But historically speaking, the people who lived in Djibouti, did they engage more with sort of coastal communities on both sides, both in the Arab Gulf peninsula and also, you know, the, the coastal areas along the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, more so than they would have with, you know, inland African communities? Or how exactly was this greater region that Djibouti was part of?

Yeah, certainly.

So Djibouti was part of this Indian Ocean dynamics.

It was part of the larger Red Sea corridor and also the Western Indian Ocean systems of interaction.

So if you look, for example, at the 19th century, uh, you see that the port space of Djibouti was controlled by Hadhramis from South Yemen.

And it means that this nationalistic historiographical reading of, of Djibouti that says that Djibouti only belong to these two ethnic group or is just an African state is highly problematic because Djibouti historical link or what is now called this area, not only Djibouti, because Djibouti is a recent creation, but the port spaces like Obock, Zeila, and so on, their historical in-interaction was more with places like Mocha in South Yemen, uh, or Hodeidah, and so on.

And there was two-way movements of people, trade, and goods throughout history.

Can you just tell us more about President Guelleh and this, uh, and these decades of essentially family rule?