Aaron and Anne-Sophie

We had another interesting weekend. After being unable to talk with the Somali refugees, because (as some of them wrote in the comments) the UNHCR is paying the Yemeni police to keep press away, we headed home to watch some TV. (to contact the UNHCR in Sanaa or Geneva to appeal for these Somali refugees click here). Click here for a comprehensive article on the situation. We forgot to mention that we have our own satellite TV now, full of the Dubai English speaking channels and TV5 which is French speaking, so fortunately and unfortunately we can now watch American movies and re-runs of American reality shows. On the French news we immediately heard three major reports in a row closely relating to us. First there was an in depth report about the situation in Israel and the new Labor leader Amir Peretz. Secondly we learned about the four CPT (Christian Peacemaker Team) members that were kidnapped in Iraq. During my time in Palestine we were trained by CPT folk in active non-violence and I know some of them that I met went to Iraq in 2003. CPT have been there ever since reporting the injustices. CPT reported what was happening to Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison a year before news of it made it to the US, as the US press refused to publish anything about it until the pictures came out. They reported early on how most the “rebuilding” done by foreign corporations was to build bases and Western housing for their workers taking control of the oil (see www.cpt.org to learn more about what CPT does in Iraq and other areas of conflict). Frankly I consider them to be some of the bravest people I’ve ever met to continue to promote non-violence and justice amidst the chaos of Iraq (although the people living in such conflict areas have to be the bravest, because they have no other choice but to struggle to survive there). I think CPT has won the trust and respect of the Iraqis they’ve worked with and also with the Palestinians (who are also now calling for their release). Please pray for their safe release, and read their reports that they’ve risked their lives to inform you about on their website. (To sign a petition calling for their release click here)

There are three types of kidnappings that have happened in this region over the past couple of years. In Iraq, some of the kidnappings have ended with the assassination of their victim (both foreign and local and both peace activists/journalists and foreign workers capitalizing on the rebuilding). This seems to be more as an example to scare people. However, others were realeased and unharmed in Iraq. Sometimes it’s more to get political demands and money like in the case of kidnappings here in Yemen by Northern tribes. 2 Swiss tourists were recently kidnapped in the north of Yemen and then released. In almost every case of kidnappings here though, the victims were treated well like guests, but there hadn’t been any kidnappings in Yemen for 4 or 5 years possibly because of the government crackdown on Northern tribes and increased security for tourists. This gets me to the third news report we heard on the French news, that Yemeni military killed some people in the northern city of Saada for apparently conspiring to lead a coup against the president. However they didn’t allow news reporters to cover the event, which makes the event more suspicious. The situation with the tribes of the north and east are a common story in this globalized world. Most Yemeni you meet will tell you not to go north because of these bad stupid Northern tribes that are uncivlized. To a certain extent it is true that the Northern tribes are resisting the modernization that many Yemenis are now trying to adjust to. On the same token modernization often comes at a cost of losing one’s culture and traditions, but most importantly the tribes of the north stand to lose their land that’s simply being confiscated by the government to allow foreign investors (such as France and the US) to take the natural resources (oil and gas) from the region. Most of the profits go into he pockets of the corrupt government and foreign corporations leaving the tribes displaced off their land. So the tribes resort to various means to stop this or to get fairly compensated for it . . . sometimes that means violence or kidnappings. Then the Yemeni government can call them terrorists and get funding from the US (this was recently agreed upon by the Yemeni president and Bush) to rid them of any resistance, even though this resistance is not all connected to Al Qaeda and are not a threat to anyone except the Yemeni government and foreign oil investors. Similar things are done in places like Colombia, Ecuador, Palestine, etc. . . . foreign aid to stop drugs, terrorists, etc. are really to help foreign dictators and corrupt governments control people that resist their confiscation of land by foreign investors. Finally the third type of kidnappings have been happening occasionally in Palestine, when a small militant group kidnaps a foreigner, which inevitablly ends up being someone there to help Palestinians, because generally those are the only type of foreigners who would enter the West Bank or Gaza . . . what ends up happening is other more major militant groups and the Palestinian Authority tell them to release them, and they are released unharmed. These smaller groups are perhaps influenced by what’s happening in Iraq and/or are desparate for money.

