This Week
The Bedouin's Long Road
The desert wanderers now seem as likely
to head to the university as to the tents
and villages of their ancestors.
NECHEMIAH MEYERS
Israel Correspondent
Rehovot, Israel
ohammed Alnabary's
chemistry laboratory at
the Ben-Gurion _
University in Beersheva
physically is only a few miles away
from the sandy desert dwelling where
he lived as a child. But it is a world
away in every other respect.
Alnabary, a gifted researcher, will
shortly be awarded his doctorate. He
is one of about 90,000 Bedouins who
live in Israel. He acquired his early
education by walking four miles each
way to elementary school. He did
homework by candlelight as there was
no electricity, or, for that matter, run-
ning water, in his family's isolated
community.
But he showed promise, so when he
finished elementary school his parents,
themselves lacking a formal education,
were determined for him to attend a
top high school. That turned out to be
an Arab one in central Israel.
"It wasn't easy for me," Alnabary
said. "I was on my own and homesick
most of the time. But I managed to
get good grades and was subsequently
accepted for studies at the Hebrew
University"
Other young members of his tribe
have followed such footsteps. Five of
them — four girls and one boy — are
studying with Alnabary at Ben-Gurion
University; another dozen are in
regional colleges.
"Yet," Alnabary said, "Bedouin
children are still at an enormous dis-
advantage in comparison to other
Arabs, and even more so to Jews.
"Sure, kids in my tribe don't have
to walk to school anymore because a
school bus takes them there. But they
still haven't really entered the comput-
er age and, worse yet, they find it hard
to do their homework for lack of
proper lighting in their dwellings.
"We don't have a regular supply of
electricity in our villages and even
those families who have generators are
loath to run them for more than a few
hours a day. This is one of the reasons
iff
over half our youth don't finish high
school," he added.
He tells a story of one Bedoiun
family that lived for 20 years in
Jerusalem and then came back to the
village. The first of their four children
were educated in Jerusalem, all
becoming academics. The other four
children, students at local schools in
the Negev, went on to university stud-
ies as well. But two remain jobless.
So Alnabary and a number of other
Bedouin academics have banded
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together to demand from the govern-
ment a drastic improvement in local
educational facilities.
And the doctoral candidate hopes it
doesn't stop there. Alnabary wants to
develop the Bedouin's lot in the eco-
nomic sphere as well. Once a doctor-
ate is in hand, and perhaps after a year
or two doing postdoctoral studies in
the United States or Canada, he hopes
to open a chemical firm in a Bedouin
town. So far, they are bereft of indus-
try and plagued by high unemploy-
ment. Such an operation is likely to be
associated with one of the many large
chemical companies in the Negev.
"While some Bedouin will go on
being wandering shepherds, our ability
to find our rightful place in the 21st
century" Alnabary said, "will depend
on more education and more indus-
try"
So the somewhat romantic story of
the Bedouin — Israel's last wanderers
of the desert — seems to be coming to
an end.
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