Diasporic Experience and the Economic Life of Syria’s Bedouin Tribes in Jordan
Article by Ching-Tai Wu (吳青泰)
Abstract: There are over a hundred unofficial Syrian Refugee camps around Mafraq city of Jordan. In this paper, I will focus on two Syrian Bedouin refugee tribes ( 42 Al-Ramlah families and 53 Al-Jamlan families) which Tzu Chi Jordan foundation has provided assistance since 2018. Since these two Bedouin tribes could not stand the crowded life in the official refugee camp on their first arrival in Jordan, they quickly left the official refugee camps (some relatives still stay) and developed their unofficial refugee camps away from the cities. These two tribes have been employed by the Jordanian tenant farmers in order to secure a living and often merge with other Bedouin tribes to form a new settlement area. Syrian Bedouins’ diasporic experience is full of flexibility, influenced by the nomadic thinking of contemporary Bedouins. Their diasporic experiences in Jordan shape different overseas living imagination which is leading to their own new nomadic model and economic life.
Keywords: Syrian Bedouin tribes, Unofficial refugee camps, Diasporic experience, Economic life, New nomadic model
Header Image: Untitled by Mario Micklisch is licensed under a CC0 1.0 DEED
Ghouta and Sahara
One day in December 2019, as I was having a Syrian dinner with the Abu Omar family on the floor of their modern house in the Al-Ramlah Syrian refugee camps, I briefly felt as if I had left the refugee tents because of the fine cutlery and beautiful window cloth. After dinner, Abu Omar joked that he was mistakenly married into a Bedouin family because he was a “Falah” (Syrian farmers who often do business with urban people) from the Ghouta, a rural Damascus area. He suddenly performed the rough greetings of the Bedouins men and the elegant greetings of the Falah using a voice close to that of urban people, and then the whole room was filled with the laughter of his children.
Then, Khadija, a female Bedouin teacher of this Al-Ramlah tribe, also imitated Falah’s speaking with a gentle and attractive voice, and criticized Bedouins who live in the desert as less smart and lazier than the Falahs. She would like to become a Falah or an urban person. But Hadil, the daughter of the Al-Ramlah tribe leader, argued that Bedouins always spoke from their inner heart rather than the superficial politeness of the Falah people. After that day, Abu Omar and other Bedouins often used the metaphor of “Ghouta” and the “Sahara” to describe to me the two Al-Ramlah camps that I interviewed and lived in , and to teach me to distinguish their respective cultures. “Ghouta” was often referred to as the first camp area with buildings. “Sahara” was mentioned as the second temporary camp area with tents only.
Forced migration of Syrian Bedouin tribes
Previous anthropological works on forced migration provide us with the insight into refugee experiences by participant observation among different disciplines(Fiddian-Qasmiyeh et al. 2014). However, the research on the diasporic experience of Bedouins in this field remains limited.
As an important reference to my research, Chatty’s study (2013, 2016) provides a general introduction to Bedouin societies from the past to the present. In particular, she elaborates on how Bedouin people face modern society and connect with modern economic life by truck. Also, she would like to evaluate her theory that Bedouins did indeed make rational economic choices.
In my fieldwork, I focus on two Syrian Bedouin refugee tribes (42 Al-Ramlah families and 53 Al-Jamlan families) which Tzu Chi Jordan foundation has provided assistance since 2018. Although my background as a Tzu Chi volunteer helps me get close to Syrian refugees, I mostly get along with them as a researcher. I have lived with the Al-Ramlah tribe for 4 months and with the Al-Jamlan tribe for one month at various intervals between 2018 and 2020. I joined them in their daily life as well as economic activities. At the Al-Ramlah camp, I often worked with Syrian Bedouins on a Jordanian tomato farm, or brought them tea or food near noon in the summer. During the winter, they took me with them in the truck several times to work on an olive farm at Al Al-Bayt University in Mafraq city. At Al-Jamlan camp, due to the short stay, I went with the leader’s families to the farm two or three times in order to understand their economic life.
