The Women and the Land: The Conception of Belonging in Hadhrami Society through Almehdar's Operettas (The Victim and the Bedouin Girl)

Abstract

Almehdar's treasury of Hadhrami original traditions that creates the DNA of Hadhrami identity has not been investigated to reveal its due value. Therefore, this article aims at scratching upon the surface of this issue through investigating the portrayal of the women and the land, as two major interlinked marks of Hadhrami identity revealed in Almehdar’s literature, in the selected operettas, The Victim and The Bedouin Girl, as both reflect the article’s two interlinked points; women and the land, within the thorough portrayal of the original seeds of Hadhrami identity, mainly in mid-20th-century. These issues are to be discussed within the theoretical perspectives of Kathy Butterworth's (2017) conception of women as a decentred autonomous subject. She argues that between the autonomous and decentred authority, the undecidability of women can be situated. Besides, there is a symbolic link between the attachment to the homeland and that to women (central/decentered) highlighted in previous literature as Smith (2019), Tzili Mor (2016), Alexander (2011), and Linda Marina (n.d.) but from a negative perspective unlike this article. The analysis shows the situation of the two women in the texts, The Victim and The Bedouin Girl, in their relation to the patriarchal authority of the father, cousin, and the lover/potential husband. Given that, in these texts, the constructive interchangeability of women and the land reflects how Hadhrami people, though of a tribal and patriarchal mentality, are attached to their land as a source of belonging and indication of identity. Likewise, their intimate love for their ladies is a source of power that makes them do the impossible to defend them and never cede with them. As for the Hadhrami women, the texts show that they have a space of freedom to say their opinions frankly and declare, but politely, their love affairs and their right in selecting their husbands. Meanwhile, they are respectfully bound by their parental decisions. In all, these texts show the extent to which they are sacred for their men who never accept any foreign invasion to their land or ladies.