On ‘Gun Culture’ and ‘Civil Statehood’ in Yemen
2014; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 4; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/21534764.2014.920190
ISSN2153-4780
Autores Tópico(s)Wildlife Conservation and Criminology Analyses
ResumoAbstractThis paper addresses 'gun culture' from a double perspective, arguing that the term needs to be understood both as an element of political discourse as well as from a social practice perspective that takes into account habitual practices in relation to guns and how these practices are informed by collectively shared schemes of social knowledge. Focusing on tribal practices in relation to small arms I demonstrate that these artifacts play further roles in the tribal context that exceed their sheer function as instruments of violence. I conclude that a state-tribe dichotomy created through the 'gun culture' debate cannot be upheld. Instead of essentializing assumed cultural differences, this paper argues, proponents of 'civil statehood' need to bring forward concrete suggestions addressing the provision of security in a country in which the state is either not willing or not able to provide security to all its citizens.Keywords: Yemengun culturecivil statesmall armsweaponspolitical ordertribes Notes1 'Small arms' are considered to be all those firearms which can be used and carried by one person and are utilized for self-defense as well as close and short-range combat, i.e. pistols (semi-automatic and machine), (assault) rifles, carbines, shotguns as well as light machine guns [Richter, "Kleine und Leichte Kriegswaffen (SALW): Konzeptionelle Ansätze und Stand der Internationalen Diskussion", in Die Zukunft der Rüstungskontrolle, eds Neuneck and Mölling (2005), p. 282]. In this study, the terms firearms and small arms will be used synonymously. This definition excludes any other types of weapons such as, for example, the widespread Yemeni dagger (janbiya), which is worn by many men on a daily basis in northern Yemen. Although this edged weapon is often utilized as such, the question whether it can be considered a weapon is highly contested in Yemen. As the discussion of the dagger would, however, go beyond the scope of this paper, it will be excluded here.2 See, for example: Kohn, Shooters. Myths and Realities of America's Gun Cultures (2004) and Squires, Gun Culture or Gun Control? Firearms, Violence and Society (2000). See also Heinze, "Waffenproliferation, Kleinwaffenkontrolle und 'Waffenkultur' im Jemen", Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 24 (2010), pp. 40–6.3 Springwood, "Gunscapes: Toward a Global Geography of the Firearm", in Open Fire. Understanding Global Gun Cultures, ed. Springwood (2007), p. 23.4 See Annexe 5 (civilian firearms, by ownership rate), in Graduate Institute of International Studies, Small Arms Survey 2007: Guns and the City (2007). The Small Arms Survey bases its numbers for Yemen on a study conducted by Miller, which came to the conclusion that "Yemen has between 6–9 million small arms, most of which are from the former Eastern Bloc countries or China, with fewer numbers of various makes and models from other countries, some dating back to the early nineteenth century" [Miller, Demand, Stockpiles, and Social Controls: Small Arms in Yemen (2003), p. vii]. While still a large number in relation to its population of approximately twenty-four million people, Miller's results thus significantly reduce the general estimate of sixty million small arms in the hands of Yemenis, which continues to circulate in the country.5 Al-Ḥakīmī, Al-asliḥa al-ṣaghīra fī 'l-yaman: Dirāsa maydāniyya li-sūʾ al-istikhdām wa-maʿūqāt at-tanmiyya [Small Arms in Yemen: A Field Study on Misuse and Development Obstacles] (2010), p. 19.6 I.e. the revolutions of the 1960s; continued political conflict in both North and South until unity; the civil war of 1994, and finally (but not included in the studies mentioned here) the upheavals of 2011 and the subsequent period of instability and continued low-level conflict.7 Al-Ḥakīmī, Al-asliḥa al-ṣaghīra fī 'l-yaman, p. 21.8 " … the presence of weapons among the citizens nourishes the culture of violence [thaqāfat al-ʿunf], the chaos [al-fawḍā], and the crimes of blood revenge and theft [jarāʾim ath-thaʾr wa-s-saṭw] in the tribal territories and