An Open Letter to President Obama from a Yemeni Citizen

Dear President Obama, 

We the people of the Middle East were jubilant when you won the elections the first time and became president, because you had promised change. You gave us all hope that a different policy towards the Middle East is possible when you gave that remarkable speech at Cairo University. You said and I quote “I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly to each other the things we hold in our hearts and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground.”

Hence, I am writing you this open letter not knowing if it will even reach you, yet hoping that somehow my words eventually will. I write to you this letter as a Yemeni citizen whose country has been subject to multiple drone strikes for the past four years since you took office. Experts and activists have written, spoke, tweeted and blogged extensively about their rejection to the use of drones in targeting suspected militants and how it is counterproductive.

All Yemenis are against terrorism and condemn Al-Qaeda, yet are also against the violent and unethical use of predator drones in combating them. We are against the death of civilians, whom you refer to as collateral damage in the “war against terror.”  We are against the long-term effects on their communities and their lives. We are against any extrajudicial killings. What happened to “the suspect is innocent until proven guilty”? Why are “suspected” militants all sentenced to death by a remote control? Why can’t they be captured instead, when they can easily be so? And why don’t they deserve a just trial? 

Your CIA Director and former counterterrorism advisor John Brennan said in his speech last April at the Woodrow Wilson Center that drone strikes are "ethical" because of "the unprecedented ability of remotely piloted aircraft to precisely target a military objective while minimizing collateral damage; one could argue that never before has there been a weapon that allows us to distinguish more effectively between an al Qaeda terrorist and innocent civilians." I beg to disagree and so would the families of many innocent civilians whose loved ones have been killed by drone strikes in Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia.

You might believe that drone strikes make the US safer because a few key targets were killed, let me assure you that there is more hostility now in Yemen against the US because of these attacks. They have not stopped al-Qaeda, but have rather helped them expand and gain sympathy. Despite our President endorsing the use of drones, many of us in Yemen strongly reject them and consider them a violation of our country’s sovereignty and disrespect to the rule of law. The drone program is “terrorizing” my people and is having counterproductive long-term effects. Not only does it kill and injure innocent civilians, it also traumatizes the entire population. One never knows where the next drone will strike nor how many innocent victims it will kill.

* This letter was first published on May 8th, 2013 in  YourMiddleEast 

One In A Million

On May 12th, 1994 I lost my father to Chronic Myeloid Leukemia in a London Hospital after a long and painful struggle with this illness. The doctors who diagnosed him in 1983, in Cleveland Hospital had predicted for him to live 4-7 years, but my father was a warrior and survived for 11 years.
Although it has been 19 years, the pain of losing him is very much felt. Every year around this time, I struggle to remember the exact day we lost him, as if my brain wants to erase that day. He is very present in my life and every time I look at my kids, I wish they had the chance to meet their grandfather and know for themselves what a great and loving person he was.

My father was a great dad and I never got to thank him for the many things he did for us. So I am writing this post to list some of the things I want to thank him for.

Thank you dad for being a kind loving father and for teaching us what love and affection meant by expressing to us almost daily how much you loved us. Thank you for teaching us what compassion and humbleness meant by helping others and being simple and down to earth no matter what your status was. Thank you for teaching us to stand for what is right no matter what the consequences were by criticizing what is wrong and telling it to their faces.

Thank you for investing in our education, not only by sending us to the best schools but by teaching us to appreciate education by telling us how you struggled to attain yours. Thank you for making us love Arabic through the poetry you wrote and reading to us those written by others. Although we were in foreign countries and American schools you insisted we have Arabic tutors and in college you filled our summers with articles to translate from the Herald Tribune and Newsweek. We hated it then but appreciate it and are grateful for it now. Thank you for raising us as Arabs in the Western societies we lived in and as Muslims without telling us what sect we belong to.

Thank you for making us love our country by keeping us connected and sending us back home every summer and for insisting we have no househelp, so we can learn house hold duties and responsibility. Thank you for making us love to travel and explore the world by flying us to different countries and cities and for allowing us to go on school trips.

Thank you for being a progressive man in a conservative society and not giving in to the pressure of your uncles and cousins who demanded you make us wear a sharshaf and cover our faces when we returned to live in Yemen. We wore a coat instead and covered our hair, you didn't even make my mother wear the sharshaf. Thank you for being proud of having three girls in a patriarcal society and not making us feel inferior and for teaching my elder sister  how to drive. She was one of the first few females to drive in Yemen back in the early 80's. It was phenomena in the North, especially in our home town in Dhamar. Thank you for raising us well and giving us the confidence and strength to face the world. We were so lucky and proud to have a father like you. Dad, you are one in a million.

No amount of words can express to you how thankful I am. Thank you for everything. I miss you so much.

