Column: Midthought
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Women on the beach in Haifa © Audrey Farber
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Haifa architecture
Government buildings in Haifa are a tribute to geo-history: the sail-shaped building in the background houses the Ministry of Interior and other government agencies. Not visible, but sitting below it in the shape of a boat, are the Haifa District Courts. Built from near nothing in the 20th century, Haifa’s architecture reflects the rich seafaring history of the region. © Audrey Farber
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A man fishing
The water provides so much: practical needs, religious ceremonies, enjoyment, sustenance, a combination of all of these. Fishing is about not just sustenance, but joy, in this simple pleasure, man’s connectedness to nature is established: or perhaps here it is a resilience or a determination to make the best of what one can grab, what life puts in one’s path. © Audrey Farber
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Net fishing, Haifa © Ariel Azoff
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Boats on the Nile
Water is an escape. Sailing on the Nile allows one a personal respite from the hustle and bustle and dingy smog of Cairo. © Ariel Azoff
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In Haifa, an afternoon’s entertainment takes place among the rocks. Enjoying what one can in a precarious situation, this is the Middle East: dodging bullets and landmines and half-covered rocks. © Audrey Farber
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Baptism of Jesus
In Jordan, a small piece of land sits alongside a moment of water, whose importance was cemented many years ago, here preserved in perpetuity or infinity, along the lines of contested territory. The golden sheen masks the torment around, thanks to the moment of water which has long since passed, and has protected this hallowed ground. © Audrey Farber
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Dahab, Sinai
In Sinai, the simple fact that architecture exists is thanks to the water. An impossible landscape is converted to a false oasis, a golden calf of financial gain or brief psychological respite from the harsher external realities: not a building off the shoreline is completed and lies in waste, a kilometer away people are living in tents, this land is bullet-ridden and blood-stained. Hiding behind the trellises and ornate lampposts is a truth, but perhaps one we’d rather not consider. © Audrey Farber
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False calm
A view of the Mediterranean from Haifa’s Carmel offers serenity, peacefulness, fabricated elegance and modernity against a backdrop of gritty industrialism and hidden truths as the coast curves towards Akka and history lays itself bare. © Audrey Farber
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Water Wheel
In Syria, water is an opportunity for industrialization and a necessary resource. People have been harnessing its power and potential for centuries through these water wheels. Now a tourist attraction, we are reminded that much of the Middle East has a long and fruitful relationship with water, and ought not in our collective mindset be relegated to the role of backdrop of “Lawrence of Arabia.” © Ariel Azoff
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Fishing in the Closed Military Zone
In the Middle East, boundaries, though strict, are fluid and often unenforced. The draw of the water, or perhaps in defiance of a seemingly absurd “closed military area,” their arbitrary and meaningless nature seems entirely political and completely impractical. © Audrey Farber
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Israeli war ship
Here is the heavy artillery for which the Middle East is renowned, by sea and not by sand. The foreward gun points towards the Lebanese border, soldiers on deck enjoy the sunset, and for the gulls life goes on around the chaos and volatility. A modern-day Pompeii. © Audrey Farber
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Israel-Lebanon border
Along the Israeli-Lebanese border, we feel a hesitant comfort, or complacency, against a backdrop of militarized zones. A wonder of nature is dominated by barbed wire barricades and heavy artillery. The curve of the sea suggests there is more to be found on the other side, but human differences have trapped us here. © Audrey Farber
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Unlikely companions
On the ancient ramparts of Jaffa, the men in black consort with the beach bum. Surrounded by history and confronted by the future, there is no simpler or more difficult option than to coexist. © Audrey Farber
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Washing for prayer, Al-Araqib
Even when scarce, water is critically important: more than just basic needs or sustenance, it is a fundamental connection to something bigger than oneself or one’s circumstances. © Audrey Farber
Photo essay: The Power of Water
Last updated: February 2, 2012
So much of the Middle East’s regional identity, at least as an outsider, seems to be crafted or defined by the lack of water in its vast deserts. In media, pop culture, and history lessons, we hear far more about the significance of the desert than anything else. But all that the desert is for the Middle East, water is just as powerful of a socio-political and historical force.
I recall an evening in a popular café in downtown Amman—a city filled with Palestinian refugees and the children of Palestinian refugees and their children—when a group of elderly musicians struck up a set list of traditional Palestinian folk songs and ballads (for lack of a better description). They recalled a life next to the water, a life of fishing, exploration, and freedom. It was a life most of the audience had never known. The entire room was in or close to tears: not just for the turbulent national history it recalled, though that was certainly part of it, but also in mourning for the lost traditions of a life alongside the water.
As much as identity in the Middle East is defined by aridity, harshness, and desertification, as much as the harsh natural climate reflects the turbulent political climate, there is a distinct cultural calmness that reflects a deep abiding connection to water. Water everywhere exists just outside the conventional space-time continuum: water, at least in the Middle East, suggests promises of a better future, and it teases us with a better alternate reality.
People’s relationships with water, and its role in crafting individual identities, is as varied as the presence of the scarce resource itself. Water is sustenance, a requirement of life, but it is also revenue and recreation. From surfing in Haifa to scuba-diving and snorkeling on the Sinai Peninsula, from both sides of the Jordan river to the Yarmouk River to the ever-dwindling Red Sea, the Tigris and Euphrates and the Nile delta, from sustenance to escapism, the Middle East is as much a story of water as it is of deserts.
Human interaction with water in the Middle East is not unique: around the world it is sustaining and recreational at the same time. But in the Middle East, its promise of freedom and the future, its potential as an escape from the everyday, makes it perhaps a perfect identity for the Middle East.
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