The Bedouin Professor: I want to be in the Big Wide World

Muhammad Hugirat in Dialogue

I find it amazing to feel a strong connection with a man that I hear on a radio interview for the first time.  I have never heard of this man before, but what I found out in this one hour conversation with Muhammad Hugirat confirmed my gut feeling that there is a very common humanity in all of us.
Professor Hugirat is the deputy head of the Arab Academic College for Science Education in Haifa, Israel. He is a Bedouin Israeli from the Village of Bir al-Maksur.
The interviewer is Kobi Barkai on a late night radio program named "Hidabrut" a Dialogue. 

Professor Hugirat's message is: "Keep the framework of old traditions but build a new world where we are all together contributing.  We cannot live in our imagination.  We have to be part of the wide world and go forward."

There are 9,000 citizens in Bir al-Maksur village.  All are Bedouins from the Hugirat tribe.

Muhammad started his life in a family of shepherds with 14 siblings.  His parents were illiterate but they taught him the morality of being a shepherd.  Unlike his poor father, his mother was the daughter of the Muchtar, the head of the tribe.  They fell in love and despite the difficulties they got married.  They were known as the great love story of the village.  He has 5 brothers older than him and 6 younger brothers.  They all built good lives for themselves.

Muhammad thanks Kobi for the interview.  This is the first time he is speaking on the Israeli Hebrew media.

Kobi comments that it is known that good leaders start their lives as shepherds.  He asks: What does a shepherd learn from his flock?

Muhamad answers that he often ponders about his life as a shepherd in a two hour meditation in a dark room: A flock of sheep is a responsibility.  If a sheep gets lost it is a great financial burden.  Dealing with animals teaches you about humanity: you have to treat a sick sheep or one bitten by a snake.  You need to take care of them.  In emergencies like that your personality erupts!  You are never a lone shepherd.  There are other flocks all around and you need to respect the boundaries of each one.  "If you ask me today am I a leader?  I say yes, not necessarily politically.  I tell the people in my village: We need to contribute to the society.  I say in the Arab media: We should have a speech about needs.  We shouldn't have the National speech.”

(When he is using the word speech he really means dialogue, or conversation.  I translated literally, however he means to say: This is the issue, this is what we need to talk about:  What are our needs?  If we talk about the Nationality then we are missing the point.  This issue is very essential and universal:  What is the point of borders?  We are all one humanity with the same needs.  We should put our minds and creativity to solve common problems, rather than focus on history and old traditions.) 

Muhammad tells Kobi about the early members of his tribe, a charismatic father and his two sons, who arrived in Israel from Syria via Jordan.  They saw this beautiful place and in the summer they took their flock to the well.  The sheep ran through the fence and broke it, so they called the place broken well, and that is the origin of the name Bir al-Maksur.
Kobi asks: How does a shepherd get educated in Bir al-Maksur?
Muhamad says his is an interesting story.  As a curious boy he was attracted to listen to the elders in the tribe.  The old men used to meet in a place called Divan.  He used to sit outside by the door and follow their conversations.  He watched TV for the first time in 1976 when electricity was installed in the village.  He did not see the sea until the end of his freshman year in University.  There were no books in their home.  The school teacher was their only source of information.  When he saw the school library he was amazed at the amount of knowledge those books contained.  When he finished elementary school his father said "You have studied enough.  Time for you to watch the sheep." His math teacher came to the house and talked to his father.  It was difficult but she convinced him that Muhammad should go on with his studies.  He loves her dearly to this day.  She lectures at his college.  He stands up every time she enters the room and he waits until she is seated.  He finished high school at the top of his class.
His father expected him to marry and have 12 children.  It was his mother who gave him money and encouraged him to run away from home and go to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.  At first he had a difficult time.  He had a professor of Physical Chemistry who encouraged and supported him: Haim Lebanon.  He loves him as a human being.  He trained in the field of ESR Electron Spin Resonance. He was sent to Fry University in Berlin where he developed the method and excelled at it.  He has many articles and books about it.  But he realized that he is really an educator and a writer  and he preferred to practice Science Education and deal with human beings rather than with electrons.  He also wished to write of his experiences and he wrote a series of 4 short stories.  He received an award for these stories from the Education Department.  He also wrote 20 children's stories.  He writes in Arabic and only one story was translated to Hebrew.  Kobi tells him to hurry and get the other stories translated.

