Guest wrote:
> Sunni is a religious designation. Peoples as diverse as Bedouins,
> Berbers, Kurds, and Turks can all be Sunni. So to say that Yemen
> had an "ethnic Sunni" government is misleading. The government
> belonged to an ethnic Arab tribe that adhered to the Sunni branch
> of Islam.
John wrote:
> What tribe is that?
Guest wrote:
> The Sanhan tribe, also called the Sanhan clan.
The Sanhan tribe is the tribe that Ali Abdullah Saleh belonged to.
But it's hardly correct to say that the Sanhan tribe governed Yemen.
It would be more correct to say that Yemen was governmed by the Hashid
confederation, which consists of numerous tribes. But even then, the
Hashid confederation was closely associated with the Bakil and Madhaj
confederations, with dozens more tribes. They all played a part in
governing Yemen.
https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/y ... s-1.391643
And that doesn't even mention the current official government, led by
Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi. I can't figure out what tribe he belongs to,
but he's from Abyan, which is in the south, so he can't be from any of
the confederations or tribes described above.
So when I write an article about Yemen, I have to come up with a
phrase to describe the opposition to the Houthis, and the best that I
can come up with is "Sunni tribes" in some sort of collectivist sense.
But to say that Yemen is or was governed by the Sanhan tribe is
clearly wrong.