Vanity kills Islah Party [Archives:2003/02/Focus]

BY IBRAHIM JABER
Confidence is a good characteristic and invariably guarantees success and benefits its carrier. But it seems that this aspect has been cooking for too long at the Islah Party. And it’s been transformed lately to deadly arrogance, which started shaking the once well-rooted throne.
This party attracted the attention from all around the world, presenting itself as an example of the moderate Islamic stream that denounces all types of terrorism and fanatic thoughts. Simultaneously it presented itself as an Islamic political party that can encapsulate all other streams and convince them of its ideological concepts, causing by that not only to remove its name from the international terrorism list, but also to tie in with many other assemblies and create allies of different views and strategies.
And when everything was fine and the goal was just about to be reached, the party found itself in a situation that it never thought of. That is when in the third annual conference Mr. Jar Allah Omar the secretary-general assistant of the YSP was shot dead in front of their own eyes in their own place.
Who did it? No one but one of the several raged fanatics who could not digest the new concept of the party and could not be contained in the multi-pocketed thinking umbrella the Islah Party has been taking refuge from the world in.
This happened as a consequence of the self-important attitude that accompanied the dramatic historical establishing of the ‘legend’, or so thought to be. An attitude misconceived by the thought that they could do it; they could drag anyone from into the party’s ground field. Not knowing that maybe someone won’t be happy with this new stream of thought, and that that someone might do something as a response or to make himself heard.
The truth is that the Islah Party did manage to fulfill the first part of the plan, as they enrolled a huge number of new members. However they could not proceed further and complete the remaining sections, and because of that, many new organizational pockets emerged, making the base sway in doubt from one side to the other until the whole construction eventually fell apart, or would so soon if nothing changed.
Because when the priority should have been given to reforming the inside of the party, it preferred to show off to the rest of the world that they are okay on their own. In fact, they don’t even require American help in managing security, and the so goes the rest of the story, which is too well-known now to be narrated here again.
And because the accusations the Islah Party has been directing to the government have not stopped yet, by following the latter’s cooperation with American forces to kill six Yemeni in November, the PCG didn’t waste time in avenging and suddenly recognized that Jar Allah Omar was such a dear alias and a political figure.
The government even said that the Islah’s Party indirect participation to his assassination, through weak security, was too much to be forgiven. And the government media didn’t stop waving its finger in an ‘I told You!’ way, causing the Islah Party to stand still, astonished and paralyzed in front of this multi-sided attack.
Now what? Can the Islah Party play innocent and at least convince its ally the YSP that the former ‘didn’t mean for it to be that way?’ Or are we to witness the birth of a new inter-party war. Maybe blood would be the only approved weapon in it?
Only time can answer these questions and more. Only time would tell us. And I think we won’t have to wait long to know.

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