Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-16T22:18:21.119Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Migration and Popular Protest in the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf in the 1950s and 1960s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2011

John Chalcraft
John Chalcraft
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The conventional historiography on popular and labor protest in the Arabian peninsula and the Gulf since the Second World War tends to ascribe a negative role to migration. Migrants—dragooned into the service of expanding oil economies—are often depicted as undermining the cohesion and efficacy of indigenous labor activism and popular protest. This article adopts a different perspective. It revisits the most important twentieth-century wave of pan-Arab, secular, republican, and socialist protest in the region—that of the 1950s and 1960s—and highlights the positive contribution migrants made. They were not just quotients of labor power, but interpretive and political subjects. Palestinians, Yemenis, and others, along with return- and circular-migrants, exiles, and visitors, transmitted pan-Arab and Leftist ideas, helped build activist organizations, and participated in a variety of protests. I suggest that standard forms of endogenous socioeconomic determinism in the labor history of the region need rethinking.

Type
Migrant Workers in the Middle East
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 79 , Special Issue 1: Labor Migration to the Middle East , Spring 2011 , pp. 28 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

1. Disney, Nigel, “South Korean Workers in the Middle East”, MERIP 61 (October 1977): 22–24, 26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Robert Lee Franklin, “The Indian Community in Bahrain: Labor Immigration in a Plural Society” (Ph.D. Diss., Harvard, 1985); Gause, Gregory III, Oil Monarchies: Domestic and Security Challenges in the Arab Gulf States (New York, 1993), 71Google Scholar; Halliday, Fred, Arabia without Sultans (London, 1974), 420, 434Google Scholar; Halliday, Fred, “Migration in the Middle East”, MERIP 59 (August 1977): 13Google Scholar; Khalaf, Abd ul-Hadi, “Movements in Bahrain”, MERIP 132 (May 1985): 24–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Khuri, Fuad, Tribe and State in Bahrain: The Transformation of Social and Political Authority in an Arab State (Chicago, 1980), 5Google Scholar; Lackner, Helen, A House Built on Sand: A Political Economy of Saudi Arabia (London, 1978), 194, 197, 216Google Scholar; Vitalis, Robert, America's Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier (Stanford, 2006)Google Scholar.

2. Cheng, Lucie and Bonacich, Edna, eds., Immigration Under Capitalism: Asian Workers in the United States before World War II (Berkeley, 1984)Google Scholar; Cohen, Robin, The New Helots: Migrants in the International Division of Labor (Aldeshot, 1987)Google Scholar; Force, History Task, Migration under Capitalism: The Puerto Rican Experience (New York, 1979)Google Scholar; Meillassoux, Claude, Maidens, Meal and Money: Capitalism and Domestic Community (Cambridge, 1981)Google Scholar.

3. Brand, Laurie, Palestinians in the Arab World: Institution Building and the Search for State (New York, 1988), 144Google Scholar; Salah Muhammad ‘Aisa Al-Ghazali, Al-Jama'at al-Siyasiya al-Kuwaytiya fi Qarn 1910–2007: Dusturiyin, Islamiyyin, al-Shi'a, al-Qawmiyyin/Political Organizations in Kuwait, 1910–2007: Constitutionalists, Islamists, Shi'a and [Arab] Nationalists (Kuwait, 2007), 428; Al-Mdairis, Falah Abdallah, Al-Harakat wa-l-Jama'at al-Siyasiyya fi-l-Bahrain 1938–2002/Political Organizations and Movements in Bahrain 1938–2002 (Beirut, 2004), 11Google Scholar.

4. The Bahrain Government Annual Reports, 1924–1956. Archive Editions, Vol. 2. (Gerrards Cross, 1986), 28–29; Mdairis, Movements in Bahrain, 13–14.

5. Seccombe, Ian J., “Migration to the Arabian Gulf: Evolution and Characteristics, 1920–1950”, Bulletin of British Society for Middle Eastern Studies 10 (1983): 10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6. Khuri, Tribe and State, 66.

7. Ibid., 195.

8. Bahrain Government, Vol. 2: 48–49; Nelida Fuccaro, “Pearl Towns and Early Oil Cities: Migration and Integration in the Arab Coast of the Persian Gulf.” Unpublished paper, 2008: 22; Mdairis, Movements in Bahrain, 7.

9. Khuri, Tribe and State, 197; Mdairis, Movements in Bahrain, 11, 14–15.

10. Halliday, Arabia without Sultans, 178–79.

11. Khuri, Tribe and State, 198.

12. Bahrain Government, Vol. 5, 6; Ghazali, Organizations in Kuwait, 430–1, 437–40, 454.

13. Ghazali, Organizations in Kuwait, 428–30, 433; Mdairis, Movements in Bahrain, 12.

14. Smith, Pamela Ann, Palestine and the Palestinians, 1876–1983 (New York, 1984), 172–3Google Scholar; Ghazali, Organizations in Kuwait, 430–2; Al-Mdairis, Movements in Bahrain, 12, 14, 22.

