006,https://248am.com/ mark/interesting/haydoo-our-camel-lovely-camel/. 30 Ibid. 31 Kuwait’s National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, 2020, https://www.nccal. gov.kw/pages/monumentsandmuseums/kuwaitmuseums. 32 Kristy Norman, ‘Intangible Challenges in the Management of Tangible Cultural Heritage in Kuwait’, Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites, vol. 16, no. 2 (2014): 136–7. 33 Ibid., 136. 34 David Langdon, ‘AD Classics: Kuwait National Assembly Building/Jorn Utzon’, Arch Daily, 20 November 2014, https://www.archdaily.com/568821/ad-classics-kuwaitnational-assembly-building-jorn-utzon. 35 Ibid. 36 Al-Nakib, ‘Kuwait’s Modern Spectacle’, 9. 37 Ibid., 11. 38 Ibid., 24. 39 Ibid., 25. 40 Ibid., 24. 41 Sulayman Khalaf, ‘The Nationalisation of Culture: Kuwait’s Invention of a PearlDiving Heritage’, in Popular Culture and Political Identity in the Arab Gulf States, ed. Alanoud Alsharekh and Robert Springborg (London: Saqi in association with SOAS, 2008), 63. 42 Ibid., 68. 43 Erik Gilbert, ‘The Dhow as Cultural Icon: Heritage and Regional Identity in the Western Indian Ocean’, International Journal of Heritage Studies, vol. 17, no. 1 (2011): 64. 44 Norman, 138, 141. 45 ‘UNESCO Adds Kuwait’s Al-Saudi Weaving to Intangible Heritage List’, Kuwait News Agency, 16 December 2020, https://www.kuna.net.kw/ArticleDetails.aspx?id =2946053&language=en. 46 Author’s interview with Sheikha Altaf al Sabah, Kuwait, September 2014. 47 Norman, 141. 48 Radhika Lakshminarayanan, ‘Heritage Tourism in Kuwait: Prospects for Economic Diversification’, Journal of Arabian Studies, vol. 9, no. 1 (2019): 92–112. 49 Ibid., 99. 50 ‘All Tours’, Madeenah, http://www.madeenahkw.co/all-tours. 51 Mai al-Farhan, ‘Madeenah: Exploring Urban Development in Kuwait City’, The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, 20 March 2017, https://agsiw.org/ madeenah-exploring-urban-development-kuwait-city/. 52 Anh Nga Longva, ‘Kuwaiti Women at a Crossroads: Privileged Development and the Constraints of Ethnic Stratification’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 25, no. 2 (1993): 414.

Notes

181

53 Exell and Rico, 681. 54 Suzi Mirgani, ‘Consumer Citizenship: National Identity and Museum Merchandise in Qatar’, Middle East Journal, vol. 73, no. 4 (2019): 564. 55 Alexandra Bounia, ‘The Desert Rose as a New Symbol for the Nation: Materiality, Heritage and the Architecture of the New National Museum of Qatar’, Heritage and Society, vol. 11, no. 3 (2018): 211. 56 Ibid., 225. 57 ‘Mohammed bin Jassim House’, Msheireb Museums, 2020, https://www. msheirebmuseums.com/en/about/mohammed-bin-jassim-house/. 58 ‘Company House’, Msheireb Museums, 2020, https://www.msheirebmuseums.com/ en/about/company-house/. 59 ‘About Katara’, Katara, 2020, https://katara.net/About-Katara. 60 Ibid. 61 See, for instance, David B. Roberts, Qatar: Securing the Global Ambitions of a CityState (London: Hurst, 2017). 62 Shannon Mattern, ‘Font of a Nation: Creating a National Graphic Identity for Qatar’, Public Culture, vol. 20, no. 2 (2008): 484. 63 Heard-Bey, ‘Statehood and Nation-Building’, 367. 64 Ibid., 375. 65 Sarina Wakefield, ‘Museum Development in the Gulf: Narrative and Architecture’, Architectural Design, vol. 85, no. 1 (2015): 26. 66 Bounia, 214. 67 Ibid., 216. 68 Ibid., 219. 69 Ibid., 217. 70 Sarina Wakefield, ‘Falconry as Heritage in the United Arab Emirates’, World Archaeology, vol. 44, no. 2 (2012): 283. 71 Ibid. 72 Bikramaditya K. Choudhary and Nian Paul, ‘Transforming Dubai: Oasis to Tourist’s Paradise’, Contemporary Review of the Middle East, vol. 5, no. 4 (2018): 353. 73 Shaykh Rashid bin Saeed al-Maktoum, Qtd. in ‘Youth Must Pay Heed to Our Leader’s Advice’, The National, 12 March 2017, https://www.thenationalnews.com/ opinion/youth-must-pay-heed-to-our-leader-s-advice-1.62743. 74 Choudhary and Paul, 352. 75 Ibid., 354. 76 Djamel Boussaa, ‘A Future to the Past: The Case of Fareej Al-Bastakia in Dubai, UAE’, Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, vol. 36 (2006): 125–38. 77 Matthew Maclean, ‘Suburbanization, National Space and Place, and the Geography of Heritage in the UAE’, Journal of Arabian Studies, vol. 7, no. 2 (2017): 175.

182

Notes

78 Oliver James Picton, ‘Usage of the Concept of Culture and Heritage in the United Arab Emirates – An Analysis of Sharjah Heritage Area’, Journal of Heritage Tourism, vol. 5, no. 1 (2010): 80. 79 Khalaf, ‘Poetics and Politics of Newly Invented Traditions in the Gulf ’, 244. 80 Ibid., 246–7. 81 Ibid., 249. 82 Samuel Spencer, ‘Million’s Poet: Abu Dhabi’s Prestigious Poetry’, Culture Trip, 1 November 2016, https://theculturetrip.com/middle-east/united-arab-emirates/ articles/million-s-poet-abu-dhabi-s-prestigious-poetry-program/. 83 Norman, 141. 84 ‘Nabati Poetry’, Website of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid https:// sheikhmohammed.ae/en-us/nabatipoetry. 85 ‘Poetry’, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, 2020, https:// sheikhmohammed.ae/en-us/Poetry?Category=Latest%20Poems. 86 ‘Khalid al-Faisal, sha’er l-i-l-“amra” wa amir al-shu’ara’ katab fi-al-hub wa-al-hikma wa-l-ghazal wa-al-hamasat al-watania [Khalid al-Faisal, the poet of princes and prince of poets, wrote about love, wisdom, and patriotism]’, AlKhaleej, 4 November 2015, https://www.alkhaleej.ae/-‫والحكمة‬-‫في‬-‫كتب‬-‫الشعراء‬-‫وأمير‬ ‫األمراء‬-‫شاعر‬-‫الفيصل‬-‫خالد‬/‫ملحق‬-‫الوطنية‬-‫والحماسة‬-‫والغزل‬-‫الحب‬ 87 Khalaf, ‘Poetics and Politics of Newly Invented Traditions in the Gulf ’, 244. 88 The Barjeel; the Air of an Authentic Era, AlKhaleej, 19 May 2019, https://www. alkhaleej.ae/2020-05-19/ «‫»لبراجيل‬-‫هواء‬-‫الزمن‬-‫األصيل‬/‫ملحق‬-‫الصائم‬/‫مالحق‬-‫الخليجا‬. 89 MacLean, 170. 90 Ibid., 172. 91 Ibid., 173. 92 Ibid., 168. 93 Picton, 77. 94 Sophia al Maria, ‘The Way of the Ostrich or How to Not to Resist Modernity’, Bidoun, Issue 11 (Summer 2007), http://bidoun.org/articles/the-way-of-theostrich-or-how-not-to-resist-modernity. 95 Ibid. 96 Hossein Askari, Conflicts in the Persian Gulf: Origins and Evolutions (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 47. 97 Exell and Rico, 680. 98 Assami. 99 For examples from Qatar, see Assami; for examples from Kuwait, see Farah al-Nakib, Kuwait Transformed: A History of Oil and Urban Life (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2016). 100 Thesiger, 13.

Notes

183

101 Partrick, 34. 102 ‘Why Arab Women Still Have No Voice’, Interview with Amal al Malki, Al Jazeera English, 21 April 2012, http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/ talktojazeera/2012/04/201242111373249723.html. 103 ‘Tribal Nature of Gulf Society.’ 104 Kuwait Credit Bank, 2020, https://www.kcb.gov.kw/sites/arabic/Pages/SocialLoans. aspx. 105 Neha Vora and Natalie Koch, ‘Everyday Inclusions: Rethinking Ethnocracy, Kafala, and Belonging in the Arabian Peninsula’, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, vol. 15, no. 3 (2015): 548. 106 Ibid., 549. 107 Anh Nga Longva, ‘Neither Autocracy nor Democracy but Ethnocracy: Citizens, Expatriates and the Socio-Political System in Kuwait’, in Monarchies and Nations: Globalisation and Identity in the Arab States of the Gulf, ed. Paul Dresch and James Piscatory (London: I.B. Tauris, 2005), 119. 108 Ahmed al-Naqeeb, ‘MP Safa al-Hashem Renews Call to Tax Expats Pockets, Tap Remittances’, Arab Times, 17 September 2019, https://www.arabtimesonline. com/news/mp-safa-al-hashem-renews-call-to-tax-expats-pockets-tapremittances/. 109 ‘Kuwaiti MP Reportedly Receives “Death Threat” for Anti-Expat Remarks’, Gulf Business, 18 September 2019, https://gulfbusiness.com/kuwaiti-mp-reportedlyreceives-death-threat-anti-expat-remarks/. 110 ‘Ministry Announces Expat Health Fees Increase Today’, Kuwait Times, 1 September 2017, https://news.kuwaittimes.net/website/ministry-announces-expathealth-fees-increase-today/. 111 ‘Kuwait Parliament Committee Approves Fees on Remittance by Expatriates’, The Peninsula, 2 April 2018, https://thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/02/04/2018/Kuwaitparliament-committee-approves-fees-on-remittance-by-expatriates. 112 ‘Kuwait Introduces New $830 Fee for Companies Employing “Excess” Foreigners’, Gulf Business, 5 September 2017, https://gulfbusiness.com/kuwait-introduces-new830-fee-companies-employing-excess-foreigners/. 113 B Izzak, ‘Work Permit, Transfer Fees Raised up to KD50 – All Kuwaitis, Farms, Industries Exempt from New Power Tariffs’, Kuwait Times, 19 April 2016, https:// news.kuwaittimes.net/website/work-permit-transfer-fees-raised-kd-50/. 114 Jamie Etheridge, Simeon Kerr, and Andrew England, ‘“They want us to leave” – Foreign Workers under Pressure in the Gulf ’, Financial Times, 28 July 2020, https:// www.ft.com/content/77c2d7db-0ade-4665-9cb8-c82b72c2da66. 115 ‘Kuwait Vows to Slash Expat Population from 70 to 30 Percent’, Arabian Business, 4 June 2020, https://www.arabianbusiness.com/politics-economics/447747-kuwaitvows-to-slash-expat-population-from-70-to-30-percent.

