this post was submitted on 09 May 2024

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254

Neom: Forces 'told to kill’ to clear land for eco-city (www.bbc.com)

submitted 6 months ago by girlfreddy@lemmy.ca to c/world@lemmy.world

47 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Col Rabih Alenezi says he was ordered to evict villagers from a tribe in the Gulf state to make way for The Line, part of the Neom eco-project.

One of them was subsequently shot and killed for protesting against eviction.

The Saudi government and Neom management refused to comment.

Neom, Saudi Arabia's $500bn (£399bn) eco-region, is part of its Saudi Vision 2030 strategy which aims to diversify the kingdom's economy away from oil.

Its flagship project, The Line, has been pitched as a car-free city, just 200m (656ft) wide and 170km (106 miles) long - though only 2.4km of the project is reportedly expected to be completed by 2030.

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[–] PugJesus@kbin.social 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The pyramids were built by well paid craftsmen.

Designed, certainly. But constructed by peasant corvée.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Not true. The pyramid builders lived privileged lives in exchange for what they did.

https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2003/07/who-built-the-pyramids-html

[–] PugJesus@kbin.social 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If not slaves, then who were these workers? Lehner's friend Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, who has been excavating a "workers' cemetery" just above Lehner's city on the plateau, sees forensic evidence in the remains of those buried there that pyramid building was hazardous business. Why would anyone choose to perform such hard labor? The answer, says Lehner, lies in understanding obligatory labor in the premodern world. "People were not atomized, separate, individuals with the political and economic freedom that we take for granted. Obligatory labor ranges from slavery all the way to, say, the Amish, where you have elders and a strong sense of community obligations, and a barn raising is a religious event and a feasting event. If you are a young man in a traditional setting like that, you may not have a choice." Plug that into the pyramid context, says Lehner, "and you have to say, 'This is a hell of a barn!'"

Lehner currently thinks Egyptian society was organized somewhat like a feudal system, in which almost everyone owed service to a lord. The Egyptians called this "bak." Everybody owed bak of some kind to people above them in the social hierarchy.

That's literally corvée.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

You do know that everyone else who wasn't a priest or a royal lived even worse lives than that, right?

[–] PugJesus@kbin.social 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Okay, great, I see our argument is "Words don't matter, corvee isn't corvee, unskilled labor isn't unskilled labor; because they lived in a barracks and were fed well".

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Corvée (French: [kɔʁve] ⓘ) is a form of unpaid forced labour that is intermittent in nature, lasting for limited periods of time, typically only a certain number of days' work each year. Statute labour is a corvée imposed by a state for the purposes of public works.[1] As such it represents a form of levy (taxation). Unlike other forms of levy, such as a tithe, a corvée does not require the population to have land, crops or cash.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corv%C3%A9e

How does that describe pyramid workers?

[–] PugJesus@kbin.social 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

How does that describe pyramid workers?

unpaid

forced labour

intermittent

imposed by a state

for the purposes of public works

I'm not seeing the unskilled Egyptian workers we're talking about here miss any of these criteria.

What do you think 'obligatory labor' in the context of a 'feudal'-like system for the Pharaoh by commoners on a massive construction project is exactly?

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

They were unpaid because Egypt didn't have the concept of currency. They weren't forced, they volunteered their services. All work in Egypt was intermittent due to Nile floods. It wasn't for the purpose of public works, it was for the purpose of religion.

But you've got me on the imposed by the state part.

[–] PugJesus@kbin.social 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

They were unpaid because Egypt didn’t have the concept of currency.

You don't need currency to be paid.

They weren’t forced, they volunteered their services.

That's not what 'obligatory labor' means.

All work in Egypt was intermittent due to Nile floods.

Okay? All work for peasantry is intermittent due to the changing of the seasons. That doesn't mean you can't impose corvee on a peasant - in fact, peasant farmers are USUALLY the ones who ARE getting corvee'd precise BECAUSE their own ordinary labor is intermittent. The point of distinguishing corvee as intermittent is to differentiate it from slavery and ad hoc forced labor, not because picking up drifters who do small jobs instead of full-time factory workers changes the nature of a corvee.

It wasn’t for the purpose of public works, it was for the purpose of religion.

It was a public monument by the government. Your own link says, and I quote:

From the Egyptian Old Kingdom (c. 2613 BC, the 4th Dynasty) onward, corvée contributed to government projects.[6] During the times of the Nile River floods, it was used for construction projects such as pyramids, temples, quarries, canals, roads, and other works.