ABSTRACT
The tribesmen in the north are mainly villagers, who grow sorghum, barley and wheat by ‘dry’ cultivation. The historical relation of economic dependence or interdependence between the plateau tribes and the rest of Yemen is now almost impossible to assess. Although the Zaidi Imams always depended on the tribes for support and never attempted to abolish tribalism, their view of tribesmen was consistently hostile. The image of the tribes as opposed to both piety and order accompanied them into the modern period. Despite the role of the republican tribes in defending the revolution, and despite the more contentious role of tribalism in moderating the effects of the civil war, the tribes in general remain the object of suspicion in many quarters. A somewhat muted debate on the ‘problem of tribalism’ has done little to collapse that opposition. The emphasis in contemporary Yemen on ‘unity’ tends to leave tribalism as its antithesis much as a partisan religious da‘ wa did historically.
