Tribal Modern. Miriam Cooke

      UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

      BerkeleyLos AngelesLondon

      University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.

      University of California Press

      Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

      University of California Press, Ltd.

      London, England

      © 2014 by The Regents of the University of California

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Cooke, Miriam.

      Tribal modern : branding new nations in the Arab Gulf / Miriam Cooke.

      pagescm

      ISBN 978-0-520-28009-0 (hardback)—ISBN 978-0-520-28010-6 (paperback)

      eISBN 9780520957268

      1. Ethnology—Persian Gulf States.2. Persian Gulf States—Social life and customs.3. Tribes—Persian Gulf States.I. Title.

      GN640.C66 2014

      306.09536—dc23

      2013019649

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      In keeping with a commitment to support environmentally responsible and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has printed this book on Rolland Enviro100, a 100% post-consumer fiber paper that is FSC certified, deinked, processed chlorine-free, and manufactured with renewable biogas energy. It is acid-free and EcoLogo certified.

      For Muhammad Àli Àbdullah and DD

      CONTENTS

      Introduction

      1. Uneasy Cosmopolitanism

      2. Pure Blood and the New Nation

      3. The Idea of the Tribe

      4. The Brand

      5. Building the Brand

      6. Heritage Engineering

      7. Performing National Identity

      8. Gendering the Tribal Modern

      Conclusion

      Acknowledgments

      Notes

      References

      Index

      Introduction

      Bombay. February 1973.

      I was running out of money. After months on the road, I was tired of traveling. Busing and hitching across Europe through Turkey to Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass and Rawalpindi to Katmandu and down to Goa for Christmas and Trivandrum for New Year’s Eve had finally slaked my wanderlust. Instead of Bali, I decided to return to Bombay and then home. Home in oh-so-far-away England.

      With little money left, my only option was the “human cargo ship.” These vessels of misery left Bombay when they had filled with Indian laborers bound for the Arab Gulf. The accelerating production of oil drove the demand for migrant workers. South Asia supplied them. More and more ships were filling and leaving. At the port of Bombay, I met with the ship’s captain and handed over my twenty pounds sterling to cover the cost of my trip to the Iranian port of Khorramshahr. Before setting sail, I signed a document accepting the conditions of travel: no doctor on board.

      For ten nights, I slept in the black bowels of the ship. My hammock was squeezed between other hammocks, packed with women and screaming, puking babies. It was hard to sleep. Morning brought relief. Bleary-eyed, we climbed the stairs out of the stinking hold and onto the deck where we lined up for breakfast. Stewards slopped curry into our outstretched bowls. Lunch and dinner were the same. The only break from the monotony of potato curry was afternoon tea, sweet and milky, with Marie biscuits.

      After passing through the Strait of Hormuz, the ship stopped at the various towns dotting the Arab Gulf coast. We anchored for a few hours to disembark passengers in their assigned port of call. Under guard, they were herded down the gangplank and quickly separated into small groups before vanishing into the maze of narrow streets beyond the port. Since I was the only non-Indian passenger and not likely to escape, the captain made an exception to the rule that no one could leave the docked ship. With the sailors I wandered around the various ports for a few hours.

      The only place I really remember is Dubai. The British, after presiding over the Gulf region for over one hundred and fifty years, had withdrawn two years earlier. They had left little trace of their presence. This dusty town of one-and two-story mud buildings was at the time “the largest conurbation in the region” and the “business capital of the Trucial coast” with a population of over 100,000, half being foreigners (Davidson 2008, 68–69). The only “tourist attraction” I recall was a Russian hospital. It was highly recommended, and so I joined a couple of the sailors who were on their first rip to the Gulf. The car wound its way through the streets and then quickly out into the desert. There it was, a large, glass, empty edifice. Rumor had it that those who entered did not leave alive. We kept our distance.

      Bleak and colorless though it was, Dubai had seemed uncannily familiar.

      •••

      Dubai. December 2008.

      About to land in Dubai International Airport, I wondered if I would again experience those intimations of a previous incarnation. Flying over the city, I knew I wouldn’t.

      I entered the huge, glass airport that serves as one of the busiest hubs in the world. Teeming with people, it felt like Heathrow or JFK. After a long wait for the luggage, I caught a taxi and asked the driver to take me to the Palm Jumeirah and then through the downtown. Happy to comply, he drove me around the man-made island shaped like a palm tree with the monstrous Atlantis Hotel looming at the end. Next, we passed the seven-star, sail-shaped Burj al-`Arab Hotel. It boasts the world’s highest tennis court that, at 211 meters, serves also as a helipad. From the coast, we drove inland and passed Knowledge Village, Dubai Internet City, Dubai Media City Annex, and Mall of the Emirates, where the pinnacle of the world’s largest indoor ski slope towers above the commercial complex. Heavy traffic slowed to a crawl through the six-lane highway separating the two sides of the Sheikh Zayed Road known as Dubai’s Fifth Avenue. Most stunning of all was the 828-meter high Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building in the shape of a rocket.¹

      Finally, we entered an older part of town where I alighted and walked through a maze of alleys to the Xva Art boutique hotel where I had booked a room for two nights. A traditional house converted into an art gallery-cum-hotel, it is located in Bastakia, a restored heritage area inaccessible to cars. The hotel was a two-minute walk from the Khor, or Creek, a bustling hive of activity where I had landed all those years ago. Bastakia’s romantic wind towers and hushed, narrow lanes flanked by high, white, windowless walls allowed the imagination to roam to a time in the past when Arabs, Persians, and Indians traded and traveled from there to all parts of the Indian Ocean.

      Nothing