- 1 It should be noted here that Muslim name types usually consist of two names. In the colonial docum (...)
1On 25 January 1930, Hamoudi Ahmed, the richest Yemeni merchant in colonial Djibouti, died. His two wives, residing in Djibouti, Fatima Gayed and Hamda,1 and his daughter Sultana Bint Hamoudi, went to Shamsan Ismail, the Qadi of Djibouti (also of Yemeni origin), to gain access to their inheritance, which amounted to 2,000,000 francs, a staggering amount in the context of Djibouti in the 1930s. Shortly afterwards, however, the three women withdrew their case from the Qadi court, which, at that time, was part of the “native court” system established by the French, who were the colonial power in Djibouti. Represented by a certain Said Hassen Safi, the three women accused the Qadi of Djibouti and some of the richest Yemeni traders in the town of attempting to divert part of their inheritance. This claim led to riots and the total collapse of the colonial judiciary.
- 2 On the influence of Braudel on Indian Ocean Studies, see Chaudhuri (1985), Hofmeyr (2010, 2012), S(...)
2By documenting the case and the dynamics that it catalyzed, the present article aims to conceptualize how racial and religious difference was handled by the colonial state and the Yemenis themselves in the port spaces of the Indian Ocean, of which Djibouti is a node. Influenced by Fernand Braudel’s work (1972) on the Mediterranean and his concept of “longue durée,” which he used to show the ecological unity of the sea, the field of Indian Ocean studies focuses on constructing alternative histories that do not hone in on empires, but rather on enduring transoceanic connections that are perceived to exist independently of the fluctuations of states and empires.2 One strategy to achieve this was to look at the cultures/civilizations of the Indian Ocean. In their attempts to construct a transoceanic history, scholars of the Indian Ocean evoke different traveling cultures/civilizations that coexist with each other in port spaces. Difference is conceived as an outcome of cosmopolitanism, and the Indian Ocean is seen as an arena, to use Sheriff’s phrase (2014), marked by “Globalization with a difference.”
- 3 On the general history of the Yemeni diaspora in Djibouti and the Horn of Africa, see Bezabeh (201 (...)
3In congruence with this, the Yemeni diaspora, which is the subject of this article, is considered to be composed of cultural bricoleurs.3 Conceived as belonging to the civilization of Islam and as having a close network, Yemenis, along with other Muslim diasporas from the Indian Ocean, are regarded as being instrumental in the creation of Islamic networks and cosmopolitanism in Indian Ocean spaces (Bang 2003; Campbell 2008; Walker 2008). In particular, those Yemenis who claim descent from the prophet Mohammed, the Sada, are portrayed as a peculiar kind of Muslim diaspora who are connected across the Indian Ocean as a result of shared genealogies and texts in which these genealogies are recorded (Ho 2002: 215-231, 2006).
4Cosmopolitanism and ocean-wide interconnectedness are witnessed in Indian Ocean spaces. The overriding concern of the field of Indian Ocean studies with creating an alternative history of the Indian Ocean, based on a notion of a stable travelling culture/civilization, is, however, problematic as “the underlying assumption of a stable culture, functioning as an independent variable across long distances of time and space, has the potential to obscure instability, contestation, exclusion (frequently violent), change and recurrences, all within the context-bound significance of apparently stable culture” (Becker & Cabrita 2014). It also romanticizes the diasporic community as it portrays them as cohesive and belonging to a predefined culture, network, and genealogies in an Indian Ocean space that is conceived as a neutral mediator of culture, rather than structured by state/empire in which the actions of the diaspora can also be understood (Bezabeh 2016).
5This article further demonstrates the weakness of looking at Indian Ocean spaces in terms of co-existing cultures/civilizations incorporating different groups by looking at the complexity of belonging to the religion of Islam, the religion adhered to by Yemeni diasporas, in a colonial state such as Djibouti. It shows how Islamic belonging was a complex affair that cannot be understood through a reified notion of culture/civilization that does not take into account the defining power of states/empires and that of colonial law. The culture/civilization of the diaspora, in this case, Islam, existed within a context of law rather than independently of it and was strategically deployed in pursuit of actors’ interests. Thus, this article highlights the problematics of culture/civilization representation in Indian Ocean studies.
