Wrong from the Start

Abstract

The migratory, labor, cultural and administrative history of the both North and South Yemen has been neglected. By exploring through Cold War era documents just how invested various internal actors were in transforming Southern Arabia’s relations with the larger world it is possible to add another angle of interpretation to the larger book’s project. It is argued that by leveraging competing external interests, a new set of operatives within Yemen’s political classes emerge. Looking closely at the manner in which the British global empire provided an interactive context for Yemenis, it is possible to highlight the global threads linking indigenous politics with the larger world. Be they Marxist inspired guerrillas whose use of violence help expel Britain from South Yemen in the late 1960s, the early advocates for a retrenchment of Salafist orthodoxy (with deep links to Saudi Arabia), or those merchant families long servicing the trade networks linking Southeast Asia, East Africa with the Middle East, Yemen’s new generation of political actor receives close inspection throughout this chapter.