Sa`id Ahmad Al-Jinahi’s I Was in Dhufar: Gendered Militarization and Modern Space in Revolutionary Oman

Sa`id Ahmad Al-Jinahi’s journalistic account of the Dhufar Revolution (1965-1976) seeks to define an aspirational revolutionary modernity by describing how militarization has the potential to transform gender roles in Dhufar. For Jinahi, revolutionary masculinity is the combination of an ideological commitment to armed liberationist struggle and the physical ability to master Dhufar’s challenging natural environment. Inside militarized spaces, both men and women may participate in this masculinity. Once Jinahi encounters women outside of these spaces, however, he sees them as sexual objects rather than as revolutionary comrades. This article argues that Jinahi articulates an aspirational modernity by, first, connecting Dhufar to a global space of liberationist struggles and, second, emphasizing an ideologically infused and environmentally savvy masculinity that strictly limits female participation to militarized spaces and proscribes women’s agency outside the physical boundaries of revolutionary armed struggle.