I had never realized just how much I took for granted my home shower before spending six weeks in Morocco. Every morning that I lived in Rabat, I would pull a large yellow bucket into the bathroom and place it underneath the bathtub faucet, carefully watching as scalding water poured into the makeshift cistern. Once the water was about half way up, I turned off the heater, letting the cold gush into the steaming pail. I dove my hand into the water and stirred it around, imagining the perfect bathing temperature. Once the water was mixed to my liking, I was ready for a relaxing and refreshing bucket shower. It comes as no surprise that the amalgamation of hot and cold could fabricate a tepid bath in the Moroccan capital; but, the concept is almost like an alchemy of sorts. Hot and cold are but one of the seeming opposites encountered in everyday life, so one can only imagine the combinations possible. Consider “tribal” and “modern,” two words historically divided by what some might think of as ignorance and progress. In her novel Tribal Modern, Miriam Cooke explores the chemistry of these two forces in the Gulf nations of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Cooke performs a delicate excavation of Gulf society that works layer by layer to uncover the treasure-like truth hidden beneath the sand, but leaves the reader feeling as if they dug one hole too many to find it.
In preparing the water for my bath, there is no way for me to tell which water was originally cold and which was hot. The water has a certain sameness to it, indistinguishable through and through. However, Cooke affirms that the “tribal” and the “modern” can not only coexist, but in fact can do so without one usurping the other. She opposes the contemporary view that the two ideas are in some kind of perpetual conflict or that they represent a growing cognitive dissonance in these states where one can watch camels walk stately in front of towering modern skyscrapers. The synchronicity of the tribal and the modern is best understood by the Quranic concept of barzakh. Cooke explains this as the “simultaneous mixing and separation” in both the physical and metaphysical worlds (10). She describes the interaction of tribal and modern aspects in the creation of a “national brand” in which these values in seeming contradiction become spectacles with which the emerging nations carve their own identities.
Cooke’s argument follows a very natural progression, leading her reader through different stages of development that result in the invention of these national brands. She begins by discussing the historical background of the Gulf states and how they impact the most fundamental conceptions of identity. She notes how a rich and ancient heritage tracing back to interactions with Iran and India is swept under the rug in favor of a homogenous history that accentuates the British and Americans as the first foreigners. She argues that in these countries, lineage is a source of entitlement and citizenship which helps to conceptualize a more contemporary notion of tribalism. With this first layer uncovered, she plunges deeper into tribal institutions. Her recount of the transformation of tribe into race into class represents some of the most important interactions and interdependence between the tribal and the modern. This relationship is key in the formation of “brands” in throughout the Gulf region. These brands are reaffirmed through the use of national museums and symbolic architecture which bolster and export the culture. Furthermore, the editing of traditions like sport and, as discussed earlier, history itself helps to redefine a modern Gulf state that has unbridled heritage and ties to the past. Cooke’s argument in the creation of national brands and their maintenance is lucid and precise while preserving a level of interest and forward momentum. The intellectualization of the barzakh relationship between the tribal and the modern provides an alternative and substantiated analysis of the modern Gulf states that is cogent and rewarding for its reader.
Cooke, however, also considers the impact of women and sexuality on the conception of the tribal modern state. She examines the role of women in navigating the barzakh using tropes of misogyny from authors like Hissa Halal who criticize the treatment of women in these cultures. Her introduction of fringe groups like the “boyat” considers the effects of gender nonconformity on the creation of these national brands, as well. While her discussion of the “gendering” of the tribal modern in the Gulf states is interesting and informative, it remains impertinent to the argument outlined at the beginning of the book. The discussion of gender provides a new perspective on the issue, but it remains an entirely separate influence from solely the tribal and the modern on which Cooke intends to focus. Although this section offers new insight, it warrants its own separate discussion rather than a half-formed appendage to a full-bodied discourse.
I would like to think that after six weeks in Morocco, I had crafted a methodology for the perfect bucket shower— four-fifths hot and the rest icy cold. Miriam Cooke seemed to take the same approach in writing her novel Tribal Modern. The book is an immensely fascinating read. It satisfies a certain itch to understand the rapidly modernizing nations of the Arabian Gulf and the region’s seemingly glaring contradiction. The lens of barzakh allows for a prudently organized analysis of the processes that brought states like the United Arab Emirates to where they are today. The adroit use of written word to express well-defined arguments makes Tribal Modern an enjoyable spotlight on a part of the world shrouded in mystery. For anyone interested in getting their hands dirty in digging deep into the history of the Gulf, this book gives you the perfect opportunity to do so. However, like the water prepared for my shower, Cooke’s work contains moments that are both hot and cold, as the sections like those of gendering in the tribal modern fall flat. A book for any armchair historian, student, or scholar alike, Cooke’s Tribal Modern has a little bit of barzakh for everyone to explore.
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