the yemeni crisis in cartoons

It's early 2010 after sunset. Another power cut. In the gloom of the old city of Sana'a, a Yemeni man strolls up to the corner shop. "Two of that nuclear power of Ali Abdallah Saleh's, please!" he says. The shopkeeper promptly hands him two white candles.

Power cuts have long been the subject of Yemeni jokes, but perhaps today more than ever. Here are only some of the cartoons by Rashad Assamiee, a young Yemeni cartoonist from Taiz regularly published in al-Jumhuriyya.

A colourful take on the current power, fuel, cooking gas, food, and water crises.

"That's it, I'm handing in my resignation! This is no life, working 24 hours a day..."

"No, that's it. We're going back to Somalia. Everything is in crisis with you! Electricity, water, diesel, petrol... There's even more fighting than in Somalia!"

(From right to left)

"Lunch, qat, mattress... Are you going on a trip?

- No Uncle Abdu, we're going to get cooking gas..."

"There's electricity! Hurry up before it cuts..."

"I have a lecture on Modern Mechanics in the afternoon and tomorrow one on Progress and Technology..."

Electricity cut: "Alright children, no one moves from their place! Let's not knock the water pipe over..."

(From right to left)

"The only thing is that before using it, you have to charge it for a full eight hours...

- What a nightmare! We don't even get eight hours of electricity a day!"

(From right to left)

"Humadi dear, wake up! The cooking gas just finished...

- Argh! The cooking gas man was in the middle of filling up three cylinders for me, and then you came and woke me up..."

"I'm guarding the car, uncle, so that they don't steal our petrol. We barely filled it up to half."

"Don't worry about the girl's mahr [gift from the groom to the bride usually including material, perfume, and gold], my son. Just bring me two gas cylinders, two canisters of petrol, two canisters of diesel and half a box of candles..."

putting gender back in water

In rural Yemen, it's a girl's job to fetch water. Girls often have to make long, back-breaking journeys to bring water home, a full-time job that can keep them out of school. If they grow up without an education, these girls are more likely to marry early, have a larger family to feed, die in childbirth, and bring up malnourished children. They are less likely to make themselves heard socially and politically, encourage their children's education, or contribute to their country's development.

Yemen's water crisis is complex and all-encompassing, with repercussions on many aspects of human development. Intricately linked to the country's alarming food insecurity, it is a challenge that remains increasingly important to tackle effectively - whoever is in power.

The following photos, that I took between 2008 and 2010 and that were recently awarded a reporting trip to Portugal with the EJC, take a look at the Yemeni water crisis through women's eyes.

Because a girl carries water - Shahara, North Yemen, 2009 - Siham, barely 10, carries water back home from a rainwater pool in her village. It's a girl's job to fetch water in rural Yemen, and those who have to walk miles every day to find water often miss out on an education. But Siham is lucky, and every morning she attends the village's girls primary school. After her picture was taken, she quietly asked for a pen.

Balancing buckets - Shahara, North Yemen, 2009 - In their bright plastic buckets, women collect water from one of the village's rainwater pools. Because it has been long since it last rained, the level inside the pool has dropped.

Eid water - Beit Baws, North Yemen, 2008 - Two girls carry water home from a pool at the bottom of their cliff-top village, on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sana'a. It's Eid al-Adha, an important Islamic festival, so the youngest girl is wearing lipstick.

Running the water home - Sana'a, North Yemen, 2010 - In cut-out jerry cans, two girls run home with the water they have collected from the local mosque. Despite a public water network in most of the Yemeni capital, in 2010, residents complained that the pipes ran dry for at least half of the month.

Tap to to dwindling groundwater - Amran, North Yemen, 2009 - A mother collects water from the public water tap. She makes several trips before she has enough for the day. Below the city where she lives, the groundwater level drops by three meters every year.

'imagine if ali left'

After 'Bloody Friday’ last week, pro-change protesters in Yemen today called for a ‘Friday of departure'. But as he addressed a throng of supporters near the presidential palace after midday prayers, President Ali Abdullah Saleh spoke of a 'Friday of tolerance', one of peace, stability and security. He told the crowds that he was prepared to hand over power, but only to "clean hands". He warned that the anti-governement protesters had been influenced by the Houthis and "drug traffickers".