After watching TV I ran into Adeeb, Ludfi’s Iraqi friend who will be leaving for Iraq to have knee surgery soon (which tells you the quality of Yemeni health care). We chatted about the recent kidnappings in Iraq. Ludfi and Adeeb absolutely hate Saddam and the Bath party. According to Adeeb the Bath party and Al Qaeda supported insurgents are barbarians because they kill innocent women and children. I said that’s true, and that they should be stopped, but I tried to tell him how much my country was a part of it too. I said you can’t tell me that when Americans bombed Iraq, that innocent people didn’t die too. I reminded him how the US put Saddam and the Bath party in power and supplied him with a lot of his weapons that he used on his own people. I forgot to mention, but should have mentioned the sanctions that killed over a million Iraqis. Also I suggested that the US is doing a lot this for the oil. He agreed that all those things were true, however he’s still convinced that now America is their saviour (much like the ancient Israelites in the Bible exiled in Babylon called the Perian tyrant Cyrus the Great their Messiah when he defeated the Babylonians and allowed the exiled Israelites to return as a puppet government) and that they should use the atomic bomb to kill all those insurgents . . . and I was like isn’t that going to kill even more innocent people than the insurgents are? He said yes, but we’d sacrifice our lives for a new start for Iraq . . . and I was thinking isn’t this the same mentality some of the suicide bombers have? It’s hard to reason with someone so full of personal hate based on experiences that I haven’t experienced (although he himself hasn’t been to Iraq for over a decade and sometimes it’s easier to be more hateful from only watching the news on TV from a distant and safe location), but his reasoning or lack there of exemplifies the old cliche (but not often practised) of not becoming the evil that you deplore by also using violence and an any means necessary mentality. For non-violence believers, the means are the ends. I’m not saying he’s as bad as the suicide bombers. He’s a really nice guy and very welcoming to me, however one perhaps can see how groups of people can be convinced to condone violence against others. Perhaps it’s human instinct to hit back if you’re convinced (whether in reality or not) that someone is trying to do you harm. However one must realize that if you feel that way, then the other person is also justified in feeling that way .. . so if Americans were convinced Iraq was going to do us harm and that justified our invasion, wouldn’t the actual invasion convince a lot of Iraqis that we meant to do them harm and spark their violence. Adeeb also wants to work as translator for US soldiers, because he thinks the pay is too hard to resist. I keep telling him that it’s not a good idea. Let’s hope he gets back to Yemen safely.

The more and more I think of the world, it’s not so different than that of government-less Somalia. Without any strong central power or maintaining of international law, whichever country has the strongest military and the most money can do whatever they want, similar to the warlords in Somalia. The UN needs to be redeemed and serve a stronger purpose.

The next day we went to Wadi Bana in the region of Ibb (photos in More Yemen album). Ibb during and after the rainy season can be incredibly green, but around this time of year a lot of the greenery is gone. There’s still a lot more vegetation here than in other parts of Yemen. We went with some our students and their friends who treated us to a nice breakfast and lunch picnic. It’s about a three hour drive from Sanaa, and we had to go through the usual checkpoints counting how many foreigners enter and leave a region. However from about half way into our journey there, we were accompanied by soldiers (a jeep with like 6 or 7 soldiers) who lead us to the best views of the wadi. We scaled a scary rocky dirt road up the mountain with a 4X4 to catch some views of the huge wadi and then went down to the now small river to eat. The soldiers came with us and we also offered them food. Then on the way back home they followed us back with a different jeep of soldiers taking over at one of the checkpoints. It seemed they had nothing better to do, or else they were assigned to do this because of the recent kidnappings and violence up north. Anyway we ended up having soldiers follow us all the way home to our apartment, which was odd. We felt like VIP’s having to be escorted every where with armed soldiers.

On Friday we were invited to eat lunch at Abdullah’s house, the Yemeni American visiting his family in Sanaa. His story is interesting. His family is truly Sanani (from Sanaa) and owned much the land in and around Sanaa. Most of his land has now since been confiscated by the government for other uses. Most people we’ve been meeting are actually from Taiz (a large city south of here), and even the Arabic we’ve been learning is more from a Taiz accent or dialect than Sanani. His house is also traditionally Sanani, even though it’s not in the Old City. What’s most interesting is the ceilings are made with tree trunks and branches, so the ceiling is lined with curvy pieces of wood. The building also still has little closets with an open window to let the cold air in to use as old fashioned refrigerators. We had a wonderful meal (the best we’ve had so far) and then we chewed qat together. The women chewed with his wife and other woman relatives and I (and Jim) chewed with Abdullah. Abdullah spends most of his time in the US running successful soul food businesses in Tallahasse, Florida. We sat, chewed, and chatted in his beautiful home. Anne-Sophie will tell you more about her tafrita (when women get together to chew qat, smoke, etc.), when she has the time, because in general we’ve been left out of the world of women, until recently when Anne-Sophie has been invited to do things with women. Sorry for having only to read my blogs recently too, because Anne-Sophie has one more class than I do at the moment and is busy applying to master’s programs. She’ll hopefully write more soon.