And this too shall pass

Smadar Lavie wrote an ethnography of Bedouins set in southern Sinai. In this particular episode, he is with the Bedouins in their tents, telling stories, joking, making fun of tourists, complaining about military rule, and also listening to the Arabic version of BBC World Service.


The Ghalid continues, "The Greed were here nd left behind the Monastery, the Turks were here and left behind the Castle, and the British drew maps, and the Egyptians brought the Russian army (and a few oil wells), and the Israelis brought the Americans who made the mountains into movies, and tourists from France and Japan, and scuba divers from Sweden and Australia, and, trust Allah to save you from the devil, we Mzeina are nothing but pawns in the hands of them all. We are like pebbles [...]"

-- Smadar Lavie, The Poetics of Military Occupation


The geopolitics of change, which even nomadic peoples do not escape. In the end, we outlast; time is the survival strategy of even the passive.