Tribal Hubris

The Scorpion

The helicopters landed one by one. Everyone noticed the second hovering for a while longer before making its descent, it's occupants assessing and pointing at the crowd below. Everyone had stopped working now and Halima only had to clap her hands once and raise her voice, "What are you idiots looking at? Back to work!", before they scuttled and jolted themselves back into labour.

First out were three soldiers, heavily padded in the black combat gear of Egypt's most elite fighting squad, the Saka. They spread out immediately, not raising their weapons, but keeping them in plain sight. Halima and her sons stood close by in a semi-circle, their mother standing proud at the forefront and ignoring the gusts of wind swirling her robes about her. The youngest, Adam, came running up to them and joined the family without a word. She was pleased to see his rifle slung across his shoulders. Only her third son Youssef was missing, likely having yet to return from a night out on the town. She couldn't think about him now and instead focused on the scene unfolding before her.

Next emerged the man she had expected to see, General Yassin, with his oversized belly that was the joke of the women in her tribe. They liked to emulate his walk: round and wide belly first, man after, and uneven like an egg. Even his head was oval-shaped. She watched him almost jump off of the helicopter onto the sand, his legs wobbling for a second while he pulled his belt up over his entire belly. The General was a clumsy man but by no means a stupid one. Adjusting his sunglasses and then his jacket, a black police issue over a white shirt, the General turned back to help another man disembark.

She was surprised to see white flowing robes emerge, making her almost expect a rival sheikh of her people. Very expensive shoes appeared first, but there was no mistaking the white robe that followed, flowing from the shoulders of a man who appeared younger than was expected. He barely looked thirty years old. It was the thob of their desert cousins from the Gulf, not completely different than the gelabiyyeh of her people, but fundamentally not the same.

The gelebiyyeh that her people wore in a multitude of variations in fabric and cut and colour was a loose, flowing garb on men as well as women. The men often wore a white one, a robe of their chosen colour on top of it, and a turban of white cloth to cover their heads from the brutal sun. Because of its loose style, the gelebiyyeh allowed for the tribesmen to easily pull out their weapon of choice, be it a rifle or Kalashnikov or a khanjar, the sharp curved dagger of their ancestors. The loose flowing garb allowed the men to erupt into movement at any time or to wrestle each other at a moments notice, moving freely as though they were unencumbered by cloth. Those with more status may have intricate patterns sown into the hems, giving them the glowing look of an ancient Arabian prince of the desert. Her unwanted guest wore one of those now, a sand brown robe of expensive choice over his thob.

The thob of their estranged cousins however, was not the same. Perhaps once they had been one people, loosely, but over the years the tribes of the Arabian gulf had transformed into into city-dwellers, those found today in the territories they call Saudi Arabia and Dubai and Qatar. Accordingly, their national dress had developed a more rigid style. It was always pure white, cut to fit, and had sharp shoulders that often came together in a rigid collar. There was not much room to hide anything, even the sleeves had buttons, a fact that bewildered the Bedouins who thrived on smuggling and the freedom to carry their weapons.

Sheikhs Halima did not have to look at her sons to know that they were equally unpleased. An unexpected visitor from the Egyptian government was one thing, they had many mutual interests, but a foreign guest arriving with an armed guard was an entirely different matter. The young man disembarked with a surety of movement that suggested he was used to stepping out of helicopters. He was young and fit, his skin white and almost milky, and had broad shoulders. They all waited for the roaring engine of the helicopter to shut down and the two men approached surely, their steps bringing them almost face to face with the Sheikha by the time they could be heard.