Did Dr. Abdul-Karim Al-Eryani, The Atlas of the Yemeni Political Scene Shrug?

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I’ve recently finished reading Atlas Shrugged. In short, it is a philosophy wrapped up in a novel. A story. The philosophy is Objectivism. There are only two types of people in this novel. There are those who produce, and those who consume. The story is about what happens to a society that abandons rational self interest for collective whim. Producers and Looters.

I kept thinking a lot of Yemen as I read this. Lots of similarities. A country that has stopped. It’s arteries incapable of delivering anything. No fuel. No transportation. No production just consumption. No exports, just imports. No innovation. No creation. A country in technological and sociological regress. A country, just like the fictional dystopian United States in the novel, that is run by crooks and looters who lie to themselves before they lie to you, that they have the best interests of the country at heart.

In the novel, the…

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Did Dr. Abdul-Karim Al-Eryani, The Atlas of the Yemeni Political Scene Shrug?

I’ve recently finished reading Atlas Shrugged. In short, it is a philosophy wrapped up in a novel. A story. The philosophy is Objectivism. There are only two types of people in this novel. There are those who produce, and those who consume. The story is about what happens to a society that abandons rational self interest for collective whim. Producers and Looters.

I kept thinking a lot of Yemen as I read this. Lots of similarities. A country that has stopped. It’s arteries incapable of delivering anything. No fuel. No transportation. No production just consumption. No exports, just imports. No innovation. No creation. A country in technological and sociological regress. A country, just like the fictional dystopian United States in the novel, that is run by crooks and looters who lie to themselves before they lie to you, that they have the best interests of the country at heart.

In the novel, the people who can, the people who can create, lead, achieve, and succeed are hampered by a government. So they went on strike and disappeared from society. They would rather remove themselves from a society that is ruining itself, rather than be part of it or even try to reform it. In their eyes, collaborating with a corrupt system, with whatever altruistic intentions, with whatever desire to reform it from within, is tantamount to colluding with it. it made you part of the problem. It made you complicit.

This made me think of the many leaders in all fields in Yemen who had a reputation of being ‘good’. Of not being ‘part’ of the Saleh system that is now eating up Yemen like a cancer. Dr Abdul-Karim Al-Eryani was one of these kinds of leaders. He is renowned for his goodness. He had respect. He had a reputation of being one of the good guys. The puzzling thing for me was, why were there so many good guys happy to work for Saleh? Why did Dr Al-Eryani work for Saleh’s government? Is it really possible to maintain integrity whilst supporting corruption?

The following is a translation of an article that a twitter friend tweeted and I picked up:

The year of 1980 saw the beginning of the entrenchment of the Sanhaan cartel lead by Ali Abdallah Saleh as a political entity in Yemen after its eradication of the Nasserite counter coup led by the Free Officers which was the last attempt by the civic political powers of the land to prevent a monopolization of power by this Sanhaan-centered (and this is by no means meant pejoratively, merely a statement of fact) gang. A cartel.

It was a final attempt to claw their way back from a state of political exclusion imposed on them on August 24, 1968. The epicenter of this counter movement against this newly established monopoly of Sanhaan power? It was Taiz.

But what is the significance of August 24, 1968? The answer to that question, or the beginning of this story begins with Yemen’s very brief encounter with liberation from autocracy and its embracing of democracy in the revolution of September 26, 1962. It was the revolution that ended over 10 centuries of a sectarian autocracy that kept Yemen in a suspended state of medieval preservation.

It was not long after the success of the toppling of this autocracy, less than 5 years in fact, on the 5^th of November 1967 that a coup aimed at turning back the clock on this newly found Republic made its presence felt. It was a regressive movement, a royalist based movement. The then president of the young Republic, Ibrahim Al-Hamdi attempted to neutralise it from the political scene and end its threat. The cartel’s response, in which Saleh played a crucial and leading role, was to neutralise not only his threat, but his very existence. He was assassinated over lunch on October 1977.

In October 15, 1979 the remnants of the  much venerated Hamdi’s comrades made a final desperate attempt at returning Yemen to the more progressive path charted by Al-Hamdi, which had been derailed by his assassination. This was what was known as the Nasserite counter coup. They called it Al-Khutwa Al-Tas-hihia, or The Remedial Step. It failed.

Ali Abdallah Saleh chose the first anniversary of this failed uprising against his newly established rule, on October 15, 1980, to create a government lead by the now late Abdul Karim Al-Eryani. What this government signalled was an end of power-sharing between the Zaydia (who had monopolised power for the past 10 centuries in Northern and Central Yemen) and the Non-Zaydia elements of Yemen (ie the Shawafi’). For the first time since the revolution that overthrew the absolute monarchy of the Zaydia in September 1962, a clear signal was sent of the end of the power sharing formula introduced. For the first time since 1962 was the President, the Prime minister, the President of the Peoples’ Assembly, and the Head of the Supreme Court were all of the Zaydawi Doctrine ideology and school of thought. This brought power back into the hands of the very same pre revolution monarchist group but without the form of the previous monarchy. The minority not only grabbed back power, they grabbed back the right to share it. The message sent couldn’t be clearer, especially to the non Zaydi majority: We are back in business and this will cost you.

What this newly repackaged narrow bandwidth cartel of a government signaled was the restarting of a period of state sponsored political, financial, and economical exclusion of the Shawafi’ of Yemen. It was a start of their humiliation and impoverishment. A start of the stripping and dispossession of their wealth which they had accumulated over centuries as expatriates in trade abroad in countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia, Zanzibar, Madagascar, India, and the Protectorate of Aden.

The fact of the matter is: This was done under the government of Dr Abdul Karim Al-Eryani.

This government of Ali Abdullah Saleh, born of a coup and an assassination, had seized the centres of political and military power. What they did not have was economic power. Coming from a backdrop of Northern Yemen which had for centuries been subsistent on a Spartan existence based on self-sustaining agriculture, a smattering of a handiwork industry, and the loots of war. The economic powerhouse was almost entirely in Taiz. So much so that when the Sanhaan Cartel led by Saleh needed to finance their grab for power, the financier of their coup, didn’t come from their midst, or even across the border as some claim. The financier came from prominent merchant in Taiz. Some say it was Hayel Saeed. Others say it was another equally prominent merchant. This is what is famously referred to as “The Cursed 30 Million”, in reference to the alleged amount given to Saleh to enable him to finance his coup.

How did Saleh and the Zaydia political establishment go about to change this economic disadvantage to their greatest advantage?

The answer lies in the historic conflict in Yemen over the ages between the people of the Highlands of Yemen versus the people of Lower and Coastal regions of Yemen. It is a story of the conflict trade routes. These trade routes, these arteries of life, if not wealth, bringing goods to, through and from Yemen between the Far East and near Western regions. Yemen’s historic role, the one that made its fortunes, the fortunes which gave it the name of Arabia Felix, Happy Arabia, was based on these trade routes. This was in the past. Now, Saleh moved to turn the conflict into a conflict over who has the power to control the routes of all imports into Yemen. This is the first fact. As Yemen entered it’s modern age, it had lost all of its monopoly of these trade routes. The West found its own way to the East. Yemen went from trading and exporting to that of importing and consuming. Controlling what came in became a far more lucrative and powerful tool then controlling what, if anything went out.

The second fact was that Yemen, at the time of Saleh’s ascension to power, was as the former autocrat the Imam had left it. Al-Hamdi had indeed initiated a period of astonishing rapid development, but he had died before any of it matured. Sana’a saw most of this development followed to some extent by Taiz. The rest of Yemen continued in its preserved open museum status of the medieval ages it always was under the Imam. To this day, Yemen remains ripe for development and investment in almost every field.

So what to do? How should this ripe for investment cake that is Yemen be acquired? How shall it be sliced? More pressing to the Saleh regime: How can these economic subversion be done in a way that neutralises the economic powerhouse of Taiz and Ibb who were at the time the very people who had this wealth?

The answer came in the government’s Rationalisation of Import Decree. The idea in fact, was the brainchild of Abdul Aziz Abdul Ghani who had wanted to implement this concept in his own government, but swiftly recanted upon closer scrutiny, after realising the devastating impact such a policy would have on the people of Yemen in general, and the people of Taiz and Hodeida in particular.

The policy found its way back, and the responsibility for pushing it through this time, fell on Dr Al-Eryani who implemented it to the letter.

The Rationalisation of Import Decree was very simple. Stripped to its essence, it was a law that no imports were permissible without authorisation. And of course, there was only one way that that authorisation can be obtained: Through the express permission of Ali Abdullah Saleh alone. He was the source of these ‘authorisations’. Not even Dr Al-Eryani had the power to issue a single import authorisation.

The immediate effects of this monopoly was seen and felt over the ports of Mocha and Hodeida with almost immediate effect. It was impossible for traders at any and all levels to make the trip to Sana’a and to have access to the President Saleh, to obtain this personal authorisation which wasn’t written in law, but enacted as a fact. This was the origins of Saleh’s famous patronage system. A system which was open to those favoured by his regime and bestowed on the members of the right party, the right tribe, the right Sheikh, the right military attaches. Any merchant or businessman, who wanted to do business, now had to obtain this authorisation. The price of each authorisation depended on the percentage of the value of the import. Some imports at the time were in the tens of millions of Yemeni Riyals. The exchange rate at the time was 3 Yemeni Riyals to the US dollar. It was the most effective and quickest way to make money off of necessities and off of people’s backs. The business elite of Modern Yemen was born almost over night and they owed it to Saleh’s authorisations.