in their wars." ʿAwās, Juhūd al-ḥukūma al-yamaniyya fī tanẓīm ḥaml al-asliḥa wa-l-ḥadd min intishārihā: Ad-dawāfiʿ, as-siyāsāt, al-maʿūqāt [Efforts of the Yemeni Government in Controlling the Bearing of Weapons and the Limitation of their Proliferation: Incentives, Policies, and Obstacles] (2010), p. 13. See also Jābir, Ẓāhirat ath-thaʾr fī 'l-yaman: Dirāsa fī 'l-abʿād at-tārīkhiyya wa-l-ijtimāʿiyya wa-l-qānūniyya [The Phenomenon of Blood Revenge in Yemen: Study of the Historical, Social, and Legal Dimensions] (2004), p. 40.9 The Arabic expression thaqāfat as-silāḥ literally translates as 'weapon culture'.10 Government of the Republic of Yemen, National Report of the Government of the Republic of Yemen on Implementation of the United Nations Programme of Action for Preventing, Combating and Eradicating the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects (2010), p. 1.11 In the framework of a widely publicized small arms control program starting in 2007 as a result of pressure exerted by the USA and Saudi Arabia, the bearing of firearms in the capital cities of all governorates as well as in Sana'a was strictly forbidden. Moreover, the eighteen weapons markets [Hales, Fault Lines: Tracking Armed Violence in Yemen (2010), p. 6] all over the country, where one can buy anything from small arms to light weapons, were closed down. While Sana'a subsequently became free at least of openly worn firearms (until the beginning of the Yemeni 'revolution' of 2011), the closing of the weapons markets simply resulted in a shifting of the trade into the homes of the arms traders. After a while, these returned to their stalls in the markets, where they openly continued their business until the government found it politically necessary to close them down again (mostly to satisfy the anxieties of Saudi Arabia and the USA). Additionally, a buy-back program financed by the USA and Saudi Arabia was implemented to reduce the number of small arms in the country. These firearms were, however, not professionally registered and stored and many of them soon found their way back into the markets. Since the beginning of the upheavals in 2011, prices for small arms and particularly for ammunition have doubled. For example, a Russian Kalashnikov with folding stock worth YR 250,000 (∼$1,200) in 2010 is worth YR 500,000 (∼$2,400) today (March 2014).12 Yemen Polling Center, The Draft Law of Arms Bearing and Possession (2010).13 Phillips, Yemen and the Politics of Permanent Crisis (2011), p. 52.14 The summary of the Yemeni gun control debate as elaborated above is based on numerous newspaper articles as well as interviews and non-structured talks and debates I conducted and participated in during my field research in Yemen.15 There are no reliable statistics on crime and homicide rates in Yemen. But Lewis shows that even before the security situation perceptibly deteriorated in 2011, homicide rates published by outside institutions such as UNODX and the Human Development Index were "indicating a steady and consistent increase", Lewis, "Violence in Yemen. Thinking about Violence in Fragile States Beyond the Confines of Conflict and Terrorism", Stability 2 (2013), pp. 7–8.16 Stohrer, Barʿa. Rituelle Performance, Identität und Kulturpolitik im Jemen (2009), p. 177.17 This perspective is thus mainly Adenī. While the bearing of arms was indeed strictly forbidden in the PDRY, this policy was implemented mainly in Aden, while PDRY citizens beyond the capital usually retained their weapons (had they possessed them before), but kept them at home in peaceful times. The bemoaned 're-armament' is thus not always an armament where there were no weapons before, but the increased bearing and utilization of weapons in an increasingly instable situation in the South of the country (as elsewhere). Just like the question of 're-armament', the case of 're-tribalization' also awaits investigation on the local level. Here, too, I would argue, we can observe a return to and a strengthening of weakened tribal structures as the state is increasingly unable (and unwilling) to provide its citizens with social security and in which benefits and rewards in the Ṣāliḥ era were reaped by those collective entities able to (violently) document their ability to create trouble for the regime [also see Phillips, Yemen and the Politics