I still remember that sentence whenever Yemen is
mentioned. That was in 1988 when I accompanied my friend Abdel-Hakim Gamal
Abdel-Nasser in a visit to Yemen to honor the name of leader Nasser along with
other Egyptian figures who contributed to supporting Yemen revolution like
martyr al-Wakkad and martyr al-Messeri. In that visit, we met General Mortagi
and Lieutenant General al-Qadi. Also, Yemeni people warmly welcomed the delegation.
In our way from Sana’a to Taiz, a retired
Brigadier-ranked old man was driving our car. He was one of those who fought
with Lieutenant General Hassan al-Amri and won in the 70-day Siege of Sana’a.
After visiting the palace where Imam Ahmed used to stay in Taiz, the old man
narrated part of the stories about the conduct, tyranny and bloodiness of
Imam’s ruling or Hamidaddin family, and how the Imam used to have an
executioner assigned to beheading those whom the Imam wanted to kill.
He also told us about martyr Ahmed ath-Thalaya, leader
of 1955 revolution against ruling of the Imam, when he was arrested and brought
to Imam Ahmed Hamidaddin in Taiz. In front of the palace, he was beheaded after
talking to his executioner saying: “kill me well, you dog… tomorrow dogs will
eat both you and your master”. Our guide told us that ath-Thalaya
pronounced the first half of Ash-Shahada or the two declarations of
faith while he was still alive and his lips continued pronouncing the second
part after his head had already been cut off his body!! I asked the man: “how did this happen?” He answered
that if the executioner is well enough and the sword is a sharp cutting one,
then the one being beheaded does not feel anything and his body organs keep functioning
for several minutes.
He continued saying that “Killing by sword is more
merciful that shooting down” provided that the executioner and sword are like I’ve
already described above. Our guide added that after prince Al-Badr became Imam,
people rejoiced and thought he would be better than his bloody tyrant father until
he stood behind that window – our old guide pointed towards a window in the
palace – and addressed people ascertaining that “if my father used to order
heads be decapitated, then I will order bodies be cut in halves”!
Here we have a comparison between dying by sword or by
gun as if killing, death and blood are inevitable and we’re just discussing
how well the means to kill is.
Therefore, bloodshed didn’t stop unless for a small
period of time after Imam’s rule was toppled and 1962 revolution erupted and
stabilized. During that time, the graphical line representing the historical
events was continuous with ups and downs not void of blood. In fact, the matter
that Ali Abdullah Saleh was still alive and playing his effective and perhaps
decisive role during the time from 1978, when he became president, until the
day he was killed on December 4, 2017 should be called into question and not
the way he was killed, for all laws of nature and those in the holy books, also
the norms and human cultures, rule that the bloodshed Saleh was involved in is
enough to pay his life for more than one time.
A poor orphaned child raised by his step-father, Saleh
worked as a shepherd then was looked after by his brother. At 15, he joined the
army and went promoted in ranks in the armoured forces until Lieutenant Colonel
Ibrahim al-Hamdi seized power and went constructing a contemporary modern Yemen
and trying to establish an institutional development replacing the
under-developed tribal structure. Al-Hamdi had along with him hundreds of the
best university graduate Yemeni youth who had a clear Arab-national orientation.
However, Saleh directly colluded with al-Ghashmi in
killing al-Hamdi and his brother in a heinous unbelievably mean way as al-Hamdi
and his brother, a military leader as well, were baited to a villa in the
suburbs of Sana’a to attend a meeting for the leadership of the military arm of
the unionist group including those youth. There, several foreign girls were
brought and everyone was slaughtered to make it look as if president al-Hamdi
and his brother were involved in a moral scandal.
Supported by Saleh, al-Ghashmi assumed the office of
presidency until al-Hamdi’s friends and partners in the union movement between
northern and southern Yemen avenged his killing. An official delegate from the
south went to deliver a message from Salem Rabie’, president of southern Yemen,
to al-Ghashmi and once the bag containing the message was opened, it exploded
and everybody was killed.
Saleh didn’t come to power on board a tank or cannon,
rather amid bloodshed that did not halt as Saleh killed with his hands thirty
young men representing the leadership of the unionist group while his troops
killed hundreds others. I have no idea if that phase in history was documented
and its events were evaluated or not. I do not hide that I was a friend to and shared
common political ideology with many of the leaders whom Saleh killed.
Bloodshed went further on, whether in northern or
southern Yemen, as all interested in the Arab affairs in general and in Yemeni
ones in specific still remember the heinous fierce fighting that took place in
the Democratic Republish of Yemen “southern Yemen” although they all belonged
to one party. Also the Marxist ideological belief was replaced by the
geographical affiliation. Such bloodshed also targeted Yemeni figures who were genuine
in their patriotic roles, their culture that was away from tribal and parties’
orientations and their behavior opposing all tyranny and corruption. Of course
Saleh was not far from those crimes.
Saleh did not only master bloodsheding but was also an
expert in stealing the fortunes of the Yemeni people and confiscating their
future and all their aspirations in stability, union and development; that smart
quick-witted people possessing the great heritage both in civilization and in culture.
Even in the field of doctrines, Fiqh and philosophy, Yemeni people had
great characters in those fields. It’s enough to say that the legacy of judge
Abdel-Jabbar, a Mu’tazilite theologian, contained an establishment for the
dialectic methodology long before Hegel and Marx started such thing. Also
Yemeni people had significant contributions to poetry. Moreover, Yemen people
are the best ones who tamed high mountains by planting them and building dams
and unique architecture over them.
There are unlimited questions concerning the present
and future of Yemen for it’s not about political, demographic and natural
geography of a far state, rather a country that possesses a highly important position
not only in the Arabian Peninsula nor in the Arab or Middle East area, but worldwide.
Details in such regard are known to everyone with the slightest interest in the
region.
Translated into English by: Dalia Elnaggar
This article was published in
Al Ahram newspaper on December 7, 2017.
To see the original article,
go to:
#alahram #ahmed_elgammal
#Yemen #ali_abdullah_saleh
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