The Huthis: Adaptable Players in Yemen's Multiple Geographies

Eleonora Ardemagni

• Publisher: EDUCatt
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9788893354929
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Human Geography
• Index: Social Sciences

The research of Eleonora Ardemagni is illustrative because it helps to go beyond simplistic understandings of the issues and challenges at stake. In particular, it has the merit of casting new light on one of the less studied crises in the region, the conflict in Yemen, and in particular on one of its protagonists, the Huthis.
Although it represents the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with 14 million people at risk of starvation, and an armed conflict that has already killed or injured almost 18 thousand people, this civil war still remains at the margins of international public debate. Partially, this is due to the traditional underrating of the importance of this country within the wider Middle East’s geopolitical framework. At the same time, the war in Yemen has been generally underestimated exactly because it has been described by superimposing on it one of the two previous perspectives, either the sectarian or the proxy framework. Initially, it was easily portrayed as one of the “failed springs” in the region, ignoring the long period of war (2004-2010) that took place before the protests against the former regime and, even before that, the political separation in two different, competing regimes during the Cold War. Later on, it was portrayed as a mere pawn in the wider competition between the Sunni and Shite camps, namely between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Note

[←1]

The author thanks Franck Mermier and Charles Schmitz for kindly reading and commenting on the manuscript; and Paolo Maggiolini and Riccardo Redaelli for their constant support and inspiration. Special thanks to Tiziana Corda for the maps.

[←2]

This research uses a simplified version of system of transliteration for Arabic names and words. Commonly used words derived from Arabic (e.g. Shia), personal and place names follow used English spellings rather than scientific transliteration.

[←3]

Yemen was “Arabia Felix” for the ancient Romans, opposed to “Arabia Deserta” (the current Saudi Arabia) and “Arabia Petra” (the current Jordan). Yemen’s etymology derives from the Arabic ymn indicating the land to the right of Mecca (opposite to the left, sham).

[←4]

Yemen started to produce, consume and export coffee in the 15^th century from the ports of the Red Sea coast, al-Mokha and Hodeidah. The first archaeological evidence of beverage coffee consumption was found in Zabid: the Sufis of Yemen first began drinking coffee to stay awake during the late-night prayer. Nowadays, coffee production has been widely replaced by qat (Catha edulis), a mild narcotic leaf that Yemenis are accustomed to chew in daily social gatherings: its cultivation absorbs about 90% of Yemen’s meagre water resources.

[←5]

From an estimated 160.000 inhabitants in 1977. See Abdullah Al-Abed, Sana’a Urban Transformation: From Walled to Fragmented City, Journal of Engineering Sciences, Assiut University, Vol. 39, No. 4, July 2011, pp. 897-918.

[←6]

See Franck Mermier, Récits de villes: d’Aden à Beyrouth, Paris, Sindbad-Actes Sud, 2015; Noel Brehony (ed), Hadhramaut and its Diaspora: Yemeni Politics, Identity and Migration, London, I.B Tauris, 2017.

[←7]

Nathalie Peutz, Islands of Heritage. Conservation and Transformation in Yemen, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2018; Nathalie Peutz, Revolution in Socotra: a Perspective from Yemen’s Periphery, Middle East Report 263, 2012, pp. 14-20.

[←8]

On Yemen as the Gulf’s rimland, see Eleonora Ardemagni, The Persian Gulf Rimland: Federalism, Geostrategy and Patronage in Contemporary Southern Yemen, International Studies Journal, Vol.14, No.4, Spring 2018, pp. 59-80.

[←9]

The real existence of Queen Bilqis is not confirmed. See Christian Robin, Quelques épisodes marquant de l’histoire sudarabique, Revue de mondes musulmanes e de la Méditerranée, 1991, 61, pp. 55-70.

[←10]

For most of the historical section, Charles Schmitz and Robert D. Burrowes, Historical Dictionary of Yemen, Lanham, Rowan & Littlefield, third edition, 2018.

[←11]

On Yemen’s dysfunctional system of power, refer to Sarah Phillips, Yemen’s Democracy Experiment in Regional Perspective, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008; Sarah Phillips, Yemen and the Politics of Permanent Crisis, London, The International Institute for Strategic Studies, Routledge-The Adelphi Series, 2011. For the “tribal-military-commercial complex” refer to Paul Dresch, “The tribal factor in the Yemeni crisis”, in Jamal Al-Suwaidi (ed), The Yemen War of 1994: Causes and Consequences, London, 1995, pp. 33-55.

[←12]

See Paul Dresch, “The tribal factor in the Yemeni Crisis”, in Jamal Al-Suwaidi, op. cit., p. 38.

[←13]

Neo-patrimonialism builds upon the Weberian notion of Herrshaft (patrimonialism) and was elaborated by Shlomo N. Eisenstadt to re-define patrimonial relations developing within an institutional and ‘modern’ framework. Neo-patrimonialism is the “permeation of informal patrimonial loyalties into formal state organizations” and has three salient dynamics: the concentration of power in the president’s hands, the systemic recourse to patronage, the selective re-distribution of state revenues in exchange for political loyalty. See Michael Bratton and Nicolas van de Wal...

Table of contents

• Acronyms
• Maps
• Introduction
• Inside Yemen’s Multiple Geographies1
• Framing Yemen’s Zaydi Shia
• The Huthis Againstthe Central Government.Layers of a Periphery-Regime Conflict
• The Agency-Structure Game:The Huthis’ Populist Elitism
• Penetrating the State:The Huthis From Local Rebelsto National Contenders
• Perspectives: Hybrid Security Again?The Huthis’ Talent for Adaptation
• Conclusions: the Huthisand the Challenge of Federalism
• Arabic Glossary
• Bibliography
• Note