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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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