Years of exclusion and marginalization have done a great deal of harm and could lead to a situation in which people are motivated by survival instinct only. This is what worries me as a professional member of Bedouin society who sees the frustration in our young people's eyes.
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We have recently been witness to extensive coverage of an incident in which a bus was pelted with rocks while passing by Abu Talul. Has anyone heard of this Bedouin village? Is anyone familiar with its story? Does anyone know any of its residents or the young people there? I am confident no one does.
Abu Tal was one of the villages recognized by the state in 1998. Twenty-four years have since passed, but the village remains undeveloped. There is no electricity or water infrastructure, no roads, no communication network, no recreation sites for young people, and no cultural centers. The list is long, and Abu Talul is not alone.
It is apparently from this village that rocks were thrown at innocent passengers, rocks that tell a story no one wants to hear about many years of neglect, abandonment, marginalization, dispossession, and institutional violence.
Hopeless youths who want to study at college and integrate into the job market, make a decent living and raise a family. Youths who lost their dream of integration, security, pride in their identity, a sense of belonging, of being seen. This dream has gotten further and further away from them over the years and is becoming unattainable. How can one dream? How can one succeed when the basic conditions do not exist? How can you succeed when there is no light at the end of the tunnel? Instead of dreams, there is disappointment and frustration. The frustration is very destructive, both to individuals and society in general.
My research into educated Bedouin youths and their sense of belonging found that young people feel a strong sense of belonging to cross-border Islamic Arab ideology. While they do not feel a sense of belonging to their village of residence, they do feel a strong sense of belonging to their tribe, which provides them a sense of security and protection.
This sense of a lack of belonging leads to physical and mental health issues and inevitably entails negative behaviors such as rejection, avoidance, abandonment, and disconnection. When people feel their sense of belonging is under threat, they will demonstrate a variety of responses including difficulty self-regulating, feeling a sense of defeat, and exhibiting violent behavior. In cases where the policy tends to conceal the indigenous place, in particular in colonial regimes, a practice is developed to protect the native identity and the native way of life. This is what is happening to Bedouin society, which suffers from land expropriation and exclusion, in the south.
Add to that the fact that Bedouin society is young – 70% of its members are between the ages of eight and 50 – and is undergoing a transition from traditional to modern society alongside the strengthening of Islam and you have another layer of difficulty to contend with.
To increase these young people's sense of belonging to their village and society in general, we must invest in infrastructure in entertainment venues, places of employment, and education in Bedouin villages and in improving their quality of life. These are the basic rights of every citizen, and young Bedouin are citizens, not enemies, of the state. The rocks that were thrown out of frustration and exclusion are a warning sign that obligates all of us to see these young Bedouin as resources to the Negev and not a nuisance.
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