A comment on this blog recently suggested we discuss water issues: a loaded topic, to be sure. But I had been wanting to do a photo essay for some time, and this presented a wonderful opportunity.
So much of the Middle East’s regional identity, at least as an outsider, seems to be crafted or defined by the lack of water in its vast deserts. In media, pop culture, and history lessons, we hear far more about the significance of the desert than anything else. But all that the desert is for the Middle East, water is just as powerful of a socio-political and historical force.
I recall an evening in a popular café in downtown Amman—a city filled with Palestinian refugees and the children of Palestinian refugees and their children—when a group of elderly musicians struck up a set list of traditional Palestinian folk songs and ballads (for lack of a better description). They recalled a life next to the water, a life of fishing, exploration, and freedom. It was a life most of the audience had never known. The entire room was in or close to tears: not just for the turbulent national history it recalled, though that was certainly part of it, but also in mourning for the lost traditions of a life alongside the water.
As much as identity in the Middle East is defined by aridity, harshness, and desertification, as much as the harsh natural climate reflects the turbulent political climate, there is a distinct cultural calmness that reflects a deep abiding connection to water. Water everywhere exists just outside the conventional space-time continuum: water, at least in the Middle East, suggests promises of a better future, and it teases us with a better alternate reality.
People’s relationships with the water, and its role in crafting individual identities, is as varied as the presence of the scarce resource itself. Water is sustenance, a requirement of life, but it is also revenue and recreation. From surfing in Haifa to scuba-diving and snorkeling on the Sinai Peninsula, from both sides of the Jordan river to the Yarmouk River to the ever-dwindling Red Sea, the Tigris and Euphrates and the Nile delta, from sustenance to escapism, the Middle East is as much a story of water as it is of deserts.
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- In Jordan, a small piece of land sits alongside a moment of water, whose importance was cemented many many years ago, here preserved in perpetuity or infinity, along the lines of contested territory. The golden sheen masks the torment around, thanks to the moment of water which has long since passed, and has protected this hallowed ground.
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- Government buildings in Haifa are a tribute to geo-history: the sail-shaped building in the background houses the Ministry of Interior and other government agencies. Not visible, but sitting below it in the shape of a boat, are the Haifa District Courts. Built from near nothing in the 20th century, Haifa's architecture reflects the rich seafaring history of the region.
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- In Sinai, the simple fact that architecture exists is thanks to the water. An impossible landscape is converted to a false oasis, a golden calf of financial gain or brief psychological respite from the harsher external realities: not a building off the shoreline is completed and lies in waste, a kilometer away people are living in tents, this land is bullet-ridden and blood-stained. Hiding behind the trellises and ornate lampposts is a truth, but perhaps one we'd rather not consider.
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- A view of the Mediterranean from Haifa's Carmel offers serenity, peacefulness, fabricated elegance and modernity against a backdrop of gritty industrialism and hidden truths as the coast curves towards Akka and history lays itself bare.
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- In Syria, water is an opportunity for industrialization and a necessary resource. People have been harnessing its power and potential for centuries through these water wheels. Now a tourist attraction, we are reminded that much of the Middle East has a long and fruitful relationship with water, and ought not in our collective mindset be relegated to the role of backdrop of "Lawrence of Arabia." (Photo: Ariel Azoff)
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- In the Middle East, boundaries, though strict, are fluid and often unenforced. The draw of the water, or perhaps in defiance of a seemingly absurd "closed military area," their arbitrary and meaningless nature seems entirely political and completely impractical.
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- Here is the heavy artillery for which the Middle East is renowned, by sea and not by sand. The foreward gun points towards the Lebanese border, soldiers on deck enjoy the sunset, and for the gulls life goes on around the chaos and volatility. A modern-day Pompeii.
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- Along the Israeli-Lebanese border, we feel a hesitant comfort, or complacency, against a backdrop of militarized zones. A wonder of nature is dominated by barbed wire barricades and heavy artillery. The curve of the sea suggests there is more to be found on the other side, but human differences have trapped us here.
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- Throughout the Middle East, restrictions are farcical and subject to change. Secularism and religiosity, tradition and modernity abut. A sign denoting a swimming area is dwarfed by the infinite scope of the sea and sky surrounding it. Its meager attempt to control land and water is laughable: don't swim in the swimming area, obviously.
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- Modernity and tradition necessarily coexist, taking advantage of the same limited resources. Sometimes, they are at peace. Oftentimes not, as the balance tips, as it often will in the Middle East.
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- On the ancient ramparts of Jaffa, the men in black consort with the beach bum. Surrounded by history and confronted by the future, there is no simpler or more difficult option than to coexist.
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- Along the water, traditions jibe into and against each other. Separate in water and on land; anthropological customs extend into the uncontrollable, attempting to override the inevitable, or the delay the unavoidable. As the fence dividing the men's and women's swim areas in Akka collapses from the pressure of the waves, the minarets and steeples play together in the sunset along the land.
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- Even when scarce, water is critically important: more than just basic needs or sustenance, it is a fundamental connection to something bigger than oneself or one's circumstances.
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- Still, sometimes water is just a simple toy to take one's mind off impossibly difficult times, or an air conditioner of the most simple construction. Despite its rarity, it is an indulgence.
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- The water provides so much: practical needs, religious ceremonies, enjoyment, sustenance, a combination of all of these. Fishing is about not just sustenance, but joy, in this simple pleasure, man's connectedness to nature is established: or perhaps here it is a resilience or a determination to make the best of what one can grab, what life puts in one's path.
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- Water is an escape. Sailing on the Nile allows one a personal respite from the hustle and bustle and dingy smog of Cairo. (Photo: Ariel Azoff)
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- Sinai's Red Sea is a vacation from reality, from the dirty, turbulent metropolis, into the unimaginably pristine wilderness of nearly-infinite flotation. Playtime is a complete baring of the soul, a complete release of inhibition, of concerns of "real life."
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- In Haifa, an afternoon's entertainment takes place among the rocks. Enjoying what one can in a precarious situation, this is the Middle East: dodging bullets and landmines and half-covered rocks.
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- In Akka, where land and homes are constantly contested, the water is cushion, a deviation from the norm. It is a way to make one's dreams come true, or pretend they are already real, when dreams might be but impossible tortures.
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- Water, like the course of life itself, is both a plaything and a force to be reckoned with. Land wrong and you could lose your life without a second thought, but in the grander scheme this is not a fear worth having so you take your chances. What is there to lose?
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- The nature of water itself is comforting and hallowing. It requires a lifeline, something to hold on to: faith in something simple. The love of a father, perhaps. Or that the future will bring something better than the past.
Human interaction with water in the Middle East is not unique: around the world it is sustaining and recreational at the same time. But in the Middle East, its promise of freedom and the future, its potential as an escape from the everyday, makes it perhaps a perfect identity for the Middle East.
(Photography: Audrey Farber, unless otherwise noted.)