In this paper, I will focus on the Al-Ramlah tribe but also take the Al-Jamlan tribe as a reference. I will analyze how Bedouin diasporic culture influences their new economic life and nomadic lifestyle.
The flee of the Al-Ramlah Bedouin tribe
According to my interview with Hussein, the leader of the Al-Ramlah tribe in Jordan, there are 1,000-1,200 Syrians in the Al-Ramlah tribe which was one of eleven Bedouin tribes from East Ghouta, the rural Damascus district. Most of the tribe members live on farming; most families have their own farmland and flocks.
Since the 2011 Syria uprising, the number of Syrians in exile has grown. In 2013, according to Hussein’s interview, the Syrian government forces began attacking and besieging the Eastern Ghouta with chemical weapons, leaving them wandering around several places where the Al-Ramlah tribe could go. The Emir (the highest leader) of the Al-Ramlah tribe (Hussein’s father and the tribe’s leader in Syria) and Hussein’s uncle, considering that Jordan had similar tribal culture, particularly the Al-Ramlah relatives, beliefs, customs, and generosity culture, decided to flee to Jordan. They started going door-to-door informing their relatives to move to Jordan together. After a quick discussion, about 300 Al-Ramlah families traveled about 125 kilometers from Syria to Jordan in cars. Seven hundred tribe members remained in the Eastern Ghouta as they may consider the safety of children, the danger of siege and attack by troops, as well as their lands and livestock in Syria. The Bedouin exiles at the first arrival to Jordan were sent to the Zaatari refugee camp by the Jordanian government after being identified as Syrian.
Since these Al-Ramlah families could not endure the crowded life in the Zataari refugee camp on their first arrival in Jordan, they quickly left this camp. Also, due to their encounter with some Al-Ramlah people in the Zataari refugee camp whose common ancestors migrated to the Mafraq region of Jordan over a century ago; they decide to relocate togehter again to the village of Huweija near Mafraq city, in Jordan. Soon after, due to the raising of the sheep and donkeys, they determined not to live in the village and found a place to make up a new camp close to the village of Huweija in June 2013.
At first, only five Al-Ramla families lived together, and gradually formed a camp with 42 families when they invited other Al-Ramla tribe members. They also elected a new tribe leader. They always helped each other with patience and care in arranging for weddings and funerals. Due to the Jordanian refugee laws, they could only work on farms, not in companies. Some relief foundations have started to provide help to the Bedouin tribes in Jordan, including free education and medical help. Children can attend public school, and the shortage of drinking water has been resolved. After building a small mosque and some buildings in the camp, their life became more stable.
The flee of the Al-Jamlan Bedouin tribe
The Al-Jamlan Bedouin tribe has also lived in Eastern Ghouta in the ural region of Damascus in Syria, about a 40-minute drive away from the Al-Ramlah tribe, for over hundreds of years. The two tribes often interact with each other and are also related by marriage. The population of Jamlan in Syria is about 2,000. According to Abu Basher, the leader of the Al-Jamlan tribe, in 2012 the tribe started to suffer from the mutual armed attacks between the government forces and the free Syrian army, and decided to move to Jordan. They quickly left the Zattari official refugee camp and decided to move to Mukeift (Ghadeer Al-Naqah), the north of Mafraq to work with the Jordanians.
Map1 The location of Huweija village and Mukeift village (Ghadeer Al-Naqah) in Jordan (Source from Google Map)
Migration with tents: Traditional and new nomadic Life
In Syria, the Al-Ramlah tribe had both living buildings and tents in Eastern Ghouta, the outskirts of Damascus. During my stay at the Al-Ramlah camp, Hussein often demonstrated to me how to be a capable Bedouin with qualities including hospitality for guests, sheep raising and slaughtering, and nomadic skills needed in the desert. Nomadic mentality is imperative to survive and travel in the desert without any maps or electronic devices. As Hussein confided, the Bedouins’ preferred dwelling is where the sky meets the earth. That is why even they are displaced; he would still like to lead his tribe members away from the cities.