The second way to make money was to ban the import of certain items altogether, with or without authorisations, under the Rationalisation of Imports Decree. The excuse given was that it was necessary to keep foreign currencies in the country. In reality, what it did was devastate the ports of Hodeida, Mocha, and eventually Aden. It strangled their development and vitality. Instead, the door to illegal but protected importing of these very same goods, via Dubai, and placed in the hands of the tribes of Bakeel, Hashed, Khowlan and Mareb. Land locked Sana’a was, in effect, turned into the only viable port in Yemen. It was only a matter of months that many of the local merchants, producers, and traders from Hodeida, Taiz, Mocha and Ibb had left their localities and moved to the power source: Sana’a. With their migration to Sana’a, the economic powerhouses of Taiz, Ibb, and Hodeida went silent. What replaced the migrating merchants that headed to Sana’a, were Saleh cronies who’s corruption and role was to frustrate what remained of these businessmen and gave them two options: To cease to exist through complications that would strangle their business, or that they join the system by joining the illegal black market and to pay the tribes protection and authorisation money.

English Translation of Human Rights Advocate Radthiya Al Mutawakil’s encounter with the Houthi Women

Source: English Translation of Human Rights Advocate Radthiya Al Mutawakil’s encounter with the Houthi Women

English Translation of Human Rights Advocate Radthiya Al Mutawakil’s encounter with the Houthi Women

Saturday, the 19^th of September, 2015 wasn’t the first time that I have come across “Houthiyat Allah” (The Female Houthis), for I had seen them previously; when they were sent to a female sit in protest which occurred in front of the Al-Gudeiri station in Sana’a on the 9^th of August 2015. The protest related to the Houthi militia’s kidnapping of the leading figures in the Islah Party. At the time, I noted their red eyed glances at me filled with fury and incandescent rage as was similarly written about by the writer, Mahmoud Yasseen. Then, they screamed at into my face, that I had killed my own father and that I had sold him out at a cheap price. And that I was not worthy of association.

These comments weren’t important to me then as I wasn’t, in the first instance, the target, or raison d’etre, of their presence at the protest rally. Their target was the group of women participating in this political rally. I watched stunned at how the Houthis modus operandi used these women as a tool to transform a situation of protest of victims against the oppression of a usurping power, and trans morph it into an inter-societal confrontation. Community against community. Women against women. A crowd against a protest of victims. It was horrific scene in its appearance then, and also horrific when contemplating it’s repercussions.

That Saturday, we had come out in support of an invitation from the family of the Islahi leader Muhammad Qahtan, who has been forcibly detained by the Houthis (Ansar-Allah) for five months now. His family had declared that they will take part in a sit-in, in front of the National Security Authorities building, calling for his release. A smaller number of activists, some of whom were later detained,(included: Abdul Rashid Al-Fagih, Mahmoud Yaseen, Ali Al-Bukhaiti, Majid Al Mathhaji, and Bassam Al-Warafi) decided to continue with the protest close to the National Security with the aim of negotiating with the head of the Houthi Militia to allow the families to, at the very minimum, see their incarcerated relations or have any kind of communication with them. They were after reassurance. We were optimistic as a number of Houthi representatives seemed to be engaging and negotiating with us. It was then that the Houthi women appeared and headed towards us. Women dressed in the usual black attire, of black garments and the niqab. Some of these women’s eyes were red.

Initially, they made it out to be that they were merely citizens passing by, entirely by coincidence, and tried to introduce themselves as such. They said they were passing by, happened to see this ‘troublesome, threatening’ gathering of protestors, and took it upon themselves to protect the nation from this protest which is ‘aiming to threaten the stability of this nation.’ Yet they seemed to know exactly that I am Rathiya Al-Mutawakil and they directed all of their attention to me, and me alone, and not at any other member of our group.

“Come on, get up! GET UP from here! What are you doing here in among all these men?? Come here to the side we want to have a word with you. Come on, with God’s help, We won’t do anything to you…” they said.

In the beginning the situation wasn’t worrying me because I thought that the insults and the glaring was going to be as extreme as Houthi women are permitted to be at a protest. But my colleagues sensed danger to the extent that Ali Al-Bukhaiti and Mahmood Yaseen felt it necessary to step in front of me to create a physical barrier between me and these women. Meanwhile, Abdul Rashid my husband and colleague, was at my side.

The leader of this group of women tried to win over Ali Al-Bukhaiti by showing him a modicum of respect and gratitude, for he was the political activist who represented the Houthi faction at the National Dialogue Committee but recently has started to be critical of their transgressions. She said to him that she follows his news and respects him. Then, when they started to gradually escalate tensions, and the exchange between them sharpened, one of these women said:

“You are one of us but the people of ‘04’ have pulled the wool over your eyes and fooled you!”

What she was referring to by the 04 reference were the people of Taiz. Who’s cars’ driving plates in that region of Yemen were identified by that number.

The situation continued to escalate until a pre ordered lunch arrived. The women broke into the queue and started to pick up the food and the utensils and anything they could get their hands on and threw them at the people present. There were about 15 of these women. At that moment I tried to get the attention of a security personnel but he refused to do anything the entire time. I told the women to not play into the hands of the Houthis and let them use them (ie the women) to play this wretched role. I told them that I felt sorry for them. This prompted one to respond by saying that she felt sorry for me because I allowed myself to be in the company of men, implying a lack of morality on my part. They repeated that sentence many times and in a variety of ways. It was the first time since I married Abdul Rashid, who was holding my hand and shouting:

“This is my WIFE!! You have nothing to do with her!”

He felt he had to do this to protect me, and it was the first time that we had to do that, ever.

In the midst of all this commotion, their leader came up to me and grabbed my hand and said to me in what seemed to be a whisper:

“Have a bit of shame, you are the daughter of Al-Mutawakil, how can you be so ‘provocative’ with your eyes??”

I was about to leave her as my focus was on the growing altercation around me when her words made me stop and I turned around and asked her:

“What do you mean by ‘provocative’ with my eyes??”

The Houthi woman moved her eyes in a strange fashion and she whispered:

“ All that Kohl, rouge, the excessive pampering..”

What she was doing was repeatedly trying to besmirch my reputation. To imply moral degeneracy not fit for the daughter of such a respected background.

Only one camera was allowed to film and that camera was the Al-Masira TV Channel carried by a very young man who was laughing in a mocking manner.

The woman surrounded us like flies. Physically and verbally transgressing at us, and even describing us as traitors (implying we support the Saudi participation in the war as they were told we were).

I tried to console the terror in a little child Ghandi, the son of Ali Al-Bukhaiti, but to no avail. He was crying inconsolably in fear for his father as he held his little shoe and waved it at the Houthi Women around him.

“You are frightening the little boy!!” I implored them.

“ What about the children who have already been killed?” replied one of them. As if little Ghandi was the one who killed them.

Their crazed fury gradually increased as if they were remotely controlled. My husband took my had and tried with Mahmood Yaseen to extricate me from their midst in an effort to protect me from their blows. The violence had neared its peak at that moment. I tried to hurry my steps away from them for the sake of my husband but I knew there was no chance we could escape from their grip or beatings.

The Houthi women chased after us like rabid dogs after prey along a long stretch of road with a group of men behind them instructing them and supporting them when necessary. Even children were used to join them in this lynching mob with insults and beatings. As I tried to hold on to my husband’s hand and escape them, a violent push from one of these women made me fall on my back. Then, I just didn’t see the women. All I could see was the face of my husband contorted in intense pain. I got up for his sake and we continued with our attempt to escape them when a male member of the lynch mob shouted:

“Arrest her!!”

This order caused an increased effort on the Houthi womens’ part to hold on to me. One of them grabbed my headscarf and yanked it off my head in a deliberate and premeditated manner. I grabbed it after it had exposed half of my hair. At that precise moment all I remember seeing are the faces of Mahmood Yaseen and my husband’s in a final desperate attempt to extract me from their midst. They tried to do with while trying very hard not to touch any one of them. I will never forget the expression on their faces. Ever. I saw a nobility. Faces overwhelmed and the height of pain. They failed to pull me out from under them. The Houthi women closed in on me.

They separated me from my husband and the group and husband and took me far away. As I was led away, I made a conscious choice not to look back not only because I was aware that they were fully prepared to break my skull, but because I could not bear seeing the look on my husband’s face. I knew his heart was broken in that instant. Nor was I concerned at being at their midst as they grabbed me from every direction and poured insults at me with every God given ounce in their power as much as I was concerned with how this moment would delight the schadenfreudists. Not that schadenfreude in itself, concerns me, for it is the characteristic of people who have no weight in my life. What concerns me is how we can protect our humanity in the face of it and in the face of difficult moments of life. How to  refuse injustice and how to carve its ugliness into our memory and make no excuses for it. We have chosen this path and we have to bear it.

I was in their hands now as they continued to insult me and push me to an unknown direction. I asked them to stop for a moment while I returned the hijab over my head. Most of them sneered at my request as if I was a despicable woman trying to put on an air of chastity at the wrong time. Some of them acquiesced to my request and pointed at the kindness of the Houthis in allowing me to cover my own hair!

