1- Black Gold Rush in the 1930’s : An Arabian inter-tribal conflict or a Colonist Greed ?

The   Black Gold movie  is the first  film of the Doha Film Institute (DFI) ,an entity which was established to promote the film industry in Qatar in 2010 [1] . The production was co financed by   Qunita  communications , acompany owned  partially by Tarek Ben Ammar  , the French  film producer [2]. The film portrays  two Arab tribes living in two castle-like cities in the midst of  oceans of sand during the 1930’s. The two tribes are in dispute  over land  ownership. The struggle continues when oil is discovered  in the disputed region . The tribal sheik  which was against the provision of oil concession to an American company is depicted as dogmatic , backward -looking and violent against workers around the oil wells . The other sheikh was  greedy , opportunist  and corrupt but he  succeeded through his son in- law  to  finalize the provision of  the concession . The wheel of modernity via oil sale revenuers started to roll and  they all lived happily ever after .
 The black Gold  film  distorted  historical facts  of 1930’s Arabia  and implied  an inter-tribal conflict over territories that have hindered the beginning of oil concessions in the region . I would like to argue that  there was no inter-tribal conflicts over lands  when oil concessions were granted to western companies during the 1930’s  and that the only struggle that prevailed was the struggle between European and American companies over concession privileges . The fabric of the Arabian community at this point in time has been already changed in favor of external control.
During the 19th century , Britain succeeded in driving other European colonial powers out of the sea ports of Arabia . These sea ports were part of the Othman Empire. The Othmani government did establish administrative governance figures and local agents in the Arabian ports for annual tax collections , but on the other hand ,  any Arabian tribe was a highly mobile social and political unit  agglomerated around  people by ethnicity and alliance and not territory . Tribes were  dynamic in their formation and disintegration , egalitarian , equal to each other , independent in their internal affairs and the leadership of any tribe was not established on a fixed system of inheritance but rather  on personal merits ( the meaning of the word sheik denote a person who comes above his peers in character and wisdom ) . In a continuous effort to control the sea  and the trade routes , Britain started  several dealings  with selected  tribal sheikhs in these ports  . Any tribal sheikh  who would not put his hand in the hand of the British would lose power and any tribal sheikh that would go a step further to fight the control of the British on the trade routes would be a pirate . Many Arabian tribes fought the maritime control of  colonial Britain and the other European colonists who arrived earlier , the Protégées and the Dutch , for a very simple reason ,  East-West trade was their bread and butter  for many centuries . The buzz expression  used in those dealings  or “agreements” was “ sea peace “.  The local  signer has to fight any other tribe that would disturb the sea peace annoying any ship raising the British flag . By studying the correspondence between the signers and the British office of foreign affairs ,  there is  a good evidence  that  local signers  routinely apologized   the attacks  on British ships by other tribes  . A local signers would admit the lack of authority and control on some ports ,  tribes or individuals  engaged in these ” piracy” actions . Gradually , all  the sea port cities were established as colonies  ruled by the British government of India . The Othmani government stood against these agreements and claimed they were legally baseless because treaties are held only between two states according to international law guidelines.  The presence of the British element  did change the local power structure , brought up some tribes over others and some  sheikhs over others and started a continuous  trade-off policy  for years to come ,  supporting  the control of sea ports to one tribe or a specific branch of a tribe in return to abiding by British government orders and not engaging in any dealings with other foreign powers . Any inter-tribal conflict resulting from  the rejection of the British dominance was dampened .
During late 19th century and  early 20th century post early oil discoveries in the USA and the first discovery of oil in Persia , Britain became interested more in the lands of Arabia not merely the seaports .  A new set of agreements were established to reinforce the trade- off policy by establishing  a chain of Protectorates. The territorial sphere of local influence were drawn and local rule was  clearly specified  to be inherited by the descendants of specific families .  The concept of  Sheikdom  was formally transformed to come closer to the meaning of a local  ruler .  Again in return to abiding by the British government orders , deterrence from any relations with any other foreign power and the deterrence from selling or leasing  lands to  any other foreign power . Oil concession agreements came hand in hand with “protection” agreements and the boundaries within Arabia were defined and set accordingly . Inter-tribal conflicts were silenced forever . The only conflict that was roaring during the period of oil discoveries in Arabia in the late 1920’s and the 1930’s ,was , the struggle between  American oil companies and the British companies over oil concessions . This struggle took a good time until it was resolved by the creation of oil consortiums that give a stake in these concessions to both . It is by the Encyclopedia of the New American Nation  in the report ,” Oil – The origins of US foreign Policy” , as follows  :
“A clash with the British over access to Middle East oil was averted when the U.S. government threw its support behind private cooperative arrangements between U.S. and British oil corporations. A multinational consortium, the Iraq Petroleum Company, established in 1928, allowed selected U.S. oil companies access to Iraq's oil along with British and French companies. To ensure that the development of the region's oil took place in a cooperative manner, the consortium agreement contained a self-denying ordinance that prohibited its members from engaging in oil development within the area of the old Ottoman Empire, which was marked on a map with a red line. In addition to the Red Line Agreement, the major British and U.S. oil companies sought to manage the world oil economy through a series of agreements between 1928 and 1934 that allocated markets, fixed prices, eliminated competition, and avoided duplication of facilities “[3].
 The aged British Empire had to give way to the new growing American power that inherited the foreign affairs control of these sheikhdoms  especially in the post Second World War period . ( see the article of Dr. Ali Al-Kawari on the continuity of the trade-off policy in the 21th century that it is not only confined to the political and commercial external affairs of the Arabian States  but it does dig down to the internal cultural  , education , media and all other national affairs [4]).

[1] Official Gazette Index of Qatar ,issue : No. 4 . 25th of April 2010 ( 32) Articles & Memorandum of association OF Doha Film Institute . http://information.dla.com/information/published/Gazette_Qatar.PDF

[2]   Arnold Cassola , member of Italy’s Parliament. “Qaddafi’s Western Friends “ 2011. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/cassola5/English.
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