Traditional nomadic life in Syria
Map2 Migration routes of Al-Ramlah and Al-Jamlan tribes (Source from Google Map)
In winter, men of the Al-Ramlah or Al-Jamlan tribes in Syria, alongside other tribes, always migrate to the desert for several months. They leave women, children and the disabled in the Eastern Ghouta. One afternoon in December 2019, I visited the home of Hussein’s uncle, Hassan, one of six buildings in the Al-Ramlah tribe camp, where he showed me how to use traditional tools in the desert and how to weave sheep wool into woolen threads to fix the Bedouin tent. At this time, he talked about his desert nomadic experience:
When I was 12 years old, I used to go from the Syrian deserts to the Ravasa region of Jordan to buy flour, sugar, and salt because it was closer to our desert. Because there were no cars, I and five or six friends put all the stuff on the camel, and we looked at the stars in the sky to know our location and direction. Almost all nomadic Bedouins came to Jordan to buy what they needed…When I was 30 years old, I drove to the regions of Dalig, Aroa, Greyat, and Azraq in Jordan by car to buy essentials within one day, as my father did it with camels before over many days.
Hassan always traveled to the desert for six or seven months in winter and lived there because the desert in winter provides sheep and camels with water and rich grass. In summer, Hassan used to live in Eastern Ghouta for water and other supplies. They were called “Bedouin Rahil” (Rahil means “travel”) because they lived with sheep in the desert and always migrated from place to place due to their nomadic lifestyle. In the past, all Bedouins were “Bedouin Rahil”. They have been in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. In recent years, however, some Bedouins who often produce and trade agricultural and industrial products with the city people have rarely migrated and live in concrete buildings in Eastern Ghouta, known as “Bedouin Hadr” (Hadr mean “live in one place”).
xSyrie2 by Marc Veraart is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 DEED.
New nomadic life in Jordan
When the Al-Jamlah migrated to Jordan, they developed a new nomadic pattern. From 2018 to 2020, the map of the Al-Ramlah tribe in Huweija in Mafraq has been changing as follows:
In Jan 2019, I visited the Al-Ramlah tribe in Huweija in Mafraq for the first time. They owned six buildings, a small classroom, a prayer room, and a simple shop that was open once a week. Many families’ tents were located around this unofficial camp. During this period, they merged the “Ghouta ”and “Sahara” into one.
Map 3 the separation of “Ghouta” 〔1〕 and “Sahara” 〔2〕 (Drawn by Khadija, December 2019)
As shown in the map3, in December 2019, the Al-Ramlah tribe was separated into two camps. We named the first camp with several buildings as “Ghouta.” The second camp near the Jordanian farm was called “Sahara” because all families there lived in tents.
Map4 the two camps “Ghouta”〔1〕”Sahara”〔2〕with other Syrian Bedouin tribes〔3〕(Drawn by Khadija, July 2020)
As shown in the map4, from July to November 2020, before I left the camp in mid-November, the Al-Ramlah tribe still owned two camps. Other Bedouin tribes such as Hama joined their camp in summer for the farm work, but other tribes left and worked at the southern Jordan farms in winter. We can find that their pastoral life has not only depended on sheep and the Sahara desert, but on Jordanian farms and farmers.
The economic life of Syria’s Bedouin tribes in Jordan
In Syria, before the 2011 Syria uprising, the Al-Ramlah and the Al-Jamlan tribes engaged in farming and pastoral life. They grew tomatoes, watertight peaches, potatoes, and gherkins. Each family owned their own trucks and worked only on their farm without hiring other workers. Only Hessian’s family had 20 trucks servicing their farms and developed their local agriculture. They also had cattle, chicken farms, as well as sheep sheds. Most Bedouin tribes near Damascus lived mainly this farming and pastoral life in the rural Damascus.