15. Mdairis, Movements in Bahrain, 15–16.

16. Khuri, Tribe and State, 198.

17. Brand, Palestinians in the Arab World, 124, 144.

18. Ghazali, Organizations in Kuwait, 445–6.

19. Brand, Palestinians in the Arab World, 127–9.

20. Ghazali, 444; Khuri, Tribe and State, 188; Mdairis, Movements in Bahrain, 12, 17–18.

21. Khuri, Tribe and State, 186; Seccombe, “Migration,” 16.

22. Bahrain Government, Vol. 5, 48; Vitalis, America's Kingdom, 154.

23. Bahrain Government, Vol. 5, 49.

24. Khuri, Tribe and State, 206; Bahrain Government, Vol. 5, 5.

25. Bahrain Government, Vol. 5, 6.

26. Ibid.

27. Ghazali, Organizations in Kuwait, 449; Al-Mdairis, Movements in Bahrain, 23.

28. Ghazali, Organizations in Kuwait, 450.

29. Ibid., 452–3.

30. Halliday, Arabia without Sultans, 102.

31. Ibid.

32. Ibid., 119–26.

33. Ibid., 190–2.

34. Ibid., 191–2, 208.

35. Halliday, Arabia without Sultans, 190.

36. Ibid., 191. Ghazali, Organizations in Kuwait, 437–9, 454.

37. Halliday, Arabia without Sultans, 179.

38. Cited in Halliday, Arabia without Sultans, 222.

39. Watt, D.C., “Labor Relations and Trades Unionism in Aden, 1952–60”, Middle East Journal 16 (1962): 446–7Google Scholar.

40. Ibid., 448–9.

41. Halliday, Arabia without Sultans, 183.

42. Ibid., 86; Watt, “Labor Relations in Aden,” 447.

43. Halliday, Arabia without Sultans, 187.

44. Watt, “Labor Relations in Aden,” 448.

45. Halliday, Arabia without Sultans, 208.

46. Ibid., 255.

47. Ibid., 362.

48. Ibid., 287.

49. Heard-Bey, Frauke, From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates: A Society in Transition (London, 1982), 312–13Google Scholar; Seccombe, “Migration,” 12.

50. Halliday, Arabia without Sultans, 317–18.

51. Ghazali, Organizations in Kuwait, 454.

52. Halliday, Arabia without Sultans, 343.

53. Ibid., 320, 330–1, 357.

54. Burdett, A. L. P., Records of Saudi Arabia, 1966–1971. 6 Vols. (Chippenham, 2004), Vol. 4, 66Google Scholar.

55. Abir, Mordechai, Saudi Arabia: Government, Society and the Gulf Crisis (London, 1993), 28–9, 35Google Scholar.

56. Ibid., 40.

57. Burdett, Saudi Arabia 1966–1971, Vol. 3, 440.

58. Abir, Saudi Arabia, 42–3.

59. Vitalis, America's Kingdom, 92.

60. Smith, Palestine, 172.

61. Al-Rasheed, Madawi, A History of Saudi Arabia (Cambridge, 2002), 97Google Scholar.

62. Ibid., 103.

63. Smith, Palestine, 172.

64. Vitalis, America's Kingdom, 93–4.

65. Ibid., 94–5.

66. Smith, Palestine, 173; Abir, Saudi Arabia, 35.

67. Vitalis, America's Kingdom, 127–93.

68. Al-Rasheed, Saudi Arabia, 97.

69. Ibid., 99–100.

70. Vitalis, America's Kingdom, 145–7.

71. Ibid., 154–5, 172–3.

72. He himself had what Vitalis calls ironically a “suspect travel record,” having visited Lebanon in 1955 and possibly Egypt. Ibid., 177–8.

73. Smith, Palestine, 173.

74. Vitalis, America's Kingdom, 154–5.

75. Smith, Palestine, 173; Brand, Palestinians in the Arab World, 127.

76. Al-Rasheed, Saudi Arabia, 99–100.

77. Abir, Saudi Arabia, 37–8.

78. Vitalis, America's Kingdom, 157.

79. Abir, Saudi Arabia, 34–35.

80. Burdett, Saudi Arabia 1966–1971, Vol. 3, 300–1. See also Burdett, Saudi Arabia 1966–1971, Vol. 2, 786–791, 796; and Vol. 3, 272.

81. Abir, Saudi Arabia, 34–35.

82. Vitalis, America's Kingdom, 152.

83. Ibid., 161; Lackner, House Built on Sand, 193.

84. Vitalis, America's Kingdom, 172–3.

85. Ibid., 161–2.

86. Al-Rasheed, Saudi Arabia, 110–11.

87. Vitalis, America's Kingdom, 134, 181.

88. Ibid., 102.

89. Burdett, A. L. P., Records of Saudi Arabia, 1961–1965. 5 Vols. (Chippenham, 1997)Google Scholar; Burdett, Saudi Arabia 1966–1971.

90. Abir, Saudi Arabia, 34.

91. Vitalis, America's Kingdom, 161.

92. Burdett, Saudi Arabia 1966–1971, Vol 3, 41, 53.

93. Ibid., 300–1.

94. Halliday, Arabia without Sultans, 67.

95. Vitalis, America's Kingdom, 189.

96. Burdett, Saudi Arabia 1961–1965, Vol. 5, 23.

97. Burdett, Saudi Arabia 1966–1971, Vol 2, 507–19.

98. Ibid., Vol 2, 847, 857.

99. Ibid., Vol. 4, 4ff and Vol. 5, 59–64.

100. See, for example, Loüer, Laurence, Transnational Shia Politics: Religious and Political Networks in the Gulf (New York, 2008)Google Scholar.

101. Watt, “Labor Relations in Aden,” 443.

102. Ilham, Khuri-Makdisi, The Eastern Mediterranean and the Making of Global Radicalism, 1860–1914 (Berkeley, 2010)Google Scholar.