Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [88]
WHEN I RETURN to Yemen after a brief holiday in Egypt, it doesn’t take long for all of the familiar anxieties to catch up with me—as well as some new ones. I arrive home just after the second Eid holiday and Saddam Hussein’s execution to find the entire country in mourning. More than half of Yemen’s population is Sunni, and they love Saddam.
Yemen was one of the few Arab countries that refused to criticize Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Every other Gulf state—Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman—condemned the invasion. Yemen, the PLO, Jordan, and the Maghreb, areas with substantial Palestinian populations, abstained.
I’ve noticed a few correlations between Saddam and Saleh. Like Saddam, Saleh came from a military background and surrounds himself with a close circle of advisers who are military people. He places his trusted tribal associates in key positions of power, consolidating his control over the security apparatus of the state. In some ways, Saleh’s Sanhanis are not unlike Saddam’s Tikritis. But the comparison goes only so far. Saleh did not consolidate power by shooting family members who didn’t agree with him, try to eradicate entire ethnic groups, or destroy the economy of Yemenis who didn’t concur with his political or religious philosophy.
Saleh’s support of Saddam during the invasion of Kuwait infuriated Yemen’s neighbors. Every Arabian Gulf state expelled the majority of Yemeni expatriates working within their borders. Some two million wage earners were forced to return to Yemen jobless and unable to support their families, which had a hugely damaging effect on the Yemeni economy still felt to this day. It remains difficult for Yemenis to work in the Gulf. Kuwait has never really forgiven Saleh and has obstructed Yemen’s attempts to join the Gulf Cooperation Council, the regional economic bloc.
In turn, Saddam expressed his appreciation for Yemen’s solidarity by donating large sums of money to the country, both directly to Saleh and to the tribes. Members of Saddam’s family have sought refuge in Yemen, which is home to an estimated one hundred thousand Iraqis. Not all of these were Saddam supporters; many came to Yemen to escape repression.
“Everyone in Yemen loves him [Saddam] because the official media told them to love him,” a diplomat tells me. “And he was an important source of income to Yemen during a very difficult time.”
Yemenis offer slightly different opinions. “He was good for Iraq because Iraqis need someone strong to keep them in line,” a Yemeni Arabic teacher tells me. “Otherwise they are wild and difficult people.” Posters of the dictator plaster storefronts and houses and the back windows of cars. Arabic newspapers sing his praises. Street vendors sell cigarette lighters that project an image of his face.
In the office, my men walk around with long, sorrowful faces.
“It’s best if you don’t bring it up,” Manel warns me. “They’re incredibly sensitive. Everyone here has been crying about him for days.” He had made the indelicate suggestion that Saddam was a brutal tyrant responsible for the death of thousands, and was promptly abused. “They think he’s a martyr.” For once, I keep my mouth shut.
The video of Saddam’s execution is disturbingly popular, and I keep catching the men watching it on the screens of their mobile telephones. I refuse to see it. Parents in Yemen apparently think it is appropriate to allow their children to watch such things, and in early January two young boys kill themselves in imitation of their hero. One hangs himself, and the other shoots himself. Their parents are quoted in the press as saying that their boys worshipped