184

Notes

116 Saeed Mahmoud Saleh, ‘Reducing Expats from Kuwait Bill Finalized; Maids Exempted’, Arab Times, 21 September 2020, https://www.arabtimesonline.com/ news/assembly-panel-finalizes-report-on-demographics-bill-domestics-exempt/. 117 Margherita Stancati, ‘Saudi Crown Prince and UAE Heir Forge Pivotal Ties’, The Wall Street Journal, 6 August 2017, https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-crownprince-and-u-a-e-heir-forge-pivotal-ties-1502017202. 118 Khalaf, ‘Poetics and Politics of Newly Invented Traditions in the Gulf ’. 119 Khalaf, ‘The Nationalization of Culture: Kuwait’s Invention of Pearl Diving Heritage’. 120 Salzman, 217. 121 See Kuwait’s National Curriculum Social Studies historical references for examples from al Jahra Battle and others. 122 ‘The Story of the UAE’, Zayed University website, 2020 www.zu.ac.ae/main/en/ careers/living/story.aspx. 123 UAE participates at Morocco festival to celebrate Bedouin culture, Dubai 92, 12 May 2016, http://dubai92.com/uae-participates-at-morocco-festival-to-celebratebedouin-culture. 124 Pamela Erskine-Loftus et al., Representing the Nation: Heritage, Museums, National Narratives, and Identity in Arabian Gulf States (London: Routledge, 2016). 125 Ali Mazrui, Cultural Engineering and Nation Building in East Africa (Chicago: Northwestern University Press, 1972), 278.

Chapter 5 Dale F. Eickelman, ‘Tribes and Tribal Identity in the Arab Gulf States’, in The Emergence of the Gulf States: Studies in Modern History, ed. J. E. Peterson (London: Bloomsbury, 2016), 226. 2 Freer, Rentier Islamism. 3 Eickelman, 237. 4 Exell and Rico, 676. 5 Abdul Rahman H. Al Said, ‘The Transition from a Tribal Society to a Nation State’, in Saudi Arabia: A Modern Reader, ed. Winberg Chai (Indianapolis: University of Indianapolis Press, 2005), 84. 6 Madawi Al Rasheed, ‘Dubai: Global City and Trans-national Hub’, in Transnational Connections and the Arab Gulf, ed. Roland Marshal (London: Routledge, 2005), 93. 7 Assami. 8 Gengler, Tessler, Al-emadi, and Diop, 7. 9 Alshawi and Gardner, 54. 1

Notes 10 11 12 13

185

Ibid., 54. Ibid., 56–7. Gengler, Tessler, Al-Emadi, and Diop, 7. ‘Kuwait Vision 2035 New Kuwait’, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the State of Kuwait, 2019, https://www.mofa.gov.kw/en/kuwait-state/kuwait-vision-2035/ 14 Ibid. 15 ‘Qatar National Vision 2030’, 2020, https://www.gco.gov.qa/en/about-qatar/ national-vision2030/. 16 Ibid. 17 ‘UAE Vision 2021’, 2020, https://www.vision2021.ae/docs/default-source/defaultdocument-library/uae_vision-arabic.pdf?sfvrsn=b09a06a6_6. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. 22 Ruth Michaelson, ‘“It’s Being Built on Our Blood”: The True Cost of Saudi Arabia’s $500bn Megacity’, The Guardian, 4 May 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/ global-development/2020/may/04/its-being-built-on-our-blood-the-true-cost-ofsaudi-arabia-5bn-mega-city-neom. 23 Alshawi and Gardner, 48. 24 Mark Allen, Arabs (London: Continuum Press, 2006), 16. 25 Musaed al-Hajery (Musaid_Alhajery), Twitter, 11 September 2020, https://twitter. com/musaed_alhajery/status/1304352996428480512?s=12. 26 Martha Mundy and Basim Musallam, The Transformation of Nomadic Society in the Arab East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 85. 27 Shafeeq Ghabra, ‘Kuwait and the Dynamics of Socio-economic Change’, in Crises in the Contemporary Persian Gulf, ed. Barry Rubin (London: Routledge, 2002), 113. 28 Ibid.,114. 29 Mona Kareem, ‘Kuwait Targets Opposition by Revoking Citizenship’, Al-Monitor, 3 October 2014, https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/10/kuwaitopposition-citizenship-revoked.html. 30 Patrick Wintour, ‘Gulf Plunged into Diplomatic Crisis as Countries Cut Ties with Qatar’, The Guardian, 5 June 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ jun/05/saudi-arabia-and-bahrain-break-diplomatic-ties-with-qatar-over-terrorism. 31 ‘UN Receives Letter from Qatari Tribe Accusing Doha of Discrimination’, The National, 17 September 2018, https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/un-receivesletter-from-qatari-tribe-accusing-doha-of-discrimination-1.771240. 32 Ibid. 33 ‘Sheikh Sultan: Qatar Tribe Expulsion World’s Largest Proportionate Displacement’, Al Arabiya, 18 September 2018, https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/

186

Notes

gulf/2018/09/18/Sheikh-Sultan-Qatar-tribe-deportation-is-world-s-largest-forceddisplacement.html. 34 ‘Qatar Accused of Building World Cup Stadiums on Land Stolen from Persecuted Tribe’, Arab News, 24 September 2018, http://www.arabnews.com/node/1377201/ middle-east. 35 ‘Qatar Tribe Details Violations at Doha’s Hands’, Gulf News, 20 September 2018, https://gulfnews.com/world/gulf/qatar/qatar-tribe-details-violations-at-dohashands-1.2280761. 36 Ibid. 37 ‘Qatar: Families Arbitrarily Stripped of Citizenship’, Human Rights Watch, 12 May 2019, https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/05/12/qatar-families-arbitrarily-strippedcitizenship. 38 Al-Qassemi, ‘Tribalism in the Arabian Peninsula’. 39 James M. Dorsey, ‘Saudi-UAE Push to Mobilize Tribes against Qatari Emir’, Huffington Post, 19 November 2017, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/saudiuae-push-to-mobilize-tribes-against-qatari-emir_us_5a1105eae4b0e30a958507c3. 40 Ibid. 41 Liz Sly, ‘Princely Feuds in the Persian Gulf Thwart Trump’s Efforts to Resolve the Qatar Dispute’, The Washington Post, 13 May 2018, https://www.washingtonpost. com/world/princely-feuds-in-the-persian-gulf-thwart-trumps-efforts-to-resolvethe-qatar-dispute/2018/05/13/7853cc88-39cf-11e8-af3c-2123715f78df_story. html?utm_term=.799fee49fbdf. 42 History Repeating … How Abu Dhabi and Bahrain placed Qatar under siege 150 years ago https://www.aljazeera.net/midan/intellect/history/2018/9/18/ ‫التاريخ‬-‫يتكرر‬-‫هكذا‬-‫حاصرت‬-‫أبوظبي‬ 43 Dorsey. 44 Ibid. 45 ‘Qatari Members of One of the Largest GCC Tribe Renews Loyalty to the Emir’, The Peninsula, 10 June 2017, https://thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/10/06/2017/Qatarimembers-of-one-of-the-largest-GCC-tribe-renews-loyalty-to-the-Emir. 46 ‘Tribes Pledge Loyalty to Emir’, The Peninsula, 19 December 2017, https://www. thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/19/12/2017/Tribes-pledge-loyalty-to-Emir. 47 ‘One-Year Blockade against Qatar: Revisiting the Identity in Qatar between Tribal and National’, Through Nawal’s Eyes, 31 May 2018, https://nawalaqeel.wordpress. com/2018/05/31/one-year-blockade-against-qatar-revisiting-the-identity-in-qatarbetween-tribal-and-national/. 48 ‘Qatari National Arbitrarily Held Incommunicado’, Amnesty International, 18 June 2018, https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/MDE2385812018ENGLISH. pdf. 49 ‘Saudi Poet Dies in Algeria Ambush’, BBC News, 29 November 2003, http://news. bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3249672.stm.

