Yemen
Salih’s Road to Reelection
Following six months of rumor and speculation in Yemen, President Ali Abdallah Salih did the expected and announced that he would stand for reelection in the presidential contest scheduled for September 2006. Salih accepted the nomination of his ruling General People’s Congress party on December 17, 2005, during its three-day conference in the southern port city of Aden. The conference, which had been postponed twice to allow Salih to return from state visits abroad, was largely a scripted affair, with few surprises, save for when the president tried and failed to catch a pigeon that landed at his table.
Local Conflict, Global Spin
Clashes between the followers of a Zaydi Shi‘i religious figure and security forces left hundreds of people dead in a remote area in northern Yemen in the summer of 2004.
The Death and Life of Jarallah Omar
News of the shooting deaths of three American health professionals working for a Southern Baptist mission hospital in Yemen follows closely on the heels of the very public murder of a highly regarded figure in the Yemeni opposition.
Jarallah Omar, deputy secretary general of the Yemeni Socialist Party, was assassinated December 28, 2002, minutes after delivering a conciliatory speech to the Yemeni Congregation for Reform, known as al-Tajammu` al-Yemeni lil-Islah or simply Islah.
Yemenis on Mars
Like other recent neo-nationalist mobilizations of diasporas, a Yemeni government-sponsored gathering of émigrés this May sought to harness the newly perceived wealth and influence of Yemen’s diaspora towards national ends. Ethnic mobilization of émigré capital is nothing new. Early this century, Japan, understanding its weakness as an insufficient financial and colonial presence in transnational space, actively promoted emigration and remittances. The combination of an expanded concept of economic space and a restrictive concept of ethno-national political identity was considered key to catching up with developed Western powers.
“This Is the Bride”
With only approximately 6 percent of married women in Yemen living in polygamous marriages, such relationships are neither popular nor widespread. Nevertheless, polygamy in Yemen remains a complicated issue.
A Clash of Fundamentalisms
During the past two decades, a proselytizing, reformist, “Islamist” movement — mainly characterized as “Wahhabi” — has gained increasing popularity throughout Yemen. Wahhabism actively opposes both the main Yemeni schools — Zaydi Shi‘ism in the north and Shafi‘i Sunnism in the south and in the Tihama. It is closely connected with the political party Islah, a coalition of tribal, mercantile and religious interests that pursues a mixed social and political agenda. [1]
The Woman with Two Husbands
I, the undersigned, give full power of attorney to the embassy of the State of Palestine to do everything possible to get my daughter, Laila, student at the University of Sanaa, College of Education, out of Yemen. I certify that she is not allowed to marry in Sanaa since she is still married to her husband, K., in Saudi Arabia. Please note that she is not responsible for any of her actions since she suffers from serious health problems and mental disorders. Signed in the presence of two witnesses, March 13, 1994.
A Campaign Rally in Sanaa
Just within the walls of the old city of Sanaa, southeast of Bab al-Sha‘ub, a large tent has been erected in an open square. People are milling about — mostly children, but also men and women. The candidate is talking to a group of people as one of her opponents drives by in a black Mercedes. The candidate, Ra’ufa Hasan al-Sharqi, has her own white Volvo parked discreetly some distance away.
The neighborhood is a poor one with the walls of all the houses covered with posters for several candidates — but not for al-Sharqi. The independent candidate explains that displaying her posters on residential houses is forbidden, and how could she claim the right to make laws as a deputy if she had broken the law in order to become one.
The Yemeni Elections Up Close
Candidate registration for Yemen’s first-ever multi-party elections opened on March 29 in a climate of lively polemics against the president’s party, the General People’s Congress (GPC). The GPC’s permanent committee had approved its electoral program on March 27. That same evening it appropriated an hour of television and radio time to present its proposals, shoving aside the law which stipulated that access to the official media was subject to the provisions of the Supreme Elections Committee (SEC) in the framework of equality between the parties. The head of the SEC’s information subcommittee immediately distributed a letter condemning this violation and threatened to resign. The GPC subsequently felt compelled to play by the rules.
The Economic Dimension of Yemeni Unity
To the outside world, the unification of the two Yemens in 1990 resembled the German experience in miniature. North Yemen (the Yemen Arab Republic, YAR) was considered a laissez faire market economy, whereas the South (the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, PDRY) was “the communist one.” When, weeks ahead of Bonn and Berlin, Sanaa and Aden announced their union, Western commentary assumed that in Yemen, as in Germany, capitalist (Northern) firms would buy out the moribund (Southern) state sector and provide the basis for future economic growth.
Yemeni Workers Come Home
With its moderate climate and terraced highlands, Yemen is agriculturally the most productive part of the Arabian Peninsula. Yet people, not crops, have been Yemen’s major export. Migrants from the former North and South Yemen are scattered throughout the world. During the last 20 years, the majority of Yemeni migrants have gone to neighboring oil states. With up to 30 percent of adult men abroad at a time, migration affected virtually every household. The earnings of the roughly 1.25 million expatriates, coupled with heavy foreign assistance, fueled the region’s socioeconomic transformation, particularly in the north. This era of prosperity ended abruptly when Iraq invaded Kuwait in early August 1990.
Halliday, Revolution and Foreign Policy
Fred Halliday, Revolution and Foreign Policy: The Case of South Yemen, 1967-1987 (Cambridge, 1990).
