The Colony of Aden in Post-Colonial Yemeni Novel

He pushed the swarming thoughts from his mind and stared at the pale, dusty lights of lanterns set up at the intersections of alleyways, resembling tired eyes. Colorless walls, the buzzing of flies landing on the eyes of an old dusty dog lying next to broken tables. Endless monotony, women wrapped in veils, naked children walking between wooden tables of irregular design, finishing tea after the customers and picking up sesame seeds. Somalis playing dominoes. The intermittent voice of Sayyid Husayn, preaching a sermon in front of the mosque in condemnation of Abu al-Tayyib al-Mutanabbi Camp Abu al-Tayyib al-Mutanabbi Camp (mukhayyam) is the name of a cultural club, founded in Steamer Point in 1939 under the patronage of Muhammad Ali Luqman (note by M. Suvorov)., criticizing the call of this club and its members for the liberation of women and the abolition of hijab.

Sitting on a long wooden bench designed for three people, he can easily imagine where each of the unpaved streets leads, and where ends each narrow alleyway in the quarters of Crater, divided according to the nationality of their inhabitants. One quarter is for Hindus, another for Jews, a third for Persians, a fourth for the British and other Europeans, and a fifth for Adeni Arabs and migrants from North Yemen and the Protectorates.

While watching the approaching figure of his friend, he heard a voice say, `Even this newspaper writes only about the Allies' victories!'

He looked around and saw an Adeni Indian, whose father had come with captain Haines, stayed in Aden, and married a girl from the province of Taizz. The Indian was holding an issue of `Fatat al-Jazira' “Fatat al-Jazira” is the first Adeni non-governmental Arabic newspaper, founded be Muhammad Ali Luqman in 1940. About this newspaper see [6, p. 46-48] (note by M. Suvorov). in his hand. An oppositionist to the Imam's regime in North Yemen, who had fled with other opposition members to Aden, where they continued their struggle, agreed that the British were behaving like mad: the day before they arrested a merchant, who was selling aspirin tablets produced by German company Bayer, and accused him of Nazism. Someone else started talking about the Allied landing in Normandy, and how hundreds of them were killed before the operation was completed” [15, p. 41-42].

And this is how migrants from North Yemeni see Crater in the mid-1960s:

“Qasim is watching the workers and visitors, who stare at the Long-street with shops on both sides of it, selling electrical appliances, cosmetics, clothing and perfumes, with the feeling that they are experiencing some kind of miracles that come one after another and do not end. They like to name each miracle by the year in which it appeared. In their letters to their families, which they do not write themselves because they are illiterate and cannot read or write, they tell about television, cinemas, cameras, air conditioners, refrigerators, gas stoves, cars, and the blond women who drive these cars -- as if they were discovering new, unseen things in this life. They also tell them about Coca-Cola, Green Fruit, and Canada Dry drinks, feeling proud that they know these things and have tasted them themselves” [15, p. 134-135].

And the following scene takes place in Steamer Point, also in the mid-1960s:

“As if taken by surprise, Su`ad turned to him and saw that he was looking at something from which she herself had just been able to take her eyes off. It didn't even occur to her to wonder at the lack of people around who might have been curious enough to stare at a naked woman. Samir was surprised by what he saw -- not because he was a man who craved female flesh out of instinct, but because he had never thought that he would encounter such a sight anywhere at all, except Aden.

It was not the huge cruise liner looking like a floating city that caught their attention and made them stare, but a scene taking place on the deck of one of the floors, which they considered extremely bold. The deck was very long, with dozens of windows looking out on the sea quays, on nearby hotels, on cinemas, modern cafes, bars and nightclubs, on shops selling watches, cameras, jewelry made of gold and silver, fashionable clothing, on the Queen Victoria shined monument, located in the spacious garden. The coffee shop was not too close, but it gave a good view of the wharf and the huge ships at anchor. Besides, her body, this European, glistened under the playful rays of the sun. At first Su`ad thought it was a man, and she wanted to look away, but the long hair combed up and the big breasts, which quivered slightly, made her look more closely. Anyway, Su`ad did not condemn the woman for this half-naked appearance, either because the latter was in the unbearable sun, while Su`ad viewed her through the glass of the air-conditioned coffee shop, or because such a spectacle can be expected from tourists, especially in this European district” [15, p. 77-78].

Unlike al-Muqri, Ahmad Zayn created in his novel an absolutely realistic, unadorned image of Aden Colony at various stages of its development in the 20^th century, an image, very similar to what one can see in D. Foster's memoirs. And this realistic image allows the reader to draw three conclusions.

First, as a British colony, Aden developed dynamically, comprehensively and in the right direction, attracting both rich entrepreneurs from all over the East and West, and cheap labor force from all over the South of Arabia.

Secondly, until 1967, the city remained the most economically and culturally flourishing of all the cities of the Arabian Peninsula, which, of course, provided a fairly high standard of living for native Adenis, as well as subsistence for thousands of poor migrants from other parts of South Arabia.

Third, all this prosperity ended almost instantly in the end of 1967, and the current state of Aden compared with its state in the late colonial times can only be described as degradation and decline. Aden of today in comparison to other major cities of the Arabian Peninsula looks about the same as Hodeidah in the novel looked in comparison to Aden Colony.

