Essay on Agriculture

حسن الحضارة مجلوب بتطرية *** و في البداوة حسن غير مجلوب

It’s unusual for me to start an article with an Arabic poem. However, this entry has its own significant and a bit extent. The translation says: the beauty of civilized people is acquired by softening them, while nomads are beautiful spontaneously.

Bedouins are nomads, Middle Eastern nomads. The character of a Bedouin is very unique. They are generous, reckless in a good way, helpful, and always do first and think later. In addition, as the poet says they are very beautiful, say gypsy beauty. However, this is not our main topic but city people are. So, what brought Bedouins in the middle of my article? AlWardi says when a Bedouin moves from desert to urban, he loses the good theme of Bedouins, and gains the bad characters of urbanism. First question popped up in my head was: “is it possible for a citizen to move to deserts?”

This article took like 4 weeks processing in my mind. The main obstacle I faced was determining the definitions. The term civilization used in the early 18th century in the form of civility. So, civility described people who lived along in cities. The term meant to classify the people into civilized and barbarian. Moreover, it is still utilized between city inhibitors in Arab countries, to differentiate between urban people and Bedouins. As we live a 300 years back behind Europe, there is no wonder the word is used as same as they did that time. This is the first time frame; we do live in medieval ages. The other one is community time frame, which is before and in early stages of discovering oil in Qatif. Let’s adjust our time machine to 1950’s and travel.

The main core of human civilization is the agriculture. This was the main dissimilar between citizen and nomads here. Regardless the trading and sea resources, we were introduced to the modern world through farming. This by itself limits our interaction with outsider, so plenty of genetic blood diseases. Besides, the community was sufficient enough to be based on 2 inherited social classes, slave and master or in other gentle words; commander and commoner. Feudal is the alternative for this civilization category; land lord and worker. Feudalism meant one resource for occupation and income. Therefore, farms flourished, and food industry was the anchor in construction this community. No need to mention, riches get richer and poor become poorer.

An oasis lies by the gulf. It was named after grape crops. I think if it wasn’t introduced to Islam early, we would make best wine in Arab world. Indeed the advantage agriculture is more than good wine industry. It provided a culture, as some people have to be framers, and others work on thinking, literature, medicine, and Architecture. That put us in leadership in comparing to others.

In the beginning of oil industry, the social arrangement had altered. Feudalism which was based on few land lords had been broken, almost. A new source of jobs was provided, Aramco, the oil company. This by itself didn't demolish feudal system, but shifted it to new and only head, the company. Being a farmer stopped being satisfactory. Many uneducated, illiterate people would be taught, paid higher, and steadier income resource. No need to mention, the run, the big run from the titans of higher class “electa”. And gradually farms had been abandoned.

Despite the occupational jump, there was no economical one. The reason is not my concern as the result is. First, we need to put in mind that Qatif is composed of Shia mainly. As a minority, they tend to cluster together. In the beginning, and I don’t know how to say the following in English, to provide lands to build houses, they transformed the sea to a sand terrain. “They did bury the sea.” Still that process to provide inhabitable land didn’t meet the population explosion. Land lords, old feudalists didn’t give their lands easily. They demanded high prices, which still to the Aramco workers, and by that time new employees appeared like low or middle classes teachers, doctors, and engineers, couldn’t effort such an insane amount.

So currently, what would you do with unutilized land? The government doesn’t offer enough support for you to cultivating your old farm. On the other hand, in the middle province of Saudi Arabia, a massive amount of money was given to flourish the farming industry. In the same time, others in east don’t find a piece of land to build a house over. No wonder, those people turned to the farm lands after finishing the sea plots. I think by this paragraph, I summed up the factors that lead to our failure in keeping our civilization anchor alive.

Soon, and I’m setting 10 years ahead as a new time frame, we would suffer from a very hard food crisis. There is at least a milliard and 300 million hungry mouths in china will demand rice as food. When that time arrives, the fertile soil will be the hard money. The oil would be very cheap in compare to this fortune which we gave up easily and unconsciously. I don’t think we may start drinking gasoline. However, middle province people would establish sufficient food resources. Why don’t we try to expand to the west? The desert is just behind us, very big and very wide. Don’t be afraid of being Bedouins if you move there, because once you lost the palm trees, you become Bedouins. This is the answer I was seeking. We were not very sophisticated civilization. To resume our journey along with civilized people, we need to reestablish what we had lost.

In the end, for centuries, the palm trees, the main harvest in Qatif, were the spine for our living. This tree takes care of us from birth to death. In graves, we use its wood to “hug” the dead body and cover it. Please, be gentle to palm tree while you are alive, so it becomes a peace for you in your burial.


P.S: Thank u very much my friend for ur help..