Hamda and Arab al-Jahalin

Hamda is the daughter of Bedouin parents.  Actually, she is one of five daughters and ten sons of Bedouin parents.  Bedouin refers to the original Arabs of the desert, those who lived in black tents made from the hides of sheep, goats or camels, depending on what animals the Bedouins kept.    While living in Lebanon in the 1960's and early 70's, we often saw Bedouin settlements when we traveled there and in Syria and Jordan.  These are the Arabs depicted with Hollywood panache in David Lean's film, Lawrence of Arabia, starring Peter O'Toole, Anthony Quinn and Omar Sherif.

When Hamda was nine - she's now twenty-eight - she and her family and the rest of their Bedouin settlement numbering in the hundreds or more, were uprooted by the Israeli occupation and forced to move to a new space which lacked grazing land for their livestock.  Not only did it lack grazing space; it also lacked shelter for living.  There were containers available for some of the families to find shelter in, but not housing or tents.  Some of the Bedouin managed to bring their tents; others did not have time after being ordered out of the area in a matter of hours.  Their first winter was a cold one and many suffered without reasonable shelter or warm clothing.

Now there is a village of stone houses called Arab al-Jahalin with a population of 3,500 Bedouin.  It is likely most of the adults wish they were still living freely in tents where they once did and where an Israeli settlement now spreads across a large area, comprising look-alike houses in an orderly segregated community on confiscated land.

Hamda and her sister Suad with me in her Arts & Learning Center 

Hamda is a remarkable young woman.  She is one of the first young women in the village with a college education, getting a degree from al Quds University in social work.  She is bright, energetic, playful and determined.  She wants to work with kids as an educator, social worker or therapist.  She has worked and learned with my friends Khitam, a creative arts therapist, and Nasser, a middle school counselor and social worker who works with families on violence and substance abuse issues.

It is impossible for a young woman, and difficult for a young man, to find work in Arab al-Jahalin.  Hamda is looking for work outside her village but without a car or the money to buy one  So she has created a program for kids in an abandoned container the size of a railway car, perhaps one of the original containers when her village was moved there.  She runs programs three or four times a week, doing arts activities and games with the kids.  Khitam has helped her set up the container as a learning and playing space and has also helped her with arts activities that are engaging for kids.  She also brings people to lead discussions about women's rights and other issues.

Wednesday, Khitam and I visited Hamda at her activity center, where we met Suad, her elder sister, and five of her friends: Shadieh, Asthma, Soraya, Tahani and Huda.  One is engaged and will marry in a few months; one has a degree in economics and hopes to find work; one does embroidery at home and the others may find something they want to do before marriage.  Traditions change slowly and Bedouin tradition did not allow for women to work outside the family.  That will change, also, as women like Hamda break the mold and, with their parents' permission, go outside the family for an education and then work.

Isolation by tribe, whatever and wherever the tribe, and strict adherence to a behavioral code do not work in a shrinking, changing world, but customs change slowly and are often kept in place by traditions that have long served the tribe.  The most efficient and ethical way to support change comes from understanding and empathy.  If the modern West insists on one way of living and attempts to force that, we will encourage conflict and resistance.  The Bedouin live the way they do because that has served them well for centuries.  That is where our understanding and support should begin.  Just as we perceive their culture and history through lenses influenced by prejudice, media and propaganda, so do they perceive our culture and history through similar lenses.  Hamza is an example and an agent of change, in small but significant ways moving Bedouin culture into modernity without sacrificing what is essential.