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Marsh Arabs
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Subject: Folklore: Marsh Arabs From: mg Date: 30 Sep 03 - 11:54 PM Does anyone know anything ab out them? I just came across an article in a UC Davis magazine. The pictures were fascinating..their story was of course tragic..their marshes have been drained by Sadaam etc. and they had the disappaearances etc. Their is a team of scientists going there to see what they can help restore. mg
-Joe Offer- |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Marsh Arabs From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 01 Oct 03 - 12:22 AM The Marsh Arabs, by Wilfred Thesiger, is a fascinating book (In Penguin paperback as well as a hard cover reprint by Harper). Thesiger died in August at age 93. His photographs are a great archive of the desert peoples. Thesiger worked toward the preservation of diverse cultures. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Marsh Arabs From: Grab Date: 01 Oct 03 - 08:27 AM The live (or lived) in the vast salt marshes in south Iraq. During the 80s, the Marsh Arabs led a campaign of resistance against Hussein. They're Shia, I think. As a result they got bombed with chemical weapons. They reportedly supported the allied effort in Desert Storm. After Desert Storm, Hussein wasn't allowed to fly aircraft in the south, so the bombing stopped. Instead, he started draining the marshes as a punitive measure. When the marshes were drained, everything died in that area and the Marsh Arabs couldn't stay there - the drained areas are far too salty for anything to grow there, so the end result is huge areas of salty desert. It's quite ironic that at the time of the latest invasion, ppl were so worried about Hussein damaging the Gulf environment with oil, when over the previous decade he'd been casually allowed to kill an entire ecosystem and all the people who subsisted off it. The marshes aren't totally destroyed yet, though. I've not heard any news about it, but hopefully the drainage will now be stopped and the marshes can be allowed to regenerate, possibly with assistance from Western ecologists. Graham. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Marsh Arabs From: Amos Date: 01 Oct 03 - 03:57 PM See this artickle from Science on the recovery of the wetlands. A |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Marsh Arabs From: Peter T. Date: 01 Oct 03 - 04:46 PM There is a substantive attempt to bring them back getting underway, though I am told that the numbers of people are now down to 25,000 from 75-100,000 before Saddam started in on them. Gavin Maxwell also wrote a book about them called "The Wind that Shakes the Reeds" (or similar). I have been trying for some time, without success, to find some recordings of music by people from that area. yours, Peter T. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Marsh Arabs From: Stilly River Sage Date: 01 Oct 03 - 05:11 PM I posted a link here some months ago to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle. I'll see if I can find it and repost it. SRS |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Marsh Arabs From: Grab Date: 01 Oct 03 - 06:59 PM Good link, Amos. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Marsh Arabs From: Metchosin Date: 02 Oct 03 - 11:27 AM I'm curious what damage to the marshlands has also been directly wrought by Turkey with the building of the giant Ataturk dam. Given this, how much of the destruction was the direct result of Saddam's idiocy? At one point Turkey reduced the Euphrates River to a trickle, while it was filling the dam and has the ability to completely shut down the Euphrates River and Turkey's dams also impact the Tigris as well. To its credit the World Bank refused funding of this project but it went ahead anyways and Iraq was irate when Turkey claimed the River was its resource to do with whatever it wanted, they didn't tell Iraq what to do with its oil. Seems to me the fate of their "marsh arabs" is much more in the hands of Turkey than their own fellow countrymen. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Marsh Arabs From: fretless Date: 02 Oct 03 - 12:44 PM Try this, too: http://www.simplysharing.com/sumerians.htm, which discusses contemporary Marsh Arabs and their relationship to the ancient cultures of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley. Based on the fine ethno-archaeology of Edward Ochsenschlager. The cultural tragedy resulting from the drained marshes is suggested by the comment "In a survey of refugees in Iran, only about one in five of those younger than 30 expressed a desire to return to Iraq. More than half of young people designated "elsewhere" as their preferred future residence." The traditional human culture of hte marshes appears to be dead, whether or not the waters are restored. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Marsh Arabs From: ard mhacha Date: 02 Oct 03 - 05:09 PM Take Q`S advice and read The Marsh Arabs by Wilfred Thesiger, a fascinating read.Ard Mhacha. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Marsh Arabs From: fretless Date: 02 Oct 03 - 05:44 PM Due out later this winter from Kegan Paul: The Tribes of the Marsh Arabs of Iraq: The World of Haji Rikkan. By: Fulanain. