Category: Yemen

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freedom politics Yemen

ال يمن مجنون لكن مسكين

Last night, I had not one, but two friends tell me they wanted to go back to Yemen… right now. As crazy as that sounds, I do understand where they are coming from. Despite the tribalism that is starting to rip Yemen apart, there is something special about the place that makes so many westerners want to go back. As I remember, those two friends were more than a little crazy and ready to get the hell out of Yemen the last time I saw them. Another friend came and saw me three times in Yemen, each time he said it would be his last. He has been back since. An Australian came to Sana’a as part of her sweep up Eastern Africa expecting to stay 3 weeks. She was there 6 months. I was more than a little crazy by the time I left too, but I miss it.

I hope that whatever has been kept under wraps for 30 years can be sorted out somewhat quickly. I am dead set against any American involvement in whatever is to come in Yemen. Some say that Al Queda is too dangerous to allow them to get a foothold in Yemen. I’ll point to their fearsome success of blowing up a guys underwear and the shipping ink cartridge “bombs.” Their attempts in Yemen were pretty pathetic, the running joke was that none of their plans were coming to fruition because none of them wanted to give up their cell phone to act as a detonator. Yes, they attempted to bomb the American embassy, but they didn’t get close and only managed to kill some Yemeni troops and a single, unlucky American. Their crowning moment happened in 2000 with the attack on the Cole. Yes, Americans were killed, but the damage could have been minimized if even basic security procedures were followed. When a missile cruiser is damaged at all and deaths occur from an attack from an inflatable boat, someone fell down on the job. The Unabomber was a far more effective terrorist and yet we didn’t need a single Tomahawk missile or special ops group to get him. All of the same things that are being said about Yemen were also said about Somalia. As it turns out, a chaotic situation is not conducive to world-wide terror plots. Too much energy and time is spent on maintaining local power and influence. The crazier it is in Yemen, the less likely Queda will be able to mount any attacks at all. Even if they did, their attempts in recent memory have been laughable. 
More than any of that though, I don’t want us doing anything that gives Yemenis reason to hate us. It”s bad enough that we supported Salah all these years. We have to let them figure things out on their own and find their own balance. Raining missiles down on them or attacking them will not make us the good guys. Don’t give Queda recruiting fodder. I would like to go back one day, please don’t make the US the enemy.

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travel Yemen

Yemenia

I’m sad to say that the crash of the Yemenia flight outside of Comoros doesn’t really surprise me. I have heard various horror stories about how that airline is run and some of the things that have gone on from people on flights. Planes hitting things on the runway as they took off and passengers being seated in the cockpit being some of the more egregious examples. If this kind of thing goes on in sight of everyone, I can’t imagine what goes on (or doesn’t go on as the case may be) behind the scenes.

Bottom line? Don’t fly Yemenia.

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Culture freedom photography Yemen

A great picture

This came from the website of the Yemen Observer, one of the English language newspapers in Yemen.

rachelflag2.jpg

Her name is Boushra Almutawakel and she is a photographer in Yemen. Needless to say, a female photographer in Yemen is a rather unusual thing. You can read the article via the link above to read more about her. I want to say a few things about this picture.

There’s no way to know what she meant by it but I find it quite powerful. Many people in the US and Europe see the hijab as a repressive aspect of Arab culture. Of course those people have probably never asked one of those women why they cover up. Part of it is simply dressing appropriately in that culture. A woman here in the US might have a reason to go topless in the US, but she would have to think about it long and hard before she did so. It just isn’t done for the most part.

A more important part of the hijab is its religious importance for those women. By wearing the hijab, they reaffirm what they believe. Here in the US and in Europe, it is also a marker of her faith. Women who wear hijab here know that they are in some senses representing Islam so they better act accordingly. I wish more people that wore a cross would remember that as well.

The hijab is very powerful symbolism when taken in context of faith. Women are quite literally taking refuge under it and by extension Islam. That is why, in my opinion, wearing the American flag as hijab is so powerful. It is not just a religious statement, it is a political.

