The Peninsula Newspaper
Wednesday, 22 February 2012 00:34
The head of the ruling regime in Yemen handed over power, but the regime and its old guard who had penetrated into the insides of the state and controlled its resources and decisions are still able to aggravate the situation, spread discord and make all attempts to deviate the demands of the revolution from its objectives, mainly the trial of former semi-fugitive president on a therapeutic recreation trip to the US, changing heads of the security agencies, eliminating corruption, poverty, unemployment, implementing political and economic reforms and building the modern institutions.
(1) The Yemeni scene is full of vitality and activity and provides a great lesson on the inevitability of change and triumph of the peaceful revolution without entering into wars, conflicts and killings that raised concerns of the Yemeni youth revolution enemies. The latter had betted situations in the country would explode; Al Qaeda would control the state, warning of a bloodshed and internal and external war that would burn everything.
But with the succession of days, Yemen vigilant wisdom proves the opposite even if it had become ineffective due to the dictatorial and corrupt practices of the former president and his entourage and gang through three decades, but it will quickly recover. Millions of young Yemeni masses are still determined to accomplish the goals of the revolution and move towards a new era in Yemen where there will be no room for tyrannical symbols. Youth demands focus today on broad participation in the presidential elections as a defining moment between individual rule and rule of the people and a new history made by Yemenis on giving sacrifices and martyrs. No doubt, February 21, marking the Yemeni presidential election, will be the most prominent event. This not because it is part of the Gulf initiative that succeeded in hammering down the final nail in the coffin of the rogue president, who had squandered a lot of innocent pure blood before handing over power, but because it marks a new phase to end the era of individual, family and tribal despotism political, economic and social corruption, and eliminate poverty, unemployment, ignorance, backwardness, and sabotage of the three decades — public and civil society property.
(2) The real crisis in Yemen has been and still lies in the conflict between the state project and the power project based on the individuals or group control on the decision-making process and seeing the family, tribe, and sectarianism as the nation similar to many Arab countries though the time and place are different.
The Yemeni writer Naguib Ghallab says in his book, (theology of tribal elites … sanctification of Sheikhs and cursing of the state), that the Yemeni society is dominated by traditional tribal culture, which is a well-established structure that could not be addressed and controlled by education. Even the educated elites introduced new values to the tribal ideology to let the political conflicts be based on new values.
But the tribal forces imposed their awareness and interests on all and forced anyone who eyes arriving in power to ally with them. They became the actual and the most organised forces in the political arena and might become a state inside a state or above or beyond it. Ghallab says that we can say that the tribal elites since involving in the political action at the beginning of the revolution were convinced that the state is important to develop and rehabilitate the society and overcome the past suffering as well as to promote their legitimacy inside the tribal circle and strengthen the tribal power. Therefore, the elites seriously worked to control the state and transfer its tools to a supporting force for their interests and whenever their influence increases in the country their tribal power also increases. This tribal power became an impetus to promote their domination and control the state moral and material value. The state can turn into a compelling machine to destroy competitors of the tribal elites, especially the new categories.
(3) The Gulf States should continue their efforts to assist Yemen in coming out of the acute crisis. If they had politically succeeded till now in stopping the bloodshed, they are required to support the human development plans and provide urgent economic aid by creating a Gulf Marshall Plan like the European Marshall Plan, the economic project that succeeded in reconstructing Europe after the end of the Second World War. The Marshall economic aid contributed to operate the economic wheel and the European factories, recover the development plans and launch of the human creativity and technology.
The aid received by Europe via the Marshall Plan was to the tune of $13.1bn, equivalent to
$100bn today. The Yemeni government has appealed to the Gulf States to provide assistance to enable it to recover from the collapse and become an active partner in the GCC organisation, as the Yemeni stability will have either negative or positive impacts on the Gulf States. The Gulf Marshall Plan will be vital for regional national security and will save the region from unrests and problems that Yemen might face in the light of the great economic pressures that may turn into time bombs and explode at any moment due to problems of poverty, illiteracy and extremism.
The project can focus on economic, social reform and living status of citizens and create jobs for many unemployed youth. It can improve the level of services provided by the Yemeni government. We are concerned that, Yemen classified as a failed state, might involve in violence if not saved from destruction and devastation. It will be unwise if the Gulf countries remain watching what is going on in Yemen without taking serious step in this regard.
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