6In asserting the importance of colonial law, this article draws inspiration from scholarly work that emphasizes the defining power of colonial law, including that of Mahmood Mamdani (1996) and Martin Chanock (1987). It does not, however, adopt a perspective that views law as a fixed legal code that cannot be manipulated by actors. Rather, it engages in a processual understanding of colonial law. As the works of Kristin Mann and Richard Roberts (1991), Iza Hussin (2016), and Lauren Benton (2001) show, a processual understanding of colonial law maintains that rather than being a set of rigid rules that is imposed from above, the law is an arena that serves as a resource, and which is used to debate, contest and form “odd coalitions” (ibid.) between colonizers and colonized, while engaging in the process of jurisdictional jockeying. The empirical material of this article shows that, despite being placed in categories that were important for the maintenance of colonial social order, Yemenis were able to overcome the Islamic domain in which they were supposed to exist and engaged in the formation of odd coalitions by moving between European and native court systems. This process of using and engaging with different legal orders is not, however, unique to the Yemenis of Djibouti. Rather, it reflects a wider practice in the Indian Ocean area that, as recent studies have shown, has been marked by the presence of multiple legal traditions that not only formed a context for diasporic action, but also forced them to engage in a balancing act between the different types of law that made the ocean a space of litigation, contestation and ambiguity (Mawani & Hussin 2014; Bishara 2017).
7In the following pages, I will begin by briefly outlining the story behind Hamoudi Ahmed by describing the social arena that he was part of. Subsequently, I will shed light on the colonial social order that was formed through colonial law and how this came to be destabilized as a result of the jurisdictional jockeying and the formation of odd coalitions by the Yemeni diaspora. The following two sections will focus on the grand outcome that resulted from this jurisdictional politics, i.e., a protest that brought the city to a virtual standstill and led to the setting up of a special inquiry led by France. The concluding section aims to bring out some lessons that we can learn from the case described in this article.
- 4 On the general history of Djibouti, see Dubois (1997) and Imbert-Vier (2011).
- 5 On the presence of Yemeni in Djibouti, see Bezabeh (2016).
8Established in 1884, the colony of Djibouti, then referred to as Territoire d’Obock and later as Côte française des Somalis, was a small but strategically located area at the entry of the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. The port existed as the only French possession in this part of the world and served as a coal refilling center for French ships that were heading to French colonies in Indochina, Madagascar and La Réunion.4 Inhabited by two groups who are regarded as autochthonous by the colonial administrators, the Afar and Issa Somali, the establishment of the colony, particularly the construction of a port in present-day Djibouti city and the formation of a railway line stretching from the city to the interior of Ethiopia, catalyzed the mass migration of Yemenis, which in earnest started as early as 1884 when the French colonial power established their presence in Obock.5
9Some of the Yemenis who came to the colony became wealthy and managed to establish trading networks, homes and family on both sides of the Gulf of Aden and beyond, while less successful others worked as coolies in the port and customs offices of the region. Of those who became wealthy, some made their fortune by engaging in legitimate activities such as trade, while others became rich by engaging in slave trading and gun running, two activities that predated the establishment of the colony and were banned by the colonial government. Hamoudi Ahmed, whose inheritance is the focus of this article, belonged to the latter category. Both oral accounts and the various writings of the French adventurer Henry de Monfreid (1932, 2007), who himself was engaged in contraband activities in Djibouti, attest to the wealth and influence he gained through these activities. The mosque that he built, Gami al-Nur (also referred to as the Hamoudi mosque), which even now serves as the chief landmark of the city of Djibouti, and the vast Muslim cemetery that he helped to establish in the city, also bear witness to the extent of his wealth and influence.
10Yet, according to French colonial documents, it was this very wealth that became the subject of controversy. As we shall see, in order to acquire this staggering amount of money, his heirs moved between the different legal spheres established by the colonial power. However, many influential Yemeni merchants opposed these moves that generated complex relationships traversing established colonial categories and an affair leading to the collapse of the colonial jurisdictional system and a riot that necessitated the intervention of the colonial office in the metropole.
- 6 For a classical account of the traditional stratification system, see Bujra (1971).
11Like the “autochthonous” Afar and Somalis, the Yemeni who came to the colony were Muslim. Nevertheless, they were internally divided as a result of a traditional Yemeni social stratification system that, in Yemeni society, became hierarchized into Sada, Mashaikh, Qabili, and Naqis.6 The Sada, who were able to demonstrate a genealogical line, were regarded as the descendants of the Prophet Mohammed. The Mashaikh were religious authorities who claimed descent from the Prophet Mohammed but, unlike the Sada, were not able to demonstrate an exact linkage. The Qabili were ordinary tribesmen who made no such lineage claims and the Nakis were those individuals who were engaged in jobs that, traditionally, were regarded as menial, such as tanning and shaving. In this stratification, the Sada obtained more prestige than the rest, while the Nakis became a stigmatized group.
