The fourth Nordic conference on Middle Eastern Studies:
The Middle East in globalizing world
Oslo, 13-16 August 1998

Traditions and modernities in Aden (Yemen)

On studying complex Middle Eastern societies

Susanne Dahlgren
University of Helsinki

NB *This is the unedited paper as given at the Oslo conference. An updated and edited version has been published in Utvik and Vikør, The Middle East in a Globalized World, Bergen/London 2000, 150-82. Please quote or refer only to the published article.*

In the era of postmodern criticisms and postcolonial discourses, how should concepts 'traditional' and 'modern' be understood when studying complex Middle Eastern societies ? After the collapse of the classical theory of modernisation and the introduction of the concept 'global modernity' in social sciences, [1] is the dubious question of how to study non-Western complex societies so far solved ? Does the use of local understandings of 'modern' and 'tradition' solve the problems related to their universalist connotations (in the light of critical discussion on modernism and its implications to Westernisation) ? Does non-Western understanding of concepts tradition and modernity imply contradiction between them (what anthropologists call 'structural dualism') as it is perceived in Western notions on opposing pairs and dichotomical categorisations ? Could this pair be one of such Western dichotomies, on the side of public/domestic (Nelson 1974), honour/shame (Wikan 1984), urban/rural (Moors 1995) [2] and scriptural/oral (Islamic) culture (Mundy 1995) [3] that we should be careful with or entirely discard in studying the Middle East ?

I will one more time take up this old discussion, for the sake of my anthropological field material from Aden, Southern Yemen, [4] which I find difficult to organise according to a tradition/modern dichotomy. Since anthropological Yemeni studies have in the last decades concentrated on the Northern Yemeni tribal society and other areas of 'anthropological archaity', [5] very little has been written on urban areas, not to mention the South in general. Aden is an urban environment with stratifications of cultural influences firstly from a colonial period - the British held Aden as a colony for 129 years (1839-1967), secondly, from centuries old immigration involving the coast of East Africa, the Indian subcontinent and Indonesia with trade links and both immigration and emigration, and thirdly, from the surrounding countryside and the former North Yemen, when whole families moved to Aden and kept up their social networks in the line of the countryside tribal society. Thus Aden is a 'fusion of traditional and modern', as it would be called in the conventional social scientific jargon.

Anthropological studies on complex societies have pointed out how 'culture' and 'society' are holistic concepts with a tendency of false integration and a misunderstood idea of shared values and experiences in a community (Barth 1989:120). In a desperate drive after functional probabilities and structural correlations the study has been inclined to erase exceptions and deviations in a vein to represent encompassing systems that explain it all. I will argue that the same way as 'culture' and 'society', 'tradition' and 'modernity' are concepts that need to be seen in their diversity, not as notions of shared experiences and meanings.

Recent studies on the Middle East, which take up the problematic question of modernity tend to focus on social movements, activities of individuals and state policies that are carried out in the name of Islam. [6] This is somehow understandable, since the application of the 'global modernity' theory in the Middle East requires after all introducting Islam as a social phenomenon on the side of other historical facts. However, the question of modernity should be discussed outside this framework, too. After all, Islam has other less vocal manifestations in the Middle East that are often more important from the point of view of everyday life than the phenomena classified under the umbrella of Islamism.

In this paper, I do not intend to focus on Islamism at all. My choice is partly motivated by the fact that in Aden, the centre of my study, Islamism or whatever name is used of the above phenomena, according to my understanding, is not a central agent in the Adeni social process of the early 1990s. Secondly, I want to argue that by analysing various political manifestations, ideological voices, discourses and actions of social unrest, irrespective if they are presented in the name of Islam or not, one gets a more balanced understanding of the social process, Islamism included. In particular, this approach is a requisite when discussing such complex social phenomena as male-female dynamics where voices and practices constitute a multi-faceted layer with local variations that cannot be reduced to Islam alone.

