1990年エジプト人民議会選挙と遊牧民アウラード・アリー

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This is an anthropological approach to the political actions of the Awlad Ali Bedouins in Egypt. Its purpose consists in finding some problematic points to be further studied in the process of selecting candidates among the Awlad Ali for the general election of the People's Assembly held in the end of November, 1990. The Awlad Ali are the Bedouins now mostly settled and living in the Governorate of Marsa Matrouh on the Mediterranean coast of the Western Desert. They are divided into five tribes (gabilas), and each tribe is into some sections ('a' ilas). During my stay in Egypt in 1988-1991, I visited the area many times and thereafter lived with the Awlad Ali in one of their villages for a year and half so as to do my fieldwork on them. This paper should be considered, therefore, as one of the studies on the tribal system of the Arab nomads, and the election of 1990 is taken up just as a case. The Governorate has two electoral districts, in both of which the number of representatives are two, so that four are to be elected in sum. As the Awlad Ali hold an absolute majority of the population of the area, they consider representatives of the Governorate as representatives of the Awlad Ali. Moreover, in order that those are representatives of the Awlad Ali as a whole, they say they all must reach an agreement on their candidacy. But reaching is so much difficult because of the lack of the established political institutions. Although they say as a rule that four of the five tribes share the seats and that the remaining one is to wait for its turn in the next occasion, the outcome of 1990 did not accord with this saying. The claim for the agreement of the tribes, nevertheless, has certain effects. The Awlad Ali people think of a candidate with the agreement as more legitimate and fair than those without it. So, if one gets the tribal agreement, he can take advantage of it tactically as a merit. The better one can pretend to have obtained an agreement of the tribes, the more easily he can win. The Awlad Ali also say that the agreement of the tribes on candidates should be reached through meetings of the 'umdas and the sheikhs, both of whom represent their tribal section against other sections. I myself attended some of the meetings held before the election and there found that the agreement was not reached positively but just accepted passively. As all of the meetings are locally held and not organized into larger ones, it is impossible in such conditions to gather up the will of each tribesman into united one. Therefore it must be considered that the Awlad Ali say the agreement is reached in the tribal meeting, not because it is actually done but because it should be ideally done. The 'umda and the sheikh are titles rather than posts, and not every section has both of them. There is no established organization to which they are belonging. Some of them, especially some living in Matrouh City, are rich and strong. They have relatively large influences over other 'umdas, sheikhs and other tribesmen. It is they who, in fact, play the power game among themselves, ratify candidates and lead the process of reaching (=accepting) an agreement of the Awlad Ali as a whole. They are powerful and behaving tactically so as to benefit themselves, but they still remain under the influence of the traditional norms. Here, norms work not as a burden on the individuals but just as a guideline along which people interact with one another. Behaving as a political unit, the Awlad Ali elected their representatives. The tribal system working on the normative basis was still effective and taken much seriouly in the process of decision making and agreement reaching. But it did not prevent anyone, candidates, the influential or any, from developing his own possibility. It just guided his way in harmony with others', if possible and favored. Those points are to be cleared in other case studies in different occasions.
日本中東学会の論文
1992-03-31

1990年エジプト人民議会選挙と遊牧民アウラード・アリー

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