Notes

187

50 Al-Qassemi, ‘Tribalism in the Arabian Peninsula’. 51 @hhshkmohd Instagram account, 27 June 2017, https://www.instagram.com/p/ BV2P3oQDTG7/. 52 Eickelman, 236–7. 53 Hala Khalaf, ‘Two Television Shows, One Goal – To Revive Arabic Poetry’, The National, 27 January 2015, https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/two-televisionshows-one-goal-to-revive-arabic-poetry-1.117011. 54 Maryam al-Kuwari, ‘The Use of Shela Poetry in the Gulf Crisis and Its Impact on the Qatari National Character’, Talk presented at Gulf Studies Forum, Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, December 2018, https://www.dohainstitute. org/en/Events/Gulf_Studies_Forum/Fifth-Round/Pages/VideoGalleryPage. aspx?VideoFolder=theme1-session5&speakerID=37263. 55 ‘The Way Some People Talk’, The National, 13 April 2016, https://www.pressreader. com/uae/the-national-news/20160413/281539405119416. 56 Anna Zacharias, ‘In the Northern Emirates, Sword Dancing Connects People to Their Past’, The National, 30 January 2018, https://www.thenational.ae/uae/in-thenorthern-emirates-sword-dancing-connects-people-to-their-past-1.700267. 57 ‘The Ardha: A Show of Nobility’, Qatar Tribune, 7 May 2017, http://www.qatartribune.com/news-details/id/63144. 58 ‘How Qatar Has Moved Camel Racing into the 21st Century’, The Telegraph, 3 October 2018, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/24-hours-in-qatar/camel-racing/. 59 ‘The Treasured Sport of Falconry in the United Arab Emirates’, CNN, 2 February 2017, https://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/01/middleeast/gallery/falconry-uae/index. html. 60 Shambayati, 310. 61 Alshawi and Gardner, 56. 62 Author’s interview with Shafeeq Ghabra, Kuwait City, 27 September 2014. 63 Lambert, 7. 64 Author’s interview with Dr Ali al Zoghbi, Kuwait City, 10 September 2014. 65 ‘Poetic Beats’, Al Riyadh Newspaper, 9 July 2011, http://www.alriyadh.com/648941. 66 ‘Kuwait’s Largest Tribe Defies Election Boycott’, Gulf News, 24 June 2013, https://gulfnews.com/world/gulf/kuwait/kuwaits-largest-tribe-defies-electionboycott-1.1201204. 67 ‘Awazem Swiftly Raise 10 Million in Blood Money’, Kuwait Times, 30 April 2019, https://news.kuwaittimes.net/website/awazem-swiftly-raise-kd-10m-in-blood-money/. 68 Ibid. 69 See Almajliss Twitter account, 26 April 2019, https://twitter.com/almajlliss/status/ 1121885697860829189?lang=en. 70 ‘450, 000 KD Pledged to the Awazem Fundraising Drive’, AlRai Newspaper, 18 April 2019, https://www.alraimedia.com/Home/Details?id=11ebc45c-860a-4ff2-aeae17200bc1198d.

188

Notes

71 Author’s interview with Mohammed al Murr, Kuwait City, December 2018. 72 Ibid. 73 Ibid. 74 Kate Conolly, ‘Qatar’s Dynamic Young Artists Showcased in Major Berlin Exhibition’, The Guardian, 10 December 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/ artanddesign/2017/dec/10/qatars-dynamic-young-arists-showcased-in-majorberlin-exhibition. 75 ‘Kuwait: Government Critics Stripped of Citizenship’, Human Rights Watch, 19 October 2014, https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/19/kuwait-government-criticsstripped-citizenship. 76 ‘Kuwait Reinstates Revoked Citizenships’, Gulf News, 23 October 2018, https://gulfnews.com/world/gulf/kuwait/kuwait-reinstates-revokedcitizenships-1.2292862. 77 Maryam al-Kuwari, ‘Tribe and Tribalism: The Trojan Horse of GCC States?’ in Divided Gulf: The Anatomy of a Crisis, ed. Andreas Krieg (London: Palgrave, 2019), 38. 78 Ibid., 38. 79 Ibid., 50–1. 80 From the @mutairikoc Twitter account (2019), now closed.

Chapter 6 1 2

Ross, 334. Mohamad Al Ississ and Samer Atallah, ‘Patronage and Electoral Behavior: Evidence from Egypt First Presidential Elections’, European Journal of Political Economy, vol. 37 (2015): 17. 3 Ibid. 4 Herb, The Wages of Oil, 21. 5 A. Saleh, ‘Kuwaitis Make Up 74 Percent of Public Sector Employees’, Kuwait Times, 19 February 2017, http://news.kuwaittimes.net/website/kuwaitis-make-74-percentpublic-sector-employees/. 6 Jueun Choi, ‘Qatarisation: Qataris to Fill 60 Percent of Workforce in StateOwned Private Sector Companies’, Doha News, 8 July 2020, https://medium.com/ dohanews/qatarisation-qataris-to-fill-60-percent-of-workforce-in-state-ownedprivate-sector-companies-ea8e149bed81. 7 ‘Salary Hopes of Emiratis Now “More Aligned to Expats” – Hays’, Arabian Business, 14 September 2019, https://www.arabianbusiness.com/politics-economics/427060salary-expectations-of-emiratis-now-more-aligned-to-expats.

Notes 8

189

Carolina De Miguel, Amaney Jamal, and Mark Tessler, ‘Elections in the Arab World: Why Do Citizens Turn Out?’ Comparative Political Studies, vol. 48, no. 11 (2015): 25. 9 Ibid., 25. 10 Ellen Lust, ‘Competitive Clientelism in the Middle East’, Journal of Democracy, vol. 20, no. 3 (2009): 122. 11 Author’s interview with a Kuwaiti political scientist, Kuwait City, November 2017. 12 Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf, 5. 13 Al-Nakib, ‘Revisiting Hadar and Badu in Kuwait’, 13. 14 Ibid., 14–15. 15 Ibid., 21. 16 Ibid. 17 Longva, ‘Nationalism in Pre-Modern Guide’, 173. 18 Kamal Eldin Osman Salih, ‘Kuwait Primary (Tribal) Elections 1975–2008: An Evaluative Study’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 38, no. 2 (2011): 148. 19 Ibid. 20 Nathan J. Brown, Qtd. in ‘Kuwaiti Tribes Turn Parliament to Own Advantage’, Financial Times, 3 February 2009, https://www.ft.com/content/77289444-f19311dd-8790-0000779fd2ac. 21 Al-Nakib, ‘Revisiting Hadar and Badu in Kuwait’, 24. 22 Kristin Smith Diwan, ‘The Politics of Transgression in Kuwait’, Foreign Policy, 19 April 2013, https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/04/19/the-politics-of-transgressionin-kuwait/. 23 Al-Nakib, ‘Revisiting Hadar and Badu in Kuwait’, 24–5. 24 Salih, 142. 25 Ibid. 26 Ghanim Alnajjar, ‘The Challenges Facing Kuwaiti Democracy’, Middle East Journal, vol. 54, no. 2 (2000): 245–6. 27 Salih, 146. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid., 147. 30 Author’s interview, Kuwait City, 15 September 2019. 31 Salih, 147. 32 Ibid. 33 Hamad Albloshi and Faisal Alfahad, ‘The Orange Movement of Kuwait: Civic Pressure Transforms a Political System’, in Civilian Jihad: Nonviolent Struggle, Democratization, and Governance in the Middle East, ed. Maria Stephan (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 229. 34 Salih, 153.

190

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35 Kristin Smith Diwan, ‘The Politics of Transgression in Kuwait’, Foreign Policy, 19 April 2013, https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/04/19/the-politics-of-transgression-in-kuwait/. 36 Ibid. 37 Mary Ann Tétreault, “Political Activism in Kuwait: Reform in Fits and Starts,” Taking to the Streets: The Transformation of Arab Activism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), 281. 38 Ibid., 282. 39 Kristin Smith Diwan, ‘Kuwait’s Snap Parliamentary Elections Bring Return of the Opposition’, Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, 29 November 2016, http:// www.agsiw.org/kuwaits-snap-parliamentary-elections-bring-return-opposition/. 40 Ibid. 41 B. Izzak, ‘Tsunami of Change Dumps Old Guard by the Wayside’, Kuwait Times, 27 November 2016, http://news.kuwaittimes.net/website/tsunami-change-dumps-oldguard-wayside/. 42 Ibid. 43 Daniel L. Tavana and Abdullah alKhonaini, ‘Kuwait Voted This Weekend: Who Won?’ The Washington Post, 8 December 2020. 44 Freer and Leber. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid. 48 Yasmena al-Mulla, ‘Unauthorised, Informal Primary Elections Held in Kuwait’, Gulf News, 7 September 2020, https://gulfnews.com/amp/world/gulf/kuwait/ unauthorised-informal-primary-elections-held-in-kuwait-1.73684411?__twitter_ impression=true; ‘45 alf nakhib yadalun bi-aswathihim fi-fariat al-dayirat alkhamsa!’ (45,000 voters cast their votes in branches of the fifth district!), Al-Jarida, 4 September 2020, https://www.aljarida.com/articles/1599152536842986400/. 49 ‘Qatar Takes Step toward First Shura Council Election: QNA Agency’, Reuters, 31 October 2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-qatar-politics/qatar-takes-steptoward-first-shura-council-election-qna-agency-idUSKBN1XA1CH. 50 ‘Qatar to Hold Shura Council Elections Next Year: Emir’, Al Jazeera, 3 November 2020, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/3/qatar-to-hold-shura-councilelections-next-year-emir. 51 Louay Bahry, ‘Elections in Qatar: A Window of Democracy Opens in the Gulf ’, Middle East Policy, vol. 6, no. 4 (1999): 122–3. 52 Mehran Kamrava, ‘Royal Factionalism and Political Liberalization’, Middle East Journal, vol. 63, no. 3 (2009): 416. 53 Luciano Zaccara, ‘The Role of the Central Municipal Council in the Institutional Process in Qatar’, paper presented at Gulf Research Meeting, 28 June 2015, 1. 54 Fromherz, 31. 55 Ibid., 148.

