Reports coming out of Yemen today suggest that Ali Abdullah Salih may finally have no choice but to sign his abdication. Yesterday’s altercation with supporters of Hashid shaykh Sadiq al-Ahmar near his fortified house in Sanaa expanded to the Ministry of Interior. Today it is reported that Sanaa International Airport is closed and the Central Bank of Yemen has been shut down as well. Yemen is currently in the dark, both literally and politically.

Having run his country into a ditch, indeed quite a large wadi, President Salih is desperately trying to go out with some kind of moral victory. He will not let the country succumb to Civil War, like Somalia. He will not let Yemen become a failed state and fall to Al Qaeda. He will stay in the country and join the opposition. The words sound conciliatory enough, but his political kalam machine has been spewing forth similar justifications ever since he took power lo those many years ago. Even the little boy who cried “wolf” in the fabled children’s story only did so three or four times. Continue reading Is this the last dance for Ali? →

The crucible of Yemen

The two opposing forces of unity and disunity are helping to shape the future of the struggle against Saleh in Yemen.
by Larbi Sadiki, Al Jazeera, May 22, 2011

There has never been a single Yemen, and maybe there will never be one. What is nonetheless exceptional about the revolt engulfing Yemen is that it represents a united stand, a cry for freedom and dignity. Thus it echoes the cry for freedom in Tunis’ Habib Bourguiba Avenue and Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

However, Yemen presents a prominent specificity; it’s a unity-disunity pairing that shapes and re-shapes the current moment of popular empowerment, constantly stirring the politics concocted within the Yemeni crucible.

Note that Yemenis feel insulted by the brand of nepotism and dynasticism engineered by Saleh and his ilk. The fissiparous forces which Saleh controlled, kept in check or used to his own ends through cunning, money, and even violence, are today largely rallied against him.

He dropped them like hot potatoes when political expediency demanded it. Now they are returning the favour. In this, Saleh’s foes seem to be united.

The interplay of unity and disunity are responsible for both Yemen’s moment of popular empowerment and weakness, as far as democratic protest and change are concerned.

One Yemen, many Yemens

In every sense, Yemen is breathtaking. It is a quilt of colours, climes, landscapes, regions, sects, tribes, customs, ideologies, histories and identities. Anthropologists would have a field day exploring it. But not so if one approaches Yemen with a narrow political science set of lenses. The risk to miss the “Archimedean point” – wherever that might be – is greatest here. Continue reading The Crucible of Yemen →

Ali Abdullah Salih, from 1978 to 2011

From the latest news reports in the region it appears that President Ali Abdullah Salih has agreed to step down within a month in an agreement brokered by the GCC. The plan calls for Salih to hand over power to his Vice President one month after the opposition signs on to the agreement, which they have reportedly done. Although, as I write this Salih’s decision to step down has not been broadcast in the state-run Yemeni newspaper al-Thawra or on his personal website. Two months later a national election is to be held. A possible sticking point is the immunity that this agreement provides President Salih and his family. The U.S. administration has already blessed the plan and it seems likely that it will be finally resolve Salih’s departure.

The protests against Salih have left the country divided and the economy, weak as it was to begin with, has basically ground to a halt. The poorest country in the Middle East is even poorer after three months of protests across the country. So what happens now?

The removal of President Salih will not solve the range of economic, ecological and social problems facing Yemen. Unemployment will continue, as the oil production nears an end; water tables will draw down even more drastically; imported Salafi conservatism will divide the population even more. In a sense Salih has been out of power for the past three months, simply hanging on as the protests gained more and more momentum. Unable, and apparently unwilling, to stop the street protests militarily (as Qaddafi is desperately trying), Salih deftly tried to garner his own supporters as a counter to those who wanted him to leave. But the hand writing was on the wall all along, given the wide coalition of groups who had grievances against his regime. The opposition seemingly united in its primary goal of removing Salih, but there is no single leading opposition party or leader waiting in the wings. Continue reading Yemen after Ali Abdullah Salih →