3 April 2000: On Baboons [Archives:2000/14/Focus]

Common Sense
By: Hassan Al-Haifi

“Look at that city and how much it has grown” remarked Khalid as he looked down upon Sana’a from a strategic observation point near the Chinese Grave on Mount Asir, at the eastern end of the city.
His elder brother was not impressed: I don’t know why you brought us here. I cannot see how the beauty of concrete and stone looks better from the top or down there amidst the concrete jungle and web of broken down asphalt roads”
Hey Ahmed, don’t knock it, this is progress. It really shows that we have made progress. Isn’t this why they kicked out the Imam, who had kept Yemen so far behind the rest of the world.””Just what makes you think we have caught up with anyone, yet? Look I am a Republican to the marrow and I have seen my fair share of battles under the Republican flag, all in the hope that Yemen will be turned into a modern Arabia Felix. But brother, believe me this is not what my fellow early patriots and I, who sacrificed so much for Yemen, had in mind as being progress. In retrospect, looking at Sana’a from here at the time of the Imam appeared to be the entrance way to paradise when compared to the ugly mess you have down there. Just after the rainy season, there would be greenery from the tip of your toes all the way down, going eastward to where the site of the Omani Embassy, with Sana’a sitting more towards the East like a jade amidst all the greenery. I wonder what the people who inhabited Sana’a then had in mind when they decided that a revolution was better than all that bountiful greenery.
For myself, it certainly was not to lift the gentle waves of green farmlands that stretched like a Persian carpet before your eyes.”But Ahmed, isn’t that reflecting gleam of the sun on that glass building there also a beautiful view from here. In fact it gives another perspective of natural beauty, mixed in with modern architectural art Ð a modern natural spectacle you might say..
Khalid’s wife had finished her slow walk around Khalid’s brand new Landcruiser station wagon, gust given to him by the Government for her husband’s “unflinching support to unity and the upholding of Yemen’s great national ideals”. She always wanted to know why such kind of talk always made wealth for people when those who really work hard and kill themselves night and day can’t seem to feed their people. She joined the conversation after having finished her tour of the car and after checking to see if her two kids have not strayed too far away: The spectacle you are talking about does not feed hungry mouths! What Ahmed was saying was that down, there was beauty that was beholding to the eye and food. Down there, was productive beauty. Down there, there was common grounds between nature and man.”
Ahmed was impressed that his brother’s wife’s affection to her rural origins was not erased by the faade of modern urbanization and her husband’s sudden wealth:” On top of that from this site one had a splendid view of a diversity of animal life in different forms. Just below us there, one would see a clan of baboons checking out the newly laid asphalt carpet feeling somewhat uncomfortable at the dangers that await the ecological balance so necessary for animal survival and sustained their presence in the area. I could still imagine the leader of the baboons looking down and following the curves of the road down the mountain, until hid eyes hit that straight stretch of the road, with farmland on both sides, before that ugly geometry took over both sides of the road, far into the interior. The clan chief suddenly stopped his eyes at Khuzeima Cemetery, which was then also on both sides of the road and without that ugly bridge, which nobody has yet to give a clear explanation as to why it was put there. It seemed as though the baboon was saying to himself: ‘Even the dead are not left at peace with this modernization business replaces the serenity of nature’. He guided his baboon friends westward, shaking his head at the loss of a once accommodating environment. Little did the poor ape know that nature was going to be unwelcome, not just here but throughout the country”.

Farida, Khalid’s wife again looked at the car: Khalid is probably glad that the baboons had left the area. Otherwise, his new metal elephant there would go home without a windshield. Baboons do not care if you served unification or worked for the phony regime that probably baboons would have better luck with running then what these guys are doing. All they want is their right of free passage and to roam the countryside unhindered by the traffic or 18 wheel tractor trailers with their hydraulic breaks screeching to break the silence of the land and by the noise of rock crushers that seemed to make these gently sloping mountains and hills like badly cut wheels of imported cheese. Even in the countryside baboons have disappeared, because wild lunatics are enjoying target practice at the animals waiting out the time until another war erupts at the national or tribal level. It seems like men these days have found more pleasure in killing themselves or what ever is left of animal life in the country, rather than getting back to their farms to produce the food they need to live. I kind of wish that whoever invented the rifle should been allowed to live to see what his invention has done to the psyche of men, especially in our country.”Oh Farida, you are always so captious, trying to show only the negative side of things and never looking at all the positive aspects of the great things the government is doing for Yemen and its people. But to make baboons look better than us, isn’t that stretching it a bit too far. Can’t you see, you have everything anyone could want out of life and then some. Yet, you insist that it is all wrong somehow. You even wanted a farm, so I got you a stretch of farmland out in Tihama. Don’t you see the fruits of the Revolution right at your footsteps and everywhere I take you.”Farida almost interrupted her husband: “What good is a farm out there in Tihama and I am here listening you speak all that monotonous rhetoric about the great deeds of an impotent regime that can’t even keep nature in peace. Besides, I was brought up to believe if you do not really earn what you have you go to hell. I did not know that this means that you go to hell now and take everyone with you. Apparently those who keep silent about the misdeeds of their fellow citizens, even if they do not do anything wrong, end up being the first to be punished for their apathy.””Come on, Farida. Are you insinuating that I have illegitimate wealth, my dear!” Khalid did not really mind his wife chastising him for his ready made affluence. In fact, the whole regime seems to be made up of people who did not care if you cursed them night and day, as long as you are not out there advocating any stronger forms of protest.
Ahmed wanted to get back to the environment: “I also remember when looking from this area that you could literally see hundreds of birds of all kinds flying here and there, or wallowing it up on some dead meat or nibbling away between the hairs of some of the bigger animals eating away at their lice. Now all you see are just flying plastic bags shaken out of the piles of garbage that spread throughout the city by people who are less fortunate in reaping the fruits of the revolution.”This was not the kind of chastisement that Khalid really enjoyed hearing: “Ahmed did not you guys pave the way for the revolution to set in?”Ahmed was not about to let his brother get him to share the blame: “Look Khalid, we had something else in mind when we went gung-ho for the revolution. What you guys have turned the country into is a cemetery of living people, who are really not going anywhere or doing anything while you guys just eat off the cream of the resources of the land. You guys are so ruthless as you scavenge the assets of the country leaving nothing behind except that ugly scene down there. Why even the birds do not have a chance with you guys running the show as you have not left anything for them to nibble on. But then, you guys are not deprived of any natural scenery, since you have annual vacations that take to all the beautiful places that real advanced countries at least left for their people to enjoy.””But then, how is your brother to be able to bring us here in this fancy car, if he did not follow along with the bandwagon?” said Farida, as she started to look for her two kids, in preparation for the trek home.
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