Repressive Authenticity and the Double Bind of Culturally Based Rights

Indigeneity, as Wolfe pointedly reminds us, ‘is not just a matter of native self-ascription. It is also, among other things, a matter of settler imposition’ (Wolfe 2006b, 26). In his

important book Indians in Unexpected Places, Philip Deloria illuminates how cultural expectations have become constitutive to the representation and governing of indigenous people in the United States (P. J. Deloria 2004). Expectations, he suggests, are ‘the dense economies of meaning, representation, and act that have inflicted both American culture writ large and individuals, both Indian and non-Indian’ (P. J. Deloria 2004, 11).

The focus on cultural distinctiveness has subjected the Naqab Bedouin to a particular structure of expectations that is entrenched in racial stereotypes and oriental imaginaries of Bedouin culture. To continue to be recognised as indigenous, the Naqab Bedouin are expected to demonstrate ‘an archaic lifestyle’ (Thuen 2006, 24). As a result, they are subjected to the violence of ‘repressive authenticity’ (Wolfe 1994), based on the expectation that they continue to obey the cultural tenets of indigeneity by playing authentic Bedouin.

Repressive demands for indigenous authenticity are not limited to the symbolic realm; they also have significant implications to the economic, social, cultural and political dimensions that shape indigenous lives and entitlement to rights. In her work on native gaming wealth in the United States, Jessica Cattelino argues that the sovereignty of Native Americans hinges on a settler imaginary of indigenous people as poor. Native Americans, she argues, face a double bind of need-based sovereignty: ‘American Indian tribes can undertake gaming only because of their sovereignty, and yet gaming wealth threatens to undermine that very sovereignty’ (Cattelino 2010, 237). Indigenous wealth renders non-poor Indians as no longer being ‘real’ Indians, compromising their sovereignty.

The Naqab Bedouin also face a double bind. They are recognised as indigenous because they are seen to conform to the cultural tenets of indigeneity. However, any deviation from premodernity – any sign of ‘modernisation’, ‘’urbanisation’ and ‘progress’ – compromises their claims for indigeneity. The argument made by Law-Yone exemplifies this double bind: ‘since almost all the true nomadic population in Israel have become sedentarized, it is technically incorrect to call them Bedouins’ (Law-Yone 2003, 183). In their efforts to undermine Bedouin claims of indigeneity, some Zionist scholars have argued that the Naqab Bedouin have been urbanised and no longer exhibit the nomadic

lifestyle and the characteristics of tribal society that are used to justify their claims for indigeneity (Yahel, Frantzman and Kark 2012).

Repressive demands for authenticity also extend to sympathisers and supporters. As Niezen suggests, solidarity often:

… comes with a price because, to succeed, indigenous leaders must, to some extent, tailor their forms of cultural expression and exercise of power to the tastes and inclinations of their outside sympathizers. The politics of embarrassment brings with it the risk of collective self-stereotyping in conformity with broadly accepted ideals of indigenous authenticity. The consumers of indigenous identity are intolerant of economic and political strategies that are inconsistent with their image of what an Indian society, in its many iterations, should entail. (Niezen 2005, 593–4)

Recent years have seen hundreds of delegations of diplomats, international organisations and solidarity activists (Israeli and international) visit unrecognised Bedouin villages. These villages are often in dire condition after decades of state refusal to deliver basic services. In some cases, particularly in villages that have been subjected to repeated house demolitions, families live in tents or shacks. The spectacle of suffering is inescapable. Supporters, however, can also see this suffering as a manifestation of ‘simplicity’. Simplicity becomes fetishised as an authentic expression of Bedouin premodern culture, ignoring the underlying state policies of dispossession, de-development and impoverishment. As Awad Abu-Freih explains:

Some people who visit us are in love with our simplicity, the connection to the land, living in harmony with nature, etc. Multiculturalism today has become a trend. Some of the people are in solidarity with us because they value our culture and think it deserves to be preserved. They want us to stay this way, preserve our simplicity. They want us to maintain our way of life, not to surrender to modernity. (Interview, Awad Abu-Freih 2013)64

The Palestinian Bedouin are also often seen as victims awaiting rescue. As such, the Naqab Bedouin feel the burden of performing a ‘drama of suffering’ (Khalili 2007, 33) in their mobilisation of support and solidarity. As Khalil Al-Amour asserts: ‘I am tired of playing the role of the victim. We are not just victims. We build, we cultivate, we educate, we self-deliver services, and we resist’ (Interview, Khalil Al-Amour 2012).

The Naqab Bedouin are also subjected to inspection regimes that regulate Bedouin identities. Solidarity is thus racialised, meaning that the ‘social fact of race shapes the practice of solidarity and the challenges this poses to the project of achieving racial justice’ (Hooker 2009, 4). Racialised solidarity renders expressions of Bedouin agency and modernity as unexpected and even as anomalous (P. J. Deloria 2004). This is not unique to the Bedouin case. Urban Aboriginals in Australia, Maddison argues, are subjected to inspection regimes and are scrutinised over ‘the authenticity of their indigeneity’ (Maddison 2013, 288; see also Maddison 2003). Urban Aboriginals, she argues, live a ‘racialised paradox … they are not black enough to be “authentic”, but too black to be safely urban’ (Maddison 2013, 295–6). The Naqab Bedouin live a similar racialised paradox. Bedouin who refuse to adhere to a narrative of victimhood and suffering, and those who appear to be too modern, are scrutinised over their inauthenticity and challenged over their claim to indigeneity. Awad Abu-Freih describes his encounters with supporters as follows:

You should see the surprise on people’s faces when I say that I am a doctor of chemistry. How can you be both? As if education and science are incompatible with Bedouin culture and life. (Interview, Awad Abu-Freih 2013)

Amir Abu Kweder recalls similar encounters:

Foreigners have expectations, it is something that repeats itself in tours and talks. Let me tell you a secret. I never rode a camel. Does that make me less of a Bedouin? A while ago I led a tour of a group from the Jewish community in Australia. We were at Wadi Al-Na’am [an unrecognised village]. They asked me later, ‘How come people here have cutlery, plates, etc? How do they have water?’ [Access to water is not provided by the state, it is self-delivered by the residents.] They argued that the residents of the village seem just fine. They then attacked me personally, saying ‘You are an educated man, wearing jeans. You [Bedouins] need to stop playing the victim role.’ I was too modern for them to be a victim. (Interview, Amir Abu Kweder 2014)

The Bedouin struggle is thus marked by the burden of culture. For the Naqab Bedouin, the yoke of culture is inescapable. This is not only because Israel continues to culturalise the Naqab Bedouin as central to the colonial machinery of domination, or because the native Bedouin are subjected to practices of cultural genocide and have legitimate claims for cultural rights. It is also – and not least importantly – because essentialised conceptions of culture continue to dominate the conversation on indigenous people and

on Bedouin indigeneity. The two – culturalisation by the state, and culturalisation through the liberal discourse on indigeneity – intersect in ways that reinscribe race and power structures between whiteness and indigenous people.