Anne-Linda Amira Augustin, South Yemen’s Independence Struggle: Generations of Resistance (New Texts Out Now)

Anne-Linda Amira Augustin, South Yemen’s Independence Struggle: Generations of Resistance (New Texts Out Now)

Anne-Linda Amira Augustin, South Yemen’s Independence Struggle: Generations of Resistance (New Texts Out Now)

By : Anne-Linda Amira Augustin

Anne-Linda Amira Augustin, South Yemen’s Independence Struggle: Generations of Resistance (Cairo/New York: The American University in Cairo Press, 2021). 

Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book?

Anne-Linda Amira Augustin (AAA): In 2007, the Southern Movement was born in protest against the marginalization of South Yemenis since the unification of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY/South Yemen) with the Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen) in 1990. In this same year, I spent a semester at the University of Aden within the scope of my Middle Eastern studies at Leipzig University in Germany. At that time, most students of Middle Eastern studies traveled to and studied in Egypt or Syria. However, descending from an East German mother and a South Yemeni father, my personal background was the source of my interest in this region, which normally gets little attention in Middle Eastern studies. Ever since the Movement’s emergence in 2007, I have wanted to learn and understand more about it. 

I often wondered about the very active involvement of young South Yemenis in the Southern Movement and these young people’s accounts of how great life was in the PDRY. I was born in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the mid-1980s. I was a young child when the two Germanys reunified, so I have few memories of life in the GDR before then. I was astonished when young South Yemenis born after 1990 told me “we had” these and those accomplishments in the PDRY, and “our state” provided “us” with these and those achievements. I wondered why they so strongly identified with a state that disappeared from the world map more than two decades ago. Thus, I began questioning why so many young people had joined the Southern Movement, why they demanded the reestablishment of a state they had never experienced, and where their conception of the PDRY had originated.

I argue in this study that the desire for independence was present long before the Southern Movement emerged in 2007 but then was far from public attention...

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures does the book address?

AAA: The book is the first ethnography of the South Yemeni independence struggle, working from a grassroots perspective with historical aspects of the PDRY era, the time after Yemeni unification in 1990, and the formation and consolidation of the Southern Movement. It is built from a rich empirical basis of interviews, focus group discussions, textbooks, social media, print media, poems, song texts, photographs, testimonies of conversations with activists, neighbors, and so on, and thick descriptions of situations I observed in recent years.

I argue in this study that the desire for independence was present long before the Southern Movement emerged in 2007 but then was far from public attention: it was within families, neighborhoods, and circles of friends and colleagues that memories of the past and the demand for reestablishing the state on the territory of the former PDRY were maintained—from the period of unification, but particularly after the 1994 war until 2007. Around these memories, resistance was organized and claims for the reestablishment of the independent state were circulated privately until they could be expressed publicly with the emergence of the Movement.

The generational dimension of the independence struggle is core to this form of resistance and its continued existence. I show that, in a resistant environment, intergenerational transmission is not the monopoly of the family only, but that neighbors, friends, activists of a movement, journalists, media-makers, and academics play an important role in an independence struggle to transmit counter-memories and the wish to regain a lost state. Thus, the book opens up new vistas on everyday forms of resistance from below within a very repressive environment, which are far from overt forms of resistance against regime violence and suppression, such as protests and strikes.

J: How does this book connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

AAA: Since I finished my Masters in Middle Eastern studies in 2011, I have been focusing my research on the Southern Movement and the independence struggle in South Yemen. Thus, the book is the result of more than a decade of research in and on this region and the Movement. The book is based on my PhD thesis which I concluded in 2018 at Marburg University in Germany. 

J: Who do you hope will read this book, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

AAA: South Yemen, like Aden and surrounding governorates, is an under-researched region in Middle Eastern studies; thus, publications on South Yemen are rare, as are publications on Yemen in general. The research for this book was conducted under very difficult conditions on the verge of war in 2014 and 2015. Already at that time, access to South Yemen has been restricted due to the security situation in the country. As the war in Yemen continues and an end of the war is not yet foreseeable, for the upcoming years the book might remain the last ethnographic research conducted in the country and on this persistent Arab uprising.

