On a recent Thursday afternoon in Sana’a, Yemen, a group of lawyers, journalists, unemployed pundits and one poet gathered to discuss the politics and times of Yemen in the office of a prominent lawyer that doubles as a weekly literary salon.
Under thick, eye-watering, blue and gray layers of cigarette smoke, the men resembled a stack of fallen domino pieces as they reclined sideways on mattresses arranged around the walls with their elbows resting on hard stuffed cushions.
They were committed democrats and passionate human rights advocates who had opposed the autocratic then-Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh and documented his regime’s abuses and corruption long before the Arab Spring revolutions.
They were diverse bunch, often at odds with each other, with principles perhaps too naive to be considered serious politics, yet they shared a dream: A civil state in Yemen, one day.
The group was opposing the new regime that had emerged from the revolution, but their passions had waned and been replaced with a sense of defeat and betrayal symbolized and distilled into one word: Movenpick.
The Movenpick is a hilltop hotel in Sana’a, an architectural monstrosity of glass and concrete with manicured lawns, marbled foyers and gilded furniture worthy of an oil-boom town and designed exclusively for the privileged elites of Yemen.
From where it sits, contained by blast walls and with checkpoints manned by private security guards in wrap-around shades, the capital, Sana’a, appears as a far and dusty place inhabited by the downtrodden and wretched.
Over the past 11 months, the Movenpick meeting rooms and dining halls have been the setting for the national dialogue conference, which has brought together tribespeople, politicians and Islamists, along with representatives of civil society and the revolutionary youth.
LAND GRAB
The conference was a big part of a deal brokered by the UN and the Gulf Cooperation Council that ushered in a transitional period after Saleh give up power to his then-unknown deputy, Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, who was later voted in as interim president, being the sole candidate in the election.
Under the terms of the transition, ministerial posts were apportioned between the opposition and ruling party, and the army — dominated by Saleh’s relatives — was given a facelift with a purge of some commanders.
Chaperoned by UN envoy Jamal Benomar, the national dialogue conference was supposed to address all the problems of Yemen and prepare for a new constitution and free elections.
Instead, dominated from the start by the old traditional powers, the dialogue finally concluded four months late on Saturday, publishing a report with about 1,400 recommendations which have extended the transitional period and allowed an extra year to draft a charter and vote on it.
Meanwhile, for those downtrodden inhabitants on view from the Movenpick’s gilded rooms, Yemen is still no closer to being a functioning state.
A spate of assassinations of politicians has plagued Sana’a, threatening the central government, which all but disappears once outside the large cities.
The weakness of the state was laid bare when the local al-Qaeda franchise, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, recently stormed into a hospital at Yemen’s defense ministry compound, killing dozens of people. CCTV footage showed gunmen executing medics and patients.
On Monday last week, gunmen kidnapped a European oil employee in Sana’a hours after the town was rocked by explosions — the second abduction of a Westerner in four days. Meanwhile, US drones roam Yemeni skies with impunity, killing militants and civilians alike.
Inside the lawyer’s office, the assembled company exploded with anger when someone mentioned the conference’s final communique, the Benomar document, and its proposals of federalism.
“How can you talk about federalism if you don’t even have a state apparatus?” the broad-shouldered, deep-voiced host said from his spot in one corner of the room.
“There is a land grab, and it’s a political sham. While [people] are killing each other in the streets, [the elite] sit and negotiate in Sana’a,” he said.
The powerful tribal and political figures who attended the national dialogue conference were the same people who were in a mad race to grab land and impose de facto realities on the ground, pulling and dragging Yemen in different directions like a group of thieves pulling on an old stolen jacket and tearing it apart.
“They are creating a new situation in Yemen, based on regionalism. With all the negative aspects of the Yemeni political parties and internal struggles, it was better than what will happen next — because the next conflicts will be between those of the same region ... apart from the conflict between different regions,” Yemeni history authority and journalist Sami Ghaleb said.