They pushed me into a car and got in beside me. The driver was a teenager from the Houthi Militia wearing official attire. He went to exceeding lengths to be as base and as degenerate as possible with his insults which included that he will take me to Mount Attan (* Translator’s note: Mount Attan is a mountain in Sana’a that has seen a lot of attention by the coalition airstrikes. The inference is to threaten with taking her to a place that regularly receives airstrikes). The woman that was next to me sat with clenched fists shaking.

At that moment I saw them take my husband as well as Majid, Mahmoud, and Bassam, into one of their cars. As I lowered my head to catch a glimpse of them, she raised her fist at me and I heard her say:

“Lean back or I will hit you hard enough to make your nose bleed.”

She was trembling with rage and to an extent that I knew would make her threats possible. So I said nothing.

At that point, the teenage driver said, as he leaned into the glove compartment, pulling out a black cloth and throwing it back to her:

“If she doesn’t mind her manners, blindfold her.”

To which she replied:

“I will blindfold her whether she minds her manners or not.”

She then proceeded to blindfold me. After that, all I could sense was the flood of swearing and personal insults, and accusations of treachery from inside the car, and outside it from the rest of the Houthi women marching along the car. I even heard a child scream:

“You daughter of a dog!” and it was then that I heard a woman whisper:

“No, (do not insult) her father.”

The Houthis, men and women, in their history of denigration to my person, whether on Facebook or elsewhere, always deliberately label me as a traitor. A traitor who has fallen foul of my greater Hashemite family, and my smaller family, in particular, My father, God rest his soul, Doctor Muhammad Abdul-Malik Al-Mutawakil who they refer to and speak of as if they own the rights to and as if he would have approved of their transgressions and even their violation of his daughter. They try very hard to establish this as a fact to the utmost of their ability, and for those who don’t know who Dr. Mohammad Abdul-Malik Al-Mutawakil, then the introduction would be a long one. Suffice to say, he was a civic man ( a polar opposite to a familial or ethnocentric based intolerant.) who was assassinated on 2^nd of November 2014. From that time till the present, the Houthis try, without success, in their efforts, to acquire him and what he symbolises to service their agenda. This is why their insults are prefaced with comments like:

“You killed your father…”

“You sold him out…”

“You betrayed your origins…”

They talk in a language of a familial intolerance more suited to child games played in a back yard. It is not the language of nation builders.

The rage, the fury that was evident on these women around us wasn’t born that day, or that moment. It is the result of planned and studied incitement practiced by the Houthi Militia aimed at anyone who dares criticize their transgressions. To those who reproach them, they unleash a lynch mob of its followers against the target, with a carefully selected lies, such as, in our case: That we were supportive of the Saudi attacks and that we were supportive of the death of civilians. This lie is just as silly, if not sillier, than the previous lie

I remained detained in the car, hearing them discuss amongst themselves, where they should take me. With the intensity of the insults, and in my blindfolded state, I fought back against all this with half a smile. I heard them whispering,

“Does she have the nerve to smile??”

I heard the hench woman stretch across her hand, and, feeling the movement of her hand across my face, she motioned a hand gesture that had a well-known meaning amongst local Sanaanis. The polite interpretation of that word is: ill-mannered woman.

I was released after about an hour and a half. Afterwards the Houthis released Abdul Rashid al-Faqih , and Majed Almzhadji , and Mahmoud Yassin , and Bassam Alorava ) in the middle of the night after a lot of pressure on the Houthi Militia who had incarcerated them at one of the security departments .

It was only afterwards did I find out that the Houthi Women had been sent to the sit in at the University of Sana’a which was protesting against the detainment of academics illegally held by the Houthi Militia. Some held for months now.

This is the new, novel modus operandi used by the Houthis in the face of peaceful protests is a Houthi invention previously unseen in Yemen or its previous authorities. They do not seem to know the stupidity of their actions are creating a feedback loop of revenge, thus endangering society by widening the cycle of violence.

I refuse calls that talk about the circuity of life and how the time will come when revenge will come back against the Houthis as a group. I refuse revenge in principal. We will remain n our position of defending any group that is exposed to injustice, even if the Houthis are that group.  Justice must be dispensed by the instruments of law and not by reflexes or reactions and counter reactions.

And to the Houthi woman, who was next to me in the car and wanted in earnest to know how I could possibly be supportive of the {Saudi} airstrikes, and I was about to enter a discussion with her before she was bundled out of the car to prevent that discussion taking place, to her specifically, I say:

“My dear, {It is impossible for me to be with the crimes committed by the coalition led by Saudi Arabia. I am not with it and we work against it with all the abilities we have. But the Houthi group, which you belong to and pushed you and your colleagues to physically and verbally abuse me wants to put all who opposes it and is critical of it’s transgressions in this mould. It lies. It lies when it tells you that those protesters are with the Saudi aggression. It lies to you to stir you against us. It does that because it doesn’t want anyone to be against IT’S criminality so it moves to distort any moral force that stands against the crimes of all sides.   

{My Dear}, who told me your name and was honest in your question, I don’t know if my words will get to you, but you must know that when the Houthis head out to take pictures of the bodies of the victims, we also go there to document them precisely. We visit those families, we talk to the witnesses. If you follow up you will see the truth that you would have found through me.

You have to know that demanding the release of those kidnapped and detained illegally isn’t a crime or treason and doesn’t endanger the public. We, during the Sa’ada wars had stood up against Ali Abdullah Saleh many times. We protested demanding the freeing of detainees then on the backdrop of THAT war. And Saleh, my dear, used the same language used by the Houthis today. The language describing the detainees as a danger. The language of war and emergency situations. But we did not remain silent. And we didn’t give up. And we stayed with their families demanding the implementation of the rule of law or their release.

Your group is lying to you. It lies because it (Houthis) are trying to present itself as The People, The Truth, The Nation. And that all that stands in the way of it’s many transgressions, the length and breadth of the country is a traitor and an agent. But this isn’t the truth my dear. Can you hear me?

We’ve tried the Blue Collar, Is it time to try the Sceptre and the Orb? (Again?) or Both?

  

So I woke one morning as I usually do scanning my Twitter time-line for the latest information on Yemen. That morning there was a bit of tension between some of the twitterati online. And obviously I am not going into that because, as with all things going on in Yemen, there’s what’s said, and what’s implied and what’s put on the table and what’s put underneath it. One rarely gets to the bottom of anything in Yemen unless you are a fly on the wall.  Yemenis have perfected illusiveness into a rare level of art form.  Accusations of ex royalty in cahoots with the ever irrepressible Saleh and his former arch enemies now loyal vanguards, the Houthis,were flung fro behind anonymous twitter accounts.  Non specific tweets aimed at the The-If-You-Got-A-Bump-On-Your-Head-You’ll-Keep-Rubbing-It (aka if the shoe fits wear it) Brigade. That sort of thing.

It got me thinking. This could be it. Saleh could have just played his last card. What he has done to Yemen is beyond what Mubarak or Gaddaffi has done to Libya. Mubarak didn’t use his army to over run his country. It was the State’s army. They maintained a level of neutrality in 2011. Yemen doesn’t have a national army. And let’s be honest, the Libyans under Gaddaffi were miles better off than Yemenis under Saleh. So this guy is the biggest mistake Yemen ever allowed on itself. Ever.

As an ordinary person, living outside of Yemen more than he lived in it. I don’t know a lot of details. All I can go by in this post is a little imagination and a little bit of logic. If Saleh is out. Who is left to fill in those great big shoes of his? This is where my lack of knowledge about Yemen is a problem. But maybe I can deduce?

Let’s assume that Saleh pulls another miraculous comeback. Let’s say that Operation Decisive Storm fails, the Saudis back down, and strike a deal with Saleh. That could happen. Ahmed has been in the United Arab Emirates and has seemingly managed to win over a few influential fans. But after what they have done, can the Saleh dynasty really go back to ruling Yemen as if nothing happened? Yes. In my opinion, Ali Abdullah Saleh and his son Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh CAN still return to power as if none of this ever happened because:

1. The vast majority of ordinary Yemenis since 2011 and even more so since Operation Decisive Storm are on the verge of collapsing. No jobs, no safety, no money, no petrol, food shortages, water shortages, no sleep,  bombs, chaos. People under these conditions are malleable and pliable enough to accept anyone or anything that will dangle the key to survival. Because this is what most Yemenis are needing now. Not democracy, or human rights, or intellectual freedom. They want to survive this war. They want to stop the chaos. If Saleh has the key to that. Then they will. take him back. This is more likely in the North. I don’t know if that is the case with the South.
2. Hadi has come out of this looking like, not just the coward, but a  traitor in the eyes of the Yemeni public. He invited the attack and even worse, allowed himself to be evacuated to the palaces of the very same people pulverising the country with their bombs from the safety of the skies. He came out from under the skirt of Saleh post 2011. He’s just fluff. Not even an insider of the Saleh regime. A puppet. Saleh contrasts favourably with Hadi. To Yemenis Hadi looks useless. And Yemenis need anything but useless at this time. Even if it means stomaching Saleh yet again.
3. Saleh can continue to wreak havoc until the population breaks. And he can do that because Saudi Arabia and all her allies will not and can not do is bring in a land force into Yemen. They can bomb, but they can’t hold ground. And that leaves Saleh and the Houthis on the ground. and that means its just a question of who can hold their breath the longest. The civilian non-combatants? The Saleh-Houthi regime? or the Saudis? Who will blink first?

