On the sidelines of the President's meeting

“It’s 8am at the university.. Carry your ID card.. You are invited to a meeting.” I received this message late at night, I delayed replying for a few moments. I wake up early these days, the logic of responsibility dictates improving income and diversifying its sources, expenses are increasing, the economic situation is deteriorating, increasing production is linked to sensing the value of work and acquiring new skills. I do this seriously. Two weeks ago I started waking up in the morning, working during the day, and I usually check messages or reply to friends when I am about to sleep.

Moments later, I sent a message to Abdulaziz asking about the university I would be attending to attend the meeting:

Taiz University?

Confirmed: Yes.

I didn’t go into the details of the invitation for digital security precautions. I analyzed: “He must mean a meeting with the president.” The city is finally preparing for the first visit by a Yemeni president in 14 years. I stopped for a moment. I won’t go so as not to affect the new habit I’m trying to acquire at work in the morning. I tried to evade by charging my colleague Abdulaziz the costs of attending. He joked with me, hinting at the importance of the meeting, of my importance. Since it’s a meeting with the president, the invitees, including me, are obligated to say things to the president. I got lost in thought:

What will I tell the president?

I have never been invited to meet a senior official before. I do not like events that are dominated by praise and glorification. I am confused. My presence is necessary and important. If the president wanted us to hear from him, he would not have invited us. We will hear him on television. He wants to hear from us, for us to discuss the pending issues with him. I must be honest in what I say: the battle... the media... the youth... the enemy... the republic... the leadership's dispersion... the compass. I plan what I will say, remove an idea, abandon another, build a paragraph for a new idea in my memory, arrange it, hear it in the subconscious. Ugh, it is useless in a meeting like this. I will say a new topic: Two weeks ago I started organizing my time. I wake up early, I start chewing qat and working, I continue until the early hours of the night, I get tired and sleep. I no longer have time to confront the country's enemies. I feel betrayed and guilty. I don't want a job that covers my economic needs. Millions of young people are unemployed. We are looking for economic reforms that improve the currency value and give us a little time to perform our national duty. A loose word, with a personal motive. A new, more general and clearer idea is needed.

I was still arranging the speech I would say to the president. I slept before dawn and woke up a little after six. My soul was saying: “Forget about meeting the president. Go to the qat market. Buy some khat and do your work.” And I was saying to myself: “I am invited to an exceptional, national, and frank meeting. I must live up to the responsibility. Absence is shameful. My presence is very important. The president will be waiting. It would be shameful to let him down, to let the country down. etc.”

As we move forward, we will start meeting those we know. I apologized to Abdul Aziz Al-Dhabhani, the Yemen Youth Channel reporter, for not making a statement, as I did with Alaa Khaled, the Belqis Channel reporter. “I know how to write, I don’t want to make statements.” I was afraid that the paragraph I would say to the president would be forgotten, that it would be mixed with some of the statements. We found the person carrying the identification cards that we would hang around our necks and we entered the university to meet the president. Entering through the back gate, I was not surprised, I understand the security procedures, especially in the current situation. I headed towards the back gate, me and Ahmed Pasha, Tarek Al-Banna, Hossam, and others I do not know. I saw soldiers from the country, they told me that the gate I was heading to was not the desired gate, the back gate was still far away, and because the identification card was hanging around my neck as a journalist accompanied by the description “media professionals, intellectuals, and opinion makers” they would stop the car that would take us to the desired gate.

There I meet Moaz Mansour and Ayman Qaed, who work for two Kurdish channels. The security guards tell us: No phones, pens, watches connected to satellites, and things used by professional criminals are allowed. We understand these procedures, especially at this time. Not far from the checkpoint, there are some memories of the crime committed by the Houthi militia: a destroyed school.

All that remained was to reach the hall by going through the final procedures: checking the card, then the quick inspection, then the device that confirms that we are not carrying dangerous materials.

