90 Silenced and Split They felt that because their parents came from rural areas with little education, the Yemeni children were at a huge disadvantage in terms of their socioeconomic status, education, and potential for social mobility. He said, “We knew as a community that we weren’t doing well.” Saleh further explained, The politics of Yemen, north and south – that got in the way. After unification, we managed to unify our efforts in the UK. And the younger generation was saying, you know what, leave the politics aside, the UK is our home. Yemen is our beloved and cherished heritage, but we need to get things right here, our home, and help set up something that will establish ourselves as a successful community. We set up the YCA to support Yemenis here with the principle of no politics, and that’s been a very successful ingredient in moving us forward. The benefit has meant that we have now been able to deal with the challenges that the community has faced – social, education, religious, health, recreational. All of the things you expect a community [association] to address. These sentiments were echoed by Afraf and Ragih, a wife-and-husband team who ran the YCA in Sandwell in 2012. While Ragih was from the South, he attested that they maintained the association as a strictly nonpolitical organization because of the turmoil surrounding the issue of southern secession. Even celebrations of national Yemeni holidays, such as Unity Day, were banned within the Sandwell YCA because commemorations of the 1990 unification process were controversial to many southerners. Like Saleh, Afraf and Ragih credited their association’s success in implementing social welfare programs to their strict dissociation from home-country politics. They acknowledged that politics were discussed in the Center, particularly during the once-weekly permitted qat chews. However, members were banned from distributing political materials or hosting political gatherings on-site. In order to combat accusations of cronyism, they published annual reports on their finances and held regular elections. In a parallel example, Saleh A., former head of the YCA in Sheffield, also credited the organization’s functionality with its insulation from politics. Saleh explained that he maintained neutrality in running the organization, but that the 2007 uprising in the South produced a notable degree of conflict. As a result, his role as head of the YCA eventually clashed with his sympathies for the separatist movement. He explained, Whilst I was clearly in support of the southern movement, and I made it clear that was my personal view, I was also conscious of the fact that I was the chairman of the Yemeni Community Association. I didn’t want the politics to get involved with the work that we were doing at the time. I remembered the day that the National Board of South Yemen was established that year, and standing in the meeting saying, please, we can express our politics and views, but let’s not allow it to divide the community – and automatically we should separate personal views or political activities from the Community [Association]. After four years as chairman, Saleh came to feel that “it was wrong of me not to be, not to offer my abilities as simple as drafting letters and petitions to governments” on behalf of the southern cause. He then resigned from the https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009272148 Published online by Cambridge University Press