There are those Yemenis who genuinely support the president, but also tens of thousands - now backed by senior army commanders and high-profile resignations - who continue to call for him to step down like Bin Ali and Mubarak before him. Yemenis advocating for change have been increasingly creative in rallying support over the last weeks. There have been improvised songs, satirical performances, hymns, and even reggae! On Youtube, here is one more pro-change voice with a difference.

And here is a translation:

Rent-a-Yemeni:

No one will do but Ali [Abdallah Saleh]. Who else but Ali? Imagine if Ali left. There would be a civil war! We’d become Somalia!

(Looks for encouragement to his left.) What else?

Ali holds Yemen like this! He holds Yemen like this! (Pretends to hold Yemen.) What would happen if he loosened his grip? Yemen would escape and smuggle itself into Saudi Arabia!

(Is handed money that he quickly stuffs into his shirt pocket.)

There was nothing before him, and there will be nothing after him. Just look at the others who don’t have Ali! There can only be Ali.

Pro-change Yemeni:

If Ali goes, then Ali goes. Are we going to close up shop? Is Yemen a shop? 25 million people! Are there really no leaders, no managers, no cadres among them?

(Sighs.) People! In 1962, the revolution was against ignorance, poverty and illness. In 2011, it’s against ignorance, poverty, illness, employment, corruption, and dictatorship!

And yet we won't have anyone but Ali...

a woman leading change in yemen

London, March 1 - With two presidents unseated in Tunisia and Egypt and highly publicised protests across Libya, the recent demonstrations in Yemen are catching the world’s attention. The escalating violence is worrying and only time will tell if it will lead to a quick overthrow of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh or whether change will take much longer in Yemen.

But one thing is different in Yemen: the international face of the Yemeni pro-change movement is a woman.

Profiled in high profile outlets including The Washington Post, The Toronto Star and Time Magazine, journalist and human rights activist Tawakkul Karman represents a positive image of Yemeni women. Long before she was photographed leading February’s protests against the government, she was called a brave defender of freedom of expression and human rights in Yemen.

In a January 2010 interview with Al Jazeera, she spoke of detained journalists, a sheikh’s tyranny against villagers in Ibb, a governorate south of the capital, the lack of justice for the family of a murdered doctor, and – long before January’s WikiLeaks revelations – even went so far as to accuse the government of being “in alliance” with Al Qaeda. Today, she continues to protest, demanding peaceful change.

Finally a refreshing change from the “over-sized post box” image of the Yemen’s women in the niqab (a face veil worn in addition to the headscarf), or the photos of child bride Nujood Ali that have fuelled Yemen’s early marriage debate since April 2008.

Of course, all is not rosy for Yemen’s women. Yemeni parliamentarians (one out of 301 is a woman) still have not agreed on a minimum age for marriage to prevent girls like Nujood, nine years old at the time of her divorce, from being married before they finish school. Illiteracy among women is still a whopping 67 per cent, women are typically the first victims of food shortages (one in three Yemenis suffers from severe malnutrition according to the UN) and many have difficult and limited access to healthcare. Women’s participation in politics is minimal and, despite two female ministers, Yemen has consistently ranked at the bottom in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index since it was first included in the ranking in 2006.

But there is hope.

Karman and fellow female human rights activists, such as journalist Samia al-Aghbari, are on the frontline of protests in the Yemeni capital. They may not be representative of Yemeni women in general, but they are indeed inspiring. In fact, one Yemeni man was so impressed by al-Aghbari’s courage during the protests of 13 February when she was knocked onto the pavement by a member of security, that he wrote her a poem, “Revolution of the Green Hijab... To Samia al-Aghbari and all the other revolutionaries”, which was published the following day on the Nashwan News website.

Although they are not all out on the streets, there are a number of inspiring women in Yemen. In addition to Karman and al-Aghbari, Yemeni women are human rights activists, journalists, doctors, educators, members of civil society, academics, wives of political detainees, photographers, and even tweeters.