of Permanent Crisis, p. 65]. Hales accordingly states that this process is "both encouraged by the state (as a mode of governance) and associated with increases in conflict as re-emerging tribes need to 'announce their appearance in a violent way'" [Hales, Fault Lines, p. 11, footnote 4]. Almagdi also documents the role of the state in the "revitalization of the traditional tribal system" in certain areas of the South [Almagdi, Sozialer Wandel und Agrarentwicklung im Delta Abyan im Südjemen: Eine Empirisch-Historische Analyse der Bäuerlichen Lebenswelt (2000), p. 47], and Wedeen, too, points to evidence of "the revitalization of structures that Yemenis call tribal, in parts of Yāfiʿ, Abyan, Shabwa, and the Ḥaḍramawt" [Wedeen, Peripheral Visions: Publics, Power, and Performance in Yemen (2008), p. 175] from her own field research.18 International Crisis Group, Yemen's Southern Question: Avoiding a Breakdown (2013), p. 11.19 These particular two conflicts may also be interpreted at localized attempts to decrease (northern) state control of ḥirāk-affiliated territory in order to prepare the ground for secession.20 According to the study of the Yemeni sociologist al-Ḥakīmī cited in the introduction (conducted in 2003, 2004 and 2008 with 3,800 respondents in all Yemeni governorates) 60.8% of those interviewed had a firearm in their home, while 39.2% answered they did not (Al-Ḥakīmī, Al-asliḥa al-ṣaghīra fī 'l-yaman, p. 92). The lowest number of armed households was found in Aden (thirty out of 100 respondents; followed by Ḥaḍramawt with 34% and al-Ḥudayda with 38%), while the highest was in Ṣaʿda (eighty-one out of 100; second place going to Dhamār with 78% and third place to Maʾrib and Shabwa with 77%) [ibid.]. Given the deteriorating security situation since 2011, small arms possession has certainly increased in the past couple of years, but there are no recent numbers to solidify this claim.21 This shooting into the air at weddings, the birth of a boy, political victory or religious celebrations as the return of a man from the ḥajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) are not practiced by every Yemeni and at every such occasion and are clearly not a distinct tribal practice. As (fatal) accidents are by no means uncommon at such occasions, village elders, tribal leaders (shaykhs), local imāms and other personalities sometimes work together to protect their community from the negative consequences of this practice. I was told from several independent sources on various regions in Yemen that orders against celebratory gunfire will be issued by influential local persons — or that they will establish a pact to this effect — and that men who continue this practice despite these orders will soon after find themselves locked up in the private prisons of these people. Nonetheless, this practice — although increasingly disputed — continues.22 The use of the term 'tribe' in academic analysis has received strong criticism, including by authors focusing on Yemen [e.g. Blumi, Chaos in Yemen: Societal Collapse and the New Authoritarianism (2011), pp. 19–34 and Mundy, Domestic Government: Kinship, Community and Polity in North Yemen (1995)], who suggest replacing it with 'community'. While I do — as I demonstrate below — agree with criticism of the utilization of the term 'tribe' where it is conceived of in essentialized terms as a closed and fixed group, I do not see the benefit of replacing a local concept of collective sociopolitical identification that informs everyday actions of a significant part of the Yemeni population by a much more vague concept ('community'), which if used will obscure how sociopolitical mobilization and identification work on the local level. Rather, I agree with Gingrich, who points out that it "would amount to a strange paradox if anthropologists limited themselves defensively to deconstructing completely the concept of tribe, while many parts of the world in fact go through retribalization of some sort" [Gingrich, "Tribe", in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, eds Smelser and Baltes (2001), p. 15908] and thus follow Dresch in that when I use the term "'tribe' I simply translate the vernacular qabīla and by 'tribesman' qabīlī (qabāʾil, one might note, may be the plural of either)" [Dresch, Tribes, Government and History