Muhammad supports equality and liberty for women.  His wife had no college education when they got married.  He supported her going to school and completing her education.  She now runs a nursery school.  He brags about their 4 children and their accomplishments.

Kobi asks if their tradition is tribal.  What is the tribal tradition, the music, literature, food?
(What is tradition?  In the past each tribe was uniform in their way of life, meaning they spoke the same language, ate the same foods, prayed in the same manner, and played the same music.  According to Muhammad in this tribe the previous generation was illiterate, but the current generation all had the opportunity to go to school.  So the point here is that with more people getting higher education, with the new technologies of smart phones and information available to all, more of the old traditions merge.  This is really a major development as many people (everywhere in the world) prefer to stick to their old traditions.)
Muhammad's answer is that now all Bedouins have the same tradition.  But his message is that today the whole tribe structure is disintegrating and shattering.  Muhammad himself does not believe in the idea of the tribe any more. "I am a man of the large world!  I cannot exist within boundaries.   My contribution is to the Israeli society first and then to the wide world."
He says what happens in the whole Arab world also affects the Bedouins.  He believes they should keep the beautiful sides of nostalgia and tradition but should be in the large world contribute to it and receive from it.  He repeats this again and again "Keep the framework but build a new world where we are all together contributing.  Sometimes I sit with my children and tell them stories but they go to their computers and smart phones."  We have to go forward.
I can see myself saying the same words, expressing the same ideas if anyone cared to interview me!

Musings on Scenes from Westwood

A few days ago I was stopped at a red light in the corner of Sepulveda and Santa Monica Blvd in West Los Angeles. I noticed on my left across the four lanes of the boulevard an interesting man standing at the street corner. A tall upright man, dark skinned, dressed in a long black winter coat going down to his bare ankles. I seem to remember he was wearing black shoes.  A sleeping bag was spread in front of him on the pavement and nothing else. For a moment I thought he is one of the homeless people you see in this part of town. But as I was waiting for the red light to change I observed his rhythmic movements from side to side. And it looked like a beautiful dance. Was it a dance or was it a reaction to some drugs he injected?  I will not know the answer as the light changed and I was on my way to my writing group.
My hair dresser works in a Salon near the supermarket on Westwood Blvd. She is one of the Jewish immigrants who came to California from Iran in the eighties. She is an intelligent woman who used to work as a nurse. She is very warm and friendly and often wants to talk about what is going on in my life. I told her about my last visit in Amsterdam and my tour of the Portuguese Synagogue there. The synagogue was built in 1675 and still stands in the original architecture with no electricity. People continue to pray there until today. At nights they use candle light. It was built by Jews who were expelled from Spain and Portugal by the inquisition in the 15th century. I asked if she heard about this expulsion. She had No recollection.

Amsterdam's Portuguese Synagogue

At the Landmark Theater in Westwood they are now showing the movie RBG about the Supreme Court judge. She is the second woman in history that was nominated for the Supreme Court. I loved this movie and recommended it to my friends. You will be surprised to hear how many people in Westwood never heard of her. So I continue to ask them in the same line: Do you remember the French Revolution?  Liberty, Equality, brotherhood?
They remember nothing!
There was a homeless woman who sat at a street corner a few days. She was covered with old blankets and her dirty clothes were piled in a supermarket cart. I saw her once in the supermarket restrooms washing her long hair in the sink. What does she know of freedom and democracy? Maybe she once learned to dance in her youth?