Besides a broader audience interested in the Middle East (especially in Yemen), the book is intended to attract an audience of anthropologists and social and political scientists with a focus on resistance, independence struggles, memory studies, narratives, spaces, actors and activists, protest movements, and intergenerational relations. 

Furthermore, the book has a global appeal, because it provides insight into why Yemen is at war today. The grievances in South Yemen and the claims for independence are one of the very or even the most urgent political issues in Yemen, challenging the territorial integrity of the Republic of Yemen. South Yemenis have been able to keep alive their aspirations for regaining their state on the territory of the former PDRY after more than three decades of unification and repression from the central government. Thus, the book is very topical at this time, especially as the United Nations tries to bring together Yemeni parties into peace talks to solve the war, and it will be very relevant for the coming years, as it helps us to understand the major political challenges the Republic of Yemen faces today and will face in the future. 

J: What other projects are you working on now?

AAA: Due to the war in Yemen, it is impossible to do extended field research in Yemen. I am currently working as a research coordinator at Leipzig University in Germany, coordinating a joint research project on institutions and racism in Germany, funded by the German Federal Ministry of the Interior.

J: What do you mean by “intergenerational resistance”?

AAA: In the book, I argue that intergenerational transmission becomes a “weapon of the weak” (James Scott, 1995, xvi), an everyday form of resistance of relatively powerless people, which requires little to no coordination or planning. Such forms of resistance can be very efficient in the long run because they avoid full and direct confrontations with authorities. 

Intergenerational transmission as an everyday form of resistance, what I term intergenerational resistance, can proceed for many years before its effects appear publicly and turn into political mobilization. The delayed outcomes of intergenerational resistance explain why the Southern Movement did not emerge immediately after the war in 1994, but rather in 2007, the time when those born after unification came of age and joined the resistance.

 

Excerpt from the book (from the Introduction, pp. 1-3) 

In 2007, I spent several months in Aden, South Yemen, completing a semester at the University of Aden within the scope of my Middle Eastern Studies at Leipzig University in Germany. In that same year, the Southern Movement (al-Hirak al-Janubi, hereafter, the Movement) was born in protest against the marginalization of South Yemenis since the unification of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY; also known as South Yemen; Jumhuriyat al-Yaman al-Dimuqratiya al-Sha‘biya) with the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR; also known as North Yemen; al-Jumhuriya al-‘Arabiya al-Yamaniya) in 1990; that marginalization increased after the war in 1994.

At the time of Yemeni unification in 1990, power in the state was equally shared between South and North Yemeni politicians and bureaucrats in ministries. However, the results of the 1993 elections shattered the power-sharing agreement, marginalized the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP; al-Hizb al-Ishtiraki al-Yamani) of the PDRY, and strengthened the General People’s Congress (GPC; al-Mu’tamar al-Sha‘bi al-‘Amm) and the Yemeni Congregation for Reform (Islah Party; al-Tajammu‘ al-Yamani li-l-Islah) and, with them, the tribal and Islamist elites of North Yemen. Due to fundamental disagreements in the new coalition government that the three parties formed, tensions soared and war broke out, beginning with clashes on April 27, 1994. On May 21, 1994, the PDRY faction proclaimed the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Yemen within the territory of the former PDRY; however, it lost the war on July 7, 1994, and the Republic of Yemen remained one entity. 

When it began, the Southern Movement was a loose merger of South Yemenis, many of them former army personnel and state employees of the PDRY who had been forced from their jobs after the war in 1994. For those affected, the elimination of their jobs was tantamount to punishment for the war. In 2007, these people began to express their discontent publicly, demanding social rights and pensions or to be reinstated in their jobs. However, the Yemeni government would not address their grievances. State security forces used brutal measures against protesters (see Human Rights Watch 2009), which had the effect of strengthening the heretofore weakly organized social movement. More and more people joined the demonstrations, and the grievances evolved into concrete political demands, foremost among which was the demand for state independence of the territory that once formed the PDRY. 

