Page 62 - UAE Truncal States_Neat

The Tribal Structure of Society

Abu Dhabi, who was considered to be responsible for the beduin
Manasir.
In the decades following the rapid decline of the pearling industry
the Manasir beduin turned to seeking at least temporary employment
with the oil companies in the region. Those who had often taken their
camels to al Hasa for winter grazing found themselves work with the
Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO); others worked in Doha
or with the Qatar Petroleum Company, while their animals were left
in the desert of Abu Dhabi in the charge of relatives. Petroleum
Development (Trucial Coast), Ltd, had some 40 Manasir on its payroll
in Abu Dhabi at any one time during the early 1950s. But like the Bani
Yas tribesmen, the Manasir considered such employment as a
temporary arrangement to earn enough for a particular purpose: to
buy a date garden, some camels, a new wife or in later years a
Landrover. During the first few years they hardly ever worked for
more than a couple of years at a time, and then they returned to their
previous way of life.
As has been described earlier in this chapter, the Manasir have
shared the area and its resources for many generations with the Bani
Yas in such a way that, when circumstances made it necessary to
replace the system dependent on tribal loyalties and customary
economic usages with a system requiring citizenship and State
boundaries, the majority of the Manasir could only be called Abu
Dhabians. The fact that throughout the 19th and 20th centuries the
Manasir have joined forces with the Rulers of Abu Dhabi, who have
equally consistently acted on behalf of the Manasir,40 and the !
occasional marriage between members of the Manasir families and
the Al Bu Falah had the effect that the Manasir could demand some
say in the choice of a Ruler. This became particularly obvious when
some of the successors of Zayid bin Khallfah neglected the custom of
paying subsidies to the leaders of the Manasir. Shaikh Shakhbut and
his brother Shaikh Zayid, who became his governor in the Buraimi
area in 1948 were very aware of the necessity to recognise the
somewhat special relationship with the Manasir. One way of doing
this was to employ a large number of them as retainers. During the
war between Abu Dhabi and Dubai in 1945-7, the Manasir fought on
the side of Abu Dhabi and sustained heavy losses.
When the community which had so eagerly seized the jobs, which
became available once the search for oil had begun, was transformed
into a State with a multitude of opportunities for nationals to have
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