Yemen, your body lies crushed beneath the rubble that was the home where you were born your blood floods the land where sorghum supplied every need your breath is a raging wind, a gasp in the swirling dust but despite all odds you cling to life, you sing, you dance, you will not be denied.
Sanaa, your towering buildings bow down in prayer for the dead the saila swells with your tears Bab al-Yemen closes its eyes blinded in dark nights more dense than locusts devouring all they see but as the bombs flash hope shines through the alabaster carved by your grandfathers’ hardened hands.
Yemen, your past is like no other your present is not of your doing no matter how many bombs fall how many families mourn how long the world ignores you. The smile of one of your children will outlast all the vain kings in their palaces. Your future will not be denied.
Daniel Martin Varisco, February, 2022
[Words can no longer describe the suffering inflicted on the people of Yemen; the damage is beyond comprehension, where only poetry can dare to speak.I wrote this poem more than a year ago, but it is as relevant today as it will be for some time to come. But I stress the last line for an amazingly resilient people.]
In October, 2022, I participated in the Food Sovereignty Workshop at Ohio State University and discussed the issue of sustainable agriculture and water resource use to improve the opportunity for food sovereignty in Yemen and reduce the staggering amount of need for external food aid. A self-guided pdf tour is available online of the history of food production in Yemen here.
There is an excellent analysis in Time Magazine of how President Biden’s trip to the Middle East could help with resolving the protracted war on Yemen. You can read it here.
This is a fascinating analysis by Hassan Hassan of the Saudi royal family trying to rewrite its past. It is available on the New/Lines website.
Here is the conclusion:
“Whatever Wahhabism is morphing into, though, it will not lead to a new lease on life. In Saudi Arabia and beyond, Wahhabism has been losing ground for too many years. The factors that once helped it grow no longer exist. Politically, the state no longer needs the ideology, which would not have flourished without the state. Even if the Saudi state decided to change its view about the utility of Wahhabism, it would not be able to reverse the trend. Wahhabism ran out of gas ideologically before it did politically. The ideology, sometimes seen as a distinct sect even from the Sunni tradition it emerged from, had long projected power disproportionate to its actual appeal and strength because it had the backing of a powerful and wealthy kingdom and a vast network of rich and generous donors. That bubble has now burst, and Wahhabism is reduced to its right size of being a minor player in the Muslim landscape, progressively including in Saudi Arabia.“
Yemen, your body lies crushed beneath the rubble that was the home where you were born your blood floods the land breaks the terraced slopes where sorghum supplied every need your breath is a raging wind, a last gasp in the swirling dust but despite all odds you cling to life you sing, you dance, you will not be denied.
Sanaa, your towering buildings bow down in prayer for the dead the saila swells with your tears Bab al-Yemen closes its eyes blind as dark nights more dense than locusts devouring all they see but as the bombs slash the sky hope shines through the alabaster carved by your grandfathers’ hardened hands.
Yemen, your past is like no other your present is not of your doing no matter how many bombs fall how many families mourn how long the world ignores you. The smile of one of your children will outlast all the vain kings in their palaces. Your future will not be denied.
Daniel Martin Varisco, February, 2022
[Words can no longer describe the suffering inflicted on the people of Yemen; the damage is beyond comprehension, where only poetry can dare to speak.]
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office has conducted a major investigation into an antiquities dealer who bought looted materials from archaeological sites and museums. Read about it here:
Yesterday there was an extravaganza parade in Cairo parading the embalmed remains of 22 ancient Egyptian pharaohs to their new “eternal” resting place in the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization. You can and should watch the entire show, which you can do here. It featured a major musical composition of Mahleresque length, at times rivaling the soundtrack of Star Wars, but with a lot of drumming to match the pace of the parade. The parade included Egyptian women, shown above, and men dressed in “pharaonic” costume (with a Hollywoodish make-over), men in chariots and coffinesque vehicles carrying the pharaohs and their consorts. On the screen in the auditorium for the elite guests of President el-Sisi, there were scenes of several monuments and dance routines that might best be called an Orient Side Story. You can read all about it here.
The star of the show was the modern day would-be Ramses, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who was front and center before the staged event. He sat like a stoic behind a Covid mask for well over an hour; then as the caravan of his ancestral rulers neared the new museum, there is a scene of several minutes as he walks through the corridors, a smile on his face, to greet the mummies. The reason for spending a large amount of government funds on such a show is obvious: Egypt is desperate to revive the tourism industry. The choreographed show happened at night, with what appear to be few spectators, but the real audience was for those abroad. As one of the speakers said, the heritage of Egypt is the heritage of the entire world.
Presenting Egypt to the world of potential tourists is at the same time sending a message that Egypt is not a dangerous Islamic haven for terrorists, certainly not for the Muslim Brothers after el-Sisi took power. The heritage celebrated in the show was not Islamic, although the theme of ancient Egyptian faith and justice harmonizes with the positive view of Islam the tourism industry must push. The orchestra looked like any classical music orchestra in the world. The close-ups of the players showed most women performers without hijab, as was also the case for the main singers on stage. The only dress visible in the show was what would be seen as modern Western attire, elaborate stage dresses for the singers and supposedly ancient Egyptian costume.
I enjoyed the pomp and pop-cultured kitsch, and the music was enthusiastic in the best way. It was indeed a celebration of Egypt, with an echo of the extravaganza of 1912, when the opera Aidawas performed at the foot of the Pyramid of Cheops. I do not know of a recording from that performance, but here is Caruso’s rendition of “Celeste Aida” from 1908. I have no idea how many people watched that performance, but I suspect it was the better-off beys and not the peasant farmers. By the way, Verdi’s Aida was was commissioned by the Khedivial Opera House in Cairo and had its premiere on 24 December 1871.
The idea of the ruler overseeing a parade is a remake of ancient Egyptian rituals, where it was important to renew the divinity of the ruler, a historic note that perhaps made el-Sisi smile in the corridor. After all, wouldn’t all Egyptian peasants have adored their pharaoh, so happy to spend years lugging stone after stone to erect a monstrous resting place for their master? It’s a wonder why the Hebrews didn’t stay and keep making mudbricks instead of almost drowning in the Red Sea and ending up in the desert for 40 years…
Autocrats, no matter whether they are benevolent or not, love nationalistic parades. In 1971 the Shah of Iran celebrated the founding of the Achaemened by Cyrus the Great 2,500 years earlier. The Soviet Union and China love their military parades and Donald Trump tried to pull one off for Washington DC off when he was in power.
As someone who grew up wanting to be a Biblical Archaeologist and who started a graduate career planning to be a Near Eastern archaeologist, I have long been under the spell of the ancient Egyptians. My visit to the Cheops Pyramid when it was still possible to shimmy up the narrow passage to an empty tomb room and my walk around the ruins of Luxor left memories that continue to this day. If you have not seen these wonders, you should plan to visit Egypt at some point. But Egypt also hosts incredible monuments and historical objects from the Islamic era, especially the early Mamluk period. The entire history of Egypt is worthy of a parade, but only as long as we remember that poverty is still endemic in the country, the ills that led to the Arab Spring have not disappeared, and democracy has taken a back seat.
