Why do Yemenis glorify the September 26 Revolution?

A legitimate and logical question that imposes its existence at the present moment, and needs a revealing explanation and convincing details to dispel the secret of the existential relationship between the Yemenis and this day, the intimate and fateful relationship that has become intertwined to the point of identification, and has penetrated to the point of linking existence and destiny, and the existence of the Yemenis has become fixed on this day, and their distancing from it is denial, nonexistence and disappearance, considering it the womb in whose entrails their existence was formed, it is the source, the root and the genes that have colored their survival and ensured their reproduction.

If this brief description has outlined the close connection and solid overlap between two confusing pairs, what is the secret behind it?

The Yemenis were not just a bunch of nomadic Arabs, or a margin in the map of existence and history, or a forgotten and enslaved herd with no evidence of its existence, no characteristics of its presence, and no value confirming its importance. Rather, the Yemenis were a definite proof of the formation of creation on the surface of this planet, the birth of human life, and the humanization of existence. They drew the features of their existence in the age of extinction, and were distinguished by civilization and urbanization until they became a clear proof of the stages of development and urbanization among the first civilizations of history. Their presence as a civilization was confirmed, and their existence as a society was reproduced. They were a model of human advancement, progress, and development, and the building of a prestigious position among the peoples and societies that knew freedom, the construction of cities, economic and social stability, and the innovation of laws of governance, authority, and the distribution of wealth.

The conclusion of this is the imprinting of the connotations of civilization and liberation in the lives of the Yemenis, even if they went through historical periods during which they were exposed to occupation and subordination, but they overcame them and regained their radiance until the advent of Islam; they embraced it with peace and awareness as it was an affirmation and reinforcement of the consolidation of freedom, justice and equality and the preservation of rights and legislation that manages the affairs of the individual and society after the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula surrounding Yemen were immersed in ignorance, slavery and racism.

The Yemenis had clear fingerprints in Islamic history and an active presence in the capital of the Umayyad and Abbasid Islamic Caliphates, until the course of the Caliphate deviated and the entity of authority disintegrated, so the countries disintegrated and political and religious orientations multiplied, eating away at the geography of the peninsula, and Yemen was one of the victims of fragmentation.

When we talk here about the timeline of Yemen’s history, we find that there is a pivotal time rupture that befell the Yemenis from 893 AD - September 26, 1962 AD, since the feet of the priest Yahya al-Rassi set foot until the dawn of this day.

What we mean by rupture here is demographic change, the separation of society from its civilized entity, the demolition of the structure of awareness, thought, culture and behavior, the obliteration of the existing social structure, and the coloring of the land and people with a new belief and behavioral system that is completely contradictory to that which was a special brand of the Yemenis, as if a slip had occurred that drowned the Yemenis in a swamp that changed their destiny, altered their will and swallowed their reality.

Between the starting point and the end, there is a long history of suffering, misery, slavery, exploitation, ignorance, backwardness, and all forms of injustice, abuse, fragmentation, influence, and control over land and people.

However, given the exhausted state of the Yemenis before the outbreak of the September Revolution, as their condition was not ready to carry out a revolution, or that the iron fist of the Imamate was lenient in its dealings with the people, but rather was suffocating and squeezing their necks, and everyone was submissive and bowed down, but the societal repression reached its peak and hastened the zero hour, and the Yemenis had nothing to lose, so their enthusiasm was thwarted by the fear of the Imam’s brutality, and the fermentation of the obsession with revolution in the collective consciousness worked to form the will and strengthen the determination and leap towards achieving the goal of destroying the brutal authority that violated the land and honor, and demolished its fortresses, and trampled on its fear and spat on its myth, thus the motives for the revolutionary explosion and national enthusiasm combined after the cup had overflowed and the absence of Yemen as a state and the Yemenis as a people reached the point of disappearance, and both of them were only infiltrated into the quiver of the Imamate.

Nothing can describe the greatness of this day, nor its joys, nor the feelings of the Yemenis who were swept away by the pitch darkness and the shackles rooted in their bodies, minds and land, the Yemenis who were then barefoot, naked, miserable, their skin flayed, their wills taken away, their capabilities helpless, terrified in their faint dreams that desired the end of tyranny and the extinction of its exploits, but when they regained their brilliance, were inspired by their glories and overcame their weakness, they performed a miracle, drew a glow, freed an enslaved people and raised the banner of the republic with all steadfastness and pride as an amazing historical paradox.

Therefore, successive Yemeni generations owe a great debt of gratitude to their fathers and grandfathers who made this day for them that changed the course of life, restored their humanity and granted them their rights as owners of the land and not as strangers, as real human beings and not as slaves in a slave market.

How was life acceptable without a school, university, hospital, road, services, salaries, rights, freedoms, security or stability? And on this immortal day, all these needs are fulfilled, the prison is transformed into a homeland, racism disappears and equality is established, ignorance is banished and knowledge shines in every village, and Yemen joins the ranks of civilization after being absent for centuries.

The September Revolution created a free homeland for the Yemenis and they lived a prosperous era to the point that their sanctification of it diminished, their protection of its gains weakened, and the later generations ignored the secret of its existence in the way they are until the disaster occurred after five bright republican decades on September 21, 2014, the disaster of the return of the Imamate in its Houthi version from the back gate of Yemen, Saada, to devour the republican radiance and drown Yemen in a dynastic Imamate coup to return it to that moment that preceded the dawn of September 26, and to throw the Yemenis into that dark racist tunnel and the total alienation of the land and people, and to establish a culture of ignorance, superstition, sectarianism, death, veneration, classism, oppression, and killing of the Yemenis who rebelled against this dynasty five decades ago.

This shock was a strong motivation for the Yemenis to return to their first support, September 26, blessed by its blessings, sensing its blessings, and searching for its conclusions after the black Imamate smoke rose and wanted to invade the five September decades and connect the wheel of the time train of the Imamate that fell on the same day, September 21, 1962, and the outbreak of the first spark five days before September 26, as if the five republican decades could not be counted in time for the Yemenis.

Now, after a decade of trying to restore the Imamate, the sixty-second anniversary of the September 26 Revolution comes upon us. The free Yemenis show a reverence for it that exceeds the imagination of its enemies, and a reverence that burns their imaginations and tears apart the hopes of victory over it; because it is honor and dignity, because it is freedom and chivalry, because it is pride and grandeur, because it is the sunrise that never sets and the hope that never fades.