By 2007, when I was studying in Aden, everybody there seemed to be talking about the emergence of the Southern Movement; ever since, I have wanted to learn more about it. I often wondered about the very active involvement of young South Yemenis in the Southern Movement and these young people’s accounts of how great life was in the PDRY. I was born in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) to an East German mother and a South Yemeni father, so my own background is situated in two states that both disappeared from the world map through unification processes with their neighbors in 1990. I was a young child when the two Germanys reunified, so I have few memories of life in the GDR before then. I was astonished when young South Yemenis born after 1990 told me “we had” these and those accomplishments in the PDRY, and “our state” provided “us” with this and that achievement. They strongly identified with a state that had disappeared before they were born. I began questioning why so many young people born after 1990 had joined the Southern Movement, why they demanded the reestablishment of a state they had never experienced, and where their conception of the PDRY had originated. My own background, which was deeply affected by the topic itself, provided me with some preliminary answers.

In many East German families, nostalgic notions of the defunct socialist state were shared with and disseminated to younger generations. My generation—those who experienced the difficulties of the early unification years during their childhoods—grew up with this “Ostalgia.” This nostalgia taught me that the GDR was a place where people led satisfying lives, cultivated permanent and steady friendships with neighbors and colleagues at work, had lovely parties with their collective work teams from factories, went on fun excursions, and lived a life in solidarity with each other. Some people still seem to miss these things today. Furthermore, jobs then were safe. Job security was scarce in eastern Germany in the 1990s and was certainly a very important trigger for nostalgic notions of the GDR era. 

I often heard similar accounts in South Yemen. During my stays in the village in Abyan, I would accompany my grandmother while she tended her goats and sheep every morning, and she would tell me about the past under British colonial rule and about life in the PDRY. Other relatives, friends, and neighbors likewise filled my imagination with pictures of a splendid time before 1990. However, nostalgia for the socialist past could not adequately explain why a mass protest movement with demands for state reestablishment emerged in South Yemen, when similar ambitions had not emerged in today’s eastern Germany. This raised another important question, closely related to the first one, on youth participation: Why had the Southern Movement grown so tremendously during the past decade, developing from a primarily social movement demanding socioeconomic rights into a mass protest movement claiming independence for a state that had long ago disappeared from the world map? I found an answer to my questions by exploring in depth, over a decade, the Southern Movement itself and the principal characteristics of the independence struggle in South Yemen.

New Texts Out Now: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein, guest eds. "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis." Special Issue of Conflict, Security & Development

Conflict, Security and Development, Volume 15, No. 5 (December 2015) Special issue: "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis," Guest Editors: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein.

Jadaliyya (J): What made you compile this volume?

Mandy Turner (MT): Both the peace process and the two-state solution are dead. Despite more than twenty years of negotiations, Israel’s occupation, colonization and repression continue–and the political and geographical fragmentation of the Palestinian people is proceeding apace.

This is not news, nor is it surprising to any keen observer of the situation. But what is surprising–and thus requires explanation – is the resilience of the Oslo framework and paradigm: both objectively and subjectively. It operates objectively as a straitjacket by trapping Palestinians in economic and security arrangements that are designed to ensure stabilization and will not to lead to sovereignty or a just and sustainable solution. And it operates subjectively as a straitjacket by shutting out discussion of alternative ways of understanding the situation and ways out of the impasse. The persistence of this framework that is focused on conflict management and stabilization, is good for Israel but bad for Palestinians.