Of course, it is the kind of politics that I like. She is free to do this, the US constitution guarantees her freedom to not only make this statement but to be a Muslim as well. It is everything that makes this nation great.

She may have been making an “in your face” statement to Americans with it. She might have targeted those people that conflate Christianity and being American or it may have been some sort of statement about the so called War on Terror. I have no idea, but that’s one of the great things about art, the artist does their thing and we are left to makes sense of it. What I love about it is going to piss some others off. How an American acts will probably be different than someone living in the middle east. The many different responses that can come from this is what makes it a great work in my opinion.

You go girl!

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Arabic travel Yemen

Studying and living in Yemen

I get the occasional email asking me about studying in Yemen and it occurs to me that I have not put up a post with that info in one place, so here goes…

Yemen is a great place to study Arabic. Everyone speaks it (after a fashion), the people are really nice, and it is cheap. For us western types, it is also an amazing cultural immersion.

The majority of Arabic language schools are in Sana’a, that’s where I stayed. I went to CALES in the old city. They are right in the center of the old city, so there is plenty of “atmosphere.” I took private lessons because that is the best way to learn and being in Yemen, I could afford them. When I started out, I didn’t know any Arabic at all. I was paired up with a teacher that knew English well enough to explain the basic stuff. Some people prefer having a teacher that speaks Arabic only. I dunno, I think I would have been too intimidated at first with all Arabic, but I do think it was useful later on. In any case, you can have it either way, you choose. All of my teachers were very good, but I had to keep some of them on point. I got the feeling that I was teaching him more about the US than I was learning Arabic, so I changed teachers. All of the teachers there were very knowledgeable about Arabic, I never felt that they didn’t know what they were talking about. I think they all have degrees in the teaching of Arabic…

There are other schools there as well. I have heard good things about SIAL and a couple of the others, but I don’t really know much about them. My gut feeling is that you can get good instruction in any of them. A lot of people also get private lessons (outside of an institute) once they make some contacts. That will cost less and be more flexible, but at the cost of not having any sort of document about your attainment level like CALES has…

Living in Yemen is part of the appeal of going there. All of the schools offer accommodations. If you’re there for a short while, it’s probably best to use them. CALES has two main buildings. The big one, and where most of the students live, is right next to the school right downtown. I lived in another building out towards the Sileah. EIther are fine…

If you’re going to stay longer than a few months, it pays to find your own place. Often times, there will be other students looking for housemates, just ask around. Foreigners tend to pay more than the locals do for housing, but it is still a much better deal than living at the school. I was paying $200 a month at both the school and the apartment. Of course I got my own apartment for that as compared to a single (large) room and a shared bathroom and kitchen…

Living in the old city makes it easy to get to class, that’s the main reason I lived there. I knew that if it was difficult to get to class, I wouldn’t go sometimes. There are some big issues with living in the old city though… The buildings tend to be quite old, and things like plumbing, electrical stuff, etc. can be a bit hit or miss. There is also the noise. The school buildings tend to be quite noisy, there is a lot of noise coming off of the street. Buildings in the old city tend to be very close to one another with very narrow streets, so it can sound like people are in the room with you. The trick is to live a little higher, if you can get up three stories or more, the noise level drops off quite a bit. I got lucky with my apartment, it had a walled courtyard that separated me from a lot of the noise.

If I were to this again, I would probably live in the newer part of the city. No, it isn’t as beautiful, but it is much easier to fine open restaurants, grocery stores, and anything else. If you want something to eat at 4 O’clock in the old city, all you’re going to find is french fries for the most part. It’ll take you upwards of half an hour to get to someplace that’s open in the new city… The apartments in the new city tend to have better plumbing and easier access to “high speed” internet.

