Taiz and Aden are the key to Yemen's stability

The matter, from my point of view, has exceeded all limits of the desire to abandon the Yemeni identity, and I believe in the right of any Yemeni, southern or northern, to express his feelings and political positions on Yemeni unity, even if extremism has reached its utmost limit with some demanding the restoration of the state in the south. This issue does not morally call for excess, fanaticism, arbitrariness and hatred against others. It exceeds all limits of reason with the repeated talk, openly and secretly, that the people of Taiz in particular, and the north in general, are the causes of all the evil, mistakes, fighting and conflicts that have occurred in southern Yemen.

In fact, many factors have contributed to the escalation of the atmosphere of hatred and hostility towards the northern other in general, and the people of Taiz in particular, although I am certain that there is no one in Taiz in particular, and Yemen in general, who sees the people of Aden and southern Yemen as their enemy, and I cannot hear that anyone has diminished the dignity, status and rights of the people of southern Yemen. I am talking here about the ordinary citizen and not about the current political action.

It may be true that the call to deny the "Yemeni" nature of the south and to say that it was never part of Greater Yemen is not a recent one. It is an old call that a number of politicians in South Yemen have been convinced of and adopted. But it was never the desire of the majority. I say this

Yemenis between two traps

It is also true that no one can deny the disastrous policies practiced after the 1994 summer war, and the accompanying arbitrary actions of the authorities at the time towards all those who opposed the war in general, northerners and southerners, and in particular those belonging to the Socialist Party, which represented the authority in South Yemen and signed the Yemeni unity agreements. At the same time, no one can deny that southern Yemenis were leaders and supporters of the 1994 war for reasons related to their past conflicts, and this is not the place to discuss them.

In politics, it is easy to shift responsibility for any failure of authority, whether official or otherwise, to external parties. Thus, the call in the south for secession from Yemen was accompanied by throwing all the blame on Taiz, both stones and people. This was met with approval by advocates of denying the Yemeni identity of the south, and the ceiling of hatred was raised to an unprecedented level, to the point of demanding the expulsion of everyone belonging to Taiz from Aden. Indeed, harsh campaigns were carried out against northerners, under the roof of security justifications, all of which were outside the framework of law and justice.

What prompted me to address this issue is what I felt during the short trip to Taiz, and specifically to Al-Hujariya. Separating from the official procession and traveling alone, away from the security measures and slow walking behind the gunmen, gave me a valuable opportunity to learn about the obstacles created by the war, which severed the country’s ties and the bonds of kinship and history between Yemenis.

Upon reflection, I found that the missed opportunities on the Yemeni sides, even those calling for the secession of South Yemen, are the result of ignorance and political immaturity. If the situation in Taiz and Aden, in particular, had stabilized and humanitarian understandings had been reached away from politics, and areas for investment, work and a safe and dignified life had been opened, those who fled the country would have returned to contribute to creating a viable model that alone is capable of confronting the “authority” project in Sana’a.

I fear that what my father’s prophecy warned me about in 1987, that the country had become “a swamp that would never dry up,” will take root in Yemen. Hence, every rational person who loves a unified Yemen or even a divided Yemen must contribute to restoring social peace and human relations between the people of Taiz and their brothers in Aden and all of the south.

I am confident that this will create economic interests for all parties that will alleviate the suffering of the people, and after that, the Yemenis will certainly return from their forced exile to their cities and villages to live, settle down and work.

*Quoted from Independent Arabia