Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2014 Parameters of Power: The Quandary of Yemen Between the World Wars Colleen Boyett Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES PARAMETERS OF POWER: THE QUANDARY OF YEMEN BETWEEN THE WORLD WARS By COLLEEN BOYETT A Dissertation submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2014 © 2014 Colleen Boyett Colleen Boyett defended this dissertation on April, 14, 2014. The members of the supervisory committee were: Peter Garretson Professor Directing Dissertation Petra Doan University Representative Jonathan Grant Committee Member Adam Gaiser Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii Dedicated to the memory of my only child, Cody Aaron Boyett, whose shared love of history, language and travel inspired me to this end. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Such an undertaking as this is dependent upon the assistance of many people. I want to first thank the entire Department of History at Florida State University for taking this nontraditional student of a certain age under their wing and guiding her to success. I am indebted to Sabri Saleem, President of the Yemen College of Middle Eastern Studies, who first sparked my interest in this topic during an afternoon qat chew in Sanaa. I also want to express my gratitude to the staffs of the British Library, St. Pancras and the National Archives, Kew, whose patience and assistance facilitated not only access to their volumes but also their expert knowledge of British imperial history on the Arabian Peninsula. I want to extend special appreciation to the National Archives cartography section for kindly allowing me to include the two maps of the Red Sea. Finally, thanks are due to each member of my committee for their timely advice and wise counsel throughout this venture, especially my mentor, Dr. Peter Garretson, whose knowledge, professionalism and friendship made all the difference in the attainment of my goal. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ vi Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... vii 1. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................1 1.1 Historical Questions .......................................................................................................1 1.2 The Geographical Parameters ........................................................................................9 1.3 Historiographical Overview .........................................................................................17 1.4 Theoretical Framework ................................................................................................24 2. THE POLITICS OF THE PANOPTICON............................................................................30 2.1 Preparation of Imperial Leaders ...................................................................................30 2.2 The End of the War & Caliphate Concerns .................................................................33 2.3 The Committee Decisions and the Role of Lord Curzon .............................................35 2.4 The Aden Resident’s Dilemma ....................................................................................41 2.5 Interdepartmental Conflict………………………… .....……………………………..43 2.6 Tribal Confederations ..................................................................................................50 3. RELIGION AS VEHICLE OF AGENCY ............................................................................53 3.1 The “Islams” of the Yemen ..........................................................................................53 3.2 The Impact of Religious Reform Movements .............................................................57 3.3 The Idris of Asir ...........................................................................................................59 3.4 The Zaydi Imam Yahya ...............................................................................................66 4. THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE RED SEA ............................................................77 4.1 Lieutenant Wyman’s Report ........................................................................................77 4.2 The Gun-Running Italians............................................................................................79 4.3 The Slave-Trading French ...........................................................................................83 4.4 The Communist Soviets ...............................................................................................99 5. THE POLICING OF JEWISH PERSECUTION ................................................................103 5.1 Background of Yemeni Jewry ...................................................................................103 5.2 Changes of the Post-War Zaydi Regime ....................................................................105 5.3 The Quandary of Yemeni Jewish Refugees in Aden .................................................110 6. EPILOGUE AND CONCLUSION .....................................................................................118 6.1 The Treaty of 1934.....................................................................................................118 6.2 21st Century Déjà Vu .................................................................................................120 6.3 The Relevance of ‘Ungoverned Spaces’ in Yemen ...................................................129 GLOSSARY ................................................................................................................................139 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................141 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .......................................................................................................153 v LIST OF FIGURES 1.1 Tribal Religious Affiliations ............................................................................................134 1.2 Conflicting/Overlapping Policy in the Interwar Period ...................................................135 1.3 Map of Religious Divisions in Yemen ............................................................................136 1.4 Map of Red Sea Slave Routes ..........................................................................................137 1.5 Principal Importing Countries to Yemen, 1904-1914......................................................138 vi ABSTRACT The purpose of this dissertation is to use a Foucauldian lens to examine the nature and scope of the many challenges the British faced in southwest Arabia in the wake of the retreating Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War. The subsequent power vacuum which ensued meant that Britain had to make a decision as to the nature of its future imperial policy in Yemen beyond Aden. The challenge would be to maintain the security of the Red Sea route to India by implementing some sort of cost-effective imperial arrangement which allowed for some measure of Yemeni autonomy while keeping European competitors at a safe distance. While the focus of the study is on Yemen, it begins with an explanation of the overlapping concerns of competing centers of power in Delhi, Cairo, and London and the fundamentally different visions they had for the Middle East in general, and the Arabian Peninsula, in particular. The professionals who staffed the India Office, the Foreign Office, and the Colonial Office held divergent views of where Yemen fit into their imperial plans, reflecting the various experiences they drew upon from their careers in Africa and India. They simply could not decide if Yemen belonged more to the Indian imperial system, or conversely, to the Red Sea world of colonial Africa. The failure to resolve this fundamental difference of vision led to the support of two different leaders in Yemen, the Sufi Idris of Asir and the Zaydi Imam of Sanaa. The default plan was for Aden-in Foucauldian style-to serve as a type of panopticon, overseeing the region with appropriate discipline and rewards via less formal, trucial-style arrangements with various tribal shaykhs and other notables, believing that keeping southwest Arabia divided would serve Britain’s strategic interests. A central theme is the display of Arab agency through the power and influence of Yemeni leaders who leveraged their religious heritage to reinforce their own positions and to vii maintain a state of chaos along the border with Aden in the south, and the Eastern and Western Protectorates. Ultimately, the British government concluded the Treaty of Sanaa in 1934 with a figure whom it had not initially backed, the Zaydi Imam Yahya, This delay of fourteen years to resolve the lingering territorial issues carried over from the war diminished the reputation of Britain at home and abroad, and