Welcome readers to todays offering from The Philatelist. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. We have a story about a ruler that managed to be both 60 years too late and 60 years too early.
The stamp today is 58 years old but surprisingly modern. Being from the late 50s, it shows the last gasp of the old ways in the Middle East. A Yemeni stamp from 10 years later would look completely different as it would have taken on the look of the socialist, pan-Arab movement. Yemen was a part of that, especially when the kingdom was deposed. The sad state of modern Yemen might look more like this stamp, as civil war as brought the old ways back to the present.
The stamp today is issue A19, a 6 Bogaches stamp issued in 1958 to honor the Arab Universal Postal Union. The stamp is part of a three stamp issue and according to the Scott catalog is worth $1.40 in it’s mint condition.
The stamp comes from the later years of the rule of King Ahmad and from what westerners might think of as North Yemen. North Yemen was separate from what was then the British protectorate of Aden. The King had ambitions to rule a greater Yemen including Aden and very much resented the British presence in the area. To further this goal, North Yemen joined with Egypt and Syria in the short lived and never fully integrated United Arab Republic. As a royal, King Ahmad was an odd man out in this, but he hoped to use it to further his anti British aspirations. These aspirations went unfulfilled. When the British left Aden a Peoples Republic of South Yemen was declared and North Yemen was a separate socialist republic. The two Yemens did not join together until the early 1990s and still is not a true country as it is beset with interference from Iran, Saudi Arabia and various militant groups.
Lets go back to the rule of King Ahmad, who ruled from 1948-1962 with a few short gaps during the frequent uprisings. Perhaps we should start with his title. His Majesty al-Nasir-li-Dinullah Ahmad bin al Mutawakki Allahla Yahi, Immam and Commander of the Faithfull and King of the Mutawakki Kingdom of the Yemen. From this you can probably gather that he was the religious leader as well as the head of state. To a great extent, King Ahmad concentrated all decision making in Yemen to himself. At the time there were pan Arab young socialist in Aden trying to get control of the country away from the British. I can see why they would not view the kingdom to the north as the way forward. King Ahmad’s royal line might have lasted longer if it had been able to come to an arraignment with Britain. They were after all more comfortable dealing with royals from the east.
The King’s rule has been criticized for being cruel and inward looking. The King did get most of his weapons from the Eastern Bloc and Nasser era Egyptians were brought in to help modernize. King Ahmad died in his sleep in 1962. The King had been weakened by an assassination attempt the previous year and much of the power had passed to his son Mohammed. King Mohammed only lasted on the throne a week before the head of the palace guard shelled the palace in Sana and ended the kingdom by declaring himself the President of the Yemen Arab Republic.
Well my drink is empty and so it is time to open the discussion in the below comment section. Some have reappraised upward the Socialist leaders in the Middle East when comparing them to what came before and afterword. Others think of them as just another group of outsiders colonizing. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting