Gender and Status Inequalities in Yemen: Honour, Economics, and Politics

The aim of this national case study, a synthetic summary of the work and evidence on women in a tribal, Muslim, Arabian, rapidly changing society, is to contribute to the intersection of the Middle Eastern and women-in-development literatures by situating women first within tribal and Islamic settings and then in the context of rapid changes in political and economic circumstances during the past thirty years. It therefore considers feminine roles in the different historical social strata before examining how new services brought by modernization, class formation associated with the penetration of capitalism, and political struggles between right and left all affect women\u27s positions in modernizing Arab societies. What I hope to show is that the relationship between modernization and women\u27s status is not a straightforward one, even in an apparently patriarchal Arab context

The Dialectics of Fashion: Gender and Politics in Yemen

The situation of Yemeni women is complicated and contradictory. On the one hand, compared with relatively fashionforward Mediterranean Arabs, or even their affluent sisters in the Gulf, Yemeni women appear to be especially oldfashioned. One rarely sees a Yemeni woman outdoors bareheaded, and in the capital, Sana\u27a, most women cover their faces in public. Yet outward appearances can be misleading. While it is tempting to assume that women still veil because tradition tells them to, it is simply wrong to conclude that traditionally all women were secluded in their homes, or that how they dress now tells us much about their political and economic status. Clothes do not make the woman: lives are shaped by political currents and economic realities

Yemen Between Revolution and Counter-Terrorism

This chapter juxtaposes these seemingly two quite different storylines - one about Yemeni aspirations for social justice and better governance and the other about American and Saudi operations undertaken in the name of combating terrorism. The so-called GCC Initiative, and in particular the National Dialogue Conference process playing out as this book goes to press, provides the link between them. From the perspective of domestic politics, the Dialogue can be read as the outcome of agitation by the new generation of \u27peaceful youth\u27, as well as an outgrowth of Yemen\u27s tradition of dialogue - an historic effort to resolve crisis through broad negotiation between representatives of various political constituencies. In the context of the \u27war on terror\u27, however, the GCC Initiative and even the donor-sponsored Dialogue among political elites can be seen as security-driven or even hegemonic projects on the part of the us and its ally, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Killing Live 8, Noisily: The G-8, Liberal Dissent and the London Bombings

The organizers of Live 8, the week-long, celebrity-driven musical campaign for increased aid and debt relief for poverty-stricken nations, plugged their July 6 concert in an Edinburgh stadium as a celebration of the largest and loudest cry to make poverty history the world has ever seen. By rush hour the next morning, four coordinated bombings in the London transit system had stolen the show from the wellorchestrated international extravaganza and handed the microphone to Tony Blair and George W. Bush. Talk about a vast right-wing conspiracy: the London terrorists could not have done more to strengthen the hand of the world\u27s richest states against dissident voices in the West and beyond if they had actually been in cahoots

Legalism and Realism in the Gulf

In his State of the Union address in January, 1998, President Clinton won thunderous applause for threatening to force Iraq to comply with the UNSCOM regime and the will of the United Nations. Stopping UN chemical and biological weapons inspectors from completing their mission, declared the President, defies the will of the world. In the next three weeks, the White House ordered a massive show of force in the Gulf. Even traditional hawks, however, realized that a bombing mission could undermine American hegemonic interests in the Gulf that are served by a continuation of the sanctions regime

Pluralism, Polarization, and Popular Politics in Yemen

Among the nations of the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen is the most populous, the poorest, and the most politically liberal. It is the only republic where sovereignty theoretically rests with its 16 million inhabitants, not with a monarch. The constitution promulgated in 1991 and amended in 1994 guarantees many basic rights and liberties to all adult citizens, including rights to vote, run for office, and join political parties. Since Yemeni unification in 1990, two rounds of contested, multiparty parliamentary elections in 1993 and 1997 involved women as well as men in the political process as voters, candidates, volunteers, and reporters. Yemenis enjoy relatively greater freedom of movement, expression, and association than most Arabs. Within the Yemeni political arena there is a wide range of legitimate political opinion, from the socialist left to the Islamist right, that cuts diagonally across the particularistic claims of region, tribe, sect, social status, or gender. Indeed, this political pluralism is more a property of society than of the state

Euro-Med: European Ambitions in the Mediterranean

The European Union is carving out a sphere of potentially vast influence in the Euro-Mediterranean basin, while also cultivating special relationship further south in the Arabian Peninsula. European ambitions do not directly challenge US security policy in the Middle East. Rather, they parallel US interests in the Caribbean Basin and Latin America: for a large regional free trade zone open to imports and foreign investment

Arabia Incognita

In 2011, millions of Yemenis calling themselves the Peaceful Youth joyfully joined the “Arab Spring.” Four years later, popular aspirations for social justice and a serious attempt at national dialogue were thwarted by deadly domestic power struggles. When the pro-Saudi, US-supported government fled to Riyadh in April 2015, the Kingdom led a multinational military intervention inside Yemen. By December, daily bombardment had killed thousands of fighters and civilians, injured and displaced hundreds of thousands, and decimated homes and infrastructure. A naval blockade cut off access to fuel, medicine, and food for millions. In addition to this humanitarian catastrophe, the ensuing chaos emboldened al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and led the group ISIS to expand there.Arabia Incognita helps readers understand this tragic misadventure by tracing the Arabian Peninsula’s modern history from Yemen’s strong anti-imperial movement of the 1960s through the present series of conflicts. The majority of the essays focus on Yemen’s colorful and complex internal socio-political dynamics; others draw attention to parallel, often inter-connected disharmonies inside the Gulf’s petro-kingdoms; wider regional upheavals and movements; and America’s deep, vast and very problematic security involvement in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula.https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/1230/thumbnail.jp

NGOs, INGOs, GO-NGOs and DO-NGOs: Making Sense of Non-Governmental Organizations

This issue of Middle East Report takes a critical look at NGOs --non-governmental organizations--in and beyond the Arab world. The topic is both trendy and controversial. Although they may see themselves as marginal actors, charities, advocacy groups and a range of other civic associations in the Middle East have also become agents of political, economic and social change, influencing the allocation of scarce resources in their own societies and the images national regimes project abroad. In recent years, NGOs have been depicted as saviors of failed economies in some circles while reviled as stooges of Western imperialism in others

Mission: Democracy

Incumbent national leaders invite foreign election monitors only when it is in their interest to do so. Rarely is significant financial assistance conditional on holding elections, although it does improve a regime\u27s image abroad to do so. For governments being observed, the trick is to orchestrate the process enough to win, but not enough to arouse observers\u27 suspicions