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Marsh Arabs From: Bill D Date: 11 Oct 03 - 10:23 AM wow...from the front page of today's Washington Post! Marsh Arabs recovery It's working, but they still don't have enough water because of upstream dams. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Marsh Arabs From: GUEST,pdq Date: 11 Oct 03 - 12:43 PM Note that the marsh lands were drained by Saddam. They are being restored by the U.S. coalition. Can't anyone see a connection between the Bush liberation of Iraq and the progress on this and many other positive fronts? |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Marsh Arabs From: Peter T. Date: 11 Oct 03 - 01:41 PM He was a hideous monster, and as someone with a special interest in the area, I am glad he is gone. But that still does not justify the American descent into pre-emptive warfare -- the cost of this is incalculable. We are already beginning to see the consequences of this, which, in the end, will be far worse than anything Saddam perpetrated. The descent of the world into force as the only arbiter can only end in hideous disaster on a global scale. The principled opposition to the war was based on this, in spite of the benefits of getting rid of Saddam. yours, Peter T. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Marsh Arabs From: Metchosin Date: 11 Oct 03 - 01:54 PM well, just to play the devil's advocate (pun intended) for a minute, if my water supply was in complete control of a hostile neighbour, (Turkey) who had at one time reduced it to a trickle, I might seriously consider damming what little remained for conservation purposes and to hell with the human and ecological consequences for a few, given the overall ramifications for the rest of my parched country. Not having read the books for a more indepth understanding, other than what I have gleaned on the net since the conflict in Iraq, I still wonder; where were all these advocates for Marsh Arabs and the other people of Iraq and Syria, when Turkey and a lot of other key international players, took over complete control of the Euphrates? I also wonder what the US government would do if Canada turned off the tap on the Columbia. Well, I guess I don't wonder, I'm pretty certain of the consequences. Water will continue to be the most important, contentious, resource in Middle East and shortly for all of humanity. If we think the power machinations regarding the control of Oil stink, we haven't seen anything yet, when it comes to Water. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Marsh Arabs From: GUEST,pdq Date: 11 Oct 03 - 02:19 PM As a biologist, I find the destruction of the habitat almost as despicable as the forced exile of the inhabitants. There is no reason that Environmentalists are not outraged also. This selective indignation was also clear when Saddam set the 1500 oil wells on fire. Saddam caused the extinction of species that were not yet described and should rot in whatever passes for Hell in his religion. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Marsh Arabs From: Peter T. Date: 11 Oct 03 - 02:51 PM What kind of selective indignation? The first protests by the international environmental community against the despoliation of the marshlands and the murdering of marsh arabs were made in 1993, when no one else cared about the Shiite population. The Americans were also partly responsible for the uprising of the Shiites which they encouraged, and then left to rot. . yours, Peter T. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: Marsh Arabs From: kendall Date: 12 Oct 03 - 07:19 AM Sure, we kill thousands of innocent people but we are restoring the swamp. And that makes sense to you? Bush apparently didn't study history so we are doomed to repeat it. |
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Subject: RE: Marsh Arabs From: GUEST Date: 13 Oct 03 - 03:01 AM Nice, Thank Bush snr for there demise. Make them rise against Saddam in the first war and then pull out to leave them to be slaughtered. And the yanks say "Well there only arabs." |
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Subject: RE: Marsh Arabs From: GUEST,ali baba boy Date: 13 Oct 03 - 09:36 AM Fewer arabs, fewer muslims to have to fuck with. What IS the problem? |
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Subject: RE: Marsh Arabs From: Bill D Date: 13 Oct 03 - 10:31 AM crap! ('scuse the language)..I revive the thread to report some good news, and it turns into this... |
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Subject: RE: Marsh Arabs From: mg Date: 13 Oct 03 - 11:33 AM there is good news. Read the Washington Post article that someone made a clicky for up above. mg |
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Subject: RE: Marsh Arabs From: Bill D Date: 13 Oct 03 - 12:16 PM That WAS me..... |
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Subject: RE: Marsh Arabs From: Peter T. Date: 13 Oct 03 - 12:22 PM Some of us appreciate the good news, Bill. yours, Peter T. |
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Subject: RE: Marsh Arabs From: GUEST,ali baba boy Date: 13 Oct 03 - 12:42 PM Don't blame poor Dubya for this fiasco...he knows NOT what he does. |
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Subject: RE: Marsh Arabs From: KateG Date: 13 Oct 03 - 01:20 PM Thanks for the links. I read Thesiger's book years ago, and had been curious about how those people and their culture had fared. |
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