12In addition to this stratification, the Yemenis also exhibited regional and sectoral differences. Some were Hadramis, who came from the region of Hadramout in southern Yemen, while others were northern Yemenis from the region of Sanaa. There were also Yemenis from Aden, the Tihama, Mokha, Yafi, and Houdeidah, the place of origin of Hamoudi Ahmed. Among Yemenis, there were also sectoral religious differences, i.e., some were members of the Zaydi sect, which falls within Shia Islam, while others were Sunni Muslims who were, on the whole, followers of the Shafi school.
- 7 On the French colonial conception of black Islam, see Harrison (1988), Triaud (2000), and Bezabeh (...)
13As in other parts of the French colony, the colonial establishment and the French Catholic missionaries who came to Djibouti regarded the Yemenis as being more religiously fundamental than what they say are the autochthonous black Africans, the Afar, and Somalis, who practiced “black Islam,” which they considered tolerant and diluted with local animistic beliefs.7 Despite this attitude and the many differences that existed among the Yemenis and between the autochthonous population (Bezabeh 2016), the schemata of the colonial social order that came to be established viewed the Yemenis primarily as native Muslims.
14Colonial law and the justice system established to facilitate it played an important role in this categorization of Yemenis as native Muslims. In the colonial system established by France, both in Djibouti and elsewhere around the world, law and justice were implemented by French magistrates, who were either professionally trained or administrative functionaries (Fabre 2004). The juridical system in which these magistrates functioned was divided into “justice de droit français” and “justice de droit local” (Baccard 2003). The latter consisted of the native court, while “justice de droit français” was a European sphere with a tribunal for Europeans at its center (ibid.). Despite this formal division, the “justice de droit français” had the right to intervene in the native court if local customs could not solve a specific problem or if the judgment was incompatible with public order (ibid.). This vital exception to the usual rules opened the possibility for the governor of a colony to interfere in the judiciary if he believed there was a political necessity.
- 8 “Décret sur l’organisation de la justice indigène en Côte française des Somalis,”Journal officiel (...)
- 9 This situation continued until 1936. At this juncture, an “état civil indigène non musulman” was f (...)
15In the specific case of Djibouti, the general practice of creating a differential system of law between natives and Europeans applied to the colony’s Muslim population. Under French rule, Yemenis were classified under the native jurisdiction with the rest of the Muslim population. Although this classification is well-attested in legal provisions from the establishment of the colony in 1884 onwards, the decree that reorganized the territory’s justice system in April 1927, three years before the death of Hamoudi, unequivocally categorized the Yemenis as natives.8 This categorization created a compartmentalized social order divided between a European sphere and a native/Muslim domain marked by Islam and the Qadi court.9 It rendered Islam as the custom of the native, with its jurisdictional existence that set the natives apart from the colonizers. As I shall show, in doing this, the colonial system made the native Muslim domain the only legally viable category in which the Yemenis could act.
16The formation of colonial categories through law did not entail an unquestioning acceptance of the native Islamic domain. The two wives of Hamoudi and his daughter Sultana took their case from the Qadi court to the European court, five months after his death, in the first week of May 1930. They accused the Qadi, along with some of the wealthiest Yemeni merchants of Djibouti, of appropriating part of their inheritance.
- 10 Archives nationales d’outre-mer, Aix-en-Provence (hereafter, ANOM), 1AFF-POL 697, “Pierre Ravaille (...)
- 11 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 694, “Mémoire produit devant le tribunal supérieur d’appel,” File: Dossier de M. Ba (...)
17At the time that the women brought the case before the European court, the judiciary lacked a tenured prosecutor. However, it did have three tenured magistrates, two of whom shifted their original positions in order to fill the gap: Paul Farines, who was president of the appeal court, stepped in as the Republic’s acting prosecutor; Joseph Bargone, who was president of the court of first instance, acted as interim president of the appeal court; and M. Saintol served as a substitute judge in the court of first instance.10 Initially, in the first week of May 1930, Farines rejected the case and sent it to M. Barthelemy, commander of the “cercle,” the smallest administrative unit in the colony. At that time, Barthelemy was the “cercle” commander and administrator and head of the native jurisdiction.11 Farines rejected the case based on the fact that all interested parties were Yemenis and the issue related to the succession of Yemeni property, which the native jurisdiction was mandated to rule on through the decree of 1927.
- 12 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, Arrêté n° 334, File: Dossier de M. Bargone Magistrat, 15 mai 1930.
- 13 Ibid.