Notes 56 57 58 59 60

191

Ibid., 110. Zaccara, 4. Alshawi, 94. Ibid., 114. ‘Qatar Central Municipal Council: Public Knowledge, Perceptions, and Engagement’, SESRI Policy Snapshot No. 1, June 2015, 2. 61 Zaccara, 9. 62 Ibid. 63 Ibid. 64 Walid Slaiby, ‘Ministry Rejects CMC Plea for Powers to Detect Violations of Law’, Qatar Tribune, 14 April 2014, http://archive.qatar-tribune.com/viewnews. aspx?n=494FF23B-6ADE-4793-82C0-64F86CBB502C&d=20140416. 65 Walid Slaiby, ‘CMC Unveils Website to Receive Complaints’, Qatar Tribune, 5 November 2014, http://archive.qatar-tribune.com/viewnews.aspx?n=0927DF6202F4-4D00-94C2-30B4666D4BF3&d=20141105. 66 Zaccara, 12. 67 Sidi Mohamed, ‘Entrust CMC with More Powers, Say Voters’, The Peninsula, 17 April 2019, https://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/17/04/2019/Entrust-CMCwith-more-powers,-say-voters. 68 Freer, ‘Clients or Challengers?’, 13–14, 17–18. 69 Heba Fahmy, ‘CMC Calls on Qatar’s Malls to Revive “Family Day” Policy’, Doha News, 17 November 2015, https://dohanews.co/cmc-calls-on-qatars-malls-torevive-family-day-policy/. 70 Heba Fahmy, ‘CMC Calls for Expansion of Female Taxi Service in Qatar’, Doha News, 29 December 2015, https://dohanews.co/cmc-calls-expansion-female-taxidriver-service-qatar/. 71 Heba Fahmy, ‘CMC: Women in Qatar Uncomfortable with Male Salespeople’, Doha News, 29 March 2016, https://dohanews.co/cmc-women-in-qatar-uncomfortablewith-male-salespeople/. 72 Peter Kovessy, ‘Qatar Ministry Bans Men from Al Khor Park Thursdays’, Doha News, 4 April 2016, https://dohanews.co/qatar-ministry-bans-men-al-khor-parkthursdays/. 73 Ibid., 111. 74 ‘Head of al-Murrah Tribe Confirms Qatar Revokes Family’s Citizenship’, AlArabiya English, 14 September 2017, https://english.alarabiya.net/en/ features/2017/09/14/Head-of-al-Marri-tribe-confirms-Qatar-revokes-family-scitizenship.html. 75 Justin Gengler and Mark Tessler, ‘Civic Life and Democratic Citizenship in Qatar: Findings from the First Qatar World Values Survey’, Middle East Law and Governance, vol. 5, no. 3 (2013): 7. 76 Interview with political scientist, Doha, Qatar, 14 March 2016.

192

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77 Yasin Kakande, ‘Umm al Qaiwain Forms Last of UAE’s Executive Councils’, The National, 12 July 2011, http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/umm-alqaiwain-forms-last-of-uaes-executive-councils. 78 Heard-Bey, ‘Statehood and Nation-Building’, 369. 79 Article 23, United Arab Emirates Constitution. 80 Al-Qassemi, ‘Tribalism in the Arabian Peninsula’. 81 Ali Mohammad Khalifa, The United Arab Emirates: Unity in Fragmentation (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1979), 48. 82 Peck, 131. 83 ‘The Federal National Council’. 84 ‘Political Participation., United Arab Emirates Ministry of State for Federal National Council Affairs’, 2021, https://www.mfnca.gov.ae/en/areas-of-focus/ political-participation/. 85 Heard-Bey, ‘The United Arab Emirates’, 135. 86 Mohammad J. Al Yousef, ‘Sara Falaknaz: Committing to Service in the UAE’s Federal National Council’, The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, 18 November 2019, https://agsiw.org/sara-falaknaz-uae-federal-national-council/. 87 Davidson, The United Arab Emirates, 194. 88 ‘NEC Adopts Electoral College Comprising 224, 279 Members for Federal National Council Elections 2015’, WAM Emirates News Agency, 5 July 2015, http://wam.ae/ en/details/1395282898463. 89 ‘Electoral College List for 2019 FNC Elections Announced’, Emirates News Agency, 30 June 2019, http://wam.ae/en/details/1395302771137. 90 Abdulfatteh Yaghi and Osman Antwi-Boateng, ‘Determinants of UAE Voters’ Preferences for Federal National Council Candidates’, Digest of Middle East Studies, vol. 24, no. 2 (2015): 219. 91 ‘Women to Have 50% Representation in UAE Federal National Council’, Gulf News, 8 December 2018, https://gulfnews.com/uae/government/women-to-have-50representation-in-uae-federal-national-council-1.1544258767491. 92 ‘35% of Newly Elected UAE FNC Members Are Women’, Khaleej Times, October 6, 2019, https://www.khaleejtimes.com/news/general/35-of-newly-elected-uae-fncmembers-are-women-1-. 93 Al-Qassemi, ‘Tribalism in the Arabian Peninsula’. 94 Ibid. 95 Yaghi and Antwi-Boateng, 225–6. 96 Ibid., 226–7. 97 Ibid. 98 Ibid., 227–8. 99 Author’s interview with researchers, Ras al-Khaimah, 3 March 2014.

Notes

193

100 Ola Salem, ‘FNC Passes Mandatory Breastfeeding Clause for Child Rights Law’, The National, 21 January 2014, http://www.thenational.ae/uae/government/fnc-passesmandatory-breastfeeding-clause-for-child-rights-law. 101 Ola Salem, ‘Call for Federal Dress-Code Law in the UAE’, The National, 12 June 2012, http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/call-for-federal-dress-code-lawin-the-uae. 102 Samir Salama, ‘FNC Members Demand Banks Provide COVID-19 Relief Packages’, Gulf News, 18 May 2020, https://gulfnews.com/uae/government/fnc-memberdemands-banks-provide-covid-19-relief-packages-to-clients-1.71562231. 103 Samir Salama, ‘FNC Concerned about Rising Incidents of Bullying in UAE Schools’, Gulf News, 8 December 2020, https://gulfnews.com/uae/government/fncconcerned-about-rising-incidents-of-bullying-in-uae-schools-1.75747407. 104 J.E. Peterson, The Arab Gulf States: Steps toward Political Participation, Participation (Praeger, New York, Published with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC. The Washington Papers 131, 1988), 96. 105 Ibid., 97. 106 Ibid. 107 Yaghi and Antwi-Boateng, 227. 108 Samir Salama, ‘FNC Demands Stronger Role in UAE Budgeting, Execution of Motions’, Gulf News, 9 November 2013,https://gulfnews.com/uae/government/fncdemands-stronger-role-in-uae-budgeting-execution-of-motions-1.1253129. 109 Abdullah Al-rasheed, ‘Emirati Tribes Reiterate Loyalty to Rulers and State’, Gulf News, 10 May 2011, http://gulfnews.com/your-say/your-reports/emirati-tribesreiterate-loyalty-to-rulers-and-state-1.805585. 110 Ibid. 111 Ibid. 112 Ibid. 113 Ibid. 114 Abdullah Al-rasheed, ‘Key Tribes to Reaffirm the Importance of National Interest’, Gulf News, 29 April 2011, http://gulfnews.com/news/uae/general/key-tribes-toreaffirm-the-importance-of-national-interest-1.800683. 115 Ibid. 116 Ibid. 117 Sultan al-Qassemi, ‘How Urbanization Is Changing Emirati Identity’, Al Arabiya News, 18 October 2011, http://english.alarabiya.net/views/2011/10/18/172378. html. 118 AlQabas TV show ‘Amma Ba’d’ 2020. 119 Mohammed al Wushaihi Talk Show, AlZiadiq8 Blog, 13 May 2013 https:// alziadiq8.com/22920.html. 120 AlQabas TV show ‘Amma Ba’d’ 2020. 121 Ibid.

194

Notes

Chapter 7 1

Ito Mashino, ‘The spread of social media in the GCC and the potential for its use in B2C business’, Mitsui & Co. Global Strategic Studies Institute Monthly Report, March 2019, https://www.mitsui.com/mgssi/en/report/detail/__icsFiles/ afieldfile/2019/06/25/1903e_mashino_e.pdf. 2 Ibid. 3 Fadi Salem, ‘The Arab Social Media Report 2017: Social Media and the Internet of Things: Towards Data-Driven Policymaking in the Arab World’, vol. 7 (2017). Dubai: MBR School of Government, 63. http://www.mbrsg.ae/HOME/ PUBLICATIONS/Research-Report-Research-Paper-White-Paper/Arab-SocialMedia-Report-2017.aspx. 4 Ibid., 34. 5 Ibid., 35. 6 Ibid., 44. 7 ‘Number of Social Media Users in Kuwait Hits 3.9 Million’, The Times Kuwait, 23 April 2019, https://www.timeskuwait.com/news/number-of-social-media-users-inkuwait-hits-3-9-million/. 8 Salem, 59. 9 Simon Kemp, ‘Digital 2020: Kuwait’ 18 February 2020, https://datareportal.com/ reports/digital-2020-kuwait. 10 Simon Kemp, ‘Digital 2020: Qatar’, 18 February 2020, https://datareportal.com/ reports/digital-2020-qatar. 11 ‘UAE Social Media Usage Statistics (2020)’, Global Media Insight, 29 April 2020, https://www.globalmediainsight.com/blog/uae-social-media-statistics/. 12 Salem, 51. 13 Ibid., 53. 14 Holly Ellyat, ‘The Gulf ’s Trump Card Is Its Young People, but Governments Mustn’t “Spoil” Them, Business Leaders Say’, CNBC, 10 May 2018, https://www.cnbc. com/2018/05/10/the-gulfs-youth-is-our-trump-card-but-governments-shouldntspoil-them-business-leaders-say.html. 15 Salem, 9. 16 Hamad H. Albloshi, ‘Social Activism and Political Change in Kuwait since 2006’, Rice University’s Banker Institute for Public Policy, Issue Brief, 9 August 2018, 4, https://www.bakerinstitute.org/files/13381/. 17 Salem, 7. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid.

