Interview Of the Week - Issue 39

39 - Sept 25 thru Oct 1 2000, Vol X

Hamoud Baider to the YT:
“Yemen has solved its problems and now it is time to devote herself to development and progress”

Mr. Hamoud Mohammed Baider was among those patriotic nationalists who fought against the Imam’s tyranny during the Arab Liberation Movement in the 1950’s. He was born in 1942 in Sana’a. He was brought up in Sana’a where he also
got his education. He was coeval with the events of Suez Canal nationalization in 1956 and the declaration of the Arab Unity between Egypt and Syria in 1958.
Before the revolution, he was imprisoned with other patriots like Ali Abdulghani, Al-Sharai and many others. In 1958 he joined the Military Academy where his military skills were molded. He was haunted by the ideas of freedom and liberation which developed inside him a sense of determination to overthrow the Imam’ regime. So he joined the Revolutionary Officers Movement in their fight against the then Imam’s government until his dream came true in 1962. Mohammed Ben Sallam of the Yemen Times met him and listened to him as he recalled his memories with the first spark of the revolution:

Q: You took part in the Revolution against the Imam in 1962 and participated in drawing up its 6 goals. How did you come out with those goals? Do you think that they all have been fulfilled? Can they be guidelines for our new generations?
A: A number of Yemeni army officers and I met before the revolution and we decided to organize our activities against the Imam. At the same time we outlined the six goals which all were based on the situation of the people at the time. The north was ruled by a tyrant and the south was under the yoke of colonization and Sultans affiliated to the colonizers. The six goals were the gist of the political thought we believed in at the time.
Although we were in Sana’a and we had not been to Aden, Taiz, Sa'dah, etc. patriotism made us feel that all were constituting our country situated in the south of the Arab Peninsula. Therefore, the revolution’s goals were confirming that the Yemeni cause was the same be it in Sana’a or Aden or Taiz, etc.
When the revolution broke out in 1962 the British colonizers tried in vain to block it. Many people from the south: Dahlia, Lahj, Abyan, Mukalla, Shabwah, Maharah, etc. rushed to congratulate us for the revolution led by Abdullah Al-Sallal and they joined us in protecting the newly-born revolution.

Q: Can you brief us on the revolution stages and the difficulties it had faced? Was there a role for the revolution in the North in eruption of the south revolution?
A: Just a year following the revolution in the north, the south revolution broke out in Radfan under the leadership of Rajeh Labbozah. That was the spark for the great revolution in 1964 which drove the last colonizer out of the country.
We believed that with the eviction of the last British colonizer from the south land, the two Yemens would be soon united. However, that was not fulfilled owing to the conspiracies against the revolution of the north resulting in the besiege after the Egyptian forces were pulled out following the War of 1967. Yemen’s enemies thought that Sana’a would collapse under the siege and that Aden would be occupied again by the Britishers. But they were stronger to fall down.
The two Yemens remained apart due to conflicts resulting form different political tendencies. Both sides were claiming the right to rule the whole country. This conflict continued until 1990 after extensive talks and meetings. This historic event was crowned by a referendum during which Yemenis approved the constitution and blessed the establishment of the unity.
In my opinion, the May 22 1990 marked the biggest revolution ever in the history of Yemen because it ended the serial of Yemenis’ struggle for unity.

Q: How do you assess the achievements after the revolution? Do you think that what has been achieved is satisfactory? Has there been a smooth progress since the revolution without any difficulties?
A: Let me ask a question; how was Yemen before 1962 and how is it now? What did the Sultans and Imams did during centuries? What has been accomplished in 38 years following the revolution? What has been achieved in a decade since unification?
Answers should come from those familiar with Yemen before 1962 and are still alive. There can not be any comparison between that time and now. This does not necessarily mean that all miracles have happened because you know that Yemen has faced a lot of conspiracies and challenges. There have been debates and controversies even among those who led the revolution and this helped soft-pedal Yemen’s progress. If Yemenis at this stage can achieve the largest part of the goals, that can be an achievement by itself.
The revolution outlined crystal-clear goals that we, the old generation, still believe in and will be sticking to until we die. That they are abided by or not is not to be talked about because if there are some shortcomings they should be attributed to mechanisms of execution and people concerned.