But what if Saleh really has played his last card? What if he is over? Who or what is next? I mean AFTER the next stop gap temporary measure of a candidate who’s purpose will be  to plug the gap until a more permanent solution is found? A Houthi?  Unlikely. A Saleh protégé? More likely. A Southerner after Hadi? I can’t see it.

Well what’s left?

Royalty of course. Stupid.

Well that is the first thing that popped into my head. And before you scoff me off as some kind of out of touch British Yemeni, I would argue that sometimes, the people who are out of the picture see the whole picture. Better. or not. Maybe it’s just my imagination or my under developed political acumen that keeps seeing ‘activity’ on social media. manoeuvrings and

positioning, which could be entirely…. Altruistic. So I called friends and family and just asked: Is there an appetite to bring back the monarchy to Yemen? The answer was: All the Sadah are up for it like they always are. Many are Houthi sympathisers. I didn’t get why many would be Houthi sympathisers. The Houthis have just put their hands in with Saleh of all people. If they make anyone ‘King’ it would be him right? Unless Saleh is a secret royalist? That doesn’t make sense. Maybe they know something we don’t.  Any way these are details details..Details you would have to be a mind-reader to get to the bottom of. The point is: There is an appetite for a return to Monarchy among a sizeable minority in Yemen. And a sizeable minority is all you need in Yemen. The rest gets sorted through what’s- in-it-for-me negotiations.  There is no viable alternative in the short or medium term and there is a power vacuum in Yemen that someone or something needs to fill unless you want Saleh or one of his extensions back.

So here are some questions I find myself asking myself. Not being Royal, just a humble commoner myself, I would have to apologise in advance if my conclusions are off the mark. But hey,  I’m just killing time at work.

1. Would the ex Royal family of Yemen even WANT to come back and rule Yemen such as it is right now?

“We wants it, we needs it. Must have the precious. They stole it from us. Sneaky little hobbitses. Wicked, tricksy, false!”

We wants it, we needs it. And that literally was the first association I had when I asked myself that question. Smeagol from Lord of the Rings.  In my imagination I can see them pacing up and down in a dilemma. How many ex Royal families say: “We had it coming. We deserved it. Actually no, We shouldn’t have had it in the first place. Not the lands, the power, the authority, it was all wrong. It was all an accident of birth, here, take the Sceptre and the Orb, let’s have a democracy.”  .None. Now how many Royal families speak of God’s Will, God’s plan,  or God’s Test, or God’s Burden or the Divine Right. Most, if not all. The bottom line is they always have to be forced to relinquish power either by fleeing, by eviction or by death.

1. But would the ex Royal family want to come back? I imagine like Smeagoll they must be split about it. Some might be “no. no. no.”  the other might be like: “but we wants it..” Do they want it in a covetous way? Probably. Aren’t they human, like us, like everyone else? All they need is an initial invite which may or may not have been sent already. Who knows, right?
2. Reintroducing social casts or tiers based on perceived genetic lineage to revered religious figures is just, well, pathetic. Even if you can prove that you descend from the Prophet(pbuh) it doesn’t confer anything on you. It actually means nothing. Unless of course, you are implying that some of that holiness is somehow conferred on you? How does that work? It’s cool to subscribe to that way of thinking in the privacy of the Mafraj as long as it has no place legal or otherwise in the national narrative.
3. The absolute divinely ordained monarch model who can lock away an entire population from the rest of the world just won’t fly. Not even in Yemen. So we can cross that one out.
4.  The value of the Ring isn’t in the gold or the workmanship. That isn’t what kept Gollum from running after it. It was it’s power. Because power is what humans want. And if you bump into someone who tells you they aren’t motivated by power, then it’s because they aren’t anywhere near it or have no hope of it or they are lying. Humans didn’t get to where they are on this planet without controlling whats around them to survive and to eliminate threats. Power is about control and the ability to make things work for you and your survival. Look at Saleh. He made a grab for power as an illiterate scrawny whippet of a man and spent 33 years building a network of power to protect and keep himself there. Not that different from the Autocrat before him. Or, the autocrat that will come after him. What the next autocrat has to do is look at how the previous autocrats related to power and projected it and learn accordingly.
5. The United Kingdom has a very benign Monarchy and it works! Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have something similar in Yemen? What are some of the positive sides of having our own Monarchy?
   1. We would fit into the immediate region much much better. In the past territorial ambitions did cause friction between the Saudi and the Yemeni monarchies which cost Yemen three provinces but that is all in the past now.
   2. A monarchy would give us the right kind of wasta with the right kind of people. Saleh had access to all the Gulf autocrats. But he was a blue collar autocrat. He didn’t have the breeding you see. A bit of a Su3look with a lot of weapons, money, and cunning that would make a cobra look… cuddly.  So I can imagine they feared him, distrusted him,  I can’t imagine they respected him. In fact, it has now become clear that they haven’t. And the neighbors never liked the idea of a republican non royal Yemen next to them. Even if it was a total failure. Maybe that is why Yemen was locked out of the GCC club. Think about it. Two royal families chatting away over cucumber sandwiches or whatever they have for high tea in the high societies of the Arabian Peninsula (or the Saudi Arabian Peninsula as some are calling it now) and prince/princess A is on a swinging sofa under an imported Oak tree and says to prince or princess B: “Look, can you speak to your Uncle maybe he can sort us out with a couple of desalination plants because the poor buggers are dying of thirst and I am just BESIDE myself with worry. “ Or maybe that’s not how it’s done. I am just a commoner after all. Maybe they just tweet to each other instead: “ @SaudiArabianPrincessNumber3,428 : Can you sort us out with desalination plants ASAP #KefayaThirst “
   3. I joke of course, but really, isn’t networking and contacts the name of the game everywhere? And what does it matter as long as we have the right kind of support network. Let’s face it. Yemen can not stand on its own feet anymore. It needs help. The best kind of help it can get right now is if its immediate neighbours stop sabotaging it and help nourish it. And for that, I think, we need to ‘revert’ to being a monarchy again, join them if you can’t lick em.It sounds mad and a bit too avante guarde, a little too radical I know but that is what Yemen needs.  But that is just a commoners perspective, what do I know of Divinity and the Circles of High Society right? Right.
   4. The new generation is not the same as the last one! There one of us now! They have jobs, They’re trendy, They are world citizens. They’ve seen the world. They are educated. Charming. They tweet like us, go to protests like some of us.  What’s not to like right? Think of the added value they can potentially confer on Yemen. On tourism. On womens’ rights. Think of them more as Kings and Queens of the People’s Hearts. Like the late Princess Diana of Wales. Fundraising, charitable events, Bake Sales, Networking that opens up job markets, casual peer to peer royal connections. And all the while staying away from politics. Again, look PAST my irreverence , I can’t help but be irreverent I just don’t believe in Royalty. I believe in good governance. And if good governance comes under the rule of Royals then im all for it. After all, what matters more to people than good governance? The problem is good governance in Yemen is problematic under the system and culture that Saleh has created in Yemen. Saleh may or may not be gone, but even if he does go, he has left a template that a lot of the elite has adopted. But that is another issue.  The point here is that these lot are photogenic, convivial, modest (some of them) and cutely naïve sometimes. At least that is what is portrayed. It is always pot luck with these kinds of things.  You just never know that you are going to get. And what starts off as something isn’t what it ends up as because Absolute power does what? Yeah, absolutely..

And these are pretty much the only reasons I can think of that would benefit Yemen from a return to a monarchy. They aren’t much, but they are not little. Back of a Saudi Invasion and a Saleh/Houthi takeover bid. Because then people, once the dust settles down will say: Did Saudi/Houthis/and Saleh just pull a fast one and returned us to a monarchy? Is this what this is all been about? And that’s just the before the Qat conspiracy theories.  These means they have to be invited by the Yemeni people. This is a much better way in PR terms and it does give enough time and cover to work the scenes until the desired outcome is achieved.

Anyway this post can go on and on and I am supposed to be at work but I haven’t done any so I will quickly wrap it up and go to the most important part which is what I want from the monarchy.

• First of all I don’t want to kiss your hand. That has to go. Any 21^st century Monarch that is okay with that has to be hung. Including the ones who feign withdrawing their hands in mock horror. Be classy.
• Longer golden afternoons.
• More pomp and ceremony.
• A return to traditional Yemeni Garb preferably from fabric made in Yemen not imported from China. No to the Saudi Wahabbi black Hijabs.
• A return to indeginous architecture. No Spanish style villas with Tuscan style roof tilings.
• Do something about corruption. This is a big ask. Impossible really.  In fact, if you decide to come back and rule Yemen you will find that not only will you not be able to do anything about it, you will probably have to collude, participate, and be part of it. You will be forced to compromise from day one as long as any part of Saleh’s regime and culture remains. Real Politik.
• Complete decentralisation. Let every region have a generous amount of autonomy. Good for you, good for them, Good for everyone all round.
• Self-sufficiency food wise. Your ancestor managed it. Why shouldn’t you. And in fact, Yemen had the best diet without importing a thing.
• RETURN QAT CHEWING TO A SADAH ONLY ACTIVITY PUNISHABLE BY DEATH. Good luck with that.
• Freedom of movement to all Arab countries with a monarchy. That includes holidays, and right of work.