18Barthelemy opened an administrative inquiry regarding the case, but no judicial inquiry was forthcoming. Simultaneously, the Qadi tribunal failed to reclaim the case. In this context, the two Hamoudi wives, his daughter, and their representative took the case for a second time to the European court on 28 June 1930. This time, their case was viewed by a European justice system, which had a different internal composition than usual, as Farines and Saintol had left for vacation as of 13 May 1930. On 15 May, arrêté n° 336 made M. Bargone interim prosecutor of the Republic, replacing Farines.12 Bargone’s original position as president of the first instance court of Djibouti was given to Jean-Louis Lanfranchi, an officer in the colonial civil service.13 Meanwhile, M. Gabriel Lucciardi, also an officer in the colonial service, was appointed assistant judge of the first instance court, replacing M. Saintol.
- 14 ANOM 1AFF-POL 697 Arrêté n° 416, File : Dossier de M. Bargone Magistrat, 26 juin 1930.
19However, it should be noted that Hamoudi’s relatives brought their case in front of Bargone just as his role as an acting prosecutor was about to end. On 26 June 1930, arrêté n° 416 relieved Bargone of his position as an interim prosecutor and made him president of the court of appeal. The same decree gave the prosecutor’s position to M. Pierre Ravailler, a tenured prosecutor, who was due to arrive in the colony on 29 June 1930, a day after Hamoudi’s wife took her case to the European court.14
- 15 ANOM 1AFF-POL 694, “Mémoire produit devant le tribunal supérieur d’appel,” 30 octobre 1930.
20Although the tenured prosecutor was set to arrive a day after Hamoudi petitioned the court and, technically speaking, Bargone had been relieved of his duties on 26 June 1930, he nevertheless seized the opportunity and accepted the demand made by the relatives of Hamoudi as legitimate.15 Indeed, he instructed M. Jean-Louis Lanfranchi to investigate the case and act as the examining magistrate (juge d’instruction). Afforded the right to enquire into the matter, Lanfranchi arrested those suspected of being involved in appropriating the inheritance of Fatima bin Gayed, Hamda, and Sultana Bint Hamoudi: Ibrahim Tayeb, a trader, Bilal Oumar, an employee of Hamoudi and the Qadi of Djibouti, Shamsan Ismail. The Qadi was then temporarily freed on bail. On 28 June 1930, M. Bargone reinforced and accepted the decision made by the examining judge.
- 16 For the biographical background of these notable Yemenis, see Bezabeh (2016).
- 17 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, “Le Comité de l’association islamique de bienfaisance et les principaux notabl (...)
21Almost immediately, on 30 June 1930, the largest Yemeni merchants in Djibouti, who controlled a newly formed Islamic self-help association in the city (Association islamique de bienfaisance) and were also implicated in the mismanagement of the Hamoudi inheritance, reacted against the arrest of the Qadi. These merchants, who had the money, the capability, and the necessary linkages, wrote a letter on 30 June 1930 to the governor of the territory Pierre-Amable Chapon-Baissac. The letter, signed by Ahmed bin Ahmed, as president of the association, and merchants such as Hassan Dorani and Sheikh Omar Ahmed Ba Zara,16 vehemently opposed Lanfranchi’s arrest of the Qadi.17 In this letter, the Islamic association accused the widow of Hamoudi of turning to the wrong court due to the advice of certain Europeans. They characterized the action of Lanfranchi as an interference in the indigenous court system and their religion, Islam, and their right to be dealt with under Islamic law—a right defined by the colonial government and which now, from their perspective, was being violated by a European judge, who was not only trespassing a judicial boundary but challenging Islam and the Islamic community by mistreating the Qadi. As a result, they described their existence as slavery and threatened to write directly to the Ministry of the Colonies.
- 18 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, “Le Président par intérim du tribunal de première instance Lanfranchi Jean à M (...)
- 19 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, “Arabe notable à Monsieur le procureur de la République,” File: Rapport Bargon (...)
22M. Lanfranchi considered this Yemeni elite protest as manipulation and an attempt to protect their interests.18 In order to prove this, he produced a letter that these notable Yemenis had written to the Procureur général well before the Hamoudi case had become an issue. The letter, dated 8 December 1927, detailed the maltreatment experienced by the Yemeni diaspora in Djibouti, and it demanded that the Procureur général, in no uncertain terms, stop considering Yemenis as natives since they were Yemenis who belonged to the independent state of Yemen, led by Imam Yahyah, and much more civilized than the Muslim autochthons.19 Because of this earlier assertion by notable Yemenis, their later demand to send the Hamoudi case back to the native court system and their accusation of anti-Islamism was seen by Lanfranchi as an attempt to save the Qadi and, ultimately, to accomplish their goal of appropriating Hamoudi’s money.