To read the full article as published on Common Ground News Service, click here.

much more to yemen than we see in the news

London, Dec. 07 - The British media’s focus on a young British Muslim woman who stabbed a British Member of Parliament last month once again shines a gloomy spotlight on Yemen. According to The Guardian, Roshonara Choudhry, a 21-year-old student who stabbed the politician for supporting the war in Iraq, told the police: "I've been listening to lectures by Anwar al-Awlaki.... He's an Islamic scholar. He lives in Yemen."

As the media concentrates on al-Awlaki’s online sermons, his role in the launch of Al Qaeda’s new magazine, and the Yemeni government’s ongoing battle against Al Qaeda, the real Yemen has been drowned out. Yet it is this narrative – that of the vast majority of the population, not of a few hundred militants – that holds the key to better understanding, breaking stereotypes and perhaps ultimately less extremism.

Inside a coffee shop, near King’s Cross station in central London, British-born Yemeni Abubakr al-Shamahi, 21, sips his hot chocolate and talks passionately about his home country. Not once does he talk about extremism. Instead, he talks of corruption and his fear that donors’ money is not properly spent on long-term development, he laughs at Yemeni parents’ matchmaking, and he raves about the beauty of the old city of Sana’a. No one he knows has been influenced at all by the radical sermons of al-Awlaki.

This is the real Yemen. It is not al-Awlaki’s falsified narrative of a West-hating, militant-training Yemen. It is a country of over 22 million people – over 70 per cent of whom are under the age of 25 – struggling for development and the privilege to join the World Trade Organization. On Facebook, this is what the English-speaking youth in Yemen are telling the world. A Yemeni-Canadian, Issmat Alakhali, 32, attracted over 4,500 users to his page, “I know someone in Yemen and he/she is not a terrorist!” which he launched in January. More recently, Atiaf A., another young Yemeni, started a video project called “I’m Yemeni, I’m not a terrorist”.

To read the full article as published on Common Ground News Service, click here.

security checks from yemen

Departure hall at Sana’a airport

On the large table beyond the first x-ray machine, the security officer picks a toy car with giant wheels out of its box. “Can you take out the batteries for me please?” he asks the young woman who has bought it as a present. She does. “Can you show me how it works please?” At 03:30 in the morning, she politely obliges, grappling with the remote control until the car’s large wheels light up in a blizzard of fluorescence and start singing. “Thank you,” he says. “We have to check otherwise they say that we’re not doing our job properly.”

At the next x-ray scan, laptops are to be taken out of bags and displayed separately. A man in a long black coat stands unsmiling beyond the arch of the body scan. It beeps as I walk through, but I am let past. My two bits of hand luggage are checked again -- but not as thoroughly as the first time. This time, nobody opens my wallet to check for explosives between the YR 100 notes.

Cairo airport, transit desk

Tall Egyptian policeman in white: Good morning! Where are you going?

Me: Beirut

Policeman: Why?

Me: To meet friends

Policeman: What are zeir names? (Pulls out a pen and starts writing.) Give me zeir names!

Me: [Great, Egypt has become Israel.] Erm, ...

Policeman: (smiles) How many friends are you going to meet?

Me: (arms firmly crossed) I don’t know!

Policeman: How many?

Me: I don’t know, perhaps five, maybe more...

Policeman: Great! I’ll give you my telephone number and if you meet more than five you let me know! Ok? You let me know! (laughs)

Cairo airport, x-ray before gate to Beirut

"Is this your bag?" asks the policewoman. I nod. She struggles with the straps, then pulls out all 15 cm of my key to home in the old city of Sana'a. "This is a key?" she exclaims. "Hey look!" she calls out to her colleague busy behind the x-ray screen,"This is a house key!"

made in yemen

Inside a honey shop off the busy Zubairy Street in central Sana'a, the shelves are lined with honey, perfume, natural oils, and two mixtures called "Mixture to Increase Weight" (top right) and "Thursday Night Mixture" (bottom right).

"What's the Thursday Night Mixture?" I ask. The shopkeeper, a smiley man from Shabwa with pepper-salt short hair, grins. "Oh that, it's just to encourage the men," he says.