In the Yemen War: It Is Not Sunni vs. Shii!! It Is Tribalism vs. The National State Concept

It could be very confusing.  There is only one way to steer clear from the entanglement of the multiple cobwebs of historical layers.

With this said, let us avoid the facile characterization of the Yemen war.  Sunni vs. Shii reflects a mental fatigue which tries to quickly package Islam as two kinds.  Sunni and Shii is like having two sons, Omar and Ali.  Or two daughters, Aisha and Fatima.  The resilience of Islam lies in its simplicity, together with its unreserved acceptance of other faiths.  Strange?  Not at all.  The Jihadi dictionary has infected our understanding of Islam and of Islamic jurisprudence.

Back to the war in Yemen.  Utter confusion about its genesis.  Not only in official policies.  But also in media confirmation of the errors of these policies.  This is especially so in Arab media, which in most cases lack research, public opinion polls, presence at the fields of battle, and writing creativity which asserts the truth of opinion, not the durability of ascertained facts.

What we have in Yemen today is what we had in Yemen yesterday.  The tribal flag flies higher than the national flag.

I was in Yemen from 1999 to 2001.  Commissioned by both the World Bank and the Government of Yemen to do a field study.  It was on legal and judicial reform and how to enhance the capacity of the two twin areas.  The study was done; some of its recommendations were implemented.

It is impossible to judge the pulse of any polity or political environment, especially without physical field experiences.  Get the pulse of the patient, not from a chart.  But from being physically with the patient -with the subject.

So in order to bestow credibility on my arguments below, in regard to the present Yemen war, I feel the need to cite other field experiences with Arab areas of armed conflict.

In Algeria during the war of independence in the early sixties, as UN spokesman.  In Syria, in 1962, to assess for the UN the status of the United Arab Republic.  In July of that year, I predicted collapse.  In September it did collapse.  In 1964 in Gaza, to assess the status of peace-keeping under the command of my able Indian friend, general Rikhe.

In the mid-70's, lecturing at New York University on counter-insurgency.  And much later, commissioned by the U.N. Security Council in 2006 for a mission in Darfour, the Sudan.

Why is this personal recitation of relevance to the present war in Yemen?  It confirms a non-changing fact about inter-Arab conflicts.  Lack of recognition of their cultural under-pinnings.

In most Arab areas, war and politics reflect various shades of tribalism.  The cohesive national State (the Egyptian model) is still on the way.  Let us look at Yemen:

• The movement of the Houthis is a North vs. South.  Shii v. Sunni is pure rubbish.  Islam does not come in two flavors or two packages: One marked Sunni; the other marked Shii.  Imam Ali, on whom I am now authoring a book in Arabic, was neither Sunni nor Shii.  He was simply the First Muslim; the foster child of his cousin, the Prophet Muhammad. 
• The South (Aden) is progressive.  The North (Sanaa) is a museum for the middle ages.
• In the south, you find women judges on the bench.  In the north, you cannot serve litigation papers on someone.  There are no addresses outside of Sanaa.  To help the Yemeni prosecutorial system, I recommended a simple system for the problem of serving court notices:  Provide bicycles or donkeys for the server, and a guide from the tribal area.  It worked.
• In the north, the Emirates built up the Supreme Court in Sanaa, with "Lady Justice" symbol on top.  It was shot down by a Kalashnikov held up to its head by a tribesman.  He did not like a judgment issued against him.
• In the south, I found courts ruling for a Spanish mother to have her son back.  His father, a German, had kidnapped him and fled to Aden after pretending to adopt Islam.  Some one had told him: If you adopt Islam, no court in an Islamic country would ever rule for the return of a son to his Christian mother.  The court ruled against the so so Muslim father, stating: "Dad adopted Islam as a cover for a crime!!"  The Spanish mother returned back to Spain clutching the hand of her son.
• From the north, Yemenis immigrate to Saudi Arabia for work, handing their passports to a Saudi "Kafeel."  Without the consent of that Kafeel, the worker cannot leave, even if the employer is oppressive.  In the south, there are syndicates and labor unions.  Protecting fair employer-worker contractual relationships.  Observing the rules of the UN-related International Labor Organization (ILO).
• In the north, Al-Qaeda thrives.  It, like ISIS, lives by the oxygen of tribalism and unevolved sunnism.  In the south, your identity, as a southern Yemeni national, trumps Islamism in case of conflict.

Yemenis, until recently, have been the most preferred laborers in Saudi Arabia.  They are not only neighbors.  They are very focused workers.  The Bin Laden Construction Company, now based in Saudi Arabia, had its origin in Hadramaut, southern Yemen.  The souring of relationships between Saudi Arabia and Yemen is due to political, not religious reasons.

Where does Egypt stand in the face of these controversies?