Notes

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21 Marc Owen Jones, ‘The Gulf Information War: Propaganda, Fake News, and Fake Trends: The Weaponization of Twitter Bots in the Gulf Crisis’, International Journal of Communication, vol. 13 (2019): 1389–415. 22 Salem, 66. 23 Al-Saidi, Saleh. ‘Qara’at fi-al-sijil al-intikhabi 2018’ [Reading the electoral register 2018]. Al-Qabas. 31 December 2018. https://alqabas.com/article/617997-6‫من‬-1-2018-‫االنتخابي‬-‫السجل‬-‫في‬-‫قراءة‬. 24 See, for examples, the dedicated pages on this 2018 Alajman Website http://www. alajman.net/nsab.html. 25 ‘Al-mulahaqat satal al-al-snapchat … al-alam tabda hajb suhuf al-qabaili wa-lmanatiq’ (The Prosecution will extend to Snapchat … The media [ministry] begins with blocking the newspaper of tribes and regions) Mazmaz, 29 July 2019, https:// mz-mz.net/1338393/. 26 Thesiger, 20. 27 Richard Koch, The 80/20 Principle (London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2017), 331. 28 For more on the silo effect and audiences on social media networks like Twitter, read Alice Marwick and Danah Boyd, ‘I Tweet Honestly, I Tweet Passionately: Twitter Users, Context Collapse, and the Imagined Audience’, New Media and Society Journal, vol. 13, no. 1 (2011): 114–33. 29 Tweet from Faisal al Salem, @K_F711, 29 September 2017. 30 Tweet from Ibn Qatar @AlMullaAmeer, with a video a reading of Quranic verses, 29 September 2017. 31 Ismail Sebugwaawo, ‘Strict Action against Anyone Showing Sympathy with Qatar: UAE’, Khaleej Times, 8 June 2017, https://www.khaleejtimes.com/nation/abu-dhabi/ strict-action-against-anyone-showing-sympathy-with-qatar-uae-. 32 Hessa Saad Al-muhannadi, ‘The Role of Qatari Women: Between Tribalism and Modernity’, M.A. thesis, Lebanese American University (2011). 33 Ibid., 71. 34 ‘A Talk with Violet Dickson’, Aramco World, November/December 1972, https:// archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/197206/a.talk.with.violet.dickson.htm. 35 ‘Poet Hind al Mutairi Comments on Her Banning and Says She Will Pursue This with a Complaint to the Poet Prince’, Akhbar 24, 22 December 2015, https:// akhbaar24.argaam.com/article/detail/253937. 36 Yasmeena al Mulla, ‘Pregnant Woman Shot Dead by Brother Inside Hospital ICU’, Gulf News, 10 September 2020, https://gulfnews.com/world/gulf/kuwait/kuwaitpregnant-woman-shot-dead-by-brother-inside-hospital-icu-1.7376007. 37 Sarah al Ajmi’s Twitter Feed https://mobile.twitter.com/sajjjmiii. 38 Fatmah al Ajmi’s Twitter Feed https://twitter.com/fatmahalajmy/status/ 1304360679172902919.

196

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39 ‘Arab Governments Are Doing Too Little to End Honour Killings’, The Economist, 6 February 2021, https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2021/02/06/ arab-governments-are-doing-too-little-to-end-honour-killings. 40 Rusd Kuwait Twitter Feed https://twitter.com/rsd_kuw/status/13052262574461952 04?s=20. 41 Haya al-Mughni, Women in Kuwait: The Politics of Gender (London: Saqi Books, 1993), 17. 42 ‘Tribal Nature of Gulf Society’, US Library of Congress. http://countrystudies.us/ persian-gulf-states/17.htm. 43 Author’s interview with Latifa al Subaie, Kuwait, 8 October 2017. 44 Shahd Alshammari, Literary Madness in British, Postcolonial, and Bedouin Women’s Writing (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016), 128. 45 Author’s interview with Hissa al-Dhaheri, Abu Dhabi, 3 July 2017. 46 Assami. 47 Author’s interview with students at HBKU, Doha, 25 March 2018. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid. 50 Johns et al., ‘Kuwaiti Population Subgroup of Nomadic Bedouin Ancestry-Whole Genome Sequence and Analysis’, Genomics Data, vol. 3 (2015): 117. https://www. sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213596014001299. 51 Alanoud Alsharekh, ‘Bedouins in Kuwait: A Collective Destiny’, Nuqat Cultural Series, Kuwait City, April 2014, https://youtu.be/hDHbAfl9lWg. 52 Ilhem Allagui and Abeer Al-najjar, ‘From Women Empowerment to National Branding: A Case Study from the United Arab Emirates’, International Journal of Communication, vol. 12 (2018): 68–85. 53 Cooke. 54 Janis Teruggi Page, ‘Images with Messages: A Semiotic Approach to Identifying and Decoding Strategic Visual Communication’, in The Routledge Handbook of Strategic Communication, ed. Ansgar Zerfass and Derina Holtzhausen (New York: Routledge), 325. 55 ‘Why Arab Women Still Have No Voice’, Interview with Amal al Malki, Al Jazeera English, 21 April 2012, http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/ talktojazeera/2012/04/201242111373249723.html. 56 Alshawi and Gardner, 51. 57 Ibid., 52. 58 Bethany Shockley, Perceptions of Female Candidates: A Field Experiment from Kuwait. Draft dated 31 October 2017. 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid., 8–9. 61 Ibid., 11.

Notes

197

62 ‘Tribal Nature of Gulf Society.’ 63 ‘Tribal Symbols’, Kuwait National Forum, 9 March 2009, http://www.nationalkuwait. com/forum/index.php?threads/68870/. 64 My Ancestors; A Source of Pride and Glory, https://uaehistorykin.wixsite.com/ uaehistory/—c218f. 65 Sultan al Qassemi, ‘In the UAE the Only Tribe Is the Emirati’, Gulf News, 1 December 2013, https://gulfnews.com/opinion/op-eds/in-the-uae-the-only-tribeis-the-emirati-1.1261996.

Chapter 8 1

Andrew Gardner, ‘On Tribalism and Arabia’, LSE Middle East Centre Blog, 18 August 2018, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2018/08/02/on-tribalism-and-arabia/. 2 Khoury and Kostiner, 2. 3 Kostiner, 223. 4 Iqbal al Ahmad, ‘Tribe or Country?’ AlQabas Newspaper, 13 February 2018. 5 Ibid. 6 Faisal Al-fadel, ‘Shoura Council Member Wants Name of Tribe Removed from Saudi IDs’, Saudi Gazette, 28 February 2018, https://saudigazette.com.sa/ article/529471. 7 ‘A Million Riyals and a 15 Year Jail Sentence for Inciters of Racial or Ancestral Discrimination’, Okaz Newspaper, 16 August 2017, https://www.okaz.com.sa/ article/1565316. 8 Al Qabas newspaper Instagram account, 29 December 2018, https://www. instagram.com/p/Br–W7egnDj/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=1il9l1lav605l. 9 ‘Kuwait: Ex-MP Mussallam al-Barrak Freed on Bail’, BBC News, 1 November 2012, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20165318. 10 8 January 2018 tweets from https://twitter.com/ahmedalsarraf1. 11 Gulf Societies in Transition: National Identity and National Projects in the Arab Gulf States Workshop Report, The Arab Gulf States in Washington, Washington, DC, 10 June 2016. 12 See the official Twitter account of the Anizah tribe football cup, https://twitter.com/ b6olat_3nzh?s=03. 13 See Najla al Homaizi twitter account, https://twitter.com/najla_alhomaizi/status/92 5639344479666176?s=08. 14 ‘NGOs React to Tribal Billboards in Kuwait University’, AlAnbaa Newspaper, 8 June 2018. 15 ‘NGOs: Against Tribalism and Sectarianism and a Return to the Rule of Law’, AlQabas Newspaper, 8 June 2018.

198

Notes

16 ‘The Sheikh of the Awazem Issues an Apology to the Women of Iraq’, CNN Arabic, 2 May 2019, https://arabic.cnn.com/middle-east/article/2019/05/02/kuwait-busrawomen-video-apology. 17 For more on this political interplay, see Alanoud Alsharekh, ‘Youth, Protest and the New Elite; Domestic Security and Dignity in Kuwait’, in The Changing Security Dynamics of the Persian Gulf, ed. Kristian Coates Ulrichsen (London: Hurst, 2018), 173. 18 Lambert. 19 Kristin Smith Diwan, ‘The Politics of Transgression in Kuwait’, Foreign Policy, 19 April 2013, https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/04/19/the-politics-of-transgression-inkuwait/. 20 Toby Matthesien, ‘Shi’i Historians in a Wahabi State: Identity Entrepreneurs and the Politics of Local History in Saudi Arabia’, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 47, no. 1 (2015): 32. 21 Alanoud Alsharekh, ‘Youth, Protest and the New Elite; Domestic Security and Dignity in Kuwait’, 175. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 Author’s interview with Dr Shafeeq al Ghabra, Kuwait, 21 September 2014. 25 Koch, The 80/20 Principle, 337. 26 ‘Advisory Council Approves Draft Law on Permanent Residency’, The Peninsula, 29 May 2018, https://thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/29/05/2018/Advisory-Councilapproves-draft-law-on-permanent-residency. 27 Alanoud Alsharekh, The Status of National Women Married to Non-nationals in the GCC, UNDP publication for Kuwait University, 2015. 28 ‘UAE to Offer Citizenship to “Talented” Foreigners’, BBC News, 30 January 2021, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-55869674. 29 Koch, The 80/20 Principle, 338. 30 Alanoud Alsharekh, ‘Youth, Protest and the New Elite; Domestic Security and Dignity in Kuwait’, 166. 31 Koch, The 80/20 Principle, 339. 32 Steffen Hertog, ‘The Political Decline and Social Rise of Tribal Identity in the GCC’, LSE Middle East Centre Blog, 25 July 2018, http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2018/07/25/ the-political-decline-and-social-rise-of-tribal-identity-in-the-gcc/. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid. 36 ‘Al-amir Salman yua’kid intisab al-Saud li-qabilat Anaiza ba’d khilaf dar bi-qanat al-Mustaqila al-fada’ia ‘ala nisab al-Saud’ [Prince Salman confirms the affiliation of al-Saud to Anaiza tribe after a dispute took place on the Independent Satellite

Notes

199

Channel over the lineage of al-Saud], Mrasey Online Newspaper, 25 April 2008, https://www.mrasey.org/sa/11981.html. 37 Hertog, “The Political Decline and Social Rise of Tribal Identity in the GCC.” 38 Cooke, 7. 39 Hertog, “The Political Decline and Social Rise of Tribal Identity in the GCC.” 40 Cooke, 36. 41 Ibid., 39–41. 42 Ibid., 47. 43 Ibid., 65–6. 44 Ibid., 104. 45 Khalaf and Hamoud, 353. 46 Seth McLaughlin, ‘Jeff Flake Calls for Ending “Destructive Partisan Tribalism” in New Hampshire’, AP news, 2 October 2018, https://apnews.com/article/20ccd5711c 75572a1283bce22672c1f3. 47 Ibid. 48 Jones, Bedouins into Bourgeois, 11–12. 49 Ibid., 263. 50 Ibid., 277.

