Enough Celebration, and Back to Work [Archives:1999/39/Viewpoint]

People have voted, and Ali Abdullah Saleh has been elected under peaceful and normal procedures. Celebrations on the occasions of the first direct presidential elections and the 26th of September have taken place. Lights were glowing all over the streets. Posters of the president and flags of Yemen were hung everywhere. However, now that everything is over, there is no excuse for wasting more time on celebrations and greetings. Now it is time for work, serious work.
We can consider this as a new beginning for our government, from the top spot of the President, down to the lowest ranking employee. Let us view this as a milestone to get out of the past, and go for a brighter future. We must all work together to get Yemen out of its deteriorating conditions. Let us consider this as the first step of the process of healing Yemen. All of us must play a role in modernizing our country, and getting the phrase “backward” out of our dictionary.
As a newspaper, we feel we are obliged to reach our aim of a civil Yemen. We are willing to begin an intensive campaign to know exactly what the reason behind our backwardness are. We must know why our country is living through such difficult conditions while we have all the factors for success. Our country is rich with almost all natural gifts. It has the natural resources. It has the labor enough to have, . It also has the strategic location. Yet, we are the poorest nation in the region.
Everyone knows the Yemen Times as the independent newspaper that seeks the interest of the nation as a whole. It does not belong to any political, religious, or sectarian group. It belongs to the people of Yemen. We at the newspaper, have committed ourselves to look at what our people in Yemen suffer from. We try to know why the suffering goes on and try to get solutions to it by investigating the causes and factors behind it. We are not in the situation where we can directly fix the conditions in the country. But we have the means to bring the attention of the leadership and government to those issues which the people are complaining about.
The leadership is aware of the many challenges that it is facing. They are too many and need a lot of efforts to overcome. The main obstacle in my view, is corruption. The president should immediately begin seeking for the troublemakers and corrupt figures and diminish them in order to get the trust of the people. He should also replace them with honest and dedicating people. Then the next priority should be to get rid of qat. This evil plant that is eating away our resources and national pride. It is among the main reasons why Yemen is a backward country. Unless a true long-term plan to destroy this evil plant is implemented, there will be little hope in the welfare and progress of our nation. Then comes literacy, we have an illiteracy rate of around 60%, which is among the highest in the world. The president must take education into greater dimensions, and have it implemented strictly, so we would not see any children playing in the streets in the morning and evening hours. If we could not educate the elder generation, we can at least start with the next generations which will be the basis for a modern Yemen.
In conclusion, there are many things that the President should do in this presidential period. It is time for our country to take its deserved place among the countries of the world, and not staying at the rear of the list. As a leader, the president must have the motives, the hope, and the determination to build a modern country with the basis of a civil society. Enough celebration, now it is time for work, and serious work should now start from the president himself. Walid Abdulaziz Al-Saqqaf Chief Editor
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