The other potential advantage to living in the newer part of the city is that if you work, it will be easier to get to your job. Most native English speakers can find a job teaching English. You should be able to find a place offering $10 an hour with a little looking around. That doesn’t sound like much, but that’s doing pretty well in Yemen…

Anyway, I encourage anyone that wants to learn Arabic to check out Yemen. It is cheaper than many other places, and the instruction is top notch. If you feel that it isn’t right for you, it’s really easy to hop a plane to Syria, Egypt, etc. Drop me a line if you have any other questions!

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Yemen

Gitmo

There’s a real push to close down the prison at Gitmo. Most of the people still there are from Yemen, and that’s proving to be an issue for this and the next administration. The US is willing to repatriate the prisoners, but there is the requirement that the home country will continue to keep them in confinement. There are a couple of problems with this:

1) The Yemen government cannot (legally) hold anyone without formal charges being pressed. Of course that supposedly is the law in the US as well…

2) The government of Yemen claims not to have the resources to take the 100 or so prisoners into its prison system. I’m of two minds on that. I mean, c’mon, what’s another 100 people into their prison system? On the other hand, Yemen is poor and there are already many stories of how crowed the prisons are. Of course the reflexive action from the Yemeni government is to ask for money to build a new prison for them. I’m not sure how amenable the US government is to giving more money to Yemen, too much of it disappears….

Talks were ongoing, and there was even the semblance of progress according to some reports. Then the embassy got bombed and things ground to a halt. My own personal opinion is that the Bush administration has to put up or shut up. Either announce to the world what the charges against thee men are and the evidence, or admit that there isn’t enough evidence to hold them. Since we are a country of laws, this shouldn’t be too big an issue….

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Yemen

And so it begins…

This article talks about how southern Yemen has now formed a “provisional government.” It should of course say something closer to “Powerful people in Southern Yemen form own government in opposition to Northern Yemen.” I can guarantee that the average Mohammed in the street is not involved in this at all. It does show how far the movers and shakers in the south are willing to go. The primary agitator has already been jailed for treason, he’s really going out on a limb now…

People in the south have been feeling trampled on ever since the “reunification” back in 1990. There have been all sorts of demonstrations and instances of civil disobedience since then. Through all of that, the northern tribes have never seemed to take the problems very seriously. I can tell you that the people I met in the capital by and large didn’t spend any time worrying about the people in the south.

Trouble is brewing. I hope that it doesn’t take a civil war to sort this out, but I’m having difficulties seeing any alternative at this point. The best case scenario that I can imagine is that the government (dominated by northern tribes) manages to keep control of things in the south by force. That’s the best case scenario. The worst case scenario involves not only a north/south war, but a total collapse of the agreements and truces between many different tribes. Yemen could be carved up into even more insular, lawless areas. I hope that the people do not suffer too much in the years to come…

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Yemen

A letter I sent to the AP

Why does the AP constantly refer to Yemen as the “Ancestral home” of Osama Bin Laeden? Osama was born in Saudi. Why don’t we ever hear, “Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Osama Bin Laeden?” Osama’s father was born in Yemen, Osama was not. To my knowledge, Osama has never been implicated in any act of terrorism in Yemen. To my knowledge, Osama has never even been mentioned as being responsible for any attacks in Yemen. Yemen has enough problems, why are you trying to saddle them with Osama too?

Isaac Crawford

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Yemen

The embassy in Sana’a was bombed

This is a weird thing. When I left, I was worried about political unrest, I never really worried about anti-American violence. Since I left, the government has started to crack down on a group that supposedly has ties to Queda. I figured that there would be retaliation against the government, after all, that’s what you get for shaking the hornet’s nest.