In the Middle Eastern studies, the supposition of tradition and modern standing as an oppositional pair has long persisted. The recent critique has pointed out, however, that these two concepts should not be taken as opposites. As Eickelman and Piscatori (1996:24) claim, positing a sharp division between tradition and modern oversimplifies a complex process of interaction in a society where religion and tradition coexist with economic development and elements of modern culture. In this paper, I will argue that in Aden and perhaps in other urban environments in the Middle East, there is not one 'modern' but several 'moderns' as there are several 'traditions'. In the line of Eickelman and Piscatori, I maintain that in Aden, 'traditional' and 'modern' do not stand for single categories with explicit meanings, contrary to what Dorsky suggests in her study on women in 'Amran and in reference to Yemeni women in general (Dorsky 1986, Dorsky and Stevenson 1996). Neither do they form sharp contrasts between each other. The historical movement is not from the traditional to the modern as it has been established in some studies on Yemen (cf. Makhlouf 1979), but an intense struggle between various ideas of modern and tradition. [7] In Yemen of the 1990s, this ideological fight is reflected, among other things, in the variegated field of religious and social groupings and political parties. In Aden, I can identify at least four models of 'modern'. I will come back to this theme later in this paper.

'Modern' ideas, 'traditional' behaviour ?

In Aden I knew a man in his early thirties, 'Bashir', who worked as a teacher in a higher educational institute. He was well read, with a degree from a European university, and socialized with other intellectuals, men and women alike. While in Europe, he was engaged in such Western 'modern' patterns of behaviour as dating and being involved in long-time relationships with European women. In Aden, his house was a meeting place of intellectual discussions cross-genderly. Clearly a man of worldly intentions with his ideas of equality between the sexes and his commitment to the ideals of the revolution (although he was not a supporter of the socialist party, the ruling party of that time in the South). However, when the time was ripe, he chose to marry his 16-year old cross-cousin 'Feroza', illiterate, who had spent all her life in a remote village and was about to visit urban Aden first time after her wedding. This choice did not strike him as contradictory to his ideals. Neither did his friends think there was anything bizarre. On the contrary, after the wedding they allowed the new couple one month time without visiting them, 'a honeymoon at home', to get to know each other, as it is custom in these kind of marital arrangements.

From Feroza's point of view, the situation was naturally different. Embarrassed and shy in the new home, where she had moved only some months earlier, she had not yet established herself as the mistress of the house. That was what she was expected to become since there were no other women in the house and she had the sole responsibility over the women's domain. She was still young and uncertain but had in a short period of time successfully accomodated to her husband's unsteady rhythm, who came and went as he pleased, but still expected to be served food whenever he arrived. In the marital arrangement Feroza liked the fact that she was in full control of the house and her husband, even though in the beginning she felt homesick and found it difficult to be separated from her family and friends. And to her mind, Bashir was a kind man and easy to get along. As to his friends, Feroza thought it was part of his integrity, 'honour', and were they men or women and whatever they talked with each other wasn't her concern. She did not have to carry responsibility for them, neither participate in entertaining them outside the duties of a good mistress.

But I was not the only one with a problem in Bashir's behaviour. In Aden, a number of people had acquired 'new ideas', as the gender equality thinking was commonly called, and criticised marriages between lopsided partners. To these people, marriage was a partnership between two people who shared not only a home but concerns outside it, too. This relationship was not always based on romance but on cross-sex friendship and an element of sharing in breadwinning, household cores and social networks, a dimension that a marriage such as Bashir and Feroza's was lacking. As a woman with professional career once told me: 'Men in power speak warm words of democracy but in their homes there is no democracy at all.' Bashir, too, could be accused of being inconsistent in his marriage with his ideals. Be that as it is, the point here is to focus on the fact that Bashir or his 'modern' friends did not see any contradiction in his choice.

Contradictions or complementarities

These two images on women in Bashir's mind clearly tell about dualistic thinking. But even if we can find dualisms in the Middle Eastern societies, perhaps they are not categorical opposites. Opposition between dualisms is, however, a starting point in a bulk of Western Middle Eastern studies. In a review of Mediterranean anthropology Gilmore argues:

'Everywhere one encounters implicitly an underlying theme of a dynamic tension between contrasting elements, a 'structural dualism' (...). This dynamic dualism occurs in all aspects of culture and ideology, in both conscious and unconscious processes. There is nothing unique about an element of ambivalence in belief systems and norms; and of course binary oppositions are universal. But in the Mediterranean lands these oppositions are so immediate and directly experienced that one may speak of internal cultural contradictions as being more discernible and more systematic than in most other societies (...)' (Gilmore 1982:180).