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Index Abdulaziz, Salman bin 160 Abdul Aziz, Sultan bin 108 Ahmad, Amir Shaykh 34 al-Ahmad, Iqbal 154 al-ʿAjman tribe 23–4, 28, 30, 35, 38, 42, 125, 139, 150 al-Ahmadi constituency (1975) 122 and social media 139, 141–2 al-Ajmi, Abdulhadi 135 al-Ali tribe 38 Allen, Mark, Arabs 5 Alshawi, Ali 11, 36, 98, 101, 110, 128, 148 al-Ameri tribe 132 al-Anaza tribe 22, 28, 198 n.36 al-ʿAniza tribe 125 Arab Barometer 118, 125 Arabian Gulf 42, 48–50, 52, 60, 71, 75, 87 Arabs 26, 35, 44, 119 Arab Spring 10, 113, 134 artificial intelligence (AI) 138, 158 asabiyya (group solidarity) 4–6 Asad, Sayed Tareq bin 88 asala (cultural authenticity) 8 assimilation 58, 60–1, 84, 144, 147 Atallah, Samer 117 Atrissi, Tarek 80 authentic/authenticity 11, 69, 77, 82–3, 85, 88, 91, 94, 96, 113 authoritarian/authoritarianism 23, 40, 117–18 al-ʿAzimi/al-Awazim tribe 3, 24, 28, 122, 125, 156–7 fundraising 112 badū 2–4, 11, 13–14, 18–19, 21, 25–8, 35, 50, 52, 56, 59, 68, 78, 82, 85, 92, 118–21, 126, 133, 142–3, 147, 150, 153, 163 and had.ar 63–4, 119–20 political 102–4 resettlement of 36 social change within post-badū 60–3

Bahrain 14, 22, 29–30, 32–3, 43, 48, 52–3, 62, 104–5, 113, 142 Bani Hajar tribe 31, 35–6, 59, 106–7, 140 Bani Khalid tribe 22, 48 Bani Malik tribe 157 Bani Tamim tribe 28 Bani ʿUtub tribe 22–3, 28–9, 48 Bani Yas tribe 37–8, 40–1 al-Barrak, Musallam 28, 121, 124–6, 154–5, 157 The Battle of Jahrah 24, 26 Beaugrand, Claire 24, 26 bedouin/bedouinism 1, 3, 14, 16–17, 24, 26, 38, 40, 45, 47–50, 55–6, 58, 60, 62, 66, 68–70, 77, 84–5, 90–1, 94, 98–9, 101–2, 112–13, 119–20, 143, 146–7, 158 bedouin lite 17, 64, 68, 91–3, 97, 114, 148 family/tribal values 96–7, 102 of GCC states 60, 92–3 nationalizing 86–8 social evolution of 47, 63 traders 56 Bedu 52, 54–5, 61, 86, 140 bidūn jinsiyya (without nationality) 26, 44 big data 138 British 29 British India 53 and Kuwait 23 and Qatar 32, 53–4 and Trucial States 42 and UAE 39, 41–2 Brown, Nathan 28, 121 Al bu ʿAinan tribe 36 bureaucracy 1, 32, 36–7, 97, 128, 160 burqa/niqab/batoola 69, 111–12, 144, 147 Caton, Steve C. 5–6 citizens/citizenship 9–11, 13, 15, 18, 19, 26, 54–5, 62, 86–8, 91, 93, 96, 99, 104, 109, 113, 117, 160, 162–3

222

Index

dual 60, 104 Emirati 44, 133, 198 n.28 full citizenship rights 44 GCC 87, 139, 143 Kuwaiti 26, 34, 87, 104, 119–20 modern 150 multi-ethnic model 92 and non-citizens 87 Qatari 34, 36–7, 60, 105–6, 127, 129–30 tribal values and 101–2 coastal tribes/rulers 18, 40–1, 47–50, 52–3, 55 collective identity 88, 90–1, 149 colonialism/colonial intervention 5, 46, 48, 53–5 Cooke, Miriam 4, 65, 161–2 Tribal Modern 9, 66 cosmopolitan/cosmopolitanism 48, 62, 81, 83, 88, 94 Covid-19 pandemic 18, 88, 125–6, 133, 137, 167 n.81 Cox, Percy 54 cross-border identity 26, 35, 94, 143 Crystal, Jill 22–3, 25, 28–30, 35 Dashti, Hanan 112 Davidson, Christopher 38, 40 democracy 8, 118, 125 electoral 16, 135 mobile 38 desert culture 13, 17, 22–3, 30, 47, 49–51, 54, 62, 64–5, 78, 91–2. See also sea culture camel festivals/racing 60, 64, 66–7, 69, 76, 82, 90, 97, 110, 161 hierarchy of tribes in 41 Shaykh Zayed and 40 desert diplomacy 88–9 Dickson, H. R. P. 56, 76, 143 Dickson, Violet 143 discrimination, racial 105–6, 135, 154–6 diwan 38, 131 dīwāniyya (dīwāniyyāt/dīwāwīn) 12, 15, 104, 122, 142, 167 n.81 Diwan, Kristin Smith 157 domestic politics 13, 16, 104–5, 109, 131, 139–42

Dubai 31, 37, 39, 41, 44, 49, 70, 81–4, 132, 158–9 Dubai Tourism Vision 2020 82 Duwailah, Mubarak 135 al Duwaisan, Faisal, on wall of Kuwait 57 Ecochard, Michel 72 economy 7, 11, 24–5, 29, 31, 42, 60–1, 70, 114, 154 demand for economic reform in GCC 91 dominance of governments 8 economic depression 25, 32 economic diversification 76, 81, 91–2, 99–101, 158 knowledge-based 114, 158 pearling enterprise 52 petroleum-based 85 egalitarian 5, 23, 51 Egypt 104–5, 117, 142 Eickelman, Dale 95, 109 elections 4, 8, 11, 15, 37 and clientelism 118 electoral politics 5, 15, 20, 98, 111, 116, 157–8 municipal council 17, 34 parliamentary 21, 27, 118, 135, 156 in Kuwait 119–26 in Qatar 126–30 in the UAE 130–4 tribal pre-election rallies 123 and tribes in rentier states 117–18 employment 15, 26, 35–7, 44, 93–4, 102, 117, 120 and discrimination 106 government jobs 117–18, 120, 158 public sector jobs 15, 94, 117, 120 equality 5, 93, 154 ethics, tribal 94, 96, 99 ethnic/ethnicity 25, 35, 37, 52, 66, 87, 92–3, 150, 158 ethno-tribal identity 98 Exell, Karen 70, 77, 85, 96 expatriates 11, 15, 26, 34, 37, 41, 69, 86–8, 93, 103, 109, 154, 159 Facebook 19, 137, 139 Facey, William 24, 68

Index Faisal, Khaled bin 88–9 al Faisal, Khalid 144 feminism, tribal 146, 151 Freer, Courtney 13, 15, 125 Fromherz, Allen J. 29, 33–5, 37, 128 Fryer, Jonathan 51, 53 Gardner, Andrew 11, 98, 101, 110, 148, 153 Gause, F. Gregory III 12 gender 91, 98, 139, 149 honour killings (see honour crimes, tribal) segregation 130, 138 tribal social evolution and 143–8 genealogy 92, 95–6, 101, 109 geopolitics/geopolitical 102, 106, 109, 113 Ghabra, Shafeeq 103, 111, 158 al-Ghoneim, Abdullah 50 al-Ghunaim, Abdallah 56 globalization 13, 46, 59, 70, 83, 162 group feeling 4–5 5G Technology 137 Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) 2, 5, 7, 9, 11–18, 23, 25, 33, 35, 37, 41, 43, 52, 55, 59, 61, 64–5, 67–8, 70, 87–8, 90–6, 103–4, 107, 110, 114, 154–5, 159–60 Gulf Crisis 59, 78, 83, 90, 105–6, 108, 113–14, 130, 142, 157, 161 rentiers 117 and social media 137–9 youth 149 had.ar 4, 18, 25, 27–8, 35, 50, 58–60, 62–4, 77–8, 119–21, 142–3, 155, 157 hadith 63 al-Hamid, Sulaiman bin Muhammad 22 al-Hammadi tribe 134 Hammoud, Hassan 10–11, 53 al-Harbi, Saud 103 al-Harb tribe 103 al-Hashem, Safa 87 Heard-Bey, Frauke 41, 45, 80 Herb, Michael 14 heritage(s) 3, 9, 13, 17, 27, 35, 72, 97, 102, 110, 113, 161–2. See also symbols/ symbolism