The Oslo peace paradigm–of a track-one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution–is therefore in crisis. And yet it is entirely possible that the current situation could continue for a while longer–particularly given the endorsement and support it enjoys from the major Western donors and the “international community,” as well as the fact that there has been no attempt to develop an alternative. The immediate short-term future is therefore bleak.

Guided by these observations, this special issue sought to undertake two tasks. The first task was to analyze the perceptions underpinning the Oslo framework and paradigm as well as some of the transformations instituted by its implementation: why is it so resilient, what has it created? The second task, which follows on from the first, was then to ask: how can we reframe our understanding of what is happening, what are some potential alternatives, and who is arguing and mobilizing for them?

These questions and themes grew out of a number of conversations with early-career scholars – some based at the Kenyon Institute in East Jerusalem, and some based in the occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere. These conversations led to two interlinked panels at the International Studies Association annual convention in Toronto, Canada, in March 2014. To have two panels accepted on “conflict transformation and resistance in Palestine” at such a conventional international relations conference with (at the time unknown) early-career scholars is no mean feat. The large and engaged audience we received at these panels – with some very established names coming along (one of whom contributed to this special issue) – convinced us that this new stream of scholars and scholarship should have an outlet.  

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures do the articles address?

MT: The first half of the special issue analyzes how certain problematic assumptions shaped the Oslo framework, and how the Oslo framework in turn shaped the political, economic and territorial landscape.

Virginia Tilley’s article focuses on the paradigm of conflict resolution upon which the Oslo Accords were based, and calls for a re-evaluation of what she argues are the two interlinked central principles underpinning its worldview: internationally accepted notions of Israeli sovereignty; and the internationally accepted idea that the “conflict” is essentially one between two peoples–the “Palestinian people” and the “Jewish people”. Through her critical interrogation of these two “common sense” principles, Tilley proposes that the “conflict” be reinterpreted as an example of settler colonialism, and, as a result of this, recommends an alternative conflict resolution model based on a paradigm shift away from an ethno-nationalist division of the polity towards a civic model of the nation.

Tariq Dana unpacks another central plank of the Oslo paradigm–that of promoting economic relations between Israel and the OPT. He analyses this through the prism of “economic peace” (particularly the recent revival of theories of “capitalist peace”), whose underlying assumptions are predicated on the perceived superiority of economic approaches over political approaches to resolving conflict. Dana argues that there is a symbiosis between Israeli strategies of “economic peace” and recent Palestinian “statebuilding strategies” (referred to as Fayyadism), and that both operate as a form of pacification and control because economic cooperation leaves the colonial relationship unchallenged.

The political landscape in the OPT has been transformed by the Oslo paradigm, particularly by the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Alaa Tartir therefore analyses the basis, agenda and trajectory of the PA, particularly its post-2007 state building strategy. By focusing on the issue of local legitimacy and accountability, and based on fieldwork in two sites in the occupied West Bank (Balata and Jenin refugee camps), Tartir concludes that the main impact of the creation of the PA on ordinary people’s lives has been the strengthening of authoritarian control and the hijacking of any meaningful visions of Palestinian liberation.

The origin of the administrative division between the West Bank and Gaza Strip is the focus of Tareq Baconi’s article. He charts how Hamas’s initial opposition to the Oslo Accords and the PA was transformed over time, leading to its participation (and success) in the 2006 legislative elections. Baconi argues that it was the perceived demise of the peace process following the collapse of the Camp David discussions that facilitated this change. But this set Hamas on a collision course with Israel and the international community, which ultimately led to the conflict between Hamas and Fateh, and the administrative division, which continues to exist.

The special issue thereafter focuses, in the second section, on alternatives and resistance to Oslo’s transformations.

Cherine Hussein’s article charts the re-emergence of the single-state idea in opposition to the processes of separation unleashed ideologically and practically that were codified in the Oslo Accords. Analysing it as both a movement of resistance and as a political alternative to Oslo, while recognizing that it is currently largely a movement of intellectuals (particularly of diaspora Palestinians and Israelis), Hussein takes seriously its claim to be a more just and liberating alternative to the two-state solution.