I think that about covers it. Hip Hip Hurrah. Hip Hip Hurrah. Hip Hip Hurrah.

Has Everyone Gone Mad?

Today some unconfirmed source sent over 60 human souls to their deaths. It could have been an IED or a suicide bomber. The objective to ensure that a certain sect of Yemeni muslims get the message that it won’t be an easy ride for them. The method is a technique so un-Islamic, un-Christian, Un-Jewish, so ‘un’ anything any religion would endorse. Only a cult would. To sneak into a crowd of people unaware of your presence and your intent, and to press the button that ends and transforms lives in a second.

Killing anybody, for any reason, for any price and at any price has become a normal way to do business in the Middle East. It is not just the hidden powers that finance and direct it, it’s become part of the very fabric of the societies there. A spectator sport with cheers, delight, and actual satisfaction. Actual, real, palpable satisfaction.

The jubilation of Saudi Arabian citizens and religous clerics at the wiping of 60 lives including children by someone too cowardly to even stand there with a machine gun and give them a chance to run or fight is probably one of the most disgusting things i have seen anywhere. I dont see any other race or co-religionists take so much delight and pride in seeing their own lying shredded on pavements or hospital corridors, or town squares.

They all say they are defending Islam. They will swear on a stack of Korans that they are doing it because God would settle for nothing less even when they are going against very clear instructions given in the Koran about: how to deal with people who you disagree with religiously, how to engage in warfare, how to deal with other muslims, how to be a Muslim and a human being.

I see very little Islam in what is happening in Yemen. I see a lot of religion. I see barbarity in the gloating of Yemenis and Saudis alike who are enjoying the spectacle as you would in a cinema. And a political elite who will take a gamble with a whole society on the off chance that things will work in their favour and hand them the only things that matter to them: wealth and power.

Now with the elite i am not suprised. What suprises me is to see normal citizens actually enjoying this spectacle.

Do yourselves a favour. Drop the act, get laid, get drunk, smoke a joint and go fuck a dog, but please, please dont be hypocrites pretending to be Faithful.

Ramses

“He’s Yemeni.”

“I’m sorry Madame. It’s an English driving license.”

So while my parents entered the pink Cairo Museum on the substantially lower ‘Arab’ price. I had to pay the foreign price. I didn’t care. It’s only a couple of pounds. To my mom saving a couple of quid is a way of life. I’ve always admired how my parents lifted themselves out of the poverty and limitations of the rural working class they were born in. Part of their success wasn’t just an education. It was their attitude towards money. Take care of the pennies and the pounds take care of themselves. My mom could have coined that. My dad and I look at money as something to enjoy when had, and bemoan when hadn’t. The only real way to make money, or save it, is simply to spend a lot less than you earn. So we waited until the attendant made it absolutely clear that I will pay the full price.

I hate museums. The bigger they are, the more diverse their treasures, the more they have for everybody, the more I hate the experience. First of all its the amount of things to look at. The many different directions to choose from. Should I get an audio guide or shouldn’t I. Should I start at the uppermost floor going down? Clock-wise or counter-clockwise?  The problem with me is I need a start, a middle, and end. I need a story. Or a theme. Or something, anything that lifts the comatose state that takes over every time I go in one of these generic, general museums. I’ll go to catch something specific, but not to spend an afternoon. My parents wanted to go though, so here we are.

My plan was to photograph my way through the experience but no sooner had we gone through security, I was told that absolutely no photography was allowed.

“I’m sorry but can I see a manager please.”

I did. The answer was still no. It was just me and the museum now. What made it even more irksome was my parents scampering from one room to the other. They’d obviously been here before. I was like the teenager that really didn’t want to be there. Skulking, dragging my heels, and dismissing everything as rubbish.

” You know what’s annoying? The only way to make sense of all of this is to hire a guide. Which you refused to fork out for, Mum.”  I moan.

” How am I meant to understand what I’m looking at here. Half the time they haven’t even written any explanations.”  I continue.

Annoyed at being annoyed. I try to convince myself that come on.. this is Ancient Egypt all around you. Every since I was a kid I was fascinated with Egyptology. In fact, one of my perverse hobbies as a kid was to make underground tombs in the back yard for me to excavate 6 months later. I would get a collection of ordinary cardboard boxes of varying sizes and connect them together to create chambers. These chambers I would spend weeks working on. Recreating hieroglyphics, The paintwork, the sarcophagi,  The next life necessities. It was a labor of love. I would then dig out an area and carefully put in my tomb. Carefully burying it and marking it out with a cardboard pyramid. When it was time, my brothers and I would carefully go around excavating and photographing the sites. Obviously the cardboard boxes got wet and started to collapse into itself but that was part of the effect. The mold that covered the guilded interiors. The rot, the fascination with the decomposition. Still, It kept me off the streets playing marbles,. So I kind of expected that I would be a bit more enthusiastic being there. Maybe all the best stuff was abroad?

Then I came across a chair. I didn’t recognise it at first, in fact I was confused. For a long split second, I thought I was looking at a modern piece. Art Deco. The simplicity of it. The The purity of its design and how it was put together. It was oddly minimal with very restrained,  a very sophisticated sense of ostentation. The only materials used were wood and gold leaf. It was a work of art this chair. Looking around I spot where I am. I’m in the Tutankhamen section.  The little boy king who inspired my backyard tombs in the first place. Suddenly the  museum leapt to life and so did I. I had a story. A story of a boy king. A story of design. Everything I had seen to this point was husks. Husks of pillaged dismembered tombs. Remnants of plunder. The left overs robbers and thieves. from the world over, have left behind, were brought together and placed in this building. A monument of the rejected. Not about what’s great, but about what is left. I can well understand why the Greeks want their marbles back.Tutankhamen’s tomb wasn’t pillaged. It was found intact. Whole. A complete snapshot with nothing missing and what a difference it made. Tutankhamen’s belongings humbled its observers. They were regal. Rich. Vibrant. They had the strangest ability to appear completely comfortable in 21st Century Cairo. If this was the tomb of an insignificant boy king, what did the tombs of the greater ones like? He might have been insignificant boy king, but insignificant boy king was behind an explosion of worldwide interest of all thing’s Egyptian in the 1920s. That was the Art Deco that I saw in the chair. King Tut gave the world Art Deco as far as I am concerned, and if you don’t believe me have a look. Its ancient Egyptian aesthetics all over. Then there was another chair. and another. and another. Each chair was a study in its own right. Then there were the beds, the pieces of furniture. The games. The chest of drawers. The iconic death mask. From a designer’s perspective it was amazing. How the objects were put together. How the material was manipulated to create something with function. It’s all very well to look at the Pyramids and say how brilliant, but to me its in the little details like the head rest carved to correctly support your spine when you are asleep. When you make or design something that still looks relevant and fresh nearly 30 centuries later, you have to at least pat yourself in the back.

As my mother’s enthusiasm over the museum waned, my dad and I were on the up.

“Let’s splash out and see the Royal Mummies.”

Either the price tag or the thought of seeing real corpses made my mother opt out. She sat on a bench next to what turned out to be a worn out looking Syrian woman. Yes. They started talking about Assad while we queued up to look at the royal mummies. I hadn’t realised that I was about to look upon Ramsis. I didn’t know he was there. He introduced himself first. All the other mummies looked the same except him. He stood, or laid, apart from the rest. All were an oxidised black. All looked somehow not human even though I was looking at actual dead people. All of a sudden I was looked at a dead person. For a start he wasn’t blackened. He was almost red. He had more hair. His face more intact preserving a face that almost looked preserved in the last throes of death. When I looked at the information plaque, it was Ramsis. My dad and I gawped. This body, this person, God commented on. This body saw Moses. The Seven Plagues. Who’s last moments were of the realisation of God as the Red Sea and the Door of Repentance closed on him. And just like that verse in the Quran has promised:

“We brought the tribe of Israel across the sea and Pharaoh and his troops pursued them out of tyranny and enmity. Then, when he was on the point of drowning, he (Pharaoh) said, “I believe that there is no god but Him in whom the tribe of Israel believe. I am one of the Muslims.” What, now! When previously you rebelled and were one of the corrupters? Today we will preserve your body so you can be a Sign for people who come after you. Surely many people are heedless of Our Signs.” (Surah Yunus 10:90-92)

It was one of those moments when the hairs stand on the back of your head, not just because of the presence of the Great Pharoah, but because of an infinitely bigger Presence right there in the museum with us. Or me. A quick look at my dad told me it wasn’t just me. Ramsis had made us very much aware of God.

“Look at me and make your choices.” Ramsis seemed to say

“He is rather special isn’t he?” said an Essex voice, slightly cutting through the atmosphere

“Yes. He is” I said to a middle aged but well preserved English couple as we start a conversation.

” Did you know he was received with the full honors of a living head of state by De Gaulle when they sent the body to France for analysis in the 60s?” I was boasting.

“Oh really?” She said politely.

“And one of the scientists who analysed him converted to Islam because they found a high content of sea salt in his remains.” I continued.

“Oh really? Isn’t that fascinating.” She humoured me.

Then my father told her about the verse of the Koran where Pharoah is promised to be preserved as a Sign. He wasn’t Quran bashing. He was sharing our fascination.

