Mr. John Matthew Willis, author of "Colonial Police in Aden, 1937-1967" presented his research for his MA in Arab Studies at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies in 1996. He started his career after his graduation with B.Sc. in History from the University of Louisville in 1994. His future plan is to attend the University of New York for his Ph.D. in History & Middle East Studies.
Dr. Salah Haddash, Yemen Times Managing Editor, talked to Mr. Willis and filed the following interview.

Q: How did you first think about doing a research on late colonial Aden?
A: It was almost by accident, while I was doing my research in the Library of Congress and was looking into references on the social history of the Arabian Peninsula. I found a series of colonial annual reports on the police, health services, etc. This directed me to look at Aden specifically, and Yemen in general.

Q: Could you briefly about the police in colonial Aden?
A: There were two branches of the police; a civil branch and an armed branch. The civil branch had to do police functions, which were walking in the streets unarmed, and making civilians obey the law.
The second branch, the armed police, were trained along military lines, armed with rifles. They were housed in military barracks along the main road out of Crater. Their duties included crowd control, riot control, dispersing labor demonstrations, etc.

Q: In what events was that Aden police force employed?
A: In 1947, it was the announcement of the partition of Palestine. This was compounded by the general post-war economic depression. It was a large-scale riot that ended up with focusing on the Jewish residents of Aden. Their stores, houses and so on, were looted and burnt by fanatics.
In 1948, the cause of the riots seemed to be the indiscriminate use of firearms among the crowds. Some died and a number of people were injured.
A large number of Jews and Arabs as well fell prey to the riots. The number of people injured by policemen is not fully known. People interviewed after the events were mainly Arabs, who came from the neighboring protectorates to the colony of Aden. On the other hand, a large number of the rest were either national Somalis or Indian, Baha'i followers, Parsees, Sikhs or Jains.

Q: Who were the elite of the police force?
A: The highest ranks were taken by the British. But among the inspectors were professional Arabs, Somalis, Indians, and so on.
There were six police divisions in the British colonial system of Aden: for crowd control, riots, labor disturbances, morals (including qat banning, prostitution, gambling), city (keeping the streets clean), and traffic.
British citizens in Aden used to complain that Arabs did not know how to drive. Driving regulations were rather complex then. Policemen were always working so hard to control the traffic. There were carts at that time, some camels, donkeys. But there were lot of cars by 1940s, the 1950s and 1960s.

Q: What were the main crimes dealt with by the Aden police?
A: From the annual reports, we can see that major crimes were things like smuggling, theft, murder. For instance, at least an average of 5 murder cases were recorded every year in the period from 1947 to 1960 in the colony of Aden alone.

Q: What about Qat?
A: There was really no problem with Qat until 1957, when the legislative council, largely consisting of middle-class people, decided to banned qat. The British agreed that this includes the sale and use of Qat within the boundaries of the colony of Aden.
It was a failure, as a report published in 1958 described it. The police did not have enough people to control the border between Lahj and Aden. A large number of people complained about it. Men went every day out of Aden to chew Qat.
People started using refrigerated boats to import it from Harar in Ethiopia, so the legislation had really no impact. During that period a lot of qat was coming from the Abyssinian highlands.

Q: Was there any corruption in the Aden Police?
A: Some people were disciplined because of accepting bribes. That was the biggest complaint by people against the police. The trouble with recruiting police and the chief of police specifically was, at one point, lack of good housing. There was a shortage in housing which was always not enough for the police. Policemen wages were not particularly high.

Q: What is the most interesting thing you found through your research, something you did not expect?
A: What was not expected is the daily resistance to police. For instance, people would not cooperate with the police when they are trying to do investigation for a homicide case, say.

 

The renowned Yemeni singer Fadl Kuraidi is one of the artists who had contributed in the march of the domestic song over thirty years.
He was born in Lahj in 1952 and completed his elementary and intermediate studies in Al Houta schools. His singing talent surfaced at the early age of 12 and was encouraged by his father to go ahead with upgrading that talent.