223

activities/sports 64, 66, 70, 81, 83, 87, 110, 161 camel racing/riding 60, 64, 66–7, 69, 76, 82, 90, 97, 110, 161 falcons/falconry 64, 66, 69, 78, 81–2, 90, 97, 110, 161 pearl-diving 35, 69, 75–6, 90, 97, 161 cultural 9, 84–5, 88, 90, 99, 109 festivals 67, 82, 85, 88–90, 92 in GCC states 65 of Kuwaiti 74–7 national 11, 75, 92 preservation of culture/heritage 13, 51, 66, 70, 74–7, 82–4, 96–7, 99–100 of Qatar 78–80 sea-faring 67 tourism 69–70, 76, 85, 161 of UAE 80–4 Hertog, Steffen 7, 160 hierarchy of tribes 5, 41, 43–5 social 4, 9, 50, 52 sociopolitical 103 hinterland tribes 22–3, 29, 48, 51–3 al-Homaizi, Najla 155 honour crimes, tribal 144–6 Huwaitat tribe 100 al Huwaydi, Sulaiman, S.āh.ibī Labs alBurqa 111–12 hwala 35, 158 hydrocarbon resources 18, 45, 76, 84, 100, 159 Ibn Khaldun 4–5, 10, 49, 62 al-Ibrahim, Abdelrahman 14 independent groups 8, 18, 64. See also social groups India 51, 53 Indian Ocean 76 slavery in 52, 79 individualism 135 inhabitants 25, 30, 48, 69, 150 Instagram 83, 88–9, 108, 115, 137, 139–40, 150 insular/insularity 47, 51, 62, 101 interior tribes 28, 30, 40, 47–9, 50–1 invented traditions 65, 75, 148 Iraq 2, 34, 48, 63, 66

224

Index

Islam 9–10, 12, 86, 99, 102, 148 Al-Ississ, Mohammed 117 al-Jalahimah family 22, 28–9 Jones, Calvert 13, 45 Jordan 4, 6 Kaban tribe 35 Kamrava, Mehran 21, 32, 130 al-Kandari family 111, 158 Khalaf, Sulayman 10–11, 53, 67–8, 75, 82, 90 khaleeji identity 90, 163 al-Khalifa family 22, 28–32, 35, 49, 53, 106 Nasser bin Hamad 88 Khoury, Philip S. 3, 6, 56, 60, 85 kin/kinship 5, 7, 9, 21, 47, 49, 51, 61, 94, 96, 98, 101–3, 108, 112, 146, 157, 162 Koch, Natalie 66, 87 Koch, Richard 140, 158–9, 161 Kostiner, Joseph 3, 6–7, 10, 56, 60, 85, 154 Kuwait 1–4, 6, 14–15, 19–31, 33, 36, 41, 44, 53–4, 62, 65, 87–8, 90, 93, 102, 104, 108, 112–13, 135, 155–7, 159 austerity measures 87 Boum (ship) 67 Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyya 76 Dickson House 76 expatriate population 87–8 Karamat Watan protests (2012) 59, 138, 154 Madeenah 76–7 National Assembly building 75 National Day of 97–8 nationality 25–6, 62 National Museum 72–4 number of voters, tribes 140 parliamentary election in 119–26 political participation 44 preservation of heritage 74–7 role of ruler in 56 Sadu House 76 sea pearling heritage (turath al-ghuos) of 75, 90 Sheikh Abdullah Al Salem Cultural Centre 77 Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Cultural Centre 77 social life environments in 47

and social media 137, 142–3 Souq Mubarakiyya 75 state housing policies 119 state symbols of 71–8 tribal identity in 27–8 urbanization in 48 Vision 2035 of 99, 154 walled city 56, 135 water resources in 51 Kuwait Oil Company 24–5 advertisement on social media 114–15 al-Kuwari, Maryam 109, 114 al-Kuwari, Munira 147 Lambert, Laurent 49, 51, 110 language, tribal 10, 14, 92 Leber, Andrew 125 legitimacy 7, 9–10, 19, 32, 90 Libya 2, 159 Lindholm, Charles 5 lineage, tribal (ʿasīl) 40, 44, 62–3, 103, 149, 161 Longva, Anh Nga 27–8, 69, 87, 120 Lorimer, John Gordon 29, 40 loyal/loyalty, tribal 5–7, 28, 39–40, 59, 61, 80, 101, 104, 107–8, 119, 143, 158 Lust, Ellen 118 l-Zaʿabi, Ahmad Jumaa 134 MacLean, Matthew 82, 84 majlis (majālis) 12–13, 16, 36, 38, 43–4, 62, 97, 99, 102, 104, 131, 146, 168 n.82 al-Maktoum family 40–1, 84 Shaykh Mohammed bin Rashed 108 Shaykh Rashid 82 al Malki, Amal 86, 148 Mansoor, Ahmed 134 al-Mansuri/al-Manasir tribe 35, 63, 140 maritime 30, 38, 41–2, 47, 60, 65, 67 marriage(s) 44, 77, 161 arranged 146 consanguineous 147 intermarriages 49, 96, 108, 131, 146–7 intra-Emirati 100 intra-national 86 with non-national 86 merchant class 21, 30–1, 35, 39, 46, 48–9, 52, 56, 84, 93, 97, 127, 128, 146, 158 Mesopotamia 48

Index The Middle East 4, 60, 70, 163 migrants/migration 47–50, 91, 98, 154, 159 online 140, 150 seasonal 47, 55, 60 modernity 62, 68, 70, 103, 148, 153 modernization 47, 59, 61, 66, 83, 90–1, 99–100, 103, 143, 151, 159 modern nation state system 4–5, 7, 117 Morocco 66, 72, 92 al-Mualla family 38 al-Muhannadi, Hessa Saad 107, 143 multiculturalism 100 al-Murrah tribe 30, 35–6, 59, 63, 85, 128, 130 and GCC crisis 106 al-Ghufran against Qatari Government 105–6 al-Murri, Shaykh Sultan 106 al-Murr, Mohammed 112–13 Muslim Brotherhood 59, 124 Muslims 26 Shiʾi 37, 155 Sunni 15, 25, 35, 110, 119, 161 al Mutairi, Hind, Waīl al qabīla/Wor to the Tribe 144 al-Mutayri (Matran) tribe 24, 28, 61, 63, 121–2, 125, 140, 150, 155, 157 Helal Fajhan 60 Nabiha Khamsa (We Want Five) movement 124 al-Nahyan family 40–2, 84, 106 Shaykh Khalifa bin Zayed 132, 134 Shaykh Mohammad bin Zayed 83, 88, 90 Shaykh Shakhbut 40, 56 Shaykh Zayed 40, 43, 45, 98 Shaykh Zayed bin Sultan 40 Sheikh Zayed bin Nahyan 38, 55 al-Najjar, Ghanim 122, 135 al-Nakib, Farah 25, 27–8, 72–3, 119, 121 al-Naqeeb, Khaldoun 9–10 national branding 17, 45, 66, 68, 70, 72, 78, 80, 85, 87, 90, 99, 114, 148, 158 National Day celebrations 11, 91–2, 97–8, 107, 110 national dress 68, 87 burqa 69, 111, 147 red checkered headdress 68–9

225

national identity 2, 9, 17, 19, 24, 45, 66–9, 83–5, 88, 90–2, 94, 96–9, 101–4, 110, 113–14, 149, 153, 158–9 nationalism 10, 85–7, 90, 98, 107, 109, 113, 154, 158, 161–3 nationality 25–6, 52, 60, 62, 68, 70, 113, 148 nationality law 36, 119 National Museum(s) 69–70 of Kuwait 72–4, 77, 119 of Qatar 78–9, 81, 85 Zayed National Museum of UAE 78, 81 nation state 4–7, 11, 18–19, 62, 117, 134, 155 nepotism, tribal 62, 93, 113, 157–8 new media 14, 19, 137–9. See also specific companies nomadism 11, 26, 62, 153 nomadic tribes 1–3, 11, 37, 55, 92, 96, 98 pastoral 11 non-Arabs 44, 49, 51, 114 non-state actors 14 non-tribal identity 19, 28, 49, 86, 91, 108–9, 112–14, 125, 145, 152, 158 Nouvel, Jean 78, 81 oil era 25, 34, 36, 43 colonialism 54 oil rents 1, 7, 18, 135 oil revenues 8, 24–5, 33, 37, 98, 158 pre-oil era 69, 159 Oman 14, 29, 32 Najd 22, 28, 48, 68–9 al-Otayba tribe 140 Ottoman Empire 23, 29, 31, 34–5, 53 paternalism 163 patronage system 5, 32, 36, 38, 44, 76, 93, 112, 117–18, 126, 133, 138, 155 Perpetual Treaty of Maritime Peace (1853) 42 Persia 35, 111 Picton, Oliver 82, 84 poetry and dialect Million’s Poet TV show (UAE) 83, 109 nabati poetry 66, 83, 108–9 Prince of Poets TV show (UAE) 109 shela songs 109 policy-making process 2, 12, 16, 20, 37, 132, 161