“Tell me,” She said with that every so polite tone that only the English can produce, “Does it please your Father to think of Ramsis in eternal damnation?”

That comment, and she said it with full eye contact. It’s one of those seemingly innocent,  innocuous things that come out of uni-cultural people like:

“So how many wives do you have Abdullah?”

“So where do you stand on the whole terrorist thing. Is it a good thing a bad thing? What are your thoughts?”

Essentially its patronising which is fine but don’t do it to my dad in front of me and when my dad speaks to you and you ignore him to answer him indirectly through me, then I think somebody has forgotten to pack their manners with their sunblock.

” I don’t think it whets my Dad’s appetite to imagine Ramsis undergoing Eternal Damnation.” I mimicked the faux smile of geniality and deliberately waited as if waiting for her response. I meant to make her feel embarrassed and uncomfortable. I suppose what she was really getting at was a confirmation to herself that Muslims do get off on the suffering of others. The idea I suppose, was that we were meant to fall over ourselves, foaming at the mouth, shouting Allahu Akbar. Burn Ramsis burn. How smug. How patronising.

“Look, it’s not really about whether my dad gets off on it or not. What it is about for my dad and I is that we are standing in front of someone who God Himself singularly commented about. Not in one of the Abrahamic faiths but all. I’m presuming your Christian right? You do believe in your Bible don’t you?”  Well if she can presume, why can’t I? I know most Brits are secular and she could be one of them but hey, lets generalise and play stupid. And put on icy frigid smiles and pretend to be civil.

“And I don’t think the first thing my Dad is going to get asked when he’s summoned from the grave is how much he celebrated Ramsis’s suffering. Everyone answers for themselves.” My face in the fakest smile I can contrive

“He has done a lot for Egypt” she said at one point.

“Including the Seven Plagues?”

Fake laughter all round.

Afterwards, I asked my Dad if he felt she was rude for ignoring him. What about her snidy comments?

“Really? you read all that in her comment?”

Seriously Dad. So I’ve got a chip on my shoulder?

We go back to where my mom was sitting with the Syrian lady. Clearly a lot of water had run under the bridge of their brief friendship. There’s obviously been some tears. They hug like theyre long lost friends about to lose each other again.

When I repeat the story of the English woman to my mom, roughly translated equivalence, she said:

“What a bitch”

That’s what I thought.

Shouf 3ala fatalah is what my mom said.. that does mean bitch right?

Cairo Embraces

I woke up early next morning. Not out of choice and not exactly refreshed. Having slept only four hours thanks the camping arrangement where I was sharing room with my mother. My father opted for the room with no air conditioning type, but mother definitely was the air-conditioning type as was I. So after 3 decades and a half, I went back to sharing a bed with mom. Not only did I have to go to bed fully clothed, I was also treated to a vast repertoire of mom’s finest symphonies which I would have shared for you if i can find a format that allows. Never mind, it was beyond human and lets leave it at that.

I have a brother who who still lives at home. He’s very attached to her. They share a bedroom wall. When she’s not snoring at night will go into our parent’s bedroom out of worry to prod her. Just to make absolutely sure that she hasn’t died in her sleep. As long as she’s snoring, he can happily go to sleep. The problem is I can’t go to sleep. And I am not happy. I have probably had 9 hours sleep in these last 3 nights in Cairo. Shuffling between the kitchen and the balcony drinking one coffee after another, I conclude that something has to be said and done. This can’t go on another night and there’s around 40 to go. I can see clearly how sleep deprivation is effective as an interrogation tool and why its a form of torture. Somehow in spite of the caffeine, the nicotine, and the snarling cacophony, I pass out. Not sleep. Pass out. Only to be awoken by mom.. Prayer time..

“Come on.. come on so God can bless you.. Come on ya rouh galbi..”

A spasm of rage, but its only momentary. It’s all right for her, she’s only slept about 9 hours.. I get up stagger to the bathroom, which, you guessed it, didn’t have water, and improvised an ablution, semi consciously did my prayers and rush back to sleep before she does. However, her excitement filled the room.. She wandered around inspecting the flat and presumably decided it was a good time to give the kitchen a top to bottom deep cleansing.

“Mom, we need to talk.”

Dad was up already. So this was as good a time as any.

“Mom, we have a problem here.. I couldn’t sleep a wink and here’s the reason why.” I said, promptly playing her the recording on my iPhone.

“ See that bit there? That is not healthy. That’s crazy snoring. Sounds like you’re having a heart attack there. I can’t believe you get a good night’s sleep, I certainly didn’t.  In fact I’m nearing irrationality. I need to find 8 hours of sleep somewhere or I really will just go nuts.”

The recording just makes her laugh and scream both out of sheer joy and mock horror. Dad is also amused. He dispenses some of his experience: She only snores when she sleeps on her back. If I give her a nudge then she usually rolls over.

“Actually that’s not true. Once you wake up mom then that’s her night sleep over for the night and boy will she let you know about it next morning. You’re supposed to sleep next to your husband anyway. Go snore next to him. I need to sleep in my shorts and roll around. It’s a bit odd sleeping next you now..”

I was on a roll with the grumpiness. It’s my nature. Take my liver but leave me my sleep.

To make up for the grumpiness, I fix them an amazing breakfast and pull out the gifts I bought them. A handbag for mom which she loved, hated, and loved again and hated again just to make sure. She loved the perfume even though she asked for something else, which I disagreed with because she kept saying Coco. That’s Coco, right there on the label, see? She definitely liked sweaters although she had reservations wearing orange. I was safe with the face creams that she specifically named and asked for. You will use it regularly right? Not just on special occasions that never comes right? She loves being frugal with everything even though most of the time it doesn’t really make sense. She covered me with kisses which made me feel like an unreasonable bastard for not revelling in her snoring. Dad loves a bit of luxury. So I bought him an expresso machine and about 4 packs of Lavazza coffee. And some expensive bone china expresso cups and saucers.

“ I dare you to tell me this isn’t better than Yemeni coffee.”

“ It won’t be. Does the expresso machine work if I use Yemeni coffee?”

“Should do. Come here I’ll show you how it works.”

After breakfast, I force myself to do the dishes. I know housework makes my mother tired. There’s no point telling her to leave it and that I’ll do it later. Mom will do it now. She will do it now if her back hurts, if she’s depressed, if her arthritis is killing her. As much as I hate washing up, I push her out of the kitchen, and do it myself. Only to find her working on the bathroom.

“Mom. We are on holiday. H-O-L-I-D-A-Y.” I say exasperated.

“Yeah. Yeah. I’m just doing a quick once over.”

“No. No. “ I make a grab for the mop.. “holiday means a chance to break from the routine. You’re here to see doctors, have a different kind of month for once in your life, and relax. Relax as in take it easy. How am I supposed to relax if you’re cleaning all the time. It’s either I join you or ignore u in guilt, none of which I want to deal with on holiday. See? ”

I spend hours on the phone from London letting her unload how depressed she is. How no one helps her with the housework. How she still does the shopping, saving the pennies taking public transport, and carrying bags of shopping up 5 flights of stairs. Then there’s the cooking, the cleaning, the washing, the ironing. This was her retirement. None of my siblings including myself earn enough to help her out. In fact it was only recently that they gained a degree of financial independence when they lucked out with employment. I’ve always been financially independent but never in a position to say: here dad and mom, here’s a regular amount every month.

I was holding in a lot of guilt. This holiday, was for me, a chance to talk about all this out with my parents face to face. How do they feel about me permanently living in the UK? How is our family holding out? What are their worries? What are mine? How are we going to move this forward? My main concern is my parents’ quality of life. I’m very protective over them now. I find myself holding both their arms when we cross the streets in Cairo. Even with my dad, who oddly enough, was quite happy to let me do it. Which is really odd. Odd that my dad gives any inclination that he needs us to rely on. Guilt guilt guilt. Guilt mixed with love. Guilt mixed with self interest. Self interest because I have made it clear that I am no longer cut out for the particular way of living that’s needed in Yemen.

“Remember when you said that after the first year in the UK?”

“Really?”

“Yes, we still have the letter..”

“There was a letter?”

“Have you forgotten? Don’t you remember the 10 page letter?”

My parents are a forgiving lot. A lot of parents from Yemen wouldn’t put up with a fraction with what I get away with. A member of a family abroad is an asset in Yemen. Could be used to help other members move out of Yemen, or send a regular some for the parents, or come back home and get a job and start the 2.4 routine. I can barely put up with my own expectations. Having the expectations of an entire culture? Just go jump in the pool.

My parents don’t want money off me. They want me happy, settled, with direction and kids and seemingly they will give me all the time in the world. As long as I’m healthy and see them as much as I can and call as often as possible, then they are happy. But this isn’t sustainable anymore. They have done enough to secure themselves and to have enough to sustain my siblings. My mom retired into a daily grind of household chores and Dad still works. He loves what he does. It keeps him alive and young. It is clear however, that they miss me. That at least they want to see me more often. They will never say it outright. It’s just there right underneath the surface.  We definitely need to talk.

We finally leave the flat into the bleached white light of a sunny mid day in Cairo.. Mother has made it clear that frugal will be the word of the day. My dad and I have other ideas. We laugh at mom’s idea of frugality. Well, to be honest, I don’t understand her concept of frugality. If the three of us can take a taxi for 6EL to Tahrir Square why on earth would the three of us take public transport to save 3EL? Why? In the end, we walked it. All the way to Tahrir. And what a wonderful walk it was. Just.