The idea of 'structural dualism' is clear in the above quote from Gilmore. I would suggest that we should be careful when using this term, or the notions of binary oppositions, dichotomies and contrasting pairs in studying the Middle East. Unsuccessful use of Western concepts has had some negative consequences in studying gender in particular. As Sayigh explains:

Up to now much of the debate around Arab women (and Palestinian women in particular) has been infertile because it has employed polarized and abstracted concepts (...) that cut the debate off from all exchange with reality. Theorization is of no use if it does not make contact with people's real lives (...)' (1985:206).

In the vein of this critique, El-Solh and Mabro (1994:14) show how simplistic dichotomies and imposition of Western ethno-centric concepts to the study of gender relations in the Middle East have left out much of the flexibility women might have in actual terms. [12] From another perspective, Jansen points out how Orientalism gets the form of abstractions, a tendency to neglect historical and contemporary sources that deal with everyday life (1989:292).

Inside four walls

The question why women often prefer a role limited to four walls, as it is called in Aden, deserves more attention. In her review of the social science research on women in the Arab world, Egyptian sociologist Soha Abdel Kader argues that in fact very few studies reveal that either rural, bedouin, or urban lower and lower middle classes desire any change in their lives or in society at large (1984:148). The question why so many women are satisfied with a limited role has seldom been raised, instead it has been presumed to be enough to point out that since it is a question of 'rural', 'bedouin', or 'lower class' women the reason for their opposition to change is implicitly explained: that of ignorance and lack of education. I am not saying this in support of women's limited role, and naturally many men in these societies exploit the possibility of having a servant-called-wife; but to point out that this problem cannot be approached without taking into consideration also these women and their resistance to change in prevailing gender roles. When I was in Aden, I was struck by the amount of women in various life-cycle situations who ignored the benefits of formal education and the possiblities offered to them to 'improve themselves' (ratta), as it was called locally. I met rather often men who were deeply sorry about their wife's lack of interest to learn at least to read and write. Perhaps this lack of interest is there, because formal education is not part of these women's 'own', that is, the sphere of life they perceive as real. If the concept of education was enlarged to include the art of everyday management, perhaps that would make a difference.

Vitamins to old ideas

But even the very idea of local tradition varies among Adenis. A considerable amount of the population has moved to Aden from the countryside and don't necessarily share the traditions of the townspeople. These people identify with village or lineage tradition, in other words, with their asl ('originality' or descent). Thus the 'customary tradition' varies according to its contextual space.

But 'urf is only one form of tradition. Islamic tradition (hadith) is, of course, another tradition that we find in all Muslim countries. And since Islam has a variety of expressions, idea of what really is part of the tradition varies. Veneration of local saints in Aden is a good example. Islamic tradition consists also of the history of local Islam and the customs and practices that that particular society agrees to be Islamic. [19] In the Yemeni case, for example, qat [20] is agreed not to be the kind of drug that Islam forbids. Islamic tradition should, however, not be mixed with local traditions, such as 'urf. Even though Islam has locally adopted part of the indigeneous tradition in the process of becoming local Islam, and on the other hand, the local customs and traditions have become 'Islamisized', it would be wrong to say that after the coming of Islam, the whole tradition of the particular society is what is understood as Islam. Especially in Aden, where people are not so much religiously minded, Islamic tradition forms only one source of tradition. This is especially so because many Adenis don't consider Islam as the cradle of civilisation which enlightened people living in ignorance, but are proud of their pre-Islamic history, unlike many other Muslims for whom that era represents jahiliyya.

In the revolutionary discourse we find a third idea of tradition. This is a story of a nation that was robbed its Arabic and Yemeni identity during the 'feudal' and colonial rule. Aden was ruled from British India for about hundred years (1839-1937), but even after that time Indian culture dominated in the colony. As Muheirez describes Aden of the 1950s:

'A wave of Indian culture dominated the country. Arabic songs were sung to Indian music, dresses were worn in Indian style. Government notices and warnings were written in English and translated into a form of Arabic that was predominantly Indian in grammar and text. A visitor to Aden at that period had the impression that Aden was an alien city in an Arab country' (1985:204).

Part of the 'revolutionary tradition' was the idea that the 'feudal' rule had corrupted the tradition and transformed it into backwardness. As Aida Yafai, then leader of the General Union of Yemeni Women, explained in late seventies:

'We might think that men are the cause of women's situation; but men are not the cause because they are governed by the feudal and tribal social relations of the society itself. When we declare that we want to be equal to men, we want to be equal in rights but we don't want to be equal if men are trapped in underdeveloped thoughts. In an underdeveloped society men have underdeveloped ideas and we don't want equality in this. (...) We can't demand that men change their spots overnight. They have inherited the way they are from thousands of years of backwardness and this is why they reject any demands for equality between men and women.' (Molyneux 1979).