My first surprise was that the meeting was not for young people or influencers, social figures, political components and women’s initiatives. The number was not sixty people, they were much more, which weakened my hope of saying what was hidden in my memories and which I was going to say to the president; to occupy the waiting time by contemplating the hall.

*

I don't understand why women sit on the left side of the hall and men on the right. When I studied at Sana'a University in 2009, it was the same: female students on the left side, male students on the right side. In the president's waiting room, I remembered the university, the first seats for early risers and their friends, Aref Jamel was in the first row, I didn't know the others and whether they slept there or not.

At events attended by journalists, journalists usually stand in the back row. It was great to meet my classmate, Al-Hadath correspondent Hael Al-Sharhi. He would motivate me to study for a master’s degree and stand by my side encouraging me. I love sociology, and Hael pushes me towards political science, and I live without political leanings.

At the end of the line, sat the famous cartoonist Rashad Al-Samei, with some colleagues next to him. The waiting time was long, as I sleep early and eat breakfast early, so I was happy when Naif Al-Wafi suggested that we go outside to get some fresh air and look for sandwiches, while the smokers manage their smokes outside.

The people in charge of the ready-made meals replied that it was for the escorts coming from Aden. Al-Wafi looked right and left and saw a piece of pizza next to a sleeping cleaner. The cleaner seemed exhausted from the night. Meanwhile, the soldiers redeployed again. We thought that the president had arrived, so we returned to the hall.

I didn't know any of the social figures. I discussed the issue with Abdulsalam Al-Qaisi. Prominent figures capable of mobilizing people in the field must be present. We are in a war. We need influential people on the ground, not those who pretend to influence and guests of personal relationships and political stakes. In the hall, Abdulsalam Al-Qaisi was receiving compliments for his closeness to Brigadier General Tariq Saleh, a member of the Presidential Council. This was not my concern when I was next to him. We are neighbors in the country, and Al-Qaisi's valleys are many. I may have wonderful "storages" when our country gets rid of the militia epidemic.

I forgot what I was going to say, the president was late, the Secretary General of the Nasserite Unionist Organization, lawyer Abdullah Noman, entered with Abdulmalik Al-Mikhlafi, they will sit in the front row despite the late arrival, does this positioning mean that the nationalists are running legitimacy, and that the president has repositioned himself politically with the Nasserites? I don't think so. He would have said that if Abdulqawi Al-Mikhlafi had not been the head of the reception committee, for example, in addition to the entry of the Minister of Youth and Sports Naif Al-Bakri with a group of ministers into the hall, and the dear socialist comrade Ramez Al-Sharhi reassured me about the president's work as if he were one of his friends, I trust Ramez..

I was in the row before the last, and sitting two chairs away from me was the parliamentarian Abdul Karim Shaiban. He was carrying a khaki envelope, from which he took out a few papers. The people sitting nearby did not need much time to know what the papers Shaiban was carrying contained. The logo of the Al-Ahly Taiz Club was on each paper, and he ran towards the Minister of Youth and Sports to sign them.

The President will enter the hall. I have never been this late for lunch recently. I did not notice the officials who entered with the President. Many did not know, as I guessed. That is why when the President spoke about the presence of former Defense Minister Mahmoud Al-Subaihi in the place, the hall will witness the longest applause welcoming the honorable man Mahmoud Al-Subaihi.

During the president’s rather long pause, between two paragraphs, I said to the person next to me: “I wish he had some juice.” I saw the hunger on the faces of the others, so Awad Al-Wahbani, the correspondent for Yemen Today Channel, found an opportunity to talk about the protocols of meetings during the days of the leader, “may God have mercy on him.” If he was late, he would not leave until he had fed them rams.

I forgot what I was going to say, the others didn't say anything, I think the president said what we wanted to say with some notes.

The presence of the first row of the state revealed how much the people need symbols who carry the great national project and work for it, and this is what made us wait for the afternoon, and makes us ready to stay until after sunset, even without food or water!