- 20 ANOM 1AFF-POL 697, “Tribunal de première instance de Djibouti, Procès-verbal d’interrogation, Incu (...)
- 21 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, “Le procureur de la République, Chef du Service Judiciaire à Monsieur le Gouve (...)
- 22 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, Arrêté n° 457, File: Dossier de M. Bargone Magistrat, 19 juillet 1930. ANOM, 1 (...)
- 23 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, Arrêté n° 461, “Arrêté désignant M. Bodin pour présider ad hoc le tribunal sup (...)
23Simultaneously, some within the administrative structure started to confront the magistrates, thereby creating an alliance between them and the Arab merchants, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, between the magistrates and Hamoudi inheritors who refused to cherish and uphold the Islamic domain, which the merchants characterized as being violated.20 In this regard, Barthelemy encouraged the Qadi to submit to his office a letter describing the maltreatment that he had experienced at the hands of Lanfranchi and his associates. More importantly, on 20 July 1930, the prosecutor of the Republic and now head of the judicial service, Ravailler, who had arrived a day after Bargone took the crucial decision to deal with the case brought by Hamoudi’s wife in the European court, wrote to the governor of the colony regarding the necessity of removing Bargone from post and nominating an interim president of the court of appeal in order to return the case to the native court.21 The governor, Pierre-Amable Chapon Baissac, implemented this request in a decree that canceled Lanfranchi’s status as president of the court of first instance and examining magistrate and returned M. Bargone to his role of acting president of the aforementioned court.22 In this reshuffle, the governor gave M. Bodin, who held a senior assistant position in the civil service, temporary control of the appeal court.23
- 24 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, “Le Président par intérim du tribunal de première instance Jean Lanfranchi à M (...)
- 25 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, “Le gouverneur de la Côte française des Somalis à Monsieur le Ministre des Col (...)
24Perhaps unsurprisingly, the measures taken by the governor were vehemently opposed by those affected by the reshuffle. As a judge nominated to his position by the court of appeal, Lanfranchi characterized the governor’s decree as an illegal act that he would refuse to obey. He also accused the governor of siding with the Qadi and his accomplices and of turning a blind eye to the situation, i.e., the Qadi’s supporters openly and forcefully persuading people to sign a petition and deliberately thwarting the judicial process through a “politics of delay and silence,” including the Qadi claiming to be too sick to attend court.24 In response, the governor wrote, opposing Lanfranchi’s statement and accusing Bargone and Lanfranchi of siding with contrabandists. He characterized the country’s politics not as those of delay and silence, as Lanfranchi described, but as those in which the administrators were at loggerheads with contrabandists and their supporters.25
25The dynamics set following the actions of Hamoudi’s relatives revealed the workings of the colonial state and the limited framework within which natives were able to act. Despite having socially different daily lives, the Yemenis operated within established colonial categories, which they also used as the basis for their actions. They acted as Muslim natives and used this legal category—be it protecting the Qadi and returning the proceedings to the native court system or moving away from the Qadi court. Their culture/civilization, in this case, Islam, was defined by the colonial state. It was viewed as a native custom and therefore constituted a juridical category. Abstracted from the difference it contained, it became a native Muslim domain within which Yemenis should act.
26The empirical material presented in this section questions Indian Ocean studies’ reified conception of culture/civilization and the role this body of study assigns to diasporas, specifically the Yemeni diaspora. The Indian Ocean and its port spaces have been characterized as an arena marked by a free-floating and enduring civilization/culture that creates cosmopolitanism. The Indian Ocean diaspora, particularly the Yemeni diaspora, is characterized as chief agents, instrumental in creating Islamic cosmopolitanism. This dominant assertion shall, for example, be noted in a recent publication of the field. Characterizing the Indian Ocean as “the most historical of oceans surrounded by many of the most advanced civilisations, and criss-crossed in all direction by trade, social interactions and cultural dialogues over the past several millennia,” Abdul Sheriff (2014: 12) informs us that “three communities emerged as iconic actors in this dialogue in the western half of the Indian Ocean: the Hadramis of south Arabian coast; the Swahili of the east African coast; and the Mappilas of the south-west coast of India.”
