'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...

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.