My article highlights the work of a small but dedicated group of anti-Zionist Jewish-Israeli activists involved in two groups: Zochrot and Boycott from Within. Both groups emerged in the post-Second Intifada period, which was marked by deep disillusionment with the Oslo paradigm. This article unpacks the alternative – albeit marginalized – analysis, solution and route to peace proposed by these groups through the application of three concepts: hegemony, counter-hegemony and praxis. The solution, argue the activists, lies in Israel-Palestine going through a process of de-Zionization and decolonization, and the process of achieving this lies in actions in solidarity with Palestinians.

This type of solidarity action is the focus of the final article by Suzanne Morrison, who analyses the “We Divest” campaign, which is the largest divestment campaign in the US and forms part of the wider Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Through attention to their activities and language, Morrison shows how “We Divest”, with its networked, decentralized, grassroots and horizontal structure, represents a new way of challenging Israel’s occupation and the suppression of Palestinian rights.

The two parts of the special issue are symbiotic: the critique and alternative perspectives analyzed in part two are responses to the issues and problems identified in part one.

J: How does this volume connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

MT: My work focuses on the political economy of donor intervention (which falls under the rubric of “peacebuilding”) in the OPT, particularly a critique of the Oslo peace paradigm and framework. This is a product of my broader conceptual and historical interest in the sociology of intervention as a method of capitalist expansion and imperial control (as explored in “The Politics of International Intervention: the Tyranny of Peace”, co-edited with Florian Kuhn, Routledge, 2016), and how post-conflict peacebuilding and development agendas are part of this (as explored in “Whose Peace: Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding”, co-edited with Michael Pugh and Neil Cooper (PalgraveMacmillan, 2008).  

My first book on Palestine (co-edited with Omar Shweiki), Decolonizing Palestinian Political Economy: De-development and Beyond (PalgraveMacmillan, 2014), was a collection of essays by experts in their field, of the political-economic experience of different sections of the Palestinian community. The book, however, aimed to reunite these individual experiences into one historical political-economy narrative of a people experiencing a common theme of dispossession, disenfranchisement and disarticulation. It was guided by the desire to critically assess the utility of the concept of de-development to different sectors and issues–and had a foreword by Sara Roy, the scholar who coined the term, and who was involved in the workshop from which the book emerged.

This co-edited special issue (with Cherine Hussein, who, at the time of the issue construction, was the deputy director of the Kenyon Institute) was therefore the next logical step in my research on Palestine, although my article on Jewish-Israeli anti-Zionists did constitute a slight departure from my usual focus.

J: Who do you hope will read this volume, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

MT: I would imagine the main audience will be those whose research and political interests lie in Palestine Studies. It is difficult, given the structure of academic publishing – which has become ever more corporate and money grabbing – for research outputs such as this to be accessed by the general public. Only those with access to academic libraries are sure to be able to read it – and this is a travesty, in my opinion. To counteract this commodification of knowledge, we should all provide free access to our outputs through online open source websites such as academia.edu, etc. If academic research is going to have an impact beyond merely providing more material for teaching and background reading for yet more research (which is inaccessible to the general public) then this is essential. Websites such as Jadaliyya are therefore incredibly important.

Having said all that, I am under no illusions about the potential for ANY research on Israel-Palestine to contribute to changing the dynamics of the situation. However, as a collection of excellent analyses conducted by mostly early-career scholars in the field of Palestine studies, I am hopeful that their interesting and new perspectives will be read and digested. 

J: What other projects are you working on now?

MT: I am currently working on an edited volume provisionally entitled From the River to the Sea: Disintegration, Reintegration and Domination in Israel and Palestine. This book is the culmination of a two-year research project funded by the British Academy, which analyzed the impacts of the past twenty years of the Oslo peace framework and paradigm as processes of disintegration, reintegration and domination – and how they have created a new socio-economic and political landscape, which requires new agendas and frameworks. I am also working on a new research project with Tariq Dana at Birzeit University on capital and class in the occupied West Bank.

