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The Snake with Thousand Heads: The Southern Movement and New Political Culture in Yemen
Abstract
Since 2007 a new political factor has spread round South Yemen known as the Southern Movement. During its existence, the movement has not manifested patterns typical to earlier political movements in either part of the formerly divided Yemen. The movement lacks unified national leadership and it has neither held conferences nor presented a program for future. Thus it has been easy for its opponents and foreign observers to label it simply as "secessionist" and outside the scope of viable options for the country's future. In my paper, I argue that the Southern Movement is a new generation social movement that cannot be analyzed in comparison to older political movements such as the National Liberation Front or Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen. Lack of national leadership, joint program or organizational structure are conscious choices made within the movement. While new local leaders take over after others have been detained or exiled the movement has been able to keep going despite attempts to suppress it. Illuminatingly, one of its supporters called it a snake with thousand heads. Such "non-movement" choices have been difficult to understand also for the older generation of Southerners who participated in the independence struggle. The active presence of the movement in the Internet and satellite TV have also made it more accessible to the younger generation. Like in earlier conflicts in the South, family roots often dictate on whose side people find themselves. Thus the demand for re-establishing the previous Southern state, the PDRY confuses many people. For the new generation of political actors in this movement, however, this is a tactical move to establish an entirely new political platform free from patrimonial relations, favoritism and corruption. While debates in qat gatherings and the Internet focus on irrevocable differences between the Southern and the Northern culture, the movement carves way for a modern state in Yemen. The paper is based on anthropological fieldwork carried out in Southern Yemen before and after the Yemeni unity during the course of 1988-2010, altogether some there years.
Discipline
Anthropology
Geographic Area
Yemen
Sub Area
Human Rights