What comes to 'modern', I claimed in the beginning of this paper that there are four different modes of modern in the Adeni context. First is what I call the 'customary modern' and here I refer to the practice wide-spread particularly in the countryside, to combine the centuries-old way of living with selective elements of the modern (in this case Western) world. This selection involves some modern machinery such as television and video sets, cassette players, butagas-stoves, jeep cars and electric fans but leaves other fields of life untouched. [21] This practice is perhaps a typical example of how the traditional gets new elements from modern without making any break in the old way of living. This is how modern complements tradition.

The second form of modern is what I call the 'colonial-Western modern'. This modernising project that had its day during the British colonial rule in 1839-1967, has left its mark in the infrastructure of the town. [22] Today, the British way still prevails in the systems of management, town plan and scenery, and in many forms of the everyday life of upper and middle class people. These people don't long for the colonial times, as it has been suggested by some British colonial memoirists, [23] but keep up distinction to lower classes with the refinements of the Western modern world, including education abroad.

Third form of modern in Aden I call the revolutionary modern. Here I refer to the modernisation project introduced by the Marxist government after the independence in 1967. This modernisation involved building a nation-state and a central rule. It also meant establishing a national, i.e. locally based production to replace foreign industries and to create a home market. Women were invited to join the work force and to 'improve themselves' (ratta) through education, a call that was directed also to the lower social categories in the spirit of promoting equality between the sexes as well as between people of different social and ethnic backgrounds. Women were given equality infront of the law and family relations were reorganised in a new Family Law (Molyneux 1982, Lackner 1985, Ismael and Ismael 1986, Amin 1987).

Unification of the two Yemens in 1990 hit hardest this form of modern. It no longer represents a power discourse since people who promoted it have either given up their ideals or are no more in power (or alive).

Islamic modern is the fourth explicit idea of modern that I can identify in Aden. This is an idea of modern that is part of the Islamic discourse and presents Islam and modernity as compatible. After the Yemeni unification this discourse has become rather vocal. It presents Islam as the future solution to Aden's present-day problems. [24] It stresses the importance of education to all, both Islamic and general, and encourages women to participate in the fight for a truly Islamic society. In fact women are more visible than men in this movement which is not tied to any particular organisation. Such women are everywhere, also in the Yemeni Women's Union, a mass organisation that earlier propagated revolutionary ideas in the South.

These partly overlapping, partly contradictory ideas on modern are naturally in fierce fight with each other and constitute the picture of a multitude of modern in Aden. In this light the idea that modern is always a luke warm copy of the Western way [25] is rather insulting. Also the supposition that modern should be given an emic understanding is not very helpful in analysing the Adeni society, since there is no single idea of modern that everyone would agree upon.

'Modern' or 'traditional' behaviour

In early post-unification Aden I met a young unemployed woman, 'Aisha', in her late twenties. She frequently visited the Women's Union neighbourhood club to learn sewing with machine. She was a widow, or at least this was her official status since her husband had dissappeared during the January 1986 fightings in Aden and she was not aware of his fate ever since. She had returned to her father's house with her two daughters, where already lived her sisters and brothers and their families. The house was small and situated in the crowded northern suburb, area where poor people and refugees shared the miseries of poor urban living. She was regularly visiting the Women's club not only to meet other women and learn new skills, but to proceed her attempt to find a new husband. She was at odds with her brothers who often restricted her from going out and doing what she wanted. She was determined to get a home of her own, but unemployed and having completed only primary education, she felt that she would have to remarry to be able to move away. Shortage of housing was one of the biggest social problems of early nineties in Aden, but it turned out to be difficult to find a decent husband, too. She was spreading the word in her neighbourhood and had already interviewed two men who came to offer themselves. Meeting these husband candidates at her home, she came to the conclusion that neither of the two were suitable since they had problems in accepting her daughters. Aisha was still spreading the word, but rather desperate, as she said to me that it is difficult to find a decent man, that is, a man who does not spend the household budget on qat, smoking or drinking.

