Bugshans begin to rebuild Yemen
The people of Hadhramaut, the southern part of Yemen Republic, have almost always been migrants due to harsh realities of their land that is mainly desert. For centuries they were under sultanates far from the influence of the imams of Yemen who were based in Sanaa, now capital of Yemen Republic. The commercial capital is Aden — at one time a British crown colony and free port of international importance.
When the British government captured Aden on a flimsy excuse because in reality it had wanted a naval base in the Red Sea, the British expanded into the interior of Aden and spread their power over most of southern Yemen.
But the interior of Aden called Aden protectorates retained its nominal autonomy although it remained subservient to London, which while exercising its huge sway, also kept the region almost untouched by modern development from 1839 to the year of independence in 1967.
During that period Aden, the crown colony, flourished as it evolved into a free port linking the East and the West and serving as a transit port that befitted most of Arabia and Africa while in due course hundreds of thousands of Europeans traveled through it to Australia and New Zealand as well as India, Indonesia, the present-day Malaysia and back to Europe. Very soon Aden became the No. 2 free port in the world after Liverpool during the apogee of the British Empire.
The movement of people from Aden and back continued apace and Hadhramis moved out as they used to do all their lives to settle in Aden and from Aden to travel to Saudi Arabia, East Africa and the Far East mainly the present-day Indonesia. Prosperity was the name of the action as Aden ruled supreme and the whole of Yemen flourished from it and hundreds of thousands of Yemenis moved out to Aden and its protectorates and from there on to the United Kingdom where there is even now a large number of Britons of Yemeni origin.
Since I was born and brought up in Aden, I was witness to the glorious boom of the colony and surroundings and could mix with many nationalities from the East and the West. In fact many of my neighbors were Arabs, Africans, Europeans and, of course, the ubiquitous Indians, before and after the partition of the subcontinent. Teachers as well as doctors and lawyers were also British but mainly Indians.
Hadhramis were the most active Arab component of the settlers and traders and among them were some of the famous Hadhrami names who engaged in all sorts of trade of whom the Bugshans were well-known just like the Bin Mahfoods and all those whose names usually start with a “ba” meaning bin or ibn.
When the British left Aden and the whole of southern Yemen, the region declined as international trade was nearly suspended with the closure of the Suez Canal in l967 and the departure of the British army, navy and air force. The communists, who took over through an armed revolution, completed the process of decline and the country lost its past glory.
Millions of Arabs and other nationalities left in a hurry back to their homes and to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Gulf and far beyond. For the Hadhramis, Saudi Arabia was the prize attraction for it was opening up, peaceful and hospitable as it is now.
The Bugshans and the Mahfoods had already been well ensconced in Saudi Arabia, doing extremely well in the Kingdom’s prosperity and freedom after the turmoil in Aden especially in the bloody revolution and struggle for power made worse by a communist regime controlled by the Soviet Union.
So when I first landed in Jeddah, following the outright confiscation of my family press and property, I visited some of the big Hadhrami names and made friends until the present day. I knew the Bugshan and the Mahfoods pretty well including Sheikh Abdullah and Sheikh Ali and Abdullah Ahmed Bugshan whom I met, not surprisingly at the Mercure Hotel in Aden during a special event. We had known each other earlier and seized the chance to renew the acquaintance there.
The Mercure is Saudi-owned hotel and fairly popular in the commercial hub of Aden called Crater. Since Abdullah was well known and fairly popular in Crater we quickly attracted attention and I had a chance to talk to him about his activities in the business and development of the southern part of Yemen, particularly Hadhramaut, the birthplace of his ancestors, where he was actively engaged in a few infrastructural enterprises. These included what Hadhramaut needed badly — road constructions, electrification of the villages which had been neglected for too long first by the communist regime in southern Yemen then by the poor government of unified Yemen. He is also involved in education and health services as well as charitable work including offering scholarships to students in Yemen and outside it. He is engaged in business although not much is known about it.
In pursuit of his frenetic work in the southern part of Yemen he has made frequent visits to the region since the early 2000s, taking with him a number of business colleagues. And already the face of Hadhramaut is changing as well as the skyline of Mukalla, the capital, as more and more Hadhramis abroad are encouraged to invest in their ancestral homeland. I was personally impressed by the evolving shape of Mukalla where hotels are rising including one by my friend Alwan Al Sheibani who owns Universal Travel and Hotels Company based in Sanaa. Only the shortage of tourism infrastructure is hampering large-scale inflows of visitors, which might have made Hadramaut a major tourist attraction in the Arabian Peninsula. But I understand that this will take time because of the shortage of water, poor roads and poor publicity due to occasional terrorist activities.
However, the large Hadhrami communities, especially in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf, will eventually ensure a larger influx of tourists in addition to those of Hadhrami ancestors who are still deeply attached to their homeland.
— Farouk Luqman is an eminent journalist based in Jeddah.
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