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.