Related link:

رجلٌ ليس كسائر الرجال

It's February Again

February to many is the month of love, the month of someone's special birthday, the month of a special anniversary and in the last two years, it has become the month of revolutions. It is all of those to me and something more intense. It is the month I dread most of the year because a part of me died in it, seven years ago, and since then I have died a thousand deaths. It is the month I fall apart, where the heaviness in my heart transmits to the rest of my body paralyzing all my defenses. In this month, it is as if my mind sends a message to my body to let go of trying hard to hold it together throughout the year. I become numb with pain and can hardly function as usual. Not only does my heart ache but my whole body as well, reaching my bones. I become hyper sensitive to the pain I carry all year round. The tears that I struggle to store for 11 months, come easily flowing with the slightest memory of my loss, not that I ever forget it. The anguish in my heart becomes exceedingly and unbearably painful.
In this month I tend to withdraw from my social circles and immerse myself in my grief. No words of support or sympathy, although much appreciated, ease the pain. Contrary to my sociable nature, I turn into a reclusive during the upcoming weeks to face my woes in solitude. 

Then comes that fateful day, February 27th, the day of the year I faced pain in it's most agonizing form. The sequence of events of that tragic day keeps replaying in my head over and over. I give myself permission on this day to be just a mother who is submerged in her sorrow, finding comfort in grieving the loss of her child. I pray, I write and I let go of all my emotions, surrendering to the painful feeling digging deep in my heart by shedding all my tears . I allow myself to feel hurt, the way a parent who lost a child would. As a wise friend said "Grief is not a disorder, a disease or a sign of weakness. It is an emotional, physical and spiritual necessity, the price you pay for love. The only cure for grief is to grieve."  I permit myself to do just that on this day, which helps me deal with the pain the rest of the year.

I normally manage my emotions considerably well. I am blessed with faith which keeps me strong and with great supportive friends, I am thankful for, who are always there for me all year long. Having faith helped me come in terms with my loss, but the pain certainly and permanently persists and I have come to accept it as well. A Dr. I visited last week casually asked me "and how many children do you have?" And it felt as if she had just pressed on a fresh wound, I tearfully replied, "I have four, and one of them is in heaven." She was moved and asked in concern if I had someone to talk to, I told her "I have God." It is He who gives me the strength to live with my pain. It is Him who I am thankful for everything. It is Him who gives and Him who takes, to Him we belong and to Him we shall all return. 

I am not a psychology expert, I am just a grieving mother who is sharing her mechanism of dealing with pain. I wrote this post to explain to my friends, whom I usually withdraw from this month, what I struggle with this time of year, hoping they forgive and understand me and hoping someone going through something similar can perhaps benefit from it.

Related links:
A Tribute To My Son
For My Little Angel
http://notesbynoon.blogspot.ae/2012/02/eulogy-for-my-son.html#comment-form

Yemen's Revolution, Two Years Later

Today, January Feb 11th, is the second anniversary of the start of Yemen's revolution. Despite the massive marches that shook Yemen's 21 governarates for 11 months, yet not many acknowledge that Yemen had a revolution. They conveniently undermine it by either calling it an uprising or a conflict. Many Yemenis feel that the revolution has been hijacked by Saudi Arabia backed by the US, by Ali Muhsin the former leader of the First Armored Division who defected and joined it, by the Joint Meeting Party who partnered with the ruling General People's Congress and by the Al-Ahmars and the influential tribal leaders who supported the revolution. Everyone had a piece of the cake, except the independent youth who started the revolution with big aspirations for change and dreams of building a new Yemen. They are the ones who sacrificed their lives and their blood, they were the ones who were injured, arrested and tortured. They are the ones who still bear the pain and the scares.  They are the 'forcibly disappeared'. They are the ones we remember to honor and thank today. May our injured protests get the treatment they deserve. May our martyrs rest in peace and may their footsteps be the inspiration for us to continue their path. We owe it to them to finish what they started.

Despite the many disappointments, grievances, international interference, setbacks and unaccomplished goals, two years after the revolution started, history has taught us that revolutions do not succeed overnight. A lot of commitment, effort, faith, hope, patience and above all time is needed for any concrete change to happen or for any desired results to occur. It is a long and arduous journey, yet Yemenis are known for their patience, steadfast and resilience. We will never give up hope in a new Yemen. If we do not succeed now, our children surely will. They will hopefully finish what we started.

N. B This post was mistakenly published on Jan 15.

Yemen’s Turbulent Transitional Year

2011 was a year of revolution in Yemen, characterized by massive peaceful marches that were seldom met with security forces’ brutality, subsequently leading to the ouster of Ali Abdullah Saleh after a 33-year rule. In exchange for immunity Saleh, transferred power to his deputy of 18 years Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, through a Gulf brokered deal, backed by the U.S , the U.N and the international community. On February 27th Hadi was appointed as president after a one man election.

