- 15 Mar 2016
The Quest for South Arabia – A New State in the Middle East?
Abstract
As the civil war in Yemen reaches its second year, the power constellations on the ground and regionally have dramatically changed. Officially proclaiming to aim at restoring Yemeni unity, Saudi Arabia and its partners have engaged in not only bombing the country, but also in building a “national” army to the southerners. Popular Committees, local militias joined together to form the Southern Resistance are equipped and trained by Emirati forces. Meanwhile in other parts of the warstricken country, old foes have returned to fight for power, namely Ali Muhsin al-Ahmar, the former right hand of erstwhile president Ali Abdullah Salih who during the 2011 uprising turned against him and whom the Huthis sent to exile after capturing Sana’a. In the current war situation, Ali Muhsin fights alongside the Saudi coalition against Huthi-Salih forces. Still, Ali Muhsin can hardly be counted as an ally of president AbdRabbuh Mansur Hadi, whose power base inside the country anyhow remains disputed. As the fighting goes to its second year, it is time to focus on the new power constellations that the war has proliferated. Among these, the Southern question is the most progressed one with a plan to re-establish its independence with the provisional name “Republic of South Arabia.” In my paper, I explore the various conceptions of the state in Yemen, divided by generation, region and approaches to modernity. My paper is based on long-time ethnographic fieldwork first in the PDRY, and following Yemeni unity, in the current Republic of Yemen, and on archival and online sources.
About the Speakers
Susanne Dahlgren is an anthropologist interested in moral questions, law and politics. She studied anthropology at the University of Edinburgh, the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and the University of Helsinki where she received her PhD in 2004. She has been a fellow in the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies and at the Academy of Finland. Her PhD project was published as Contesting Realities. The Public Sphere and Morality in Southern Yemen (2010). Her recent work has involved theorizing the Arab revolutions as part of a project on ‘Geographies of Gender in the Arab Revolutions’, convened by Frances Hasso and Zakia Salime. A recent photo essay was published in Muftah.org on ‘Rebels without Shoes: A Visit to South Yemen’s Revolution Squares.’ At MEI she has worked on a project entitled ‘Post-Socialism in the Arabian Peninsula: the Politics of Islam and Modernisation in South Yemen.’
