ABSTRACT
Hajj Khalaf was the founder of the village of Hawi al-Hawa, the entrepreneur who used his savings from sheep herding to buy arable land in the Euphrates valley and establish the village with his kinsmen and other distant relatives. During his lifetime he witnessed unprecedented social and political changes: colonialism, capitalist development and socialist land redistribution. Hajj Khalaf’s life experiences reflect such changes and upheavals, from a man who was initially the mallak (landowner) of Hawi al-Hawa, to finding himself arrested and imprisoned under the false allegation of disrespecting the Peasants’ Union. He retired early and delegated the running of the family business to his eldest son in the 1960s, but his life has been seriously challenged by the socialist state and he remains bitter towards it. He is an outspoken opponent of the government’s socialist policies; he holds onto traditional values and criticises the youth’s erosion of loyalty to the ‘ashira. Yet, despite the changes that he experienced, he remains the patriarch of his family and village. The data presented include interviews, and a description of an incident with the Peasants’ Union which landed him in serious trouble with the authorities.
