Paradox

Yemenat

Ahmed Saif Hashed

Some aspects I could not find in my father fifty years ago now manifest as grotesque and savage in the political power that governs us.

This authority wields legitimacy through dominance and force, bordering on tyranny. The memories I have of my father, recounted with yesterday’s pain—perhaps I seemed to exaggerate—pale in comparison to a political authority committing acts beyond imagination, plummeting to the depths of brutality.

Jim Morrison’s observation that “some fathers destroy their children before anything else can” resonates profoundly with this authority.

It seeks not only to obliterate our present but also strives to seize the future yet to unfold. The adage, “The best days are those yet to come,” has been turned on its head in Yemen.

I must assert that the difference is vast and immeasurable. A thousand blessings upon my father; may mercy envelop him a hundredfold. In contrast, I curse this authority that has become perhaps more savage than savagery itself, deliberately dismantling our present and jeopardizing the future of our children.

It is essential to pause and reflect on this matter to illuminate the profound suffering we now endure.

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Today, we find ourselves in an era more oppressive than the first age of slavery—an era shocking in its audacity, more blatant, ugly, and crude than we could ever have imagined.

This time seeks to enslave the employee, dragging them down to the depths of despair, reducing them to a condition beneath that of a slave—stripped of dignity and devoid of all rights, even those necessary for survival.

Each faction cuts the employee’s salary in its own way: one party withholds it entirely, while another diminishes its value through the devaluation of the rial.

This reflects one facet of the grotesqueness of war among its factions, where employee rights have become spoils of war for the powers that be.

An employee whose salary is cut, whose rights are extorted, and who is compelled to work without pay descends to a condition worse than that of a slave in the most oppressive age of servitude. The authority, having lost all sense of responsibility and humanity, demands that an employee work without compensation, that a teacher labor without food, drink, clothing, or shelter, and without the ability to support a family.

Should they refuse to comply, their employer severs their employment, allowing that authority to seize their salary, their service, and their hard-earned savings for retirement. Consequently, they find themselves stripped of their rights and aspirations for a dignified life in their later years after a lifetime devoted to serving the nation.

Thus, the employee becomes crushed to the brink of annihilation—robbed to the point of death, devoid of everything.

They are denied their salary for work performed and further deprived of their pension, which they had hoped to rely upon in old age.

This represents a double execution—working without pay and years of service wasted—culminating in a tragic and lamentable end for the unfortunate employee, crushed by an authority whose legitimacy extends no further than dominance and pretense.

Such a double execution occurs only under a regime of brutal dominance, devoid of awareness, fierce in temperament, and utterly lacking in humanity.

This authority is unresponsive to its obligations toward its people and ignorant of the fundamental rights of its citizens. Thus, the employee labors and hopes, only to grasp at illusions—sowing without reaping or harvesting. They inhabit a future seized by force and a present filled with humiliation, ultimately leading them to death—crushed and despondent.

A teacher bears the weight of immense expectations while struggling to make ends meet. This educator finds themselves powerless, devoid of options, and stripped of rights to the extent that their very right to life feels threatened.

Their unfortunate fate places them under an oppressive authority that has eliminated their salary and seized their service, resulting in a double injustice that undermines both their right to life and their dignity.

The authority demands that the teacher work without providing any form of support or sustenance in return. It neglects what is constitutionally and legally owed to the educator while completely abandoning its responsibilities toward them.

The regime manages what falls under its jurisdiction in a manner that reduces the teacher to a state even more abject than that of a slave—placing them below household pets and domesticated birds, whose owners are obligated to ensure their food and care.

We find ourselves in an audacious era that openly seizes what belongs to citizens, including employees and teachers. It acts in a manner that is blatant, shameless, and deeply entrenched in injustice.

This authority bestows rightful claims upon those who do not deserve them, overstepping boundaries and usurping rights as if governed by the law of the jungle, where might makes right.

This era seeks to sever its connection to contemporary knowledge and understanding, dismantling the remnants of a constitution, law, and rights more each day than the last. It scorns these principles with primitive thinking and a crude, arrogant ideology that aims to regress us to a state of greater backwardness, oppression, and tyranny.

An authority that exerts control over the lives of people under the guise of “might” brazenly violates rights through audacity and coercion. It claims what is not rightfully theirs and bestows it upon those who offer loyalty or seek its favor.

This regime of dominance infringes upon your rights, leaving you to endure suffering and deprivation until you perish from hunger, despair, and anguish.

Furthermore, should you dare to demand your right to life and your salary in exchange for your labor and effort, they will arrest you and silence you indefinitely. They disregard all that embodies humanity—rights, future, and life itself—refusing to alleviate the burden of injustice that has grown heavier than tyranny.