Q: How can you assess that different phases the revolution went through? What were the characteristics of each phase?
A: Since its eruption the revolution has undergone various difficulties. After the revolution, Yemen became a republic. Leaders of the new system differed over many issues. However, the republic has never collapsed.
Yemen has built a lot of big institutions, that none can deny, in a very short period depending on its limited resources. You can feel the difference in the number of students now and after the revaluation for example. In addition, there was no physician or any others with specialization except one engineer, Abdullah Al-Kurshomi, who graduated from Cairo at the time.
The problem in Yemen is disagreements among the political forces. Such disagreements are one of the main reasons for conflicts which affected the progress and development process. Despite all this, I can say that what has been achieved so far is very satisfactory.
I am sure that Yemen nowadays is more capable than before of accelerating the development process, specially with the emergence of gas and oil.

Q: There has been a disagreement among historians over recording the revolution, specially in regards to the nature of the revolutionary officers movement. How can you explain that?
A: It is something natural. Opponents of the Imam were many and they came from different parts of Yemen with different visions. But it was the revolutionary officers movement including, civilians, military personnel and tribesmen that could overthrow the tyrants.

Q: Any last words?
A: Yemen has solved its problems and now it is time to devote herself to development and progress. I am very optimistic about the future of Yemen. Yemenis are capable of standing strong and facing all the challenges. The most important thing that Yemen should focus on is democracy, freedom of thought and opinion, equality among people and justice.

Samira Bin Daair
“Yemeni Rural Women are overburdened”

Samira Ali Bin Daair is at present working as the Program Manager of Unifem, implementing the Post Beijing Project,Phase II. She has worked at different international organizations in various domains. She has a B.A.Honors degree in English Literature and Philosophy from the university of Karachi, having obtained a scholarship under a technical assistance program in Aden. She did her masters degree in Curriculum Development from the University of Manchester,U.K. She lived and worked in the United Arab Emirates for some years and she and her husband decided to return to Yemen to bring up their three children and feel more settled.
Galal Al Sharaabi of the Yemen Times asked her some questions in a personal interview:

Q: Who is Samira Ali Bin Daair?
A: That is a strange question …..I think the best judge of who Samira is are people…..although I must warn you that everyone will tend to give you a different version, because one always sees different colors in a rainbow due to many factors apart from perception. Unless I have Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray I cannot judge myself.

Q: What are the difficulties facing Yemeni women?
A: So much has been said about the problems facing Yemeni women that I am afraid all I say here will be clichés. There are problems that confound the Yemeni people in general and maybe women are more vulnerable to some of them. There are problems of poverty in the context of meager national resources and the structural adjustment package. There are problems of access to available resources that women face.There are problems of misconceptions pertaining to women’s status in Islam that limit her mobility and basic right to education, etc. Apart from people mixing up between bad tradition and Islam, the later which has endowed women their basic human rights, and even if the personal status law or family law were perfect, there are problems of protection when a woman’s right to inheritance, maintenance in the event of a divorce, and many other rights are violated. I think women in the early days of Islam probably fared better in some respects, if we for a moment forget the veneer of sophistication and modernization we see around us. I do not wish to be pessimistic, but simply wish to go beyond superficialities to looking at the core issues concerning Yemeni women. The problems of women go beyond tradition and social practices, they are of a very complex nature, difficult to extricate from the general problems of the Yemeni family and the problems of development in Yemen.

Q: How do you view women’s political participation?
A: I know there is a lot of talk these days regarding more women having decision making power, and in the majority of cases,they mean political power and holding public office. However, while it may be true that having more women in Parliament or public office as the case may be, may work to the interest of women, much also depends on whether those women will actually promote the interests of the majority, and also whether they will be allowed to go beyond tokenism and take important decisions affecting the lives of the majority. Secondly, there is also a danger that this overemphasis on public office may be a conscience-saving gesture which will stop us from looking at other mechanisms for the promotion of women’s concerns. In other words, it may not work to the advantage of the majority of women who suffer from problems of access to the basics of life. The overemphasis on empowerment without specifying the how and what may also detract one from analyzing the real needs according to the socio-economic realities of Yemen. To give you one example, the education for development notion per se has long been disproved where some experiments in literacy have failed and it was found that adult literacy programs need to be backed by other resources.Education by itself does not always lead to socio-economic mobility, as it was believed to be the case in Paulo Freire’s time in Latin America. Organizations like Action Aid in Britain have voted for a more comprehensive approach towards development for the disadvantaged, with literacy being only one of the components. People may get educated but may still be barred from integrating into the national economy due to other factors. One has to understand the whole social stratification system in Yemen, in order to understand what can work for which group of people. Bernstein in his book “Class, Codes and Control”, talks about how codes and language became a barrier for the children of the working classes in Britain, who did badly in IQ testing as compared to those from the middle class for e.g., not because they were less intelligent. Therefore saying that the problems of Yemeni women only relate to social tradition is an oversimplification of the matter.