Unlike the characters of al-Muqri's novel, who hardly express any clear attitude to the political events of the 1960s, the characters of Steamer Point are extremely concerned about what is happening in Aden in this period. Since it is the inner worlds of Samir and the Frenchman that are most open to the reader, it is their attitudes to those events that form the reader's understanding of what really happened. The following fragments of Samir's internal monologue and stream of consciousness show what he thinks about Aden Colony, the British, and the revolutionaries:

“Aden shocked you. It was merciless to your feelings when, in an instant, it showed you all that it had in itself. To you, who came from a town of dusty color and earthy features. Before that, you only saw modern cities in pictures, but Aden appeared a city that simply had no equal. At first glance, it seemed to me a piece of Paradise. And I whispered to myself, `I am Adeni!' Because I felt I didn't want to live in any city other than Aden” [15, p. 19].

“I wanted to hate them He speaks about the British (note by M. Suvorov)., but I couldn't. I like their way of life. And every other time I find that I like more and more what they did in this city. They did it not only for themselves, but even if only for themselves, as some claim, can't we get our share of the benefit of it all in some way? Whether we are Adenis or not in the British eyes, does not matter. The most important is what we feel ourselves. Unfortunately, for some reason we do not listen to ourselves, but listen to other people's voices, loud and sharp, more like machine-gun fire and the roar of explosions” [15, p. 81].

“Your only hope and your unequivocal desire is that Aden remains open to all, that when you wake up one day, you will not find the city closed to the outside world. Your controversy with Najib escalated when you began to doubt the ability of revolutionaries, who are at war with each other, to lead Aden to new prosperity. You really looked with pessimism at the partisans, who began to exterminate each other only because they don't will, in your opinion, to share power with anyone. Even towards the British, they did not show such brutality as they do when fighting each other” [15, p. 161].

“I will not say that I have never seen the British kicking with their boots and hitting with rifle butts people who did nothing to them, but simply said, `Get out of our city!' They throw them, half-naked, on the asphalt in the middle of the day, when the sun is hot as hell, so that it seems to me that I smell fried human meat. But I have also seen our fellow men turn into beasts of prey, into bloodthirsty wolves, hungry for each other's flesh, and I have seen armed groups pounce on each other, wait for the slightest misstep of their opponents and enemies, hunt them at night” [15, p. 71].

“As for me, I have no desire to accuse anyone of treason. I came like a dead man from Hodeidah, a faceless city, which keeps now only silence and memories, and the corpses of soldiers: Egyptians and Yemenis, monarchists and Republicans. I don't want to go back there after I found my real life in Aden” [15, p. 18].

It is worth noting that Samir is not the only character in Yemeni literature to dislike South Yemeni revolutionaries This attitude to the revolutionaries can be found, for instance, in the novels The Ruined Queen (al-Malika al-maghdura, 2002) and Revelation (Wahy, 2018) by Habib Saruri., but he is the first and so far the only protagonist in this literature who is openly sympathetic to the British.

The three novels discussed above differ in their depiction of Aden Colony and the place it occupies in the narrative.

In the novel Three Midnighters, which takes place in post-colonial times, the image of Aden Colony as such is absent. There are only memories of the characters about the activities of an Adeni cultural club, which serves in the novel as an allegory of Aden Colony. The main characteristics of that club were its openness to all people, its atmosphere of freedom of thought, freedom of expression, mutual respect of its members, prosperity, love, and fun.

In Adeni Incense, Aden Colony also resembles a wonderful club that has exactly the same characteristics as the club in Three Midnighters. The members of this club, that is, the characters of the novel, who belong to a variety of nationalities and faiths, live in harmony, love and prosperity -- until evil external forces, whose essence remains virtually outside the framework of the story, begin to destroy this club. Although some of the events described in the novel correspond to what was going in Aden Colony in the 1940-60s, the lack of realistic details in the depiction of the city and its inhabitants makes the novel not less allegorical than realistic.

It is noteworthy that in both Three Midnighters and Adeni Incense there is no clear image of the forces that destroyed this wonderful club.

In Steamer Point, Aden Colony does not appear in any period of its history as a wonderful club, since the novel is written in a completely realistic manner. Nevertheless, the Aden portrayed by Ahmad Zayn has two important features, the impending loss of which makes the two main characters grieve. The first feature is economic prosperity, which distinguishes Aden from other cities of the Arabian Peninsula. The second feature is peaceful coexistence of representatives of different cultures and different identities, who feel free to manifest their views and beliefs. The evil forces that deprive the city of these features are well defined in the novel: they are people of a certain mentality and certain beliefs.

The two mentioned features, which are also characteristic of Sa`id Awlaqi's and Ali al- Muqri's “clubs”, and which are discussed in K. A. Davis's study of Adenis' collective memory, are undoubtedly the two main reasons for Adenis' nostalgia for the colonial times. Interestingly, of all three authors, only Sa`id Awlaqi, a native Adeni, is a living witness to the life of Aden Colony. The other two writers were born in the last years of its existence and are not natives of Aden Ali al-Muqri is native of Taizz province, and Ahmad Zayn -- of Hodeidah.. For this reason, their literary interest to Aden Colony may be considered an indirect evidence of the fact that cultural diversity and economic prosperity are something that all Yemenis, especially intellectuals, are in urgent need of today.

References

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