Al-Ezi Al-Salwi
Senior Advisor, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates
The Yemeni Migration Phenomenon in History and the Present
Yemeni migration stands as one of the most profound phenomena in our history and in our contemporary life. No account of any phase of conflict or stability in Yemen is complete without reference to it, for it is always present in both memory and reality. In discussing geography and nature, Yemeni migration emerges as one of their essential outcomes, just as it is also an outcome of economics and social structure.
As is well known, oppression also touched the migrants. Their early exodus carved into the nation’s collective memory a grotesque and humiliating image, one of derision and degradation, which even the talents of poets and artists could not dispel. Instead, this legacy was transmitted to their children—half of whom today are counted among the “mulatto” offspring.
Despite our continued ignorance of the meanings and implications of Yemeni migration and its sufferings, we sometimes grudgingly acknowledge the national role played by the migrants alongside the national movement and the Yemeni revolution. Afterwards, their great role and clear imprint on the country’s development path became undeniable. Yet, in the intoxication of the oil aromas that once drifted to us from neighboring countries, we forgot—or chose to forget—our brothers who lived in regions far removed from the oil wells. They remained faithful to the cause, and still do, even after the wells began to dry up and evaporate.
The Yemeni migrants built their lives in exile, gaining skills and experience through the professions they engaged in. Many, particularly those who settled in the colonies of Abyssinia, Djibouti, and East Africa, became merchants. They established themselves in trade, with many putting down permanent roots in their host countries through familial ties.
This is not to suggest, however, that the migrant’s path was smooth or his journey easy. From the moment he left his village and set foot in Aden (under British rule), Djibouti (under French rule), or Assab (under Italian rule), he faced countless hardships. Chief among them was that any job—even as a porter or a doorman—required a certificate of experience proving that he had previously performed such work. Those wishing to work in the homes of Westerners, or in the hotels they frequented, whether as cooks or waiters, likewise had to present such certification.
Thus, many migrants resorted to having forged certificates written for them, or they borrowed documents from acquaintances who had preceded them abroad, attaching their own names to the papers. Whether they remained in the colonial cities or moved on to other colonies or even to Europe, Yemeni migrants undertook grueling labor and endured many hardships. They practiced all manner of trades. Their lives and sufferings were captured with remarkable precision in the small poetry collection Stranger on the Road by the late Mohammed An’am Ghalib, particularly in the poem The Stranger, which stands as an honest portrayal of their condition.
Within these migrant communities, prominent figures arose who took it upon themselves to address the problems faced by any compatriot abroad. They engaged with responsible authorities in their host countries and cooperated to resolve such issues, even founding associations dedicated to the welfare and advocacy of Yemeni migrants.
Migrants are rightly considered among the earliest messengers of modernization and urbanization in the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen (Imamate rule) and among the foremost opponents of its despotic authority. When the Free Yemeni Movement arose, the migrants were the first to respond to its call. They became its backbone and its financiers from the moment the first public party was founded—the Yemeni Free Party (Hizb al-Ahrar) in 1944.
Migrants provided the Free Movement with al-Nahda al-Yamaniyya Press, where its newspaper Sawt al-Yaman (“Voice of Yemen”)—the mouthpiece of the Great Yemeni Association—was printed. They also funded the issuance of the newspaper al-Sadaqa (“Friendship”) from Cairo. It was the migrants who supplied the money upon which the Free Yemeni leaders in both Aden and Cairo depended for survival.
To regulate the relationship between the migrants and the Free Yemeni leadership in Aden, leading figures among the expatriates, who had gained prominence by caring for their compatriots in their places of residence, served as intermediaries. They collected subscriptions and donations from the migrants, which sustained the Free Yemeni Movement, enabling it to persist in its resistance against the Imam and the Imamate until their very foundations were shaken and dismantled, paving the way for the Republic to rise upon their ruins.
The groups that undertook this role, whether in Aden or in other cities and migrant hubs, were as follows:
In Aden: Hajj Mohammed Salam Hijab, Jazam al-Harawi, Abdulrahman Abdulrab, Abduh Abdullah al-Dahan, Hajj Abdullah Othman, Ha’il Ahmed Qasim, Abdul-Samad Mutahar Saeed, Ali Hussein Ghalib al-Wajeeh, Abdulmalik Asad Ubaid, Abdulqader Ahmed Alwan, Abdulqader Saeed, Hajj Abadi Thabet, Murshid Mohammed Abadi, Abdullah Mohammed al-Shaṭfa, and Mohammed Ali al-Aswadi.
In Britain: Sheikh Abdullah Ali al-Hakimi and others from Shamir.
In America: Abdullah al-Hajj Mujahid.
In Ethiopia (Addis Ababa and Asmara): Ahmed Abduh Nasher, Abdul-Qawi Madhhash al-Kharbashi, Abdulghani Mutahar Abda, Ahmed Mohammed al-Absi, Mutahar Saeed, and others.
In East Africa (Asmara): Sha’if Mohammed Saeed, Mohammed Mohammed al-‘Aqil, Shahir Abdulrahman al-‘Ariki, and Hajj Mohammed Othman al-‘Ariki, among others.
