People of the Mediterranean by J. Davis

Author:J. Davis [Davis, J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9781317400523
Google: ufcWCgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-07-03T05:59:10+00:00

IV Class, bureaucracy and honour applied to three cases

The three modes of representation discussed in this chapter are analytical isolates, and in mediterranean countries none is usually found on its own: indeed, the apparently peculiar richness of small-scale political activity in the mediterranean, its occasionally breathtaking ingenuity, is probably a product precisely of the variety of options open to a man who has an interest to defend or to further. Class, assertion of rights, patronage - these are separated in order to aid comparison. That process violates the seamless web of the often scrupulously careful reconstructions of politics in this or that community which ethnographers have presented to their readers, and it is owed to them to attempt to show that some benefit can be got from such violation. This section, then, is an attempt to analyse some real politics and to show the relation between the analytical concepts and real-life political activity: it is scarcely possible or desirable to classify all mediterranean political life in terms of the weighting to be given to the three factors, under their various kinds; but it may serve to demonstrate a concern with the seamless web of the quality of life, as well as the utility of the analysis, if one or two examples are now presented to the reader.

The first is taken from Cohen's study of Arab villages in Israel (1965: 60-8): it is what he calls the case of the labour exchange office and concerns the local branch of the Histadrut which is a syndicate of labour unions which has acquired important para-state tasks and (in 1959) owned 30 per cent of all Israeli capital. A branch was opened in Bint el-Huḍūd in 1959 and a local man. 'Uthman Barham, was appointed secretary. He was a member of the leading patrilineage (hamula) of the village and of one dominant family within it: his father, for example, was mukhtar, headman, of Bint el-Huḍūd. Since the office was new 'Uthman was able to make what he could of it - he invented the role of Secretary, so far as the village was concerned (ibid.: 61):

Within a short time, 'Uthman managed to concentrate in his hands tremendous power, as he became the man who could virtually hire and fire hundreds of village labourers. As an employment officer, he received orders for labour from the regional labour exchange centres, or direct from employers, and he himself distributed the jobs. In due course he became the intermediary between the labourers and the local representatives of the military governor of the area. His word decided whether or not a man would get a military permit for working outside the border area.

'Uthman excited resentment: he was said to favour members of his hamula over others, and disappointed labourers complained to their elders, who in turn brought the matter up with the mukhtar at their formal meetings. The mukhtar, who was 'Uthman's father, took little heed, and 'Uthman seemed secure enough in his oppression. However, after a slight recession

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