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The essence of judicial rulings lies in their execution. The obstruction and delay in implementing these rulings constitute a crime punishable by law. This raises a critical question: why do those in power find it so easy to commit such provocative acts and treat the rights of citizens with such disdain?

A careful examination of current events leads to an undeniable conclusion: the individuals in this authority are not statesmen, nor will they ever possess the capability to establish a state for its citizens—even in a thousand years. We endure a bitter reality, a sorrow without bounds.

In this oppressive era marked by extortion and the violation of rights and freedoms, laws are abolished by mere decrees.

Regulations are issued without any legal foundation and stand in direct contradiction to the constitution.

Conflicting directives emerge, clashing with both constitutional principles and legal statutes. Worse still, with a few lines of a memo and a single stroke of a pen, constitutional and legal texts, along with final judicial rulings, are suspended and nullified.

Where are the prosecutors? Where is the story of Ali and the Jewish shield? Where is Al-Ashtar Al-Nakha’i? Where is justice? Where are rights? Where is freedom—where, a thousand times over?

It is profoundly tragic that all the accumulated constitutional, legal, and judicial knowledge of over sixty years can be dismantled by a single memo that topples the very foundations of the state, governance, and institutions.

Such actions obliterate the separation of powers and the scant rights and freedoms that remain for the citizen. The “Code of Conduct for Public Employees” has already unveiled sinister intentions, threatening to transform public employment and work contracts into primitive bonds of slavery.

What remains for us from the struggles of the Yemeni national movement, which has endured for over six decades in the realms of knowledge, law, justice, and development? What value does the judiciary hold if the enforcement of its definitive rulings is routinely obstructed? What purpose does the discussion of judicial independence serve when the situation has descended into rampant destruction and reckless disregard?

What significance does Parliament possess for the citizen when it has been reduced to a mere facilitator and legislator for the authoritarian goals of those in power? The ruling authority now dismisses the necessity of a constitution, law, judiciary, Parliament, or government. So long as a single memo of a few lines can dismantle these structures in an instant—by a signature that lacks any legitimacy—they feel unbounded.

One memo, among countless others, has unveiled the harsh reality of our time and the extent of their contempt for all that is sacred. It has become clear that their intentions are to exacerbate destruction upon destruction. We now face complete civilizational regression, bereft of a constitution, laws, justice, or institutions.

This grim state is underscored by a primitive consciousness that governs us today with arrogance and narcissism, highlighting the weight of the dominance under which we exist and the compounded weaknesses that loom over a future that has become either nonexistent or perilously close to annihilation.

* * *

Moreover, we inhabit an era where your name, affiliations, and loyalty may yield either fortune and privilege or deprivation and inferiority.

This predicament does not begin with public employment nor does it end with promotions; it extends to the attainment of high-ranking positions—both hidden and visible—along with the privileges or restrictions that accompany them.

Our identities have been tainted by all that is loathsome, transforming them into a curse that befalls us and those who share our names. We find ourselves embroiled in a fierce struggle driven by abhorrent racism, tribalism, and narrow interests.

This is compounded by a resurgence of a bloody and terrifying history that spans over 1,400 years, with its brutality extending into our present—a curse that shows no signs of receding.

The successive authorities in our land have failed to foster any genuine development or comprehensive progress.

Instead, they systematically dismantle what remains of our state, our laws, and our rights. This ruling authority is parasitic, steeped in a decayed consciousness, subsisting primarily on the remnants of its predecessors and the meager rights and lives of its citizens.

Governed by the legitimacy of dominance, this authority reinforces its failures with each passing day. It is incapable of cultivating a healthy economy or achieving sustainable development, struggling to improve the conditions of its citizens, let alone halt the decline of their living standards.

This regime exacerbates poverty, reducing the poor to a state of destitution. It sows chaos within the administration, leading to the collapse of institutions, government agencies, and public facilities. The mismanagement and ensuing crises reach into every household, worsening hunger and deprivation.

These authorities compensate for their failures by imposing their will through force at times and deception at others. They exploit the nation’s resources to entrench their ideologies and policies within the public consciousness, parasitizing the modest foundations laid by their predecessors. They replace the names on schools, streets, and facilities with their own, embedding their tribalism and ideologies into the very fabric of society.

Today is darker than yesterday. We can justifiably say that they build neither factories nor schools! They do not construct cities or pave roads! Instead, they convert civil facilities into prisons, beg from others while refusing to rely on their own capabilities, conspire against our nations, and deliberately corrupt them.

They audaciously plunder and rename, spreading chaos and devastation in a manner that is both terrifying and overwhelming.

They create puppets, idols, and disasters, boasting about them without an ounce of shame. They bestow names upon things foreign to them, living in greater need and deprivation of those very things. Yet, more than anything else, they show neither shame nor embarrassment.

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