What does it take for Europe to hear Yemenis’voice?

Rasha Almaqaleh


  Day after day, Yemenis have come to realize that they are suffering from one of their worst nightmares: foreign invasion, civil war, and global silence. They live in a total chaos and there is clearly no way out as they are stuck in their isolated faraway homeland. And with the removal of the Saudi-lead coalition from the United Nations annual child-killer list, the world has officially made it clear that no one really cares if Yemeni children suffer and die in Yemen.

  Living in Europe and watching the ‘civilized world’ hardheartedly turn its back on my people, I keep wondering:  What does it take for Yemenis to be seen and heard by Europe?! Does the term 'one world' exist only in FIFA World cup official songs and other world tournaments? Should Yemeni people give up on any hope for getting the attention they deserve? Or, instead of passively waiting, are they supposed to do something to in order for their voice to be heard?  

  Apparently, Europe is not going to care about the horrible ongoing conflict in Yemen unless huge numbers of Yemenis flee their destroyed country and make the journey to the European Union countries to seek asylum, just like influx of Syrian refugees. Otherwise, it seems impossible to get the ‘civilized world’ to even remember that Yemen exists on the world map. Once Yemenis find a way to escape their borders in huge numbers and arrive at Europe’s beaches , dead or alive , their voice will definitely be  heard. If those children cross the sea by rickety boats and drown, and the waves carry their soft bodies to the beaches of the ‘civilized world’, all the alarm bells will start ringing. Even though Europe will be shocked at first by the huge numbers of the newcomers, which will certainly be called a ‘crisis’, it will be the world’s crisis then and they will struggle to get a handle on it.    
         

European Union , EU, will call the state members for emergency meetings to discuss the urgent situation . They will sit together and talk about the reasons behind ‘influx of Yemeni refugees’ and they will work hard to come up with solutions. (Yay!)

  Their eyes will be WIDELY open to see how the Saudi-led coalition has completely destroyed what’s left of the Yemeni hardly-stable state using Western arms, and how the Saudi royal family is fueling the civil war and deepening Yemen’s problems. As a result, they will exert real pressure this time on the Saudi regime to stop their aggression against Yemen. Additionally, UN will ‘re-add’ Saudi Arabia to its black list and this time it will be for good! And with the arrival of the first thousand Yemeni refugees on the French territories, France will immediately stop distributing medals of Honor to Saudi war princes.

  In addition, European countries will decide to increase funding for border patrol operations in the Mediterranean Sea and they will come up with new approaches to fight migrant smuggling to stop the rising numbers of Yemeni refugees. Last but not least, EU will propose a new quota system for relocating the huge numbers of Yemeni asylum seekers among EU states and it will positively fail after all.

  Influx of Yemeni refugees will be the number-one headline in all world news outlets. The peoples of Europe will be divided; Some of them will have a welcoming attitude towards the newcomers, some will have doubts and concerns, and some will just take a refusing posture and set their minds and hearts on ‘hate mode’.  But all of that will be beside the point because the word ‘Yemen’ will be one of the most popular keywords on search engines and one of the trending stories.  People will search for more information about the escaped country and they will learn that the city capital of Yemen is called Sana’a and they will memorize the names of the Yemeni cities in which there are ongoing battles. Isn’t that just the punch line? (Ha Ha!)

  To put it briefly, as long as Yemenis stay in Yemen, Europe will continue to be unconcerned, unmoved, and unresponsive. But once Yemenis find a way to arrive on European territories in huge numbers, Europe will wake up and do its best to embrace them and to stabilize the ongoing unrest in their country, including embargo arms to Saudi Arabia. How ‘stylishly hypocrite’ and ‘brutally civilized’ is that?! (Wow!) 

My story with Qat - Part one

By Anis Albasha


  If you live in Yemen and you are invited to a casual friends’ gathering, you will have to chew Qat. If you are at a Yemeni wedding party, you are expected to chew Qat with the celebrating people. Even if you are going to pay a condolence at a funeral, you have to chew Qat with the comforters! The rule is, whenever there is a social gathering in Yemen, you can't skip chewing Qat. This plant, which originally came to Yemen from Africa, has become a major part of the Yemeni social/cultural life.

In fact, Yemeni people usually do all the socializing during Qat sessions which normally take place every day after lunch and last for 5 to 6 hours or sometimes even more. Under the influence of Qat, People tend to be chatty and they get into a very good mood or let's say into a 'dreamy' mood which makes them build a lot of castles in the air. During Qat gatherings, Yemenis can talk politics, economics or whatsoever. And if you want to enter their world, all what you have to do is to share their number-one daily activity, Qat chewing. Otherwise, you will be socially excluded and isolated.

  Known scientifically as "Catha edulis", and being classified by Health World Organization WHO as “a drug of abuse that can produce mild-to-moderate psychological dependence (less than tobacco or alcohol”, Qat plays a pivotal role in Yemen. In fact, we can say that the life of 90% of Yemenis is revolving around this plant. They claim that Qat is not bad and it has magical effects. According to professional Qat chewers, it puts them in a state of ecstasy and gives them stimulation. Scientifically speaking, Qat leaves 'contain cathinones,  an active brain stimulant that is similar in structure and pharmacological activity to amphetamine which is used to treat some health problems.' 