Many Yemenis were discontented with this settlement yet after a long year of  bloodshed, clashes and interrupted services they were eagerly longing for peace, security and stability and hoping for a smooth political transition. The year 2012, was far from that, it  was a year of turmoil in Yemen. This year Yemen witnessed an unprecedented numbers of assassinations, kidnappings, car explosions, suicide bombings, attacks on electricity cables and gas pipelines, a deterioration of both the economic and humanitarian conditions, besides an increase in US drone attacks.

Throughout the year more than 60 Yemeni intelligence officers and military commanders were killed across the country, mostly in Sana’a and Aden, either by a car explosion or by unknown gunmen on a motorcycle. Although most of the killings were attributed to al-Qaeda, yet futile government investigations did not result into any findings.

The fragile security and lawlessness in Yemen led to an increase in kidnappings. In March, a Saudi diplomat, Abdallah al-Khalidi was kidnapped. A Swiss woman teacher was also captured in March in the portal city of Hodeida, both are still missing until today. In April, a French Red Cross aid worker was abducted and later released unharmed. In an unprecedented deterioration in Decemeber, an Austrian man and a Finnish couple were also kidnapped in broad daylight in the city center of the capital Sanaa.

Several attacks on the cables in the main electric supply station in Mareb left Yemen in the dark for several hours, sometimes days until the cable was repeatedly repaired. Tribal militia-men were suspected to be behind these recurrent attacks yet the government was too weak and the military too divided to secure those lines. The last month of December also witnessed the eighth attack on the LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) pipelines since the first sabotage on the line in October 2011. Repeated attacks this year limited the production of the gas and crippling the economy further. According to the Petroleum and Minerals Minister Hisham Abdullah, Yemen lost more than $4 billion (3.1 billion euros) in revenues since February 2011 due to such attacks.

The prolonged political crisis, lack of services, economic instability, rise in prices and unemployment were all factors which led to deepening the food crisis further which had already existed prior to the events of 2011. According to a recent report by UNICEF Yemen, about 60 percent of Yemeni children were chronically malnourished and about 15 percent – 257 thousand children under the age of five – suffer from acute malnourishment.

A sharp increase in US drone attacks  was also noted this year, it rose  to 53 from 18 in 2011. Not surprisingly since Yemen’s President Hadi himself, during his last visit to the US, praised these strikes and claimed their effectiveness. Yet many Yemenis  condemn them and  consider them a violation to Yemen’s sovereignty. Contrary to what the US administration wishes to believe these attacks have created animosity towards the US. Many Yemenis and Yemen experts have written extensively how the increase in US strikes has had an adverse reaction and has helped al-Qaeda grow in size.  Gregory Johnsen, who wrote ‘The Last Refuge”, a book on Yemen and al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, in a recent interview  said “Essentially what the U.S. is doing is bombing suspected AQAP targets in Yemen in the hopes that AQAP doesn’t bomb the U.S.,”  he added “In my view, this is neither sustainable nor wise. We have seen AQAP grow incredibly fast in a remarkably short amount of time, expanding from 200-300 fighters in 2009, when the U.S. bombing campaign began, to more than 1,000 fighters today. That is more exacerbating and expanding the threat than it is disrupting, dismantling and defeating it.” Many Yemenis question why haven’t suspected targets been captured and prosecuted instead of being remotely eliminated, often killing civilians in the process. A further increase in drone strikes in 2013 is expected unless there is a miraculous change in the US counter-terrorism policy or Yemen's puppet government takes a firm stand and condemns these attacks. 

One of the main demands of the popular youth revolution was the dismissal of Saleh’s relatives and former henchmen from top military and security command positions and the restructuring of the military. Hence President Hadi’s decrees to dismiss Saleh’s nephew, Yehya Saleh, head of the counter-terror unit and central security forces and to disband the Republican Guards headed by Saleh’s eldest son Ahmed and the First Armored Division headed by Ali Muhsin and reshuffling them into the central command of the defense ministry and restructuring the army into four components: ground forces, navy, air forces and border guards were widely celebrated and supported. Yet that jubilation did not last long,  to the dismay of many, reports emerged that both Ahmed Saleh and Ali Muhsin would be offered senior positions in the new military restructure. “Fortunately, Brigadier General Ahmad Saleh seems to have agreed to be given the command of a military region in an institutional reshuffle,” said an editorial. The popular demand to purge the Salehs and Ali Muhsin from any military positions was apparently disregarded once more. This will certainly be a slap in the face to the revolution and will further anger the youth who marched again this year from Taiz to Sanaa (270km), commemorating the martyrs and reviving the demands of the first life march in 2011, which include removing these notorious leaders.

