Colonial Capitalism and Rural Class Formation (ص 130)

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Colonial Capitalism and Rural Class Formation (ص 130)

المحتوى

which prohibited the eviction of the cultivators from the land. The
terms of land sale by the Ottoman government stipulated that the
cultivators living on the land be kept on it after the sale.
Therefore, except for the case of the land sold to the Rothschilds',
land transfer under the Ottoman rule did not immediately result in the
expropriation of the direct cultivators. (17) It must be noted here
that this law had also restricted the new landowners as well. Thus,
for example in the case of the Sursuks, despite the fact that the
total size of land under their control was large, this land continued
to be divided into many smaller pieces stretching over many villages.
In order for the Sursuks to turn their property into one continuous
unit and use it for capitalistic purposes, the landowner-merchant
family would have to expropriate the cultivators and turn them into
wage labour, a transformation which would have been unlawful and
politically dangerous. The Sursuks resorted instead to increased
tithes and over-taxation of the cultivators (Owen, 1981:286;
Baer,1982). According to Owen,the Sursuks "attempted to exploit in the
triple role of landowners, money-lenders and tax farmers and were soon
making many thousands of pounds a year...By 1890 the rewards from the
Marj were great." (Owen,1981: 175)
The legal immunity provided by the Ottoman Land Law to the direct
producers was abolished with the British colonial rule. In 1920, the
British introduced the Land Transfer Ordinance which in turn
legalized land transfers and made expropriation a norm rather than the
exception. Legalizing expropriation, nevertheless, did not work to the
advantage cf the Sursuks
The Signing of the "Balfour Declaration" in 1917 and its
116
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Colonial Capitalism and Rural Class Formation

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المنشئ

Nahla Abdo-Zubi

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