Yemen … the tired, tiring nation

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There is nothing far from the truth than the saying ‘Happy Yemen’, as this country has never known comfort and happiness throughout its history filled with wars and bloodshed.

The poet Al-Baradouni said about his people: “They were only created to be killed, however it is difficult not to love the Yemeni people as individuals, and it is difficult to know the truth of their nature easily, because their simplicity, kindness and generosity hide another personality.

Those who see the Yemeni believe that it is easy to overcome him because of his clothes that impede movement and the simplicity of his shoes.

All the heavily armed invaders, ancient and modern, believed that their power and modern machines could defeat these simple people, but they were all delusional.

The Yemeni does not need more than a few tribal alliances, and some dates to beat starvation, to fortify himself in the mountain caves armed with just a rifle to protect himself until the exit of the invaders.

So the Yemeni has always lived far ahead of his time, even from the neighboring countries, sometimes hundreds of years behind them, and his destiny may be to remain like this.

Consequently, the fingers and feet of all those who tried to extricate that unhappy country were burnt from the illusions and dreams that it had sunk to the bottom of mankind.

They were famous for their saying about Abdel Nasser’s army, which entered Yemen to support the military coup against the Imamate regime, in 1962 that they, as republicans would fight the royalists, backed by the Saudis, to the last drop of blood in the body of an Egyptian soldier.

It is also well known that they enjoy the war on the side of the republicans at times, after they were paid before they turned against them, and fought with the royalists, also after they were paid and this was their habit of tiring their invaders, who came out one after another, leaving the Yemenis to fight their differences.

It is well-known what the Yemeni writer Balqis Al-Riyami said about Churchill: “If the people of northern Yemen die, then treason will die.” Churchill did not say that, of course, and treason is not related to a people and excludes others, but rather it is a word steeped in its relativity.

It can be said that the strength of Yemen lies in its huge and heavily armed tribes. Its political weakness also lies in its multiple and scattered tribes, ethnically and sectarian point of view, and loyalty to this side or the other, since there are nearly 300 tribes and constitute approximately 85% of the population of 26 million.

The history of some  Yemeni tribes dates back to the Kingdom of Sheba, and it played a role in every war, in every ministerial formation, and in every coup against it, and all the alliances of the tribes in it are turbulent because they are based on interest and not lineage, and this keeps the tribal map on the move. They also represent integrated governments in their regions.

There was no country close to Yemen, or even far from Yemen that it did not invade and all of them were exhausted and cursed the hour they entered, and among these were the pre-Islamic Persians, the Qarmatians, the Abyssinians, the Italians and dozens of others. Only the English chose the strategic port of Aden and occupied it for 128 years, because they chose not to go in the interior.

What is important from all of this is that Kuwait, throughout its modern history, has been the country most concerned with aiding Yemen, and has never interfered in its affairs. However, a majority of its people stood behind its leadership and supported Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait.

The fortune of the Kuwaitis was not better than that of the Egyptians before them, nor do the southerners after them, who sought to unite with them, only to get their fingers burned.

They were also the most spiteful of Saudi Arabia, despite all assistance given to them, and the kingdom being most generous with them, and employing millions of them, and it is expected that the Iranians will not have a better life and will, in the end, meet the same fate just like the others.

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By Ahmad alsarraf

This news has been read 18781 times!