The Birth of Modern Yemen An e-book by Brian Whitaker exploring
Yemen's political development since unification of north and
south in 1990 IT IS MORE than just coincidence that at the time
when Communism was collapsing, the two Germanies were re-uniting
and new democracies were being born in Eastern Europe, two
states at the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula embarked on
a sweeping transformation of their own, simultaneously unifying
and democratising. North and south Yemen had long been a distant
outpost of the Cold War, and reverberations from the upheaval in
Europe had an impact there, too. The united Republic of Yemen
established in May 1990 was a marriage between what, at first
glance, seemed unlikely partners. The north, though
theoretically in the “capitalist” camp, was one of the world’s
poorest countries; a highly traditional Arab-Islamic society,
with a strong element of tribalism. The south, on the other
hand, partly secularised and partly de-tribalised, had taken the
Marxist route. Even poorer