27In the Djibouti of the 1930s, the Yemenis on whom this article focuses did not lead a life marked by internal cohesion and cosmopolitan dialogue. In line with the prevailing view in Indian Ocean studies, the empirical material shows the problematics of de-linking culture/civilization, in this case, Islam, from the workings of states/empires and asserts a perspective that sees Yemenis as existing peacefully in their cocoon of civilization and generating civilizational dialogues. As in many parts of the colonized world, the Islamic domain was itself a colonial creation as Islam was imbricated within a juridical legal order of the colonial state (Hussin 2016). Ceasing to be an independent factor, it became an element used to advance the interests of actors in a situation in which law was used as a resource, and the Yemeni community was marked by internal divisions and the formation of odd coalitions—a situation far removed from the picture of cosmopolitanism and dialogue painted by Indian Ocean studies. The rhetoric of the merchants regarding the violation of Islam by the magistrates is perhaps the clearest example, illustrating what the culture/civilization of the Yemenis (Islam) had become within the colonial setting.
28In the following pages, we will delve into the contestation that developed following the escalation of the situation, in the form of riots, as well as in the final arbitration on the Hamoudi inheritance by the court of cassation in Paris, which ultimately had to intervene in order to resolve the issue.
- 26 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, Extrait du Plumitif des Audiences de la chambre des mises en accusation du Tri (...)
- 27 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, Chambre du Conseil des mises en accusation, M.P.C/Chamsan Consort, File: Dossi (...)
29The colonial law-based odd coalitions that surfaced in colonial Djibouti once Hamoudi’s relatives engaged in the described jurisdictional jockeying were not easy to break. Each camp followed its interests zealously. Thus, on 24 July, despite the governor’s actions, Lanfranchi presided as president of the court of first instance, and Bargone summoned the court of appeal on 25 July.26 On 6 August, the indictment chamber of the appeal court, comprising Bargone, as its president, Georges Laplaiché and Henri Olivier, who were assessors, in the presence of the substitute judge Gabriel Lucciardi and assisted by the registrar Perhando Léo, gathered to deliberate for the last time on the case of the Qadi.27 Based on these deliberations, on 9 August, the incarceration of the Qadi of Djibouti was finally ordered.
- 28 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, “Le Gouverneur de la Côte française des Somalis à Monsieur le Ministre des Col (...)
- 29 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, “Le Président par intérim du tribunal supérieur d’appel Joseph Bargone à Monsi (...)
- 30 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, “Le Gouverneur de la Côte française des Somalis à Monsieur le Ministre des Col (...)
30The Qadi was arrested on 10 August and, the next day, the situation fully transformed into a public problem. Following the arrest of the Qadi, rumors spread throughout the colony that protests were inevitable, and Barthelemy notified the governor that meetings marked by inflammatory speeches were being held in mosques.28 This rumor became fact when, on 11 August, Yemeni merchants assembled in front of Barthelemy’s office to demand the immediate release of the Qadi.29 Following the governor’s instruction, Barthelemy took the Yemeni notables, on foot, to the residence of the governor. During the march, which covered roughly one kilometer, the notables were joined by hundreds of people, including residents of the slums of Bender-Djedid and Bender-Salam.30
- 31 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, “Le Président par intérim du tribunal supérieur d’appel Joseph Bargone à Monsi (...)
- 32 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, Arrivée n° 2900, “L’Administrateur des Colonies Commandant de Cercle à Monsieu (...)
- 33 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, “Le Président par intérim du tribunal supérieur d’appel Joseph Bargone à Monsi (...)
31Although at this point, the gathering was peaceful, the situation became volatile when the governor summoned Bargone and Ravailler in order to negotiate the release of the Qadi. On his way to the governor’s house, Bargone was booed, and rocks were thrown at him, and when he attempted to leave the governor’s house, following his refusal to agree on the release of the Qadi, he was stopped by a barrage of rocks.31 Bargone eventually managed to go home under the escort of the Yemeni notables as well as Ravailler and Barthelemy. The situation, however, continued to be chaotic as the demonstrators marched on the prison to free the Qadi.32 Although colonial accounts of the crowd’s and the administrator’s actions varied, the Qadi was freed and taken to the hospital,33 a moment that brought the confrontation and uneasy relationship between the administrator and the Qadi’s supporters, on the one hand, and the magistrates and Hamoudi’s wives, on the other, to the point of no return.
- 34 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, Gouverneur au Ministre des Colonies,” dépêche télégraphique chiffrée, 10 août (...)
- 35 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, “Le Président par intérim du tribunal supérieur d’appel Joseph Bargone à Monsi (...)
32The governor wrote once again to the Ministry of the Colony proposing that Bargone returned to France to explain himself.34 On the other hand, Bargone, in his communiqué to the Ministry of the Colony, accused the governor and the Yemeni elites of organizing the demonstration and characterized those involved as hired hands who were primarily children and prostitutes.35 More dramatically, Bargone accused the governor along with the Yemeni notables of directly involving himself in the stealing of the Hamoudi inheritance:
It is said everywhere that he has shared with the Qadi, and the corrupt Arabs, who always gravitate towards inheritance money, a number of inheritances that have been mismanaged […] Inheritances that are supposed to be for those who inherit do not go to the appropriate persons.36
- 37 Ibid.