Yemen is currently preparing for a six-month National Dialogue Conference which had been faced with challenges and setbacks resulting in it's postponement several times. After a participating quota for the political parties and groups was finally reached, the conference is due to start sometime early next year, despite reports that some Southern secessionists are still boycotting the Dialogue. Although the UN envoy, Jamal Bin Omar before heading back to New York , reportedly, “urged all Yemeni parties to avoid any acts that may hinder the national dialogue and the progress of the political process in Yemen” yet the ousted president appears determined to participate in the upcoming National Dialogue. A press statement from the office of Ali Abdullah Saleh the head of the General People’s Congress, posted on the official website  of the GNC party announced “ the leader (Saleh), will head the body of representatives of the GPC to the national dialogue conference.” Only in Yemen would an ousted president be granted an immunity and be allowed to participate in a national dialogue that would shape the future of the country and outline it’s new constitution. Speculations as usual about Saleh's upcoming trip and the destination he is headed to (Oman, KSA, Italy?) are currently surfacing once more in Yemen.

The volatile security situation that has plagued Yemen over the past year was
mainly to the weak military structure,  and the divided and opposing military factions spearheaded by Ahmed Saleh and Ali Muhsin. Any military restructure that has these two leaders in it will recreate the same bloody scenario. Yemen’s security and stability requires their final removal from any military position and hence severing any loyalties to either side. The removal of Saleh from Yemen, and prohibiting him from playing any political role that can further destabilize the country is a crucial and crystal clear necessity now, which the GCC plan should have initially incorporated. The GCC, UN and the international community have an obligation now to rectify this grave miscalculation and hold Saleh and his loyalists accountable for Yemen’s instability in the past year and impose strict sanctions on them, not just empty threats. Yemen mostly needs the prompt delivery of the $6 billion that was pledged at the “Friends of Yemen” conference which is necessary to assist in it’s development through sustainable long term income generating projects and not in the form of short term aid.

The path is still long and arduous for Yemen, yet it’s youth are still peacefully calling for change and are determined to continue demanding what they originally set out to achieve - equal rights, liberty, freedom from oppression and a dignified life, which the team in SupportYemen had conveyed in this video at the beginning of the revolution:

Our children matter too, Mr. President!

On Dec 14th, 2012 the world was shocked and devastated at the news of the shooting in Sand Hookey Elementary School in NewTown, Connecticut in which 26 people including 20 children were killed. It was indeed a painful and tragic loss. May all the victims rest in peace and prayers to their families to accept their loss and overcome their grief.
This this was the fourth mass shooting during President Obama's presidency. The U.S. President delivered an emotional speech on Sunday in which he said "these tragedies must end and to end them we must change." Indeed the U.S. has to control guns which annually claims the lives of more and more innocent people. Yet, this same president who shed tears over these 20 children approved on December 17th, 2009 a cruise missile attack in Yemen targeting the village of Al-Ma’jalah, in Abyan province, killing 41 local residents, including 14 women and 21 children. As the U.S and the world mourn these children, including us in Yemen, we also remember our victims in Al-Ma'jalah who did not make it to the headlines. Their death was unspoken of, they remained anonymous and their names were never read on worldwide televisions, yet we remember them everyday.
This is a (graphic) video of the victims for the world to remember them today and may they also rest in peace.

Many Yemeni children get killed by US predator drone strikes, while the world never acknowledges their death nor reportes it. Our children's blood is not cheaper than American blood and the pain of losing them is just as devastating. Our children matter too, Mr. President! These tragedies 'also' must end and to end them 'YOU' must change!

Related links:

The Failed US Policy in Yemen

Why US Drone Attacks Should Stop in Yemen and Elsewhere!

How Drone Strikes Help Al-Qaeda

Working Children in Yemen

Child labour is a common problem in MENA (Middle East & North Africa), yet more so in Yemen.  Children (0 - 18) form the biggest group in the Yemeni society, they constitue more than 50% of the population. Due to hard economic conditions and poverty many are forced to work to support their families, missing out on their childhood and any chances of getting an education.

This heartbreaking photo taken by Yemeni photographer AmeenAlghabri of a working child in Yemen during the revolution captured the attention and sympathy of many. Yet not many know that the child in the photo is a girl nor do they know her story. Last year BBC reporter Lina Sinjab tracked the girl and reported her story here: Yemeni child behind a revolutionary portrait

Five year old Awssan's story is just one of many sad stories of children working in Yemen. Yet she is luckier than other working children who face hazardous and harder jobs.   

Yemeni law prohibits children from working if they are below the age of 18. In 2010 the government estimated the number of working children to be around 1 million, yet others estimate the number to be much higher. The children's situation in Yemen has deteriorated after the revolution. Many more have joined the work force due to unemployment and the rise in prices resulting from the hard economic conditions which the country is facing.