However, after the 2011 Syria uprising, they gave up the work on the farms in Syria, and only earned money by selling sheep and their products. According to my Syrian Bedouin interviewees, there were over 100 unofficial refugee camps near Jordanian farms where the refugees worked. Similarly, being exiled in Jordan, the Al-Ramlah and Al-Jamlan tribes developed a new economic life working with Jordanians, other Bedouin tribes, and official refugee camps.
Inhabitants by a vegetable garden
At the dawn of a summer day at the Al-Ramlah tribes in the Huweija area, Mahmad (Hussein’s brother-in-law) rode his motorcycle to irrigate the farmlands near the Al-Ramlah camp. Egyptian migrant workers and several Al-Ramlah youths also came to the fields to assist. Female members in each family, like Hanan (Hessein’s daughter-in-law) were the first women in the family to wake up to prepare food for those who would work on the farms.
During the year, the Al-Ramlah tribe worked in the fields of nearby Jordanian tenant farmers to harvest fruit from March to May, harvest tomatoes from June to October, and moved to other olives farms to work part-time from November to January. Their income and expenses were as follows:
| Income (Yearly)
Salary from tomato 2500 (1000/one person) Salary from fruits 1600 Salary from Olives 1200 Sale and Product of Sheep 500/ 600 Yearsly total 5900 |
Expenditure (Yearly)
Sheep needed (food or others) 500/600 food from market and retail 4200 (350/ month) cloth (only in Eid) 500 Wood from Market 350(winter for three months) Medicine 50 winter 20 summer Yearly Total 5720 |
| Currency: Jordan Dinars | |
Chart1. Income and expenditure, a big household with 3 minor families with a herd of 10 sheep, 2019
Inhabitants by an orchard
It was just dawn in the summer morning at the Al-Jamlan camp, and there was a call everywhere, “wake up, guys!” All the middle-aged men and young men as well as women left their beds and went to the orchard, which was a 20-minute walk, to start a day’s work of picking peaches. They worked all day, had lunch delivered by family members at eleven o’clock in the morning, and returned home in the evening.
Al-Jamlan Bedouins cherished the summer fruit harvesting season, and in the winter, many returned to the Zaatari refugee camp or went to southern farms for lack of work in their orchard. Their average income and expenses were as follows:
| Income
Salary from fruit 3600 Yearly total 3600 |
Expenditure
food from market and retail 2400(200/month) Clothes 150 Wood for winter 0 Medical 100 Yearly total 2650 |
| Currency: Jordan Dinars | |
Chart1. Income and expenditure, a household of 5-8 persons without sheep, 2019
By analyzing the economic activities of these two tribes, we can infer that they are more economically dependent on the host country’s agricultural activities compared to their previous economic activities before the migration.
Conclusion: living on the move
This paper briefly presents a study of Syrian Bedouin’s paths of migration and their economic life in Jordan. From the living patterns of the Syrian Bedouins in Jordan at various times, we can find they use the term “Bedouin Hadr” who lived in “Ghouta” and the term “Bedouin Rahil” who lived in “Sahara” to describe their both sedentary and nomadic life. Therefore, we can find their ideological worldview impacts their living strategies and economic life of forced migration. In other words, the Syrian Bedouin’s diasporic experience is full of flexibility in the nomadic thinking of contemporary Bedouin lifestyle, which can again combine with Jordanian agriculture and develop its own new nomadic pattern and economic life.
References
Chatty, D. (2016). Bedouin Tribes in Contemporary Syria: Alternative Perceptions of Authority, Management, and Control. In Uzi Rabi, Tribes and States in a Changing Middle East. (p. 145–170). Oxford: Oxford Academic.
Chatty, D. (2013). From Camel to Truck: The Bedouin in the Modern World. Cambridge: The White Horse Press.
Chatty, D. (2016). Syria: The Making and Unmaking of a Refugee State. New York: Oxford University Press.
Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E., Loescher, G., Long, K., & Sigona, N. (Eds.). (2014). The Oxford handbook of refugee and forced migration studies. OUP Oxford.