- 38 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, “L’inspecteur de L’inspection de 2e classe des colonies Bagot chef de la Missi (...)
33Following the riot, the colony came to standstill, to the point that major companies could not conduct normal operations.37 On 26 August 1930, in a bid to understand and resolve the situation, the Ministry of the Colonies formed an investigation team composed of M. Bagot, a second-grade inspector of the colonies, and M. Rouvin, who was the prosecutor of Madagascar. The team set off for Djibouti on 28 August 1930 from Marseilles on the vessel Porthos.38 However, the resolve of the Ministry of the Colonies and the prospect of a team of investigators heading to Djibouti did not stop the dangerous state of affairs from developing.
- 39 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, “Le Président du tribunal supérieur d’appel Joseph Bargone à Monsieur l’inspec (...)
- 40 Ibid.
34Bargone persisted with his investigations and arrested Mohamed Dileita, an Afar chief of the village of Bender-Djedid, on suspicion of taking part in Hamoudi’s inheritance.39 When released on bail, he went to Barthelemy as a representative of a third wife of Hamoudi who was residing outside the colony in Aden.40 On her behalf, he accused the first wife of Hamoudi of misappropriating the deceased man’s inheritance. This accusation was filed with Barthelemy, who had been against Bargone from the outset, and led to the arrest and imprisonment of Fatima Gayed on the very day that the inspecting mission was heading out to the colony.
- 41 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, “L’inspecteur de L’inspection de 2e classe des colonies Bagot chef de la Missi (...)
- 42 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, “Mariam bint Casim Ahmed à Monsieur l’inspecteur des colonies chef de mission, (...)
- 43 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, “Fatima bint Gayed à Monsieur l’administrateur des colonies chef de district c (...)
35When the inspection mission finally arrived in Djibouti on 7 September 1930, they were immediately bombarded with a range of opinions.41 They quickly found that the “affaire du Qadi,” as they characterized the situation, was complex and confusing. They were confronted with two factions, both of which had put various people in jail. They were also faced with various complaints, one of which centered on the arrest of Hamoudi’s wife, Fatima. Her arrest induced a series of debates and arguments in the colony. Both the pro-Fatima and those against her used colonial legal categories as resources to advance their causes. One of these actors was her mother, Mariam Bint Cassim Ahmed.42 Mariam wrote about the strangeness and inappropriateness of the situation, which had seen her daughter put in jail based on the accusations of a man who himself was a suspect in the European court. She further argued that her daughter should not be judged in the native court, presided over by Barthelemy, not only because she was a Yemeni on her mother’s side but also because she was a Turkish subject, given that her father was of Turkish origin. She further pointed out that one of her daughter’s co-accused, Bilal Omar, was an Ethiopian. Since neither of the two was native and since the law stated that if a litigant is non-native, then the case should be heard in a European court, she argued that the case should be dealt with under European jurisdiction. The argument that centered on the non-native status was not the only defense line that Mariam raised. She also stated that her daughter Fatima could not be accused of misappropriating her husband’s inheritance as she was the legal wife of Hamoudi. Fatima herself made similar arguments in a letter that she wrote, ultimately in vain, to Barthelemy.43
- 44 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, “Le Président du tribunal supérieur d’appel Joseph Bargone à Monsieur l’inspec (...)
36This latest claim that the accused were of Turkish and Ethiopian origin, respectively, led to a new discussion and contestation that rested on nationality. No such debate had occurred in May and June 1930 when the case was initially brought to the European court. At that point, all of the accused were regarded as Yemeni Arabs and presented themselves as such. The new game of nationality that Mariam and Fatima introduced quickly became a bone of contention. Bargone argued that it proved that the European court was the right sphere to examine the case, as Turks and Ethiopians are defined as non-native by law.44 However, this time, he also stated that Yemenis should also be judged in the European court as Yemen was not a subjugated country.
- 45 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, “Mémoire produit devant le tribunal supérieur d’appel siégeant comme chambre d (...)
- 46 This legal principle entails that a person who has chosen a course of action cannot have recourse (...)
37By contrast, Ravailler, who had consistently opposed Bargone, argued that these claims to a non-native nationality had not been filed or documented.45 He argued that the people concerned should be tried in the native court in the absence of documentation. Furthermore, he asserted that, even if it made no doubt that Fatima was of Turkish origin, she had become a Yemeni Arab by marrying Hamoudi. According to the 1927 law, this put her into the native category. Moreover, Ravailler argued that the European court could not hear this matter because of the principle of una via electa46 and judiciary’s indivisibility.