For starters, I felt like I was taking school kids on an outing. If mom stops to window shop, dad walks on. Or dad would cross the road and mom would obstinately decide that was uncalled for.

“Dad, could you just wait there for a second. Come on mom, let’s cross over. No, you can’t go into that shop if you just want to get an idea of prices.. It’s sightseeing day today.. come along. Let’s stay in one group. Mind the curb. Dad there’s a manhole coming up stop talking and mind your step.”

We would have gotten to Tahrir Square sooner but there wasn’t a traffic warden, a concierge in front of a building, or a vendor that my mom, in particular, didn’t stop talking to. Of course, everywhere we went, we found a consensus that  Yemenis are ,indeed,  the best people.

My mom relished the walk. My dad and I weren’t so keen. Dad wasn’t a walker and I was sleep deprived. I always had a hunch that retirement didn’t suit my mom. In fact all this household chores stuff she took up was a distraction from an emptiness that suddenly enveloped her life. What a horrible soul destroying distraction. While dad turned his little hobby into a modest business that just about broke even, mom wasn’t even doing something she loved. I wanted to put her in a position where she could see that. In fact, I can see a change in her already. She didn’t just walk, she strode. She was looking outward, not inward. She wasn’t focusing on her aches and pains. In fact, when I asked her how she’s feeling, she said she feels fine.

“Well, this is the Tahrir.. “ dad says.

I look around. I hardly recognise and feel slightly annoyed for not recognizing. It was eerily empty and quiet as the public holidays had just started for Eid.

“That’s the building that the baltagia were throwing the rocks and molotovs from. They killed at least one person here. Look! There’s the graffiti that memorialises it. See? It’s this building. And that’s where the tents were but they cleaned it up and covered it with grass recently. Saw that on TV. Those are the flyovers where they dropped stones on people splitting their brains on them, poor souls. “

And on and on she went. How did she know all this, I wonder? Wasn’t the electricity meant to have been off in Yemen all this time? She not only knew the flashpoints, but she also knew which waves of protests started from where and ended where. She knew about maspero, she knew about who burned the churches and why, she knew names, positions, parties… I was a bit gobsmacked. She must have been watching the events in Cairo as diligently as the events in Sanaa as much as the electricity in Yemen would allow. My aged mother, more Arab sprung than I?

At this point my parents were remembering roads and directions. Instead of stopping strangers now, they bickered with each other over who’s memory is more intact. We started to come across places that even I can recognise from the intensive coverage it received during the events.

When we came to the now famous wall of graffiti my parents literally came to a stop. Like at an art gallery they took the time to stop, consider, read and discuss every single one. Growing up in the 50s and 60s made politics and dissent something that is in their blood. It even reflected in their tone. They weren’t laughing. Just studiously going over each letter and image and talking about it and Egypt. Then a curious thing happened. Something I’ve never seen them do. They were arm in arm. I’ve never seen them do that in Sana’a. Maybe because it wasn’t the done thing? When I commented on it they immediately unhooked. Insisting that I want to film it, I make them link arms and walk as I slip behind them as they sauntered ‘engage’, as the French would say. I really loved seeing them like that. The body does age, the vision blurs, and the vitality diminishes. But the person inside doesn’t. That’s how I saw them then. The same  young man and woman who might have walked these streets 35 years ago.

That wasn’t the last time I saw them linking arms. I think they lost their inhibitions and remembered their youth. Not that you need reminding in Cairo. I wasn’t struck by how young the population is over here. Yemen’s population looks even younger. What struck me was that love seemed everywhere in Cairo.  After grafting all day, Egyptians seem to have two other main preoccupations: One was food. The other was love. It was the latter that surprise me the most. You don’t even get a whiff of it in Yemen, but in Cairo it was everywhere. But more on that later.

Leaving the Grafitti, we walked down this road that I forgot the name of. My mom said this used to be the posh part of Cairo. It definitely looked it. The buildings around me surprised me. Yemen has a way of absorbing the little outside influence that its had architecturally, and culturally, to make it its own. Even motor bikes and trucks get customised in Yemen so that they are unmistakably Yemeni. To an outsider, Yemen looks like its entirely indigenous, which for the most part, it is. Yemen is made up of a variety of different subcultures. Each distinct from the one sitting next to it.  But each subculture stands on its own. Sort of monolithic . Cairo isn’t like that. Cairo is layered. It’s a patchwork. A mosaic.  A tapestry woven of all influences and ages that comes together to make something entirely else. Yes I was looking at Victorian French buildings and walking through Italian looking neighbourhoods with Turkish mashrabiyahs, but they were Egyptian French looking buildings and Italian neighbourhoods. Egypt seems to have the capacity to absorb without being diluted. It takes a strong sense of nationhood to be able to do that. Not that a few centuries of colonisation were ever really a threat to at least 4000 years of continuous existence. Yemen is similar in that regard. But Egypt doesn’t assimilate as Yemen does. Egypt collects. It preserves. It keeps.

There’s a shabby chic quality to Cairo. Like a fine Persian rug worn wafer thin. Cairo wears it very well. It embraces you but not too close to suffocate. It invites you without making a fuss making you feel instantly comfortable.

At one point we were at a juice bar and served by a guy who just didn’t look Egyptian to me. The palest of skin and the bluest of eyes.

“He’s probably Sharkasi.” Said my dad. (or at least that’s what I thought he said)

“Isn’t that a way of cooking chicken?”

He then proceeded to tell me where his origins could come from, which I forgot, but I think it was something like Albania or something like that. Or Armenia. My dad said there were many Greeks who emigrated to Egypt when Greece was an economic ruin, much as it is now. Only now they have EU bailouts and are busy taking their rage out on their immigrants, but I digress. There seem to be many Greek families who made it big in Cairo. They kept their language, their customs, their religion yes, but they also took up the Egyptian thing. Like the juice guy here. That made me remember Dalida. An Egyptian born of second generation Italians. Egypt seems to take a hold on you somehow. I can totally understand why although fraught with economic and political issues, Egypt is a big deal, not only to Arabs, but to non-Arabs as well. Israel has gained a lot by yoking Egypt into the Camp David Peace Accord. Israel gained as much as Egypt lost. Not just because Egypt nearly wiped Israel off the map during the Yom Kippur war if it wasn’t for an air bridge of military and sattellite assistance from the USA, but because, as the cliché goes, if Egypt is strong, then the Arab world is strong.

And for the record, I had no idea that Egypt could have won the Yom Kippur, I put that down to orientalist propaganda too. Dad told me all about that later. And what a story it was. Didnt know that military schools around the world look at the Egyptian military’s tactic in the Yom Kippur War as a classic to be studied.

The Kindness of Strangers

The next day Mom was due to arrive. She left explicit instructions that she doesn’t need to be picked up from the airport because she was ‘back in old stomping turf’ she was familiar with. She was sure that there was still an express coach that takes you from the airport to Tahrir square for a pittance. She may have not been to Cairo for the last 35 years, but in a way she never left it. My mother is in love with Egypt. This is hardly a surprise. She came here when she was 13. Without chaperones. She came to get an education. Something her mother, who died illiterate, did not want for her daughter. And as painful as it was for both of them to part, it was a price she was willing to pay for her offspring. There was only 14 years difference between them, and she only managed to visit her in Cairo once before she died suddenly, in her late 30s, of shock. My uncle, her son, was listed on a passenger list of a crashed plane, that he wasn’t even on. She jaundiced and passed away shortly after.

For my mother, Egypt represented her youth. A life that took a departure that didn’t happen to many of her female peers in those days. A life changing experience. Egypt was a surrogate to her in so many ways. A surrogate home. A surrogate mother. A surrogate family. A surrogate nation. She told me many stories of her times there and one sticks out more than most, and here it is:

Having failed the maths and science assessments, the principal at her school decided that she would not be accepted into secondary school. This meant there was a very real risk of her returning to Yemen before she even started her education. So my dear teenage mother sat on a bench outside and had a good cry. As she sat weeping in helpless terror, she described what happened as follows. A shiny black car pulled up to the entrance of the school. A chauffeur popped out to open the door to his passenger. The first thing she saw was a well heeled foot, then an ankle, then bit by bit, an elegant egyptian woman in a black dress and coat emerged. This complete stranger to my mother, noticed her immediately, a child sitting in a bench alone and crying. She sat next to her and asked her what is the matter. My mother told her the whole story. How she’s just arrived from Yemen. How she failed the two exams. How the school would not admit her, and how she might have to go back home to a disappointed mother of her own, who worked herself to the bone to get her to Egypt in the first place.

The woman asked my mother to follow her. It was more of a command as my mother describes it and my mother duly trotted after her back to the principals office. My mother never figured out who this woman is, but all the staff  jumped to attention at the sight of this chic woman in black. She disappeared into the principal’s office after telling my mother to wait. When she came out, the principal asked for a member of his staff to get my mother to RESIT her two exams. Not only that, but with ‘assistance’.

Before they took my mother away to ‘resit’ her exam, the woman sat with my mom, who was profusely thankful and even more teary than before.

