What Does “General Mobilisation” in Yemen Look Like?

On the 25th of September, President of the Presidential Leadership Council of Yemen Rashad al-Alimi called for a general mobilisation of the Yemeni people against the Houthis and promised amnesty to Houthi defectors. From his base in Riyadh, he summoned “the sons and daughters of our great people” to a “general mobilisation” to join the efforts of the armed forces. What exactly does this mean in the Yemeni context?

The Tribe as the Bedrock of Yemeni Life

In Yemen, the tribe is, for the overwhelming majority of the population, the primary unit of social identity, political allegiance and economic security. The tribal system provides what the state, even at the best of times, has rarely managed, including dispute resolution, protection, welfare and a framework for collective action. Most day-to-day conflicts are prevented or resolved through the tribal system, not through formal courts. The tribe predates the Yemeni republic, predates Islam itself in its organisational roots and it has outlasted every political order that has sought to subordinate or abolish it.

This is the terrain on which all parties to Yemen’s conflicts have operated since the first Saada campaign in 2004, where the Houthis as an armed organisation clashed with government’s army for the first time. From the Saada wars to the 2011 uprising, from the Houthi seizure of the capital of Sanaa in 2014 to the Saudi-led intervention in 2015 and the fragmentation that followed, every belligerent (the Houthis, the government, the Southern Transitional Council, the Emiratis, the Saudis, the Islamists of al-Islah) has factored tribalism into its calculations. Military strategy, political alliances, economic extraction, patronage networks are all mediated through tribal structures.

To understand what is currently going on in Yemen, one must recognise how the Houthis co-opted the northern highland tribes, acknowledge Hadrami........

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