226

Index

political groups 10, 12, 17, 19 political identity, tribal 18, 82, 158 political mobilization 8–10, 117, 135 political role of tribes 7–8, 12, 16, 18–19, 108, 130 political units 1, 30, 32, 149 prophet Muhammad 3 qabīla (qabāʾil)/qabīlī 2–4, 62, 88, 119, 163 subdivision of 2, 135 Qahtan tribe 106 al-Qasim, Abd al-Karim 34 al-Qassimi (Qawasim) family 37–42, 61 piracy 41–2 Sharjah Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed (The Myth of Arab Piracy in the Gulf) 42 Sultan 108, 132 Qatar 2, 6, 14–17, 19–21, 28–38, 41, 43–4, 47–8, 50, 53–4, 58–60, 62–3, 65, 67, 70, 72, 74, 77, 90, 92, 94, 96, 102, 104, 107, 113, 158 Anglo-Qatari Treaty (1916) 32 ʿardah (traditional dance) 107, 110 Bidaa 30–1, 36 Bin Jelmood House (Msheireb Museums) 52 and British 32, 53–4 Central Municipal Council (CMC) elections 127–30, 132 Contemporary Art Qatar exhibition, Berlin 113 cultural heritage/state symbols of 78–80, 85 Doha 29–32, 34, 36, 48–9, 62, 113, 126, 158–9 al-Ghufran against Government of 105–6 Katara 79 labour law (2004) 37 Msheireb Museums 79 municipalities of 128 National Day of 98, 107 Nationality Law of 1961 36 National Museum of 78–9, 85 parliamentary election in 126–30 Qatari Law No. 21 161 Rais al-Baladiyya 128 Rayyan 36, 128

rule of al-Thani family in 33–4 settlement policies in 36 Shura Council 16, 127, 129, 154 and social media 137, 142–3 tribal identity in 34–7 Vision 2030 of 99–100 Wakrah 36, 128 Zubarah 28–9, 48–9 Rashed, Sheikh Mohammed bin 38 Rashid, Shaykh Mohammad bin 83, 158 al-Rashid, Talal, killing of 108 al Rashoud, Claudia Farkas, Dame Violet Dickson: ‘Umm Saud’s’ fascinating life in Kuwait from 1929–1990 56 reaffirmation, tribal 97 religion 5, 10, 21, 116, 138 rentier states/rentierism 1–2, 6–10, 13, 15–17, 20–1, 43, 61, 69, 84–5, 110, 119 elections and tribes in 117–18 super-rentier states 15–18, 45, 100, 130 Rico, Trinidad 70, 77, 85, 96 Ross, Michael 8, 117 Rugh, Andrea B. 38–9, 41 Rugh, William A. 40 al-Rushayda tribe 3, 28, 122 al-Sabah family 22–5, 28, 76 Khalid al-Faisal bin Abdulaziz 83 Shaykha Altaf 76 Shaykh Abdallah 88 Shaykh Abdullah al-Salim 98 Shaykh Mubarak 23–4, 53 Shaykh Nasser 103 Shaykh Nasser Sabah al Ahmad 154 Shaykh Sabah bin Jabir 22 Salafis 15, 119, 122, 124 Salman, Mohammed bin (Crown Prince) 60, 88, 90, 106, 198 n.36 Salzman, Philip Carl 7–8, 18, 91 al Sanjari, Ammar, Al-Bedu through Western Eyes 14 al-Sarraf, Ahmad 155 al-Saud family 29, 53, 108, 160 ʿAbdulaziz (Ibn Saud) 24, 29–30, 32, 54 instagram account of 88–9 Saudi Arabia 14, 23, 25, 33, 35, 48, 53,

Index 59–60, 62, 90, 104–8, 113, 119, 130, 142, 160 Riyadh 24 Shura Council in 154 Vision 2030 of 100 scholarship 1, 4, 6, 8, 11, 13, 17–18, 29, 110, 117 sea culture 30, 47, 78, 92. See also desert culture sectarianism 124, 155 sedentarization/sedentary 9, 22, 24, 26, 28, 38, 45, 48, 62, 65, 143 and urbanization 50–2 segments of the population 3, 23, 39, 66, 119, 162 settlement/resettlement of tribes 22, 28–9, 30, 32, 36–7, 38–9, 44, 48–51, 55, 61, 63, 86 Shambayati, Hootan 8–9, 110 Shammar tribe 108, 156 Shammar-Zafir tribes 122 al-Sharqi (Sharqiyin) family 38 shaykhs, tribal 38–9, 51, 54, 56, 58–9, 88, 155 al-Shehhi tribe 59, 109, 134 Abdullah bin Leqios 134 Shraim, Shaykh Taleb bin Lahem bin 106 shūrā 10, 97 single non-transferable vote (SNTV) system 125–6 slaves/slavery 31, 37, 51 in Indian Ocean 52, 79 social engineering 13, 45, 162 social evolution of tribes 47, 58–9, 62–4, 153 and colonialism 53–5 and gender 143–8 and migration to coast 47–50 post-oil 55–6, 58 social groups 8, 10, 39, 117, 147, 158, 160. See also independent groups social identity 7, 18, 99, 151, 160 social media 136–7, 151–2, 163. See also specific companies and al-ʿAjman tribe 139, 141–2 Arab Social Media Report 138 and GCC 137–9 and tribes

227

and domestic politics 139–42 and international affairs 142–3 tribal feminism 146 social practices, tribal 68, 95–6, 101, 109–14 socio-political behaviours 3, 17, 49, 58, 153 solidarity 4, 11, 51, 98, 112–13, 134, 148 Kandari 111 mechanical 59 sovereignty 32, 40–1, 104, 159 state-building 160 al-Sudan tribe 30–1, 36 symbiotic/symbiosis 5, 7, 10, 24, 60, 100, 154, 159 symbols/symbolism 27, 61, 70, 161–2. See also heritage(s) dallah (Arabian coffee pot) 70–1, 78 of Kuwait 70–8 of Qatar 78–80 of UAE 80–4 taʿasub 61–2 Tapper, Richard 3, 6 tax/taxation 25, 38, 40, 43, 46 pearl 24, 51–2 for protection from raids 55 al-Thani family 29, 31–4, 36–7, 49, 52, 58, 79, 106, 127 Ahmad bin Ali 33 Muhammad bin Thani 30–2 relationship with British 54 Shaykh Abdullah bin Jassim 31, 33 Shaykh Ali bin Abdullah 33 Shaykh Hamad bin Khalifa 15, 33, 80, 105–6 Shaykh Jassim 31, 34–5 Shaykh Jassim bin Mohammed 98 Shaykh Khalifa bin Hamad 15, 33, 85 Shaykh Sultan bin Suhaim 105–6 Shaykh Tamim bin Hamad 16, 106–7, 127 Tamim 142 tribal identity in 34–7 Thesiger, Wilfred 68 Thesiger, William 5, 48, 50, 52, 54–5, 61, 86, 140 Tibi, Bassam 7, 59 tourism 69–70, 76, 81, 85, 161

228

Index

trade/traders 23–4, 29–30, 37–8, 41–2, 48–9 bedouin 56 by camel caravans 48–9 harbours 41–2, 48–9 with India 53 pearling industry 24, 29, 31–2, 35, 39, 41, 43, 45, 48, 51–2 transient/non-transient nature of tribes 50 transnational group 59, 66, 95, 104–5, 143 tribal identity 2–3, 9, 21, 25, 45, 61–2, 65–6, 109–11, 113–14, 121, 124, 138, 151, 155, 161, 163 desert 49 in Kuwait 27–8 in Qatar 34–7 by young people 149–50 tribalism 2–3, 6–7, 9, 13, 16–18, 20–1, 27, 45, 61, 63, 70, 86, 88, 91, 94, 96, 98, 108, 114, 116, 118, 120, 124, 135, 140, 142–3, 151–5, 157, 161–3 electoral 19, 46 (see also elections) and GCC crisis 107 in international affairs 104–8 and Islam 10, 12 linkages of 11 and national branding 68 political 9–10 tribalization 111, 114 tribal politics 1–2, 16, 40, 58, 102, 111, 121, 124, 126, 135, 157–8 tribal primaries 15, 28, 121–2, 124–6, 135, 146, 155, 157 tribal values 8, 11, 17, 49, 69, 76, 91, 96–101, 143–4, 148, 159 and new citizen 101–2 tribe and state 4, 6–8, 14, 19, 45, 55, 64, 95, 100, 136, 154, 159 tribes. See specific tribes Trucial States 38–9, 42–3, 48, 54 and British 42 Twitter 19, 137, 140, 195 n.28 al-ʿAjman account 139 #Gbeelty_Qatar (my tribe is Qatar) 107, 142 #hind_almutairi_reviles_the_tribe 144 Karamat Watan protests 138 tweets on honour crimes 144–5

UAE5 134 United Arab Emirates (UAE) 2, 6, 13–17, 19–22, 25, 32, 35, 37–45, 47, 53–4, 62–3, 65, 67–8, 72, 74, 77, 90, 92, 94, 96, 102, 104–6, 113, 142, 150, 158, 162–3 Abu Dhabi 37, 39–41, 43–4, 48, 50–1, 55, 82, 84, 112, 132–4, 159 Al-Ain oasis 40 barjeel (wind tower) 83–4 empowerment, women’s 148 Federal National Council (FNC) elections 16, 19, 43, 131–4 Fujairah 38 Guggenheim Abu Dhabi 81 heritage festivals 82 independence and tribal hierarchies 43–5 individual emirates 40–2 Liwa Oasis’ 41 Louvre Abu Dhabi 81 Million’s Poet TV show 83, 109 at Morocco festival 184 n.123 National Day of 98 National Identity Year (2008) 45 northern emirates 39, 44, 110, 133 parliamentary election in 130–4 post-oil era 58–60 Ras al-Khaimah 37, 40, 42, 150 Sharjah 37–9, 42, 84 and social media 137, 143, 151 state symbols of 80–4 Supreme Council of Rulers 43 Umm al Quwain 38, 42, 130–1 Vision 2021 of 100 Zayed National Museum 78, 81 United Nations Human Rights Council 105 urbanization 36, 41, 44, 46, 48, 61–2, 74, 96, 103 post-oil 55 and sedentary life 50–2 urbanized 3, 25, 36, 61–2, 91, 102, 119, 143–4, 147–50, 153, 159 Utzon, Jørn 72, 75 al-Wardi, Ali 62, 64 wasta 157–8 water resources management 50–1

Index Westernization 147 WhatsApp 19, 142 Wikipedia 143 al-Wushaihi, Mohammed 135 al-Yafaʿi tribe 130 Yam tribe 142

229

Yemen 2, 12, 47, 159 youths, tribal (and society) 93, 103, 124, 148–50, 157 al-Zaʿabi tribe 59, 134 Zaccara, Luciano 128 Zahlan, Rosemarie Said 31, 37

230

231

232