Infertile Crescent

“Infertile Crescent” is an attempt to visualize what happened to the “fertile land,” which once stood as the cradle of civilization, the paradise of biodiversity with its marshlands and rivers that shaped the progress of humanity. Now dry and burnt in turmoil. Did man break that sacred bond with Mother Nature and is reaping what he sowed?

In the beginning of the 19th century, the Middle East witnessed crucial geopolitical changes that transformed the region for a century to come. It slipped away from the fists of the Ottoman Empire, only to fall in the hands of British-French colonialism. Earning its independence years later, it was reconstructed, mapped, and divided into small statelets
which currently form the contemporary Middle East.

By following the modern Jordanian map along its four borders with Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, this project documents the landscapes of several surviving villages resting on manmade borders. Taking water resources as an indicator and border villages as a witness to the invisible lines in the sand, which are responsible for shifting the region from what it once was, to what it is today, and what might soon become.

Infertile Crescent, is a long-term, ongoing project that started in 2016 and is divided into four chapters. Each chapter delves into the complexity of Jordanian geopolitics, since its establishment in 1921, going back to its historical importance since Biblical times. Of the present-day countries that make up what was known as the Fertile Crescent (Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq), only Jordan is relatively stable and independent; beyond three of its borders, countries are burning in turmoil. Jordan’s calm has allowed it to open its arms to refugees from all of its neighbors.

Through landscapes and everyday life of people living close to the border, the project argues that man’s maternal relation with land makes him directly affected by the region's political unrest and water deficiencies. For me personally, the Arab world was always connected by an invisible umbilical cord. Even if we had man-made borders, whatever happened around us was always close to home.

The first chapter explores the 180 km route of the controversial Red- Dead Sea salvation pipeline along the southwest Jordanian-Israeli border, by tracing the places it will cross. Although this pipeline is said to provide much needed water and to save the shrinking Dead Sea, some people have voiced concerns that that Jordan is getting the bad end of the deal, receiving questionable quality of water and bearing most of the costs.

Other chapters include the Jordanian Northern border that faces Syria and Israel, where I explore the lives of border villages along that dividing line. How did the same political events affect each border differently? Layers of history dictated how each village lived along the borders. I found myself digging in mythology and folklore, stories that travelers and villagers retold. I read about an ancient ritual for curing infertility, which involved women who couldn’t bear children bathing in boiling-hot spring waters, believing that they would be healed. Ghost stories, of an ogress haunting shepherds, martyr’s screams that kept a village awake in the summer and lastly the legend of Mother Nature who was more forgiving with Man thousands of years ago, because he cherished the sacred bond he had with nature, unlike his modern descendants today.

I found that the North had traces of fertility. The landscape changed from barren deserts to rich mountains and valleys. The land was exhausted from man’s behavior rather than from a lack of water. I explored the trilateral border, a tri-point between Jordan, Syria and Israel who share sensitive borderlines, high security alerts, and visible traces of wars.

This area includes the Golan Heights, a Syrian land, which in 1967 was occupied by Israel during the Six Day War. From the Jordanian borders, you can see the volcanic heights separated by a natural frontier, the Yarmouk River. Mountains on both sides of the border erupt with ancient hot springs. Their healing powers are shadowed by a haunting barbwire separating two sides.

Along this border, the intertwined sister-cities of Al Ramtha in Jordan, and Dara’a in Syria, share an ancient bond, including family ties and marriages as well as commerce. However, after the civil war started in Syria, security concerns ultimately closed down the borders. Villagers in each city suffered the most, because for them, crossing the border to the neighboring country was easier than going to one’s own capital. Throughout the seven years of the crisis, echoes of bombs have been heard, sounds crossing the volcanic valley from one sister city to the other, where just a few years earlier, when the war started, these valleys served as humanitarian corridors for refugees fleeing Syria to Jordan.

With this grant, I will complete my exploration of the entire northern border. I will trace the two Jordanian borders with Syria and Iraq. I will explore the aftermath of the Syrian crisis on the land and the border villages. I will follow the ancient route of the once thriving commercial road, leading to Baghdad. I will see it through the eyes of local truckers, who take the place of eighth-century 8th century orientalists who wandered the same area with their stories. I will take a closer look at villages that have been hit hard, living under siege of closed borders.

Almost every summer, a wild fire breaks out on the Palestinian-Israeli border which spreads into the Jordan valley, burning farms on the Jordanian side. Nature doesn't understand man-made borders, the flame travels across, burning the two divided lands, into one burnt piece. However, Mother Nature steps in and stands guard as the fire burns itself out, until the land lives to produce again.

But when man plays with fire, he creates wars, destroying civilizations and culture. He crosses nature, leaving behind a burnt land not suitable for living. His only salvation is to redeem himself from himself and to others. Nature will step in at some point for the land.What is left is to wait, for the rain to fall, on a once flourishing region.