“Do you know why I did this? It’s because I have a son who is studying abroad and I  miss him very much. I think about him every day. What is he doing? Is he eating well? Is he safe? Is he healthy and doing well?  Maybe by helping you, God will send somebody somewhere to help my son if he ever needed it.”

With that the mysterious woman in black walked out of my mother’s life forever after playing a short but very memorable role in it. My mother never ever forgot her. Even after 35 years. Needless to say, she passed all of the resits with flying colors. I love that woman for what she did for my mother like she did me a personal favour.

While we waited for my mother to arrive, Dad and I went to a seafood restaurant. This is what Dad and I love to do the most. Eat. We ordered shrimps, some kind of river fish, a selection of pickled stuffed aubergines and courgettes, and salad. The waiter suggested that maybe we ordered too much for two. He was wrong. very wrong. I didn’t care what the GP said about not eating anything cold, and avoiding the salads, and that hepatitis was everywhere… This is isn’t living.. I thought: screw it.

I decided that I was going to meet mother at the airport after all even though my dad said he was sure she was capable of finding her own way there as she requested. However, sometimes when my mom asks you to not do something, what she really is saying is: No. Do it. Make sure you do it. And since I am not a mind reader I opt for assuming that what she’s really saying is: Please pick me up at the airport.

Jumping into a taxi, I head for the airport. Dad had called in a plumber to try to resolve the water problem so he stays behind. As we drive across a golden afternoon lit Cairo, I look at a tall imposing burned down building..

“What happened there?” I wondered.

“That was burned down during the revolution in January..”

I didn’t even recognise the now iconic building.. It was a great opener though for yet another political discourse with another taxi driver.. Only this guy was cheerful and very likeable.

“So which airport are we going to? The old or the new one?”

Crap..

Now I was in a taxi with no idea where we are going. Dad had changed his mobile number for an egyptian one I forgot to take down. Mother would not have hers on. switching data roaming on and adding another couple of hundred quid onto my bill, I call my brother in Yemen to ask him if he knows which airport my mother is landing in which he doesn’t.. I ask him to get me dad’s egyptian number which he gives me incorrectly a good number of times.. As my bill escalated we were rapidly approaching the airport. When I finally get through to dad, he doesn’t know either.  The taxi driver asks an airport security guy about the Yemenia airlines and we figured it out. Not that there was a huge distance between both airports. In fact, they were almost walking distance. Never mind. It’s only money.

Just as I run up to where the passengers come out, I see my mother.. She is peering through the glass looking around but doesn’t see me. My guess was right. This was one of those times when she was saying the opposite of what she wants. She doesn’t see me waving  and she disappears again. For about half an hour. I hide in the crowd as I see her coming out. I wait as she passes me before I creep up behind her and grab her handbag.. She’s too old to hit me when I prank her and I give her a cuddle, much to the amusement of her female travelling companions.

If you’re meeting my mother for the first time, the first thing you’ll notice is she talks a lot. She talks to you, she talks to the guy behind you, and she talks to herself with an interchanging fluidity that is bound to confuse and mesmerise you. Add to that her poor hearing and it makes for hilarious results, or draining ones, depending on the day. Without every doing it intentionally, she’s a walking theatre production. While I tend to be restrained and formal with people I don’t know. She is the complete opposite. She charmed that taxi driver all the way to Dokki. In fact she so surprised him that he kept nudging me saying things like: “Not even a lot of Egyptians would know that..”  Usually I get a bit embarrassed because I assume people want to be left alone, not dragged into a non ending conversation, but quite often I find myself reproaching myself for judging my mother so harshly, especially after seeing how much she amuses, charms, and warms people to her. She just talks her mind and doesn’t worry about it later.

By the end of the journey home, the driver exchanges numbers, wants to show us around Cairo, and tells me: You have a wonderful mother.

Seeing my parents together, outside of the context of the familiar that is Yemen, was a revelation to me. I saw them in an entirely different light from the first day. They seemed alive. Why wouldn’t they? This is a trip down memory lane for them. They spent the best years of their lives in this city. They met in this city. They fell in love in this city.  When they were too concerned about  the lack of medical facilities in the newly Republic of Yemen, they delivered me in this city. And even though what we were really doing in Cairo is a medical examination of a critical health situation that my mother was recently diagnosed with.. somehow.. it was the last thing on their minds. And for the first 2 days, it wasn’t mine either. I was just engrossed watching the two people who mean the most to me as they watched Cairo after over three decades.

The Benefits of Working Class Parents.

Eventually I headed to back to the hotel to collect my bag from storage. I was already running a scenario in my head where there is no bag to collect and no proof I ever left one there. Tired, sweaty, grimy and not a little grumpy, I threw budgetary concerns aside and taxied it all the way to the hotel. So preoccupied was I with the bag that I left the taxi without my iPhone. My iPhone. With all my contacts, my Skype, my twitter, my instagram, my games, my camera, my Omnifocus personal organiser, my music, and in a way, my indispensable friend. In a taxi moving away from me into a foggy metropolis.  Had I forgotten a baby, my own offspring, in a taxi, would I have bolted the way I did down that road? Would I have gotten that surge of adrenaline that made me run like I was 15 again? I’d like to think so. I’d really really like to think so.

Thanks to the near permanent near gridlock that is Cairo traffic, I managed to catch up with him, open the door and get into the car. It took about 4 minutes to find the phone which smoothly slipped out of my baggy trousers, down the side of the seat and was somewhere underneath. A long 4 minutes. When I got it back, it was as if I got another chance at happiness..

At the hotel, I was pleasantly and shamefully surprised that my bag was still there.. Clearly whoever put it into my head that Egyptians, or Arabs, or Middle Easterners in general, can’t be trusted, can’t be trusted. I blame the Hollywood industry for that.

As the receptionist gave me my bag, I gave her a guilty tip. Guilty for doubting her integrity, or as she put it, trust. She looked at the 100 egyptian pounds I put in her hand looking surprised. Clearly, I unintentionally overtipped and I wasn’t going to admit it. I’ve never been good with money.  Acting as if over tipping is what I do for a living, I coolly walked out.

I arrived at the building where the free flat was situated. On the 6th floor. My father refused another free flat because it was on the 6th floor. But you can’t escape destiny. He ended up with the 6th floor again. The only difference was that this one was in an ideal location. It was residential. comparatively leafy, quiet, and close to downtown. Close to everything in fact.

He wasn’t there. He wasn’t there 4 hours later. There was a female caretaker and her family who were responsible for the building. They made me feel comfortable in a waiting room. Offered me tea and water. Got me an electric fan for some reason, and generally made me feel quite welcome. Finally my dad arrived. I barely had the energy to give him a hug. Seeing him made my day. I patted his big pot belly affectionately. But I wasn’t going to offer to carry his bags or mine up 6 floors. But after giving my head a couple of kisses and a big fat man hug, I find myself taking up the bags. One soul destroying floor after  another. Talking all the way. I notice he handles it worse than I do. For the first time, I look at my dad and appreciate that he’s an old man now.  My dad, is an old man now.

Half way up we come across 2 teenage boys washing the stairs and landings.  As if its the most natural thing in the world, my dad asks them if they are with the caretaker family. They said yes.

“Can you help us with the luggage?”

Yes. Dad is here, everything is going to be okay.  They take the luggage and practically run up the stairs with it. Dad gives them two Egyptian pounds each. I was going to say isn’t that too little but remembering the 100 I bestowed earlier, I thought maybe I better learn from him.

Then we entered the flat. And I went flat. All day long I was waiting for this moment. A shower. and a bed. There was no bed. or water in the shower. What we walked into was a half finished flat. covered in dust.

“Wow. What do we do now? Mom’s coming tomorrow and there isn’t even a kitchen here.”

“Dad, come look at the bathroom.. ”

“Dad, there are no bedrooms. there are no beds.. what the hell are we going to sleep on tonight even..”

While I went around moaning and grumbling.. Dad went around resolving. That’s what’s great with working class, self made, parents. However successful they become, however much they achieve in their life, they never lose the Spartan ability to adapt and make do with whatever little they have. Spartan for themselves but for their children, they tended to over indulge. I remember once when I went on my first school camping trip. I was meant to be away for a week. My dad showed up with a foldaway bed. All the other kids had sleeping beds. I had a proper foldaway bed. Of course, it made me stick out like a sore thumb for good or bad, and I felt a little too royal to be totally at one with nature, but its the thought that counts. They’re loving parents.

“Look, There’s a TV, an airconditioner, There is a fridge in that room over there. The rest of the kitchen is in that room there. The sofas are foldaway beds. Take one and take it too the other room. There’s bedding and pillows wrapped in that blanket over there. Get the shoes out of the fridge and move it to the kitchen. Get a broom and start brushing while I try to get the water going.”

That’s my Dad. I snap to and start cleaning.  Then I get smart and call the boys. Who do the cleaning while we work on the water which we never ever resolve the entire stay. There were hints that that was the case because there were two huge plastic bins filled with water with a hose from the sink’s tap feeding into them.

“Dad, I think the idea is when the water comes, we keep filling these containers for when there is no water. ”

And that was how it was for the entire stay. whenever we heard the gurgling of the pipes, we grabbed towels and made a mad dash for a quick cold shower.

Pretty soon we had a cleaned up organised flat that really did have all we really needed. Life was good. I pull out a sofa bed. and crash.

“