Kuraidi's father took him to the well known artist of the sixties Fadl Al Lahji who taught him how to use the lute, a thing which Kuraidi excelled in.
In the early sixties, he was influenced by the Lahji lyrics and started to imitate some of the famous singers at that time and in 1961 he joined the Lahji musical band.
Kuraidi practiced singing as a hobby and he managed to cope between it and his work with the Ministry of Health. His family played a big role in promoting his talent, since two of his brothers had tried their luck in the field of singing.

Following the independence of the southern part of the country, Kuraidi joined the Lahj musical band that was encouraged by the state to reflect the revolutionary changes witnessed by both north and south of Yemen at that time.
In the eighties, Kuraidi recorded a number of his Lahji songs with the radio and television which had a great effect on circulation of his songs and his popularity among Yemeni expatriates in nearby countries.

Near the end of the eighties, the renouned artist shifted his job from the Health to the Culture Ministry and joined its musical troupe in which his distinguished Lahji songs were performed. Those songs were recorded with the radio and television in his own voice or that of other Yemeni singers.
And so our famous singer, Kuraidi, continues his sincere artistic march that is admired by all those who hear him.

 

Mr. Terry O'Neill is one of the two writers of the English Language course now being used by schools in Yemen.

Q: How long has the ELT been involved in the English language program in Yemen?
A: It's been over a period of about 12 years. We received from the ministry of Education the Yemeni syllabus for English. In the late '80s we came and we went around schools and checked the whole situation. Then we produced draft materials which we tried in specific areas for the period of two years '90 - '92. After the contents were tried and evaluated, we produced the first book and that's been on going now.
At the moment there are five books covering the whole course in the first five years of English. In next September, the sixth year book will be introduced into Yemeni schools, completing the six-year course.

Q: Could you tell us about the conference you have attended in Yemen?
A: Part of the reason for the conference is to meet with school inspectors from all over the country. One thing they will be doing is when they return back to their areas they will be gathering feedback from all the teachers about the six years of the Crescent English course. Then we will have a complete review of the course starting at year one again, based on the comments which we have received from the teachers who have been using the book.
The whole point of an English language course is it can't stand still. Obviously we will be looking for an on-going improvement as we go back in revising the book from next year.

Q: Most of our school graduates can't even write a simple sentence in English. How do you explain this?
A: I think that is an exaggeration that they can't even write a simple sentence. The thing is what you have got is a whole complex which involves the teachers, the level of skills of the teachers, the actual course book. There is also the question of the inspectors and the advise they give to teachers. So what you have got is a big package, you also got the attitude of pupils towards learning English e.g.; the girls tend to be much better than boys and that raises the question: Why?

Q: What are the problems facing the Yemeni student in learning English?
A: The major problem is that in some areas there are large classes. In some areas there are teachers with no proper training. The point is one should not look at the negative side, these problems are been addressed extensively. In our conference we have addressed these problems.

Q: Do you think we should introduce the English curriculum to primary schools in Yemen?
A: That is a question which is totally the responsibility of the Ministry of Education, and how they see things. Remember my role is as a writer to develop the course, but it is not my place to say anything. The ministry decides what they want to do. I would not be so rude as to try and tell the ministry what to do.

Q: How did you find the participants coming from different governorate in Yemen?
A: I have never seen a more enthusiastic group of inspectors anywhere. Their level of skill and their level of commitment I can regard as very high.

Mr. Richard Peacock is the Manager of the Education Division at the ELTA/OUP and is responsible for all the production of thier text books around the world.

Q: As the education manager what are you planing for Yemen?
A: Part of our workshop is to develop plans for the future of the Yemeni education system. Immediate plans are to finish book six for next year and then start a complete revision of the Crescent series in light of the feedback we receive from the inspectors. We also discussed the possibility of running future workshops for inspectors. We would like, if possible, to expand our program of workshops and teacher training.

Q: How do you evaluate the workshop?
A: We have been to many workshops and training sessions in the past, this one has been definitely the most positive and encouraging workshop we have ever had.

By - Ismail Al-Ghabiry.
Yemen Yimes.