Friday, October 8, 2010

Weekend Reading: Yemen -- Dancing on the Head of Snakes...


Yemen has sporadically drawn the attention of the West in recent years. While adventurous tourists remember it as the land where the ruins of the Palace of the Queen of Sheba lie and where local men spend a good portion of the day chewing enormous wads of semi-narcotic Qat leaves, it is also where the USS Cole was attacked by Al Queda suicide bombers in the 1990's, claiming the life of 17 American sailors.

What we in the West has failed to focus on is that Yemen has long been a violently tribal land that is now running out of natural resources such as water and oil and in its place is becomig an incubator for a new generation of terrorist planning and activity - a third generation of Jihad.

And, as importantly, Yemen is geographically poised to wreak havoc two of the most critical aspects of the global economy (namely, Saudi oil and all shipping coming and going through the Suez Canal - which comprises more than 60 percent of all shipping globally).

Moreover, it is an increasingly clear it is drifting into what foreign policy experts refer to as a "failed state" with remarkable similarities to Afghanistan and even Pakistan in terms of tribal and intra-regional rebellions.

In her penetrating and quite fascinating new book, Victoria Clark, offers a number of unique perspectives of this centuries-long troubled land. A former foreign correspondent for the Observer and the daughter of the BBC's former South Arabian Correspondent, the late Noel Clark. She was born in what was Britain's colonial city of Aden, Yemen.

Clark divides up the book into several parts, all of which weave into a rich and multifaceted portrait of Yemen.

The first half of her book presents the history of the country, century upon century of which was consumed in tribal fighting when not at war with the outside world. Clark points out, since the earliest days of the Ottoman Empire and advance of "Frankish" invaders up to and including British colonization, Yemenis have, in essence, been fighting foreign intrusion almost literally forever.

But this is not to say Yemen does not have its charms and a unique cultural heritage. It is from Yemen, Clark reminds us, that coffee was first cultivated and grown. Where the ancient (and now crumbling) city of Mocha once served as the greatest exporter of this most addictive bean to the rest of the world.

But the romantic memories are in large part drowned out as Clark takes us through Yemen's bizarre civil war 30 years ago the resulting plinterring into two states, one of them the Marxist Peoples Democratic Republic of Yemen - the only predominantly Muslim country aside from Afghanistan to turn Marxist since the end of World War ll.

Clark then takes into the current "reunified" Yemen: A corrupt, confused and qat-addicted state struggling with at least two signficant tribal/regional insurrections as well as a revived Al Queda branch (Al Queda of the Arabian Peninsula - AQAP. We forget Osama bin Laden is A Yemeni and a surprising number of Al Queda members are of Yememi heritage).

All the while with Saudi Arabia hovers over the country as it increasingly sees Yemen as a potentially significantly distablizing force for them as well as the rest of the region.

As we watch the continued chaotic free-fall and Islamic radicalization of Somolia just across the Gulf of Aden with their growing piracy activity,Clark's book is an important and highly instructive primer on a nation and a region we cannot continue to ignore. And we can only hope it returns to a time - albeit a very brief time in Yemen's history - where peace and tourism returns.
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