Riyadh had opposed Nasser's intervention in the Yemen revolt against the imamate in 1962.  It was the gravest mistake of the Nasser rule -the use of Egypt's huge armed forces to prop up a nascent republic.  It signalled the beginning of the decline of Nasserism, which became more of a memory than a movement.

For millennia, Egypt has been a security State.  Stability is its base.  Just look at the Pyramids: twin symbols for State and for stability.  A basic premise for understanding Egypt.  A premise grossly misunderstood by the Muslim Brotherhood resulting in their collapse.

Within this unalterable framework, the call by President El-Sisi for Egypt becoming "a strong State" resonates with the country's cherished history.

The present buildup of the Egyptian navy reflects a basic concern for the security of the very long Egyptian coastline.  Stretching from El-Salloum near the Libyan border, to Rafah on the Mediterranean, then looping south to the Sudanese border on the Red Sea.

By this August, with the inauguration of the second Suez Canal, 85% of the world trade between the Americas, Europe and Afro-Asia will transit Egypt.  Transit fees are expected to surpass tourism revenue. 

The exit from the southern Red Sea to the Indian ocean is at Aden (Bab El-Mandab).  Threatening it, whether by the Houthis or other parties, is a security threat to the Suez expanded regime.  An unacceptable challenge to Egypt's transitioning to prosperity.  This is a primary reason for Egypt being in the Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia.  The aim is to slow down the Houthis surge beyond Sanaa to Aden and Al-Hodaiyedah, both ports on the southern Red Sea.

But there shall be no Egyptian footprint in Yemen.  Not again!!  And the framework for the new Arab defense force, which is being constructed by the League of Arab States, is both defensive and voluntary.  The new axis between Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf, as led by Saudi Arabia, is a reflection, not of ideology, but of common defense interests.  Its present front is Yemen.  Its other fronts are left to be managed by each Arab country on its own.

The Houthis, Shiis of the north, are not Iran's agents.  Nor are the Sunnis of Aden Saudi catpaws.  The two parts of Yemen were united through war in 1994.  They were never united in one common nationalism.

Saleh, ruled over a republic held together by the equivalent of scotch tape.  A dictator (a Shii) who played the sectarian game for his own end -dictator forever.  With the help of the hurricane of the Arab Spring.  The Gulf Cooperation Council mediated his peaceful departure, and a successor, Hadi (a southern Sunni) was installed in his place.

But leaving Saleh in Yemen was a big mistake.  The snake moves.  Saleh, was still moving to undo what he had ostensibly accepted.  So the Houthi resurgence was propelled by: southern agitation for separation; the Iran/Saudi Arabia rivalry for preeminence in the Gulf; the general chaos of the sputtering Arab Spring in Syria, and Libya; and the rise of the fiction of Sunni vs. Shii, resuscitated by the disastrous US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

In Tehran, there is a false sense of triumphalism.  Very short-sighted. The same spirit pervades the Ordogan regime in Turkey, presumably on behalf of Sunni Islam.  That is until the Kurds, now in the Turkish parliament, put the brakes on Ordoganism.  Its retreat has begun.  Or so it seems!! 

In the Middle East, there are crazy notions amounting to what I may call "religious imperialism;" ethnic imperialism; and ideological imperialism.

Examples of "religious imperialism" are the calls for internationalizing Mecca and Medina.  These are iconic cities within Saudi territory wherein lies the holiest of Islamic shrines.  Same calls by Iran in respect of Karbala, Najaf and Kufa. Iraqi territory wherein lies holy Islamic locations, especially revered by the Shiis.  

"Ethnic imperialism" was manifest in Saddam laying false claims to "Khozistan" (Arabistan), Iranian territory.  Iraqi maps of the 1980s showed the boundaries of Iraq jumping over the Gulf into that Abadan area of Iran.

"Ideological hegemony" applies to Turkey's support of the murderous ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood.  The mother lode of jihadism in Egypt and beyond.

So what are the lessons to be learnt from the present Yemen war?

• The war is not a Sunni vs. Shii conflict.  It is the tribalized north versus the politically-developed south.
• Regardless of the outcome of that war, Yemen is most likely to split again into Yemen and Southern Yemen.
• The Arab coalition of the willing is a reassertion of Arabism vs. Iranian and Turkish transnational assertions.
• Thus talk and policy are now about "The Arab Nation." Unified militarily on a voluntary basis, and culturally, as a riposte to both Turkish and Iranian espousal of causes which go beyond their geographic boundaries.

The Houthis are not putting their Arabism as a door mat for Tehran.  Like in Afghanistan, the Houthis find in endless war a tenured contract.  If they lose today, there will always be a tomorrow.  Tribalism shall always be alive and well in Yemen's great strategically-located geographic space.