For years most Americans had no idea that Yemen even existed. Yemeni -American friends when asked where they came from would say “Arabia” as responding “Yemen” would simply draw a blank look. Even as Yemen is increasingly in the news most Americans cannot find it on a map and have no idea of its geography, history, or culture.
Recently this mountainous country in the SW corner of the Arabian Peninsula has been in the news, described by the media as a “haven” for terrorists; its religious leaders accused of inspiring terrorist acts. In late December, days after a Nigerian with alleged ties to an al Qa’ida cell in Yemen unsuccessfully attempted to detonate an explosive device on a plane bound for Detroit, Senator Joe Lieberman called for a preemptive strike against this poverty stricken country. Lieberman’s views are at best extravagantly naïve. They reflect a general lack of knowledge of the region and Yemen in particular as well as a short sighted view of available policy options. Unfortunately they are hardly unique.
For example, the US has in recent weeks and at the request of the Yemeni government carried out air strikes against Shi’a al Huthi rebels in the north, and Sunni al Qa’ida “strongholds” in the east which killed scores of civilians. It is unlikely that such attacks will eliminate al Qa’ida or crush the al Huthi rebels. Indeed, the al Qaeda attack failed to eliminate its primary target, Anwar Awalaki. What is certain, however, is that such attacks will strengthen radical elements in Yemeni society and encourage dissident groups with fundamentally different ideologies to find common cause against a foreign intruder.
I first became familiar with Yemen through the Yemeni-American community in 1970 when my family and I moved to SE Dearborn near the Ford Rouge plant. Our Lebanese-American landlady, ‘Amti Amini, rented rooms to two Yemeni-American men. Mohammed and Saleh were auto workers who lived frugally and repatriated most of their earnings to their families in northern Yemen. As an aspiring anthropologist I was intrigued as I knew Yemen to be one of the least known and poorest nations on Earth. And yet here were these two hardworking men car pooling to work every afternoon after cooking their lunch of stewed meat and bread and coming home every night only to repeat the same pattern day after day. Weekends were spent in the coffee house gossiping and playing endless rounds of double deck rummy. Every few years the men would return to Yemen for 6 months or so spending all of their savings and returning home to start work again. Following the pattern of many immigrant groups these men eventually brought their families to the US so that the community that was once made up of single adult males now includes many families with grandparents and grandchildren.
In January of 1974 just after the Yom Kippur War, my wife, two children (2 and 6), and I travelled to Yemen to see firsthand the impact of migrant remittances on that country. We established ourselves in the city of Ta’izz and this remained our base for the next 19 months. We returned again and again over the next decade and in the end spent almost 6 years in this beautiful and fascinating country. With only a few exceptions, the Yemenis we encountered were open, generous, kind, and tolerant. They helped us find permanent housing, a school for our son, and generally made us welcome in a city that at the time boasted no more than a dozen Europeans. Yemeni-American living in Ta’iz aided me in my research and invited me to visit their homes in the countryside.
On a later sojourn I traveled alone to even more remote parts of the country on foot, by taxi, transport truck, or Toyota Land Cruiser. Outside of the cities Yemen has no hotels or motels and I was frequently taken in by people who, ignoring my alien appearance (6’3”, blond, Scandanavian), dusty clothes, and halting Arabic, shared their food – often the best they had – with me, a total stranger. My hosts would have been insulted had I offered them money.
I should add that this kindness was doubly appreciated because the Yemenis while a generous people are far from obsequious in their dealings with foreigners. Never successfully colonized, they remain proud and fiercely independent even with respect to their own central government. Just so, they do not offer their hospitality out of fear. People are accepted on the basis of who they are not what they represent. And while Yemenis respect many of the things the West has to offer, they legitimately share no illusions about the superiority of Western Culture which as we all know has its own shortcomings.
So what has changed to make some Yemenis more bellicose?
For one Yemen’s population has tripled in the intervening three decades and now hovers around 23 million with more than half of the population under 20. Low per capita income and high unemployment means that many young men are poor, unemployed, and have few prospects for a better life in Yemen itself. Meanwhile, possibilities for emigration to the US, UK, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere have dwindled significantly.
Owing to the country’s rugged terrain and sparse resources Yemen’s central government has always been weak. Dependent on oil revenues and international aid, the county’s unity over the past three decades has tended to be artificially maintained by a top down redistribution of resources. As oil revenues shrink and population grows, the central government has less and less to redistribute among more and more people and centrifugal forces, perpetual in Yemen’ tribally based society, become more and more powerful. At the same time such a destabilized political and economic environment provides fertile ground for demagogues promising a future utopia based on a return to the rules of a mythical past.
Unrest in Yemen as elsewhere in the Arab and Muslim world is often precipitated by the actions of the US and what is perceived as America’s chief ally in the region, Israel. When Americans hear that American planes have bombed a suspected al Qa’ida “stronghold” in Yemen or Israel bombs a “suspected terrorist” in Gaza, American television rarely shows photos of bloodied children or the lifeless bodies of women and old men. Today television has penetrated every corner of the world and Yemenis in the most remote villages daily see clips of people who look much like themselves being bombed and killed in Iraq, Occupied Palestine, and Afghanistan. In some cases these images inspire rage. More often, however, they inspire horror, bewilderment, and sadness.
Recently a Yemeni friend of 40 years turned to me and said, “I love America – it has given me everything. Why do the Americans hate us?” Why indeed? Too often the United States acts out of fear coupled with a lack of knowledge of local conditions, social relations, and political realities. Our power is squandered on thoughtless acts of retaliation that murder the innocent and play into the hands of our enemies.
I believe that the majority of Yemenis remain kind, generous, and hospitable, and would prefer peace over war. Simone Weil, the French mystic of the past century, said that to love your neighbors is more than having a warm fuzzy feeling about them, it means treating others as if they enjoyed the same power and privilege as yourself. I would add that it also means abandoning indifference and accepting the consequences of one’s actions.
The belief that our military might enfranchises us to act with impunity is an arrogant illusion. America cannot bomb its way to peace in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, or Yemen anymore than Israel can bomb the Palestinians into accepting the confiscation of their lands and the obliteration of their way of life. The legitimate rights and grievances of the poor and less privileged are ignored at our own peril whether in Yemen or elsewhere. Real victory will come when the United States and its citizens have the courage to offer hope based on justice rather than retribution based on ignorance and its twin, fear.
In the near term, if America continues on the present course it will end by alienating the local population in Yemen just as in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our remaining friends in the region will find it even more difficult to defend us and the stability of those governments will suffer as well. And while Israel’s support will undoubtedly be retained, America needs more than one friend in a region stretches half way round the world and includes a large portion of the world’s energy resources.
Jon Swanson lived in Yemen for 6 years during between 1974 and 1984. His book, Emigration and Economic Development: The Case of the Yemen Arab Republic, was published by Westview Press in 1980. He continues to maintain ties with the Yemeni community in the Detroit Metropolitan Area and is Chair of the Ann Arbor Chapter of Friends of Sabeel-NA an ecumenical peace organization.
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