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2010 Special Issue Int'l J. Educ. L. & Pol'y 21 (2010)
Writing the Past: An Examination of History and National Narratives in the Republic of Yemen's Textbooks

handle is hein.journals/ijelp2010 and id is 21 raw text is: UNIFYING HISTORY: AN EXAMINATION OF OFFICIAL NATIONAL NARRATIVES IN THE REPUBLIC OF YEMEN'S TEXT- BOOKS Chapter 1: Writing the Past: An examination of history and national narratives in the Republic of Yemen's textbooks Elizabeth L. Young Abstract National narratives offer a fruitful site for examining the processes of collective identity and memory formation. In 1990, the northern Yemen Arab Republic and the southern People's Democratic Republic of Yemen unified, or as described by many Yemeni sources reunified, to form the present Republic of Yemen. This paper looks at national narrative construction in Yemen through the examina- 21 tion of state-issued textbooks. They stress the natural unity of the Yemeni nation and people and have a conspicuous gap in the history between the revolutionary period of the 1960's and the 1990 unification. The omission of such recent and relevant national history can be understood by examining the structure of the narratives produced by the state and the emphasis on the theme of unity and the driving plot of unification. The 201 century has arguably been one of state building, with the number of indepen- dent states nearly tripling by its close. Yemen, along with Germany, is one of the only examples of the unification of existing states and is a particularly interesting case study in the formation of national narratives and collective identities. In 1990, the northern Yemen Arab Republic and the southern People's Democratic Republic of Yemen uni- fied, or as described by many Yemeni sources reunified, to form the present Republic of Yemen. However, unification has not been unanimously embraced and there remain competing visions of the configuration and nature of the state. These include the 1994 civil war and two ongoing internal political crises: a secessionist movement in the southern part of the country and a military rebellion in the north. Textbooks often offer a fruitful site for research into national narratives and collective identity. This paper looks at national narrative construction in official state-issued textbooks for primary and secondary school students in order to examine the events that have been included and excluded. Official discourse, even in a weak state system such as Yemen, has the potential to be widely spread given the state's financial, educa- IJELP - 2010 - SPECIAL ISSUE

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