Is this a case of 'modern' values replacing 'traditional' ways in organising marital relations ? The 'traditional way' in this case would be that the woman's father or brothers would - at least superficially - organise the new union. But should a woman's agency actually be called 'modern' phenomenon in Aden ? Interestingly, Leila Ahmed (1982) has pointed out that there is a tradition of strong women in Yemen, women who take their fate in their own hands. She describes what she calls an indigenous tradition of 'feminism' in the Arabian peninsula, a tradition of enabling even illiterate women not exposed to Western thought 'to show an awareness of patriarchy and its oppressions and even of Islam as being for the most part an ideology developed to control women' (1982:167). Isn't Aisha's agency a reflection of the strenght of women, an old phenomenon which has found its current manifestations ? If her agency does not fit in our idea of traditional/modern then perhaps that very understanding is wrong. After all, we know very little about the lives of Adeni women in the old times, perhaps with the exception of Doreen Ingram's books which tell something about women in the colonial period (Ingrams 1949, 1970). This seems to be a common phenomenon throughout the Arab world (Ahmed 1982, Abdel Kader 1984, Jansen 1989). Our idea of the traditions might change if women's stories were included in the history of this area.

Conclusions

Two case studies were discussed to point out how flimsily a dichotomical understanding of 'tradition' and 'modern' supports the analysis. In Bashir's case a tradition/modern perspective would have led to a moral conclusion on the discrepancy between his ideals and actual deeds, an outcome that would hardly have helped to understand his agency in the context where he himself saw it. Aisha's agency, on the other hand, breaks the conventional Western understanding of the Middle Eastern woman trapped as a victim in the injustices of the traditional society, waiting to be 'emancipated' by modernity, that is, Western education, way of life and clothing. Even if modernity is understood in a local way, Aisha's story does not become more comprehensible if a dichotomical understanding of tradition/modern is used: her agency does not reflect such opposition between traditional and modern.

Further I have argued that in Aden 'tradition' and 'modern' have each several manifestations which are mutually exclusive and inclusive, fight each other but not necessarily in the tradition/modern axis. Some of the 'moderns' use elements of 'traditions', but locate them in a new context and transform them, as I pointed out in the case of the revolutionary modern. Thus a 'tradition' of one setting might when situated in another framework be perceived as an element of 'modern'. Consequently it is difficult to find a simple dichotomy between the 'traditional' and the 'modern' in the Adeni social process.

This conclusion might bear more general significance to the study of complex Middle Eastern societies. Instead of looking at contradictions between the old and the new, a more fruitful approach might be to look at the roots of different traditions and modernities.

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Notes

2. In her study on women and inheritance in Palestine, Moors explains that urban-rural dichotomy is undermined by the fact that urban and rural women are not homogeneous categories. Such factors as class, the absence or presence of competing heirs and woman's life-cycle status cause variation inside these groups. See Moors 1995:48-50. [*]

3. Mundy explains in critique to the Gellnerian model on tribal society that secular orality does not stand apart from scriptural Islam since the former is cognisant of the latter (1995:4). [*]

4. I carried out anthropological fieldwork in Aden, capital of the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen in 1988-1989, and after the Yemeni unification (May 1990), in Aden, the "economic capital" of the Republic of Yemen during 1991 and 1992, altogether two years. [*]

5. With "archaity" I don't mean what Abu-Lughod describes referring to Appandurai a "tendency (..) to concentrate on "the small, the simple, the elementary, the face to face" other and to avoid the complex, literate, and historically deep" (Abu-Lughod 1989:279), but themes that manifest the "historical otherness" of Yemen. Such themes are segmentation and the tribal society in general, Northern Yemeni history, scriptural Islam, women's hardships in primitive circumstances, the use of qat, to mention some. Abu-Lughod's suggestion that North Yemen has become an anthropological prestige zone after Morocco explains this phenomenon up to a point. [*]

6. The amount of literature is huge. For an 'Islamic' perspective on modernity and a revue of modernisation debate, see Al-Lail 1996. [*]

7. It is evident that both Dorsky and Makhlouf study less complex societies than Aden ('Amran and San'a respectively). However, my criticism is pointed to the tendency in both to give the idea that their analysis would describe women's challenges in whole Yemen. [*]

8. Fascinating, the word ummiyya refers also to maternality and motherliness. [*]

9. This issue has been extensively debated in the Yemeni media, too. In a reader's letter to al-thawra newspaper, a female reader wrote: "Marriage should be considered an arrangement in which two people become one and not a system of master and slave, as I have observed in many families". (Middle East Times/Yemen edition February 1991, quoting al-thawra). [*]