in Yemen [1989], p. 7].23 The target sample was 2,000 respondents of age eighteen and older, the actual sample was 1,990 due to the implementation of the questionnaire being partially obstructed in Ṣaʿda. There was an even number of male and female respondents of which 72% lived in rural areas and 28% in urban areas in line with population distribution in Yemen. The survey was part of a larger project on security sector reform in Yemen funded by the European Union in which I worked as consultant. Data courtesy Yemen Polling Center.24 9.05% identified themselves through other categories, such as name or nickname only (7.9%), by their religion (0.1%), etc. Particularly in the light of increasing sectarianism during the last year, sectarian affiliation has been taking precedence over other identifications and the renewal of a survey today might yield different results.25 All tribes in Yemen go back to their mythical forebear Qaḥṭān, while northern Arabian tribes consider themselves to be sons of ʿAdnān. On the genealogy of Yemeni tribes see Dresch, "Tribal Relations and Political History in Upper Yemen", in Contemporary Yemen: Politics and Historical Background, ed. Pridham (1984), pp. 154–6 and Dresch, Tribes, Government and History in Yemen, pp. 3–5 and 24–8.26 Dresch, Tribes, Government and History in Yemen, p. 75.27 Dostal, Eduard Glaser — Forschungen im Yemen: Eine Quellenkritische Untersuchung in Ethnologischer Sicht (1990), pp. 51–2.28 Dresch, "The Tribal Factor in the Yemeni Crisis", in The Yemeni War of 1994: Causes and Consequences, eds al-Suwaidi and Hudson (1995), p. 38.29 Dresch, Tribes, Government and History in Yemen, p. 78.30 Wedeen, Peripheral Visions, p. 173.31 Dostal, Eduard Glaser, p. 47.32 Weir, A Tribal Order: Politics and Law in the Mountains of Yemen (2007), p. 3.33 Wedeen, Peripheral Visions, p. 173. In contrast to the discursive traditions of religious denominations, however, Wedeen points outs that[a]lthough tribal law can be complex, including sophisticated modes of mediation and arbitration, as well as rituals to induct members (as in the case with defections), the term 'tribe' itself does not imply practical and scholarly traditions of scriptural interpretation that connect practitioners to a set of foundational texts across past, present and future. Although tribes can and do mobilize for collective action, the scale of that mobilization is therefore limited. [ibid., p. 174]34 For an extensive elaboration on qabyala and tribal honor see, e.g., Adra, Qabyala: The Tribal Concept in the Central Highlands of the Yemen Arab Republic (1982); Dostal, "Sozio-Ökonomische Aspekte der Stammesdemokratie in Nordost-Yemen", Sociologus 24 (1974); Dresch, Tribes, Government and History in Yemen, pp. 38–116.35 Serjeant, "South Arabia", in Commoners, Climbers and Notables: A Sampler of Studies on Social Ranking in the Middle East, ed. van Nieuwenhuijze (1977), p. 227.36 Dresch, Tribes, Government and History in Yemen, p. 121.37 Dresch, "The Significance of the Course Events Take in Segmentary Systems", American Ethnologist 13 (1986), p. 310.38 Weir, A Tribal Order, p. 42.39 Ibid., p. 190.40 Ibid., pp. 42–3.41 Brandt reports in detail on the role of the tribes in the Ḥūthī conflict: see Brandt, "Sufyān's 'Hybrid' War: Tribal Politics During the Ḥūthī Conflict", Journal of Arabian Studies 3 (2013) and Brandt, "The Irregulars of the Saʿada War: 'Colonel Shaykhs' and 'Tribal Militias' in Yemen's Huthi Conflict (2004–2010)", in Why Yemen Matters: A Society in Transition, ed. Lackner (2014).42 Dresch, Tribes, Government and History in Yemen, p. 42.43 Ibid., pp. 42–3.44 Ibid., p. 41.45 Ibid.46 On these styles see Caton, 'Peaks of Yemen I Summon': Poetry as Cultural Practice in a North Yemeni Tribe (1990).47 The origin of this poem is unknown. Garāmil (sing. Germal, which better suits the Yemeni tongue than German) refer to the Mauser Karabiner 98 k, i.e. the Second World War Mauser, of which Yemenis speak with the highest appreciation. Its older brother, the Mauser Gewehr 98, is to this day one of the most popular rifles in Yemen due to its robustness, accuracy and reliability. It is referred to as Zakīkrām (often pronounced Zākik Rām), after Zakī Kirām (1886–1946), a Syrian arms trader of Persian descent, who came to Berlin after World War I, married a German and subsequently became one of the major arms traders between Germany and the Arabian Peninsula (esp. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Yemen) during World War II [Riyāẓ, Wathāʾiq tijārat as-silāḥ al-almānī fī 'l-jazīrat al-ʿarabiyya: Qirāʾa fī arshīf Zakī Kirām [Documents of the Trade in German Weapons on the Arabian Peninsula: Reading in the Archive of Zakī Kirām] (2011)]. In South Yemen, the Germal also was and continues to be referred to as Alemān (also: Aylamān) referring to its German origin or as Flanta (probably derived from the German word 'Flinte' [shotgun]).48 This poem, which has been cited in Dresch, Tribes, Government and History in Yemen, p. 41, is most likely from the end of the nineteenth century, but continues to be known to this day. Mart refers to the Martini-Henry rifle, which the British used against the Zulus and from where it found its way into Yemen in 1892, where it became popular for its long range. In the poem, however, "The period flavour given by the name of the rifle", Dresch [ibid.] explains, "is not seen in quite that way by tribesmen, armed though they are with more modern guns. For them the continuity is more immediate: our fathers were warriors and their fathers before them, and we are a race of warriors in our turn; our honour and theirs is one and the same".49 Phillips, Yemen and the Politics of Permanent Crisis, p. 128.50 For example, "The Dance of Daggers", Foreign Policy, 24 Oct. 2011.51 Stohrer, Barʿa, p. 106. This is also the reason why barʿa is not performed by women [ibid.].52 Van Gennep, The Rites of Passage (1960 [1909]). A rite of passage is a ritual event that marks a person's transition from one status to another (e.g. non-baptized to baptized, uncircumcized to circumcized, unmarried to married, etc.). As such a transition can contribute to a destabilization of social order; it is accompanied by the performance of various rites that accompany the individual (or a group) from one stage to the next without threatening the social as such. In most if not all societies, rites of passage are divided into three phases: preliminal rites marking the separation from the previous world, liminal rites marking the phase of transition and postliminal rites marking the incorporation into the new world.53 Stohrer, Barʿa, p. 99.54 Such meeting places, whether on neutral territory (e.g. on the border of two tribal territories, at a mosque or a marketplace) or on the territory of one tribe, are always under the protection of a special status called hijra or tahjīr and any major disruption of such a peace is generally heavily fined (see Dresch, Tribes, Government and History in Yemen, pp. 148, 150 and Stohrer, Barʿa, p. 78). For example, a major breach of the market-peace is fined with "eleven times the blood-money or eleven times the damages with perhaps eleven bulls as well" [Dresch, "The Several Peaces of Yemeni Tribes", Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford 12 (1981), p. 79].55 Stohrer, Barʿa, p. 103.56 Ibid.57 Ibid., p. 104.58 Dresch, Tribes, Government and History in Yemen, p. 148. Volleys in this stage of the ritual will also be fired by the guests if they are the first at the meeting place in order to signal their arrival.59 Stohrer, Barʿa, p. 107.60 Ibid., p. 113.61 Ibid.62 Stohrer [ibid., pp. 58, 59], for example, mentions the al-Wādaʿa and the al-Ahjur.63 Ibid., p. 58.64 The literature cited in this chapter rests on studies implemented in the 1970s and 1980s until the last decade. There is no doubt, however, that guns continue to play the below-described role in tribal conflict mediation until today and that such practices have also been taken up by the state not only under Ṣāliḥ, but continue to be practiced in state-tribe conflict mediation to this day. See, for example, Al-Shamahi's article on the aftermath of a drone strike that hit a wedding convoy on 12 December 2013: "In keeping with tribal custom, money and rifles were offered to the families as a kind of out-of-court settlement for their losses" (Al-Shamahi, "Yemen's Bedouin Tribes are Getting Sick of US Drone Strikes", Vice, 22 Jan. 2014).65 Dresch, "The Significance of the Course Events Take in Segmentary Systems", p. 314.66 Dresch, Tribes, Government and History in Yemen, p. 51. The bunduq aṣ-ṣabr may also be referred to as bunduq aṣ-ṣubra, which has the same meaning (i.e. 