of the Idrīsī Amirate and although the Zaydī State tried to re-establish sovereignty over the region in 1920 by ousting the Idrīsī Amir, the efforts of the latter were curtailed by a war with Saudi Arabia in 1934. The geopolitical boundaries defined as a result of the Zaydī–Saudi war assumed a permanent boundary that later led to the creation of the Yemeni Arab Republic after the revolution in 1962. After the war with the Saudis, the Imām set about consolidating Zaydī control where the Hamid al-Din family exerted most influence. In the process, Hamid al-Din’s style of rule retrogressively transformed from that of a traditional Imām into one of an absolutist monarch.58 This transformation provoked protests from both traditional conservatives and the-emerging nationalist modernists, which resulted in his eventual assassination in 1948. He was soon replaced by his son, Ahmad, after the brief rule of an Imām from another Zaydī family. Ahmad continued in a similar vein to his father, breaking with traditional principles of Imāmate rule in favour of monarchical self-rule, whilst at the same time resisting all efforts aimed at the modernization of the country. When Ahmad died in 1962, he was replaced by his son, Muhammad al-Badr, who survived an assassination attempt after a coup d’état within just one week of his succession. Muhammad fled the country and a protracted civil war broke out between loyal forces of the Imām and the newly-installed revolutionary Republic. In 1970, unification of the Sana’ai state was achieved and in the process the establishment of a genuine nation-state was undertaken in the north. Modern migrations from the Yemen were undertaken firstly by Ḥaḍramīs to the Ottoman-ruled Hijaz, and then by the ‘Adenese’ or southern Yemenis via maritime migrations to Britain and elsewhere. Later, in the mid-twentieth century, North Yemeni migrations to the oil-rich Kingdom of Saudi Arabia occurred. Paul Dresch has commented on the historical migration of the Yemeni people, stating:
Throughout the country’s history one finds accounts of famine, and in the twentieth century migrant labour funded ordinary people’s lives, as first the Ḥaḍramīs, then Lower Yemenis then Upper Yemenis all worked elsewhere.59
The recurring droughts and famines throughout the history of the Yemen have made rural living and agricultural trade practically untenable. The social, political and economic ‘push factors’ in the modern period transformed rural peasants, reluctantly, into merchant seamen. The circumstances that precipitated the colonized Yemeni emigration experiences mirrored those of their Indian and Malay counterparts.60 In the modern period, the Yemen has been a consistently poor country and according to UN statistics it is considered to be one of the least developed countries in the world.
Despite the creation of two communist states, the former northern socialist Yemen Arab Republic (YAR), and the former southern Marxist Peoples Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY),61 moves towards unifying both independent modern states were established almost simultaneously.62 However, genuine attempts at reunification were always a forlorn and half-hearted endeavour as both burgeoning republics vied against each other for the same Soviet economic and military sponsorship.63 Effective civil war in the North between the traditional tribes, who were supported by Islamists and the Saudi government, against the new modernist and secular political elite was a serious distraction.64 In the South, political in-fighting between Marxist purists and pragmatic socialists saw a string of political leaders continuously removed and replaced through a series of assassinations. Externally, Saudi forces were keen to restrain the communist influences streaming from the Yemen and employed both invasion through its regular army and insurrection by financing and arming the anti-communist ex-Sultana faction and other dissident groups in the North. The political precariousness of the PDRY in the South was due not so much to invading anti-communist forces, but largely through economic bankruptcy as a result of British colonial withdrawal and the temporary closure of the Suez Canal. However, despite both internal and external pressures and constant hostilities between the Northern and Southern states, the idea of reunification seemed to be the collective will of the people. In order to court the public mood, politicians and leaders from both the YAR and the PDRY tentatively kept reunification discussions on-going, albeit reduced at times to empty exercises in diplomatic rhetoric. However, two major events changed the political and economic climate of the region and in turn accelerated the reunification process: the collapse of the Soviet Union and the discovery of oil in both North and South Yemen.
Whilst outside influences fuelled the north-south division between the two Yemens, Ali Abdullah Salih, the then president of the YAR, proved a skilful negotiator in adopting a pragmatic approach to re-establishing routes to reunification. Furthermore, when Israel invaded the Lebanon in 1982, both Yemeni leaders, Salih and Ali Nasser, toured the region’s capitals in what Latta describes as a ‘joint Yemeni diplomatic initiative to forge a common Arab position.’65 Simultaneously, as the Soviet Union began to implode politically, its support for dependent states like the Yemen became less of a priority compared to the internal problems that arose after the introduction of Mikail Gorbachev’s perestroika in Soviet Russia. Therefore, Soviet-inspired Marxist states were also forced to undergo their own liberalizing and democratic reforms in which free market economies and political pluralism quickly became the vogue.66 The process of political reform was better accommodated in the North by the tactful initiatives of Salih who instituted a one-thousand-member General Peoples Congress (GPC) in 1982, with himself as the Secretary-General.67 With the return of opposition leaders from exile and national stability established, Salih’s political credibility was strengthened. Fortuitously, the North Yemen discovery of large oil reserves in 1984 had an almost immediate impact on the economy, further bolstering Salih’s position to something equalling that of the former Imām Yahya.68 Salih used his political muscle effectively to obstruct South Yemen from joining the Arab Cooperation Council (ACC), arguing that the PDRY’s economic policies and Marxist philosophy were incompatible with the other member states.69 Whilst Salih continued to exert his influence in order to exclude the PDRY from formal associations with the rest of the Arab world, boycotting its applications to all major inter-Arab political forums, economic development in the North was not as expedient as was politically required. With the discovery of the large untapped Shabwah oil fields in South Yemen, reunification once again became an enticing proposition.70 However, hopes of massive oil reserves within the southern desert were also somewhat over-optimistic and whilst oil revenue today constitutes 60% of the state budget, 400,000 barrels per day spreads out thinly amongst a population of 18 million.71
1.3 – A postcard of the British-built water tanks at al-Tawāhī, Aden, which were built on the site of an extinct volcano crater, circa 1960.
In November 1992, a real breakthrough was reached in the drawn-out reunification process when both sides agreed to adhere to the Aden Agreement that was originally initiated in 1982. Basically, reunification had been achieved after agreements on the establishment of a new transitional government for a new Republic of Yemen within a 12-month period had been reached. The first six months saw a concerted effort by both leaders to win over the sceptics but, as developments ‘snowballed’ and increased fears of tribal factionalism loomed, both presidents hurriedly brought forward the reunification date to 22 May 1990.72 The former president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, was also instrumental in accelerating reunification and he was anxious for it to be concluded before the Arab League meeting scheduled later that year in Baghdad. Although it was widely known that Saddam wanted to upset the Saudis by facilitating a unified Yemen, his wider motives became apparent very soon afterwards when he invaded Kuwait in 1990.73 On 1 May 1990, despite PDRY objections,74 voting for the union was unanimous and the next day a triumphant Salih announced from Aden the birth of the Republic of Yemen.75 Sana’a was to become the political capital and Aden was named as the economic capital of the new reunified state. Ali Abdullah Salih was to head the new Republic and Ali Salem al-Bidh was to be Vice-President. Haidar Abu al-Attas, an influential Ḥaḍramī and former President of the PDRY was to head
