“A civil democratic rule, no tribalism, no partisanship, no factionalism,” is the ideal society as envisaged by a middle-aged Yemeni man in a short film produced by the civil society group, #SupportYemen. It was an answer to the question: “What do you hope for the new Yemen?”
But Yemen is nowhere near what seems to be a very distant utopia.
Nearly half of the population in Yemen lives below the poverty line. Millions are food insecure and the country as a whole suffers from persistent corruption and endemic violence. While US drones roam the sky like ravenous vultures that are ready to strike and kill, Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is wreaking havoc on the ground.
The central government of Sana’a, which has been responsible to guide a political transition towards democracy, transparency and equal political representation, is overwhelmed by the many challenges at hand: A rebellious North, a secessionist moment in the South and, of course, its own ineptitude and nepotism. Despite assurances to the contrary, there has been no concrete evidence that the self-serving elites that controlled Yemen under president Ali Abdullah Saleh is different from the current clique that reigns supreme.
However, no other future scenario is as frightening as a division between North and South. It is an unsettling possibility that is plausible under current circumstances where secessionists are empowered by the central government’s failure to provide a real vision for the future, let alone offer a semblance of security anywhere in the country.
The growing impatience was demonstrated on October 12 when tens of thousands of Yemenis took to the streets of Eden in the South of the country and demanded separation from the North. The date is significant, for it marks the 1967 independence of South Yemen, ending several decades of British colonialism. But for nearly five decades since then, Yemen is yet to find political stability, economic growth and, most importantly, settle the question of its national identity.
It has been two years and nine months since a large protest occurred in the Yemeni capital. Sana’a initiated what was quickly named the Yemeni revolution and ignited media frenzy that Yemen had officially joined the so-called Arab Spring. One of the most noteworthy dates of the massive protests against the 33-year role of Saleh was February 3. It was then that both Sana’a and Eden stood united under one banner. It was a momentous day because both cities once served as capitals of two warring countries. The youth of Yemen were able to fleetingly bridge a gap that neither politicians nor army generals managed to close despite several agreements and years of bloody conflicts. But that hopeful sentiment was never truly translated to a clear political victory, even after Saleh was deposed in February 2012.
Since then, a National Dialogue Conference (NDC) was convened with representations from various political parties, major tribes, youth movements and delegates representing South and North. Its job was to usher in the process of drafting a constitution by organising a referendum and general elections. September 18, 2013, was recognised as a deadline for these major tasks to be accomplished, but that date slipped away. Even worse, deep divisions began showing between all parties involved. Initially, the dialogue attempted to explore commonalities between delegates representing the ruling General People’s Congress (GPC) and the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP), uniting the opposition. However, conflict soon ensued between members of the JMP themselves.
JMP is made of several opposition parties, including the Islamic-leaning Yemeni Congregation for Reform (Islah), whose core supporters are based in the North, and the secularist Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP), based in the South. These two parties hail from entirely different ideological schools of thought and were not always united by their wish to defeat Saleh’s ruling GPC. There was a time in which the Islah, seen as Yemen’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, allied with Saleh to defeat socialists. “The socialist expansion emanating from the South bolstered the Brotherhood’s alliance with Saleh’s regime during the wars for the central regions (1978-1982) against what they called the communist tide,” wrote Farea Al Muslimi for Al Monitor.
In those years, today’s Republic of Yemen was two different countries: A Marxist-Leninist South Yemen, and North Yemen. After years of conflict, in which both sides were used to channel regional rivalries and an international Cold War, they became united on May 22, 1990. Soon after the union, a process of democratisation, elections, wealth sharing and more was initiated, but quickly fell apart. Southern leaders began speaking of a conspiracy to deprive their less populated, yet wealthier southern and eastern parts of the country of its resources by the tribal-dominated North. In 1994, political conflict descended into civil war where the South was defeated and thousands of its leaders and military men fled.
Although the Yemeni revolt of January 2011 ignited much national fervour throughout the country, talks of succession began resurfacing later on, when Yemenis, especially in the South, began losing faith in the political transition and the NDC. Another contributing factor is the state of utter security chaos experienced throughout Yemen — some of which is Al Qaida-led or inspired violence and much of which targets southern towns and activists.
Moreover JMP, which was slated as the united front of the opposition, became a major source of tension, for the socialists deeply mistrust the Islah and the latter, which strongly objects to any division of the country, is equally suspicious of its supposed political ally.
Not that the South is united, for the Southern Movement Hiraak is marred by division. Hiraak is composed of many political parties and factions and is torn by competing leaderships.
On October 8, only a few days prior to the Eden rallies, President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who was installed following the ouster of Saleh, declared that the country’s national dialogue was about to bear a long anticipated result. In fact, it was only “a few days away” from establishing a “united and federal Yemen”. But his anticipated breakthrough seemed irrelevant in the face of discouraging facts, foremost among them being that factions affiliated to the Southern Movement were boycotting the talks. Also, the signing of any accord “has been put off as the two representatives of Saleh’s General People’s Congress walked out and the GPC suspended its participation, rejecting any bid to ‘harm the unity of the homeland,’” reported Arab News.
Even if such an accord is ever signed, the dialogue conference cannot enforce any agreement that lacks a clear mandate and popular approval. Uniting a ‘homeland’ around similar ideals in a state of utter political and security chaos and rampant poverty is wishful thinking to say the least. Yemen must confront the terrible status quo that Hadi inherited from his predecessor, challenge the underlying reasons for inequality and poverty, avoid the trap of division as an easy answer to persisting problems, seek an end to American drone attacks and unite against political tribalism and Al Qaida. At the end of the day, a political agreement is a mere piece of paper if it lacks an egalitarian long-term vision and real partnership that unites all Yemenis, not just their political elites.
Ramzy Baroud is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is: My Father was A Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press).