In addition, Qat can cause a number of health troubles such as serious adverse neurological, psychiatric, cardiovascular, dental, gastrointestinal and genitourinary effects. From an agriculturally perspective, growing this hideous plant consumes a great amount of water, leaving people and important crops face severe shortage of water. Moreover, it is no secret that this daily habit of chewing Qat for long hours is an actual waste of peoples’ time and money. 

  The funny thing is that during the process of chewing Qat, Yemenis have illusions of finding sufficient solutions not only for their own problems, but for all the issues that plague the entire world! But after finishing chewing Qat, all those illusions fade away and the chewer find themselves in a depressed mode. Chewers have to struggle with the post-chewing symptoms which vary from one person to another. Some people feel frustrated and lost while many have a decreased appetite. Others may have insomnia and late wake up the next morning.

  Despite all those facts, Yemenis claim that life would be unbearable without Qat. They also argue that Qat gives them the energy and ability to stay focused which are two important factors to get things done. Workers would tell you that it gives them energy and helps them to accomplish their job perfectly. Similarly, students would say that Qat makes them study harder. However, when it comes to reality, the results are different. Most of the work in Yemen is not done perfectly and many Yemeni students cheat in order to pass exams even though they chew ‘harder’!

  So, as a non chewer who was born and raised in Yemen, how did I manage to live in a ‘Qat-chewers’ land? That is what I am going to talk about in ‘My story with Qat-part2’.

How they turn our children into bullies and braggers

Rasha Almaqaleh

We used not to allow our child to watch action cartoons where there is a lot of aggression and violence, even though they are considered ‘age-appropriate’. We thought that children don’t need such violent cartoons especially with all the violence that is actually going on around the world. Instead, they need to learn how to live in peace and harmony with each other. But then we have noticed that whenever our child played with other kids and they started to fight for some reason, he would be beaten and wouldn’t understand what was happening and what he was supposed to do to protect himself. Then, we found out that those kids watch those action cartoons and pretend to be those strong and violent cartoon characters. We started asking ourselves whether it was fair to prevent our child from watching such cartoons while most of the parents out there allow their kids to do so.  I was annoyed that kids learn from such cartoons that it is ok to use their physical strength against each other and how this could turn them into bullies at a very small age.

 And like many parents, when our child started going to kindergarten, we were so happy. Time elapsed and we were so proud to watch him grow, get adapted, and pick up a new language so fast. Then, we started noticing that our kid would come back every day from kindergarten asking us to buy him something he saw with other kids, like a Spiderman T-shirt, a Batman pair of shoes, or any other commercial stuff which companies fill the markets with to attract children and trick their parents to buy. So, we thought that we didn’t have to buy him things he really didn’t need. Therefore, we completely ignored his demands and kept telling him that he already had everything he needed.

One day I went to pick him up from kindergarten and as soon as one of the kids in his group saw me, he proudly said to me “I have a star-wars T-shirt!” I smiled at him and pretended to be impressed. A couple of minutes later, another kid, 3 year old, bragged that he had ten Euros! This immediately rang an alarm bell and on the way home, I kept thinking about all of my child’s repeated demands and whether it was not a good idea to turn a deaf ear to them. Then, we started observing this attitude among children and we figured out that kids boast and gloat all the time and how this affected our child’s confidence! Kids LOVE to brag about anything and everything and they tease the other kids for not having ‘cool stuff’, especially those stuff with cartoon figures.  I know that this happens in high school with teenagers but I didn’t expect that they acquire such attitude at this small age!

When we asked our kid what kind of present he wanted us to get him for his birthday, his answer was “a Spider man  figure!” That was a toy he once saw in a toy store. Those companies will do anything to get to our pockets. First, they create attractive non-educational T.V. cartoons. Once the cartoon characters become popular and our children become attached to them, they flood the markets with those characters toys, puzzles, T-shirts, pants, under wares, shoes, belts, watches, etc.  I noticed that if we get our child, say, a T-shirt, which doesn’t have one of those figures, we will go through a battle to get him to wear it. Apparently, he doesn’t count it as a good piece of cloth and he doesn’t see anything special about it that is worth ‘showing off’.


                        
Against our better judgment, we ended up allowing our child to watch the kids’ cartoons which we once believed he would be better off without . And we had to give him many of the ‘cool stuff ‘he asked for and weren’t really necessary. We noticed that his confidence has increased and that he could compete with other kids. I’ve come to the conclusion that those companies are not only messing around with our money but more importantly with our children’s personalities and their way of thinking and judging. As parents, we should be aware of the huge influence of such cartoon characters on our children and we should try to reduce it. I know that we cannot completely avoid buying such stuff for our kids, but at least we can teach them that their self worth comes from who they are and what they can do not from those ‘cool stuff’ they have.                                             



There is a proverb in Arabic that says it best: “you cannot clap with one hand!” So, without the help of all the parents out there, it’s not possible to create a healthy environment for our kids to grow, and we won’t be able to raise them in the best way possible. We are simply allowing those commercial companies to mess with our children’s heads and turn them into bullies and braggers. We have to bear in mind that if we decide to do nothing about it, our children will eventually grow and those two horrible attitudes will grow with them, too.