But they went and bombed the American embassy. 16 people have died. All but two of them were Yemeni. There was an Indian nurse and an American newlywed (she was trying to get some paperwork for her husband to come to the US) killed in the atack. The American embassy is probably 100 yards from the wall, so a car bomb will never have any effect on it. I’m not sure how close the car could have come to the wall even, there is a large perimeter set up outside. All of the people working the gate and the all of the security people on the outside of the embassy are all Yemenis. It seems strange to me that someone would try this kind of attack when the victims are going to overwhelmingly be locals. On the other hand, maybe the bombing types hate Yemenis that work with Americans more than the Americans…

I dunno, like all of the other attacks on the embassies there, it seems more symbolic than anything else. The chances of them doing anything to the embassy without an airplane being involved is zero. There seems to be general outrage in Yemen over this attack. Both because most people don’t think it’s a good thing and also because this happened during Ramadan.

The “terrorist” element in Yemen continues to show signs of incompetence and impotence. The good news is if they keep trying things like this, they’ll all be dead pretty soon. I don’t understand their tactics. They are pursuing things that do no damage to the target and kill Yemenis. All they seem to be doing is making everyone angry, so what’s the point? Maybe they really do just have death wishes, that seems to be the only thing that is regularly accomplished by these sorts of things.

UPDATE:

As usual, there is a bit of a disagreement over what happened between the Arab press and the western press. Well, they’re all reporting the same events, but they are using very different headlines. Every single western news outlet is reporting that the embassy was carbombed. Flip over to an Arab news agency and what do you see? “Embassy attack foiled!” I think this is closer to the truth, the attackers didn’t get close to the embassy and the (Yemeni) security forces prevented the attackers from getting into and past the outer wall. What a difference a few words makes…

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Economics Yemen

Wheat again…

I have been complaining for a long time about people complaining about food prices in Yemen. Most of the time, the only solution that people come up with is that the government should do something. It turns out that the government had done something, it had fixed the number of importers of food into the country. This is what allowed weird pricing to go on in the country.

According to this article, it sounds like the Yemeni government wasn’t the only one to blame. The way the article is written, it sounds as though Australia had only “licensed” one company to import wheat into Yemen. Now they are opening it up to other companies. When are countries going to stop meddling where they are not needed? Why does one need to be licensed to sell wheat to people in Yemen? With any luck, competition will be allowed to do its work and help people out there…

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Arabic Religion Yemen

American being held in Yemen

There is a man from Philadelphia being held in Yemen. Read about it here. Everyone claims to have no idea as to why he is being held, but there are clues in the article. He had just come back from Sa’ada, the area up north (by the Saudi border) where there had up until recently been lots of fighting. That is supposedly over now, but the government is no fan of some of the Imams up there. Why was he up there? He had come to Yemen to lean Arabic, and the learn about Islam. I can tell you from experience that there’s no problem going there to learn Arabic. And learning about Islam isn’t necessarily a big deal either. But if you go to Imams that the government doesn’t like, they will be all over you. Ever since John Lindh got his training in Yemen, the Yemeni government has been uptight about foreigners coming there to study Islam.

I knew a couple from South Africa that had a terrible time getting through immigration in Yemen. They were dressed in their usual garb. The muslim population in South Africa tends to be pretty conservative, and both of them were obviously muslims. The government had multiple people question them about where they were going, what they would be studying, etc. They were only there to study Arabic, and he thought the only reason they let them in was because he was going to a state run Arabic school. On the other hand, I knew an Australian muslim that came to Yemen to learn the language. She dressed like any other Aussie, no problems. I also knew an Italian who cam there to learn Arabic, but he went to a mosque in the old city to learn about Islam. No problems.

So here’s my advice. If you want to learn about Islam in Yemen, don’t tell anyone you’re going to do that when you get to the country. And then, stay in the larger cities, there are plenty of Imams of all different viewpoints in the cities. If you go to hadramont, Sa’ada, Marib, etc. and it’s known that you are hanging out with the more radical types, the government will harass you.

I’m pretty sure the government has recently rescinded the do not travel warning, and there are lots of reasons to go to Yemen (unlike the ignorance shown in the article), but you have to be smart about going there. Don’t do stupid things and you’ll be fine…

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