Q: What about women’s education?
A: Well the figures for girls enrollment in school have increased in recent years. However, even here it is not always social tradition that limits their enrollment and in many cases has been the lack of adequate educational provision for girls’ education especially in the rural areas. More attention is now being paid by the govt. to girls education and more schools have been built, and a lot of innovative programs are being implemented by the ministry of education in coordination with the World Bank, Unicef and others. Notwithstanding this fact, other measures need to be taken, like adding relevant materials to specific geographical areas and making the curricula more in tune with their needs. On the one hand the small pilot projects undertaken by some organizations give one the time to experiment but faces the problem of scaling it up at the national level. These small projects do not make a dent in the problem. I believe the sectoral approach now practiced by international organizations will be more effective in terms of backing the ministry of education and tackling the problem at the central level; even if this is also prone to other problems of management and bureaucracy,etc. However a happy marriage between the micro and the macro level is necessary for sustainable development.

Q: Do you think that rural women have obtained their rights or do they need more attention paid to their problems?
A: I always feel strongly about rural women and the fact that they work very hard within the backdrop of few support services. Yes, they are overburdened and unfortunately there is a tendency to concentrate on surveys and identification of problems, and turning the poor into an object of academic debate. While it is true that it is necessary to delineate the nature of the problem and formulate clear plans for development, it is also necessary to affect the relevant interventions to relieve their burden and make life easier for people, in the short term. Even the issue of poverty needs to be tackled at different levels, i.e., at the national institutional level and building the infrastructure and policies, and also at the micro level, ascertaining that people can access to the social safety net. There are immediate emergency measures that need to be taken whilst the more long-term developmental ones are also being formulated. Sometimes it may be good to also give the people fish lest they be fishing in the dead sea even whilst teaching them the art of fishing, as the Chinese proverb goes.

Q: What, in your opinion, are the problems of development in Yemen?
A: That is a really loaded question ….not easy to answer but I will try. Opinion on what constitutes development has changed drastically in the last decade or so. Development literature tends to look at the issue more wholistically in terms of access to basic needs like food and shelter,health and education, as well as access to livelihoods and a host of other things. Poverty too is not only poverty in terms of an income but also education and the ability to earn one’s living…such a thing as capability poverty, social poverty due to discrimination,etc. However, in my view, the development level of a nation is judged by the well being of its people, to put it very simplistically. Also, development is something that grows from the roots from inside the ground like a well cared for tree, and transplant is not always the best form of growth, even if cross pollination may be necessary. Development is something that must grow from the society and the nation needs to invest in its people who will affect development….

Q: I have seen your articles published in Yemen Times in the past…what are your major publications…and why have you stopped writing?
A: I haven’t stopped writing as such. It is just that one goes through different phases in life. I used to write a lot of poetry in the past I have also published some research papers on education and other subjects whilst working in the Documentation and Research Centre in Abudhabi. I also published a book on Educational change in the United Arab Emirates based on a field study of schools. However, my work in the development world makes me drained at times so much so that I toy with the idea of opening a grocery store and finishing the novel I am writing. The children also keep me busy but I try to write now and then. Indeed we live in such a hectic world that quite often one forgets to think….something like a computer that is overfed with data.

Q: What is this novel about?
A: It is about life and all my experiences of people and events in the different countries I have lived in …it is about social change and the new world disorder.

Q: Any last word?
A: Well, what else can I say….I have already said too much….sometimes silence is golden to keep the peace….something I haven’t learned very well yet.