38The move that Mariam made was an attempt to escape from the native Muslim domain. Law, in this case, colonial law, was used by the natives themselves to define who was native and who was non-native. Fatima’s mother used a politics of indigeneity that was not based on previously existing social category but rather on colonial law.
39This shows again that the colonial state and its law cannot be brushed aside. The civilization/culture of the Yemeni, in this case, Islam, was secondary to colonial law. In this situation, it is hard to imagine the Yemenis as free cosmopolitan actors interacting to form Indian Ocean cosmopolitanism. As we will see below, the prominence of the colonial law over the Yemenis’ culture/civilization was laid bare in the final judgment of the court of cassation, which ultimately returned the case to the native court.
- 47 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, “Bagot chef de la Mission d’inspection à Monsieur le Ministre des Colonies, In (...)
40The investigators sent to Djibouti began by hearing the various statements, then conducted a series of interviews and examined several reports. They finally reached a conclusion on what had gone wrong. The commission found that it was wrong for the governor to issue a decree that aimed at reshuffling the judiciary as he was not competent to engage in jurisdictional interpretation. The commission also criticized Bargone for involving himself in different hierarchies of the judiciary. This led to a situation in which he was deciding on the legality of the action that he had taken himself. Bargone was also criticized for communicating directly to the Ministry of the Colonies without following the established protocol and mounting unverifiable accusations against the governor.47
- 48 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, “L’inspecteur de 2e classe des colonies Bagot à Monsieur le Ministre des Colon (...)
41However, the various criticisms that the inspection forwarded failed to resolve the situation. Although Barthelemy eventually freed Fatima on bail, he continued his criminal investigation.48 Similarly, Bargone and his associates continued their investigations and refused to free those already in jail. Going to the appeal court was impossible as Bargone was in charge and refused to give the files to the other faction.
- 49 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, “Parquet de la république chef du service judiciaire à Monsieur le président e (...)
- 50 ANOM, 1AFF-POL 697, “L’instructeur de 2e classe Bargone à Monsieur le Président du conseil Ministè (...)
42This situation ultimately led to the matter being sent to the court of cassation in Paris on 27 November 1930. The court had to determine the precise boundary between the European and native jurisdictional spheres and in which jurisdiction the case of Fatima and her associate should be considered.49 On 17 January 1931, the Paris court of cassation communicated its final decisions. Its verdict was to send the case to the native court.50 As to what happened after this decision, the colonial archive remain silent.
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43This study has shown how the dilemmas of the Yemenis brought in state actors and how the state itself was marred by dilemmas that undermined the colonial social order. Diaspora action in the legal field spilled over into the broader social order of the colonial state. In discussing this transfiguration of the dilemma at the diasporic level, this article has shown the place occupied by the diasporic community in the colonial framework. The Yemeni diaspora was not set apart from the state; they were part of the state. It formed a coalition and acted in conjunction with or against the actors of the colonial state. The colonial state engaged in defining the natives. There was, therefore, a genuine attempt, as Mahmood Mamdani puts it (2012: 92), to “define and rule.” This attempt to define the natives into specific categories that are simultaneously manageable and marginalized was even present in the final judgment by the Paris court of cassation, which decided to return the case to the native court.
44In practice, colonial power used colonial law to define, marginalize, and create a specific domain. It became a resource, in the language of Benton (2001), or an arena, in the language of Hussin (2016), that different actors used for different ends. In this legal arena, negotiation and contestation became essential to the diaspora, who emerged from it as a diversified category. Instead of accepting the Muslim domain, some opposed therefore undoing the supposed unity between Muslims or acting against the colonizer/colonized divides. As a matter of fact, the Islamic domain was not a cherished domain to be defended by the entire Muslim population. When it was defended, as in the case of the Yemeni elite, the defense was a strategic action reminiscent of what Benton (2001) calls “cultural intermediaries.”
45This reality finally runs counter to the often romanticized account narrative of the Yemeni diaspora in Indian Ocean studies. The field regards the Yemenis diaspora as being engaged in creating a cosmopolitan culture and rendering the sea into an Islamic sea. Although such cosmopolitanism can be widely noted and the Yemeni diaspora was instrumental in the spreading of Islam, its life and engagement in the colonial state was also marked by internal division, alliance with and against colonial power, and also rejection of the Islamic domain, which in the representation of Indian Ocean studies is almost considered the natural place of the Yemenis diaspora.
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