For all practical purposes:The Yemeni constitution is suspended [Archives:2008/1124/Opinion]

“How can he say anything like that?” asked Yunis as he plucked 4 leaves of qat folded them neatly at the middle seam and snuggled them deep into his right cheek. “How can he say what?” asked Ramzi, who had just come in and completed his round of hand salutes to the other participants in the qat session, which is one of the most popular in Sana'a.

“How can Mahmoud say that the Constitution of Yemen has become, for all practical purposes, suspended” elaborated Yunis.

“You know that the Revolution of the 26th of September and the 14th of October and all those glory days when the Patriots of the Nationalist movement, north and South of Jabal (Mount) Mukeiras had sacrificed their lives just so they and their children could now enjoy Government by constitutional rule and national consensus, which all came to end despotic rule and whimsical rule by fiat” explained Ramzi to Yunis and the other qat session guests.

Mahmoud was not going to be bought by what his friend has just said: “Oh come on Ramzi! I hope you are not going to repeat that monotonous rhetoric one hears daily on the public radio and television stations of our blessed Government, which has the greatest amount of media jive that any propaganda machine could come up with. We have had more constitutions and more laws than any patriot could ever ask for. Yet, look at us now and compare it to how we were without any constitutions whatsoever. When one talks to anyone who lived in Yemen over fifty years ago, they depict a land of paradise with the country abundant with the bounty of the Lord. Yemen was actually giving aid to its neighbors, who were then hardly able to subsist on the produce of the land. They talk of an equitable and fair judicial system, which enforces judgments, even if they ruled against the Imam. They explain that Yemen's environment was the cleanest in the world and not just in the Middle East. They tell us that the military brass, would be made to change to civilian attire just before sunset, if they were to mingle with the people when they are off duty. So many things do they reveal to us that it seems, as one of the leaders of the Revolution once said in his memoires, that someone made a mistake in resorting to chaotic rule and falling to the dictates of foreign leaders, who promised a bed of roses, but forgot to remind us that even roses can be very prickly at times.”

“What is really worrying you, Mahmoud?” asked Ramzi.

All these paradoxes render one speechless: “All the rights that the constitution of Yemen guarantees have been thrown overboard either due to the clumsy and whimsical dictates of some of the top brass in the military, or of the hypocritical religious establishment that can't come to a clear definition of the kind of Islam that is right for Yemen, and resorts to fomenting bloodshed on the pretext that this serves the interests of Moslems in Chechnya, although they are killing Belgians instead of Russians, or by the inability of the Government to recognize that the Government cannot insist that we have democratic rule, when it allows for the connection to the internet, but turns around and closes all internet blogs or portals that communicate any public dissatisfaction at what the Government is doing. We have a Government that insists that it can use all that military hardware and software, which it supposedly bought for the protection of the country from foreign invasions, against its own citizens in Sa'ada, Aden or Mukalla. We have a Government that has an elaborate anti corruption campaign that is geared not to send anyone to jail although corrupt officials have been bleeding the Treasury for well over thirty years. Mind you, the latter can be found on all sectors of government from the top down. We have a Government that screams about the outage of electricity in Gaza, but has not been able to rectify a serious power shortage that has existed in the country since the Early 1990s. We have a Parliament that penalizes the laws that it passes by modifying them or killing them altogether, rather than press the Government for their enforcement. We have a constitution that guarantees that all Yemenis will get a proper education, but we have 55% of the school age population out of schools, while those who manage to go through the educational system graduate still not being able to write a simple letter. So my friends, for all practical purposes, consider the Constitution either suspended or shelved. The logic there is that at least it will be able to protect the wood of the cabinet in which it is shelved, which is a far cry from protecting the rights of the Yemeni people.”

Hassan Al-Haifi has been a Yemeni political economist and journalist for more than 20 years.
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