10. Bourdieu's analysis on the Kabyle house (Bourdieu 1979) and the agricultural calendar (1977) are such examples. [*]

11. Ortner 1996:21-42. [*]

12. See also the discussion in Abdel Kader 1984. [*]

13. Keddie (1989) seems to be sympathetic to Islamist ideology on sex equality, as she points out that "few of the Islamists I have read and talked to around the world speak of inferior capacities or positions for women. They insist that men and women are equal, but have been made with different capacities, according to their different roles". However, she adds that separation in actual terms means inferior rights for women (Keddie 1989:33). [*]

14. As Gilmore suggests, "Patterns of intersex relations constitute a major category of Mediterranean unity. Almost every anthropologist who has worked in the area speaks of an unbridgeable gulf between a male 'public' and a female 'private' sphere. These are often described as functionally complementary and discontinuous. As Duvignaud puts it, they "are two separate worlds, which pass without touching" (...)" (1982:194). [*]

15. As an example of such misunderstanding, see Ardener's discussion on Mernissi (1975), in Ardener 1993:16. Unconscious of the essentialism she herself bases her analysis, Ardener uses concepts such as 'Muslim women', 'Islamic domestic circle', 'Islamic public space', etc. See Ardener 1993. [*]

16. Customary law has other terms, too, see Dostal (1989) for an introduction to the tribal law. [*]

17. See as an example, 'Aida 'Ali Sa'id in sout al-ummal newspaper, where she discusses negative customs in family relations in her critical column on the then actual new Personal Status Law (Ali Said 1992). [*]

18. There are conflicting ideas of history in the Middle East and Yemen in particular. Islamic discourse tends to maintain that history begun with the coming of Islam. As Tibi explains: "The historical situation in which Islam came into existence was marked by an absence of unity. (...) ...the Arabs, at that time polytheists, had no state structure of their own aside from the Arab vassal states of the world powers of that time (...) and were organised on the Arabian peninsula in uncivilised, fiercely competing nomadic tribes." (1991:34). This view on history entirely disregards some historical facts concerning the life time of prophet Muhammed, which include first, that monotheism was spread in parts of South Arabia already before Islam (Beeston 1984 and 1984a), secondly, that the area was not inhabited by nomads only, but mainly by sedentary farmers and townspeople (Beeston 1984:259), thirdly , that South Arabia had only recently lost its own language and other elements of ancient high culture with the downfall of the last kingdoms and as a result of the subsequent foreign invasions (Robin 1984), and fourthly, that after the coming of Islam, this area has never again experienced such high civilisations as the pre-Islamic kingdoms (Robin 1984). Bearing this in mind, some Yemenis maintain that Islam did not elevate Yemen, since it already had periods of high civilisation in its history. [*]

19. See Knysh 1993. [*]

20 qat is a mild narcotic shrub which leaves are chewed in afternoon sessions, a social custom extensively practised throughout Yemen, but less by women than men. See Weir 1985. In Aden, very few women chew qat but many more have a negative attitude to it from the point of view of family budget. [*]

21. As Carapico and Myntti describe this kind of way of living in San'a during the seventies: "As they became available in the market, the family bought a tape recorder, washing machine, refrigerator, television and video. They paid gladly for water and electricity hookups and purchased better quality meat, qat, household items, jewelry and clothing, although their tastes remained quite traditional. Their courtyard goats and chickens were replaced by milk, eggs and meat purchased from the market" (Carapico and Myntti 1991:27). [*]

22. Serjeant claims even that "modern Aden is practically entirely a British creation" (Serjeant 1981:XII:210). [*]

23. As Brian Barron, the last BBC correspondent in Aden before the independence, after visiting Aden first time after 30 years, wishfully claims "(t)oday, older Adenis look back on British rule with affection" (BBC 3.12.1997 at 16.19 GMT, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/fr..._own_ correspondent/newsid_36000/36279.stm) [*]

24. See as an example of this discourse, interview with Sheikh Abdullah Bin Hussain Al-Ahmar, leader of al-Islah party, in Yemen Times 10-16 June 1992. [*]

25. To say that modernism is Westernisation is, of course, not only a Eurocentric statement, but part of a local discourse to discredit those who demand changes. [*]