A black-and-white portrait of stern former Yemeni president Ibrahim al-Hamdi, forever clad in military gear, hung above their heads — a reminder of unattained dreams for their country. In the 1970s, al-Hamdi tried to build a modern state. He tried to curtail the tribes’ power, but was assassinated a few years into his rule.
EXPANDING VIOLENCE
Bottles of water, cans of juice and coke, as well as cigarettes and plastic bags holding qat (a narcotic chewing leaf) were arranged before each man. The men followed their rituals methodically, debating and chewing the herbal stimulant. They talked about the north, the former Yemen Arab Republic, where a sectarian war is raging between the Huthis — Zaydi Shia rebels — and Salafis in neighboring areas. Fearing Huthi expansion, an alliance of tribes and militia fighters associated with the leading Sunni Islamic party al-Islah had joined the fight alongside the Salafis.
The war was no more a sectarian war, one of the men added, because the tribes, many of whom were Zaydis themselves, were fighting through fear of Huthi expansion and what its members represented as a rival power. The war was now both religious and tribal. Hums of agreement rose from the audience.
In the south, the separatists were demanding full independence and showing signs of evolving quickly into an armed insurgency with xenophobic talk of southern purity and frequent attacks on government posts.
Someone at the meeting asked rhetorically: “When faced by indiscriminate force by the army and police what do you do?”
Years of peaceful demonstrations had yielded them nothing but more oppression and more land grabs by the northern sheiks, a writer at the meeting said.
That week, a tank shell had killed 14 civilians gathered for a funeral of a killed fighter.
However, the separatists were splitting — tribes from the oil-rich southern province of Hadramout had taken over government institutions, laid siege to oil fields and were calling for autonomy for their own region.
The room darkened and fell silent. A single battery-powered neon light placed next to the door cast long shadows against the dark walls. Beyond the window, Sana’a swam in darkness. A disgruntled sheik had cut off the city’s main electricity supply lines, which passed through his tribal land.
Hours later the men gathered up their cigarette packs, bottles of water and what was left of the qat into plastic bags and moved out of the room. They retreated to their homes, filling their Facebook pages with warnings of coming civil wars.
Leaving the meeting, Ghaleb accompanied a poet and another friend to a nearby cafe, a place with sooty walls, narrow metal benches and a stove piled with huge copper kettles. They sat in silence drinking sweet milk tea spiced with cinnamon and cardamom.
‘NO RUNNING AWAY’
Ghaleb, the eldest of the three, had once run one of Yemen’s most progressive newspapers, but under Saleh, the paper was closed and Ghaleb was put on trial with two of his writers. He was pardoned later, but the paper never again saw the light of day.
He said that most of the recent history of Yemen had been the struggle to build a modern civil state, with each attempt facing resistance from traditional powers of authority — religious or tribal.
Sometimes through political intrigue, at other times through civil war or outside interference, these traditional powers had managed to repeatedly subvert efforts to change Yemeni society.
“These traditional powers are very adaptable and can change their shape to ride the revolutionary tide and subvert the change from within. The same is happening now. These same tribes, the same people and their sons, have co-opted the revolution and became so-called revolutionaries to save their interests,” Ghaleb said.
One of the friends, a journalist who had turned to a more lucrative job in advertising, said: “Every day I feel I’m suffocating, I want to run away from politics. Go somewhere I tell myself, take a holiday. Then I wake up and I start calling the same people and I end up talking about politics again — there is no running away.”
Outside the cafe, under a concrete flyover, a group of soldiers gathered around a small fire lit next to their military truck. Ninety people were killed in the revolution when the army opened fire at demonstrators at that same spot.
“I want a coup d’etat now. At least we can have a clear enemy — the people who are destroying this country now are calling themselves revolutionaries,” the third friend said.
Late at night, the streets of Sana’a were empty save for a few soldiers in oversized Russian trench coats and people scavenging through piles of garbage. Pools of light from humming generators interrupted the darkness and a million stars shone brilliantly in the sky. The poet walked aimlessly through the quiet streets, passing the ancient walls of the parliament building.
“During the revolution, people walked like they had wings. Any time they could unfurl them and fly,” he said, opening his arms and stretching them into the darkness.
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