The Analysis of the Origins of the UAE Bidoon - Thesis Example

It is to be noted that in this paper, the terms nationality and citizenship are used interchangeably. The 1997 European Convention on Nationality defines nationality as ‘the legal bond between a person and State and does not indicate the person’s ethnic origin.’ On the other hand, citizenship is believed to be merely an aspect of nationality referring mainly to the rights enjoyed by individuals as a consequence of the legal bond between individuals and the state.

The term ‘bidoon’, also spelt ‘bedouin’, ‘bid’ or ‘Bedoon’, literally means ‘without nationality’ in Arabic and they specifically refer to the stateless people that live in the Gulf States. The Bidoon are believed to have originated from the following: the Bedouin people, the nomadic tribes that used to crisscross the boundaries of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and Syria as a way of life demanded by the scattered and transient resources that could be found in the long stretches of deserts in the Gulf States, and; people from other Asian countries, such as Iran, who travelled and migrated to the country before its federation in 1971 and failed to register for one reason or another.

For centuries, the Bedouin tribes moved from region to region unfettered by identity documents and regional boundaries. Identity papers and other legal documents did not have meaning in the Arab world as they do in the Western world resulting in the patent lack of documentation of many members of these nomadic tribes. Within the boundaries of the UAE, which was known as the Trucial Coast before its independence in 1971 because the British entered into a series of truces with the states, the Bedouin tribes also moved to and fro from the ocean where they fished to the deserts where they grazed their animals and to the oases where they engaged in farming. A drought in one part of the region spurred the migration of tribes to other parts where there was food to sustain them and their livestock.

Therefore, the relations, during this largely migratory period in the region were governed by tribes and tribal alliances. Constant migration did not pose a problem so long as the nations concerned were in good relations with one another. However, armed conflicts and foreign interventions in Gulf affairs eventually caught up and shattered the nomadic way of living.