'rifle of patience'). See Abū Ghānim, Al-bunya al-qabaliyya fī-l-yaman bayna 'l-istimrār wa-t-taghayyur [The Tribal Order in Yemen Between Continuity and Change] (2003), p. 269; Dostal, Eduard Glaser, p. 204; Ṣayyād, Al-ʿurf al-qabalī wa-aḥkāmhu fī 'l-yaman (2007), p. 68.67 Dresch, "Episodes in a Dispute between Yemeni Tribes: Text and Translation of a Colloquial Arabic Document", Der Islam 64 (1987), p. 77, footnote 16.68 Dresch, "The Significance of the Course Events Take in Segmentary Systems", p. 316.69 Also: bunduq or banādiq al-wafāʾ [Abū Ghānim, Al-bunya al-qabaliyya fī-l-yaman, p. 269]. Dostal translates the term as 'rifles of fulfillment' [Dostal, Eduard Glaser, p. 204].70 Dresch, Tribes, Government and History in Yemen, p. 86.71 Ibid., p. 87.72 Ibid.73 Ibid., p. 92.74 Dostal, Eduard Glaser, p. 204.75 Ṣayyād, Al-ʿurf al-qabalī wa-aḥkāmhu fī 'l-yaman, p. 68.76 Such a surety can also be one's dagger or a sum of money.77 Dresch, Tribes, Government and History in Yemen, p. 92.78 Ibid., p. 88.79 Ibid.80 Ibid., p. 87.81 As two recent reports of the Yemen Armed Violent Assessment from 2010 document in much detail, political violence in Yemen before 2001 accounted for much fewer victims than social violence, which is, however, only infrequently documented. According to an internal paper of the Ministry of Interior, disputes over land and water are estimated to result in about 4,000 deaths annually, a number much larger than the 1,000 annual homicides publicly reported [Hales, Under Pressure: Social Violence over Land and Water in Yemen (2010), p. 4]. These numbers from the Ministry are also confirmed by separate reports according to which "in Ibb governorate alone, where high rainfall means that the land is very productive and social conflict is said to be especially severe, 800 people were sent to prison for homicide offences between January and August 2009 alone, most related to land disputes" [ibid., p. 4]. Social violence is defined by the author of these reports as "armed violence between non-state groups, often sustained over a period of time, particularly in the context of norms relating to collective responsibility and blood revenge" [ibid., p. 2]. See also Hales, Fault Lines.82 Indeed, a study on tribal conflicts in the governorates of al-Jawf, Maʾrib, and Shabwa issued by the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) found that of the 164 deadly conflicts involving their tribes in the three governorates, only thirty-five were reported by the shaykhs to have started between 2001 and 2005, while twenty-two had started between 1996 and 2000, fourteen between 1991 and 1995, twenty-six between 1986 and 1990, and sixty-seven in 1985 and earlier. One unresolved conflict was stated by the shaykhs to have remained unresolved for ninety-two years. The most frequent initial cause for these conflicts was, according to the shaykhs, disputes over land. See NDI, Yemen: Tribal Conflict Management Program Research Report (2007), pp. 10–2.83 Al-Zwaini, State and Non-State Justice in Yemen, presented at the conference on the relationship between state and non-state justice systems in Afghanistan in Kabul, 10–14 Dec. 2006, p. 8.84 Hales, Under Pressure, p. 10, footnote 88.85 On the varying models of tribal leaders among Yemeni tribal confederations, see Marieke Brandt's forthcoming paper "Inhabiting Tribal Structures: Leadership Hierarchies in Tribal Upper Yemen (Hamdān & Khawlān b. ʿĀmir)", in South Arabia in Past and Present: Essays in Memory of Walter Dostal (forthcoming).86 See, e.g. Dresch, A History of Modern Yemen (2000), p. 201 and Salmoni, Loidolt, and Wells, Regime and Periphery in Northern Yemen: The Huthi Phenomenon (2010), p. 113.87 Dresch, "The Tribal Factor in the Yemeni Crisis", p. 38.88 Hales, Gavin, Under Pressure, p. 10, footnote 80.89 Yemen Polling Center, Public Perceptions of the Security Sector and Police Work in Yemen: A Yemen Polling Center Survey: Major Findings (2013).90 See Brandt, "The Irregulars of the Saʿada War".91 Fattah accordingly argues that "the feeling of tribal allegiance inside Yemen's military is, at least, as equal to their military allegiance" [Fattah, "A Political History of Civil-Military Relations in Yemen", Alternative Politics, Special Issue 1 (2010), pp. 25–47].
Referência(s)