Excerpt from the Editor’s Note 

[Note: This issue was published in Dec. 2015]

Initially perceived to have inaugurated a new era of hope in the search for peace and justice in Palestine-Israel, the Oslo peace paradigm of a track one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution is in crisis today, if not completely at an end.

While the major Western donors and the ‘international community’ continue to publicly endorse the Oslo peace paradigm, Israeli and Palestinian political elites have both stepped away from it. The Israeli government has adopted what appears to be an outright rejection of the internationally-accepted end-goal of negotiations, i.e. the emergence of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. In March 2015, in the final days of his re-election campaign, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visited the Jewish settlement of Har Homa in Palestinian East Jerusalem, which is regarded as illegal under international law. Reminding its inhabitants that it was him and his Likud government that had established the settlement in 1997 as part of the Israeli state’s vision of a unified indivisible Jerusalem, he promised to expand the construction of settlements in East Jerusalem if re-elected. And in an interview with Israeli news site, NRG, Netanyahu vowed that the prospects of a Palestinian state were non-existent as long as he remained in office. Holding on to the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), he argued, was necessary to ensure Israel’s security in the context of regional instability and Islamic extremism. It is widely acknowledged that Netanyahu’s emphasis on Israel’s security—against both external and internal enemies—gave him a surprise win in an election he was widely expected to lose.

Despite attempts to backtrack under recognition that the US and European states are critical of this turn in official Israeli state policy, Netanyahu’s promise to bury the two-state solution in favour of a policy of further annexation has become the Israeli government’s official intent, and has been enthusiastically endorsed by leading ministers and key advisers.

[…]

The Palestinian Authority (PA) based in the West Bank also appears to have rejected a key principle of the Oslo peace paradigm—that of bilateral negotiations under the supervision of the US. Despite a herculean effort by US Secretary of State, John Kerry, to bring the two parties to the negotiating table, in response to the lack of movement towards final status issues and continued settlement expansion (amongst other issues), the Palestinian political elite have withdrawn from negotiations and resumed attempts to ‘internationalise the struggle’ by seeking membership of international organisations such as the United Nations (UN), and signing international treaties such as the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court. This change of direction is part of a rethink in the PA and PLO’s strategy rooted in wider discussions and debates. The publication of a document by the Palestine Strategy Study Group (PSSG) in August 2008, the production of which involved many members of the Palestinian political elite (and whose recommendations were studiously discussed at the highest levels of the PA and PLO), showed widespread discontent with the bilateral negotiations framework and suggested ways in which Palestinians could ‘regain the initiative’.

[…]

And yet despite these changes in official Palestinian and Israeli political strategies that signal a deepening of the crisis, donors and the ‘international community’ are reluctant to accept the failure of the Oslo peace paradigm. This political myopia has meant the persistence of a framework that is increasingly divorced from the possibility of a just and sustainable peace. It is also acting as an ideological straitjacket by shutting out alternative interpretations. This special issue seeks a way out of this political and intellectual dead end. In pursuit of this, our various contributions undertake what we regard to be two key tasks: first, to critically analyse the perceptions underpinning the Oslo paradigm and the transformations instituted by its implementation; and second, to assess some alternative ways of understanding the situation rooted in new strategies of resistance that have emerged in the context of these transformations in the post-Oslo landscape.

[…]

Taken as a whole, the articles in this special issue aim to ignite conversations on the conflict that are not based within abstracted debates that centre upon the peace process itself—but that begin from within the realities and geographies of both the continually transforming land of Palestine-Israel and the voices, struggles, worldviews and imaginings of the future of the people who presently inhabit it. For it is by highlighting these transformations, and from within these points of beginning, that we believe more hopeful pathways for alternative ways forward can be collectively imagined, articulated, debated and built.