Ambassador Edward Gnehm to Yemen Times:”Culture and religion differences are wonderful aspects of human life” [Archives:2008/1138/Reportage]
March 17 2008
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Since then, he has kept in touch with Yemen and Yemeni politicians, observing the development closely and from a distance during his posts as a diplomat in the Middle East, or while he worked with the U.S.'s Foreign Service and State Department. Today he is teaching full-time as a Professor of Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Affairs at University of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs.
Nadia Al-Sakkaf met with Ambassador Gnehm during his short visit to Yemen at the invitation of the president, to see old friends and get re-acquainted with the region and its development. After Yemen, he will be visiting Kuwait and Jordan, where he worked as ambassador in the early 1990s and at the turn of the century respectively.
You have been to Yemen on several occasions over three decades. What could you say about the country's journey since the early seventies until today?
I came to Yemen for the first time in 1978. At that time there wasn't as much construction and modernization as you see today. Yemen has developed dramatically in many ways.
When I came to Sana'a I could not help but marvel at how the city has expanded. Places that I knew as open fields are all buildings today. The house I lived in was in a residential are where there were no houses more than two stories. Now I went back and the house was like a little dwarf surrounded by tall buildings. Also I have this sense that there are more people and I know that is true from the statistics.
It used to be when you were in the old city or the Tahrir Square that was busy, but now you can drive for twenty or thirty minutes and everywhere is crowded and looks very busy.
The last time I had been to Yemen was in the late nineties almost ten years ago, when I was director general of the State Department and I was traveling in that capacity.
There has been incredible change in Yemen since the seventies and the nineties. When I was posted in Yemen I was with my family: my wife and two children, and we loved Yemen. It was one of those periods of time when we really enjoyed the people we got to meet here and we enjoyed the opportunities that we had in Sana'a. Even as I sit today with my son or daughter and my wife and we talk about places we visited, inevitably stories about Yemen come up.
We often remember the excursions we had. There is a place, not far from here, where there is a huge waterfall that comes down on the way to Hodeidah. We used to go there and the kids used to climb the rocks. There is a picture at the State Department Magazine that shows me and my two children climbing down in the big mountain, and still this day they have it on the walls. We also used to go camping in Khokha, where they loved the sea.
Would you say that Yemen was safer then?
I would say yes, it was safer then in this respect. We didn't have the international aspects of violence. If there was trouble inside of Yemen, it was really local issues between tribes. Occasionally the foreigners would become engaged and perhaps not go to a certain area because there was trouble. But this was not a major concern to us; in fact, even if you ended up being caught in that kind of trouble, usually the people involved were not doing things to us.
Is it because people in Yemen have changed?
I think the world has changed. It has changed because it is more integrated; the communication is more than it ever was before. There has been hyperbole, people made things more dramatic; people have become more emotional because they see pictures of terrible things, which is different from just hearing about it. People today are caught up in all these issues around the world and so you would find people in isolated countries or places who were not aware as they are today. And then there are these movements around the world that spark violence. There were not these kinds of movements thirty years ago.
Are you saying that there is more violence today because people know more?
People tended to be attached to regional issues, and so if you had trouble in Spain it you would not find the trouble spreading out of Spain. Today the world is becoming smaller and I think that at the same time the emotional side of life is growing more intense and the compassionate side is not growing with it. The humanitarian aspects are less important today. But to be honest I don't really have the explanation or the answer to that.
But from your extensive experience of cultures, how can we make it a better-integrated and compassionate world?
I begin with the belief that with human beings, you are always going to have emotions that are not always positive. That it is in the nature of mankind – to have competition in those who desire power. Fortunately, there is within humanity a large number of people who do in effect believe in human beings, compassion and peace. I think that those who want to drive us towards extremes have in recent years been quite active and have achieved their own objective of trying to drive people apart.
But I feel that is changing. I think that again in the region, and you know it better than I do, but it is my perception, we are seeing the average person – I am talking about Arabs and Muslims – reacting negatively to violence, the deaths to innocent people, for causes that may be legitimate, that may be in long term be towards justice. Everyone wants justice, but I think we are seeing reactions to how you achieve that from the masses. For example, in Saudi Arabia and in Jordan. Certainly the bombings in the weddings in Amman was received with anger by the Jordanians themselves. In Saudi Arabia also, the people killed were all from the region and most of them were Muslims. So the reaction of the people was 'this was senseless.' When the radicals explain, “sometimes you have to kill Muslims to get to your objective,” the people reject such logic.
I would say to all cultures not to believe that extreme acts and voices are representative of the people. From the American perception – somehow all Muslim are radical – is totally false. The average woman, when asked in polls what are her major concerns are, she starts with health care, quality of education and probably something about political stability. They are like women anywhere wanting the best of their families.
So that is the first thing, we need to understand that extremism is just that: small groups that because of communications, because of technology, seem to be larger than they are.
Secondly, I would say that both sides need to reach out to positive masses to make certain that the positive aspects are reinforced and not leave the public to the negative. I think my country is trying and many people in this region are trying. Exchanges, communication, the religious groups in my country reaching out to the clergy here, and the Ulama here doing the same, running back and forth to let people see this positive side.
How do you evaluate Yemen's progress before and after unity? Do you have concerns?
When I was here in the seventies, there was a war between the north and south, and that was the beginning of our military assistance. There were constant assassinations and danger. I am impressed that those difficult times between the north and the south are largely behind.
I knew then the intense passion of Yemenis for unity. That the colonial division of Yemen, and the British occupation in the south was something people had to accept because of the colonial power. But it was not something that people accepted intellectually, because they saw themselves as one people and one country, and now you have achieved that.
Today you are faced with other problems, but these are internal and domestic. Problems like: how does one bring people of two areas together? This is a very natural problem because even though all Yemenis will share the national view of themselves, the truth is that they were from 1830 until 1990 different. The southern people had a much different experience than the northern [people]. You have to deal with that now. One of the things that is both a great strength and a great weakness is the independence of the Yemeni people.
I've always said when I speak of Yemen in the United States that you have to understand that this is a mountain country. In any mountain country anywhere in the world, the people there don't like outsiders coming to tell them what to do. They have their own internal fights with each other, but if there is a threat from outside they become united against those from outside. They love their independence and that is true here. I think that is a great strength, because the individuals within themselves have strong views, have a great sense of themselves, and they don't like to be dominated.
The weakness of this is that it is very hard to centralize and control such people. It is very hard to spread lots of things that the government needs to do; health care, education, electricity tc. It becomes more difficult to deal with the domestic issues with people as independent as they are here.
But we have people living in coastal areas and cities around the country where people are easier to deal with, yet we have problems there too, like in the south.
This is true but this is often the case where it is open and flat. People there are more used to government. I think to me the problems you mention are natural and not something to fear. They should be dealt with – and that is complicated – but not outrageously bad.
When you try to put two peoples together that have been separate for a long time, naturally both are a bit in competition with the other over the role each plays and what kind of influence they have. Besides, each had a period of time when it was managing its own affairs and now these affairs are a part of a central government. So it is natural that there would be some feelings between the two. I noticed this, for example, in Kuwait after the liberation while I was ambassador there. The differences between those who stayed inside the country and went through that experience, and those who fled the country and had their own experiences. When they all came back together they were all unified as Kuwait and celebrating, but there were little animosities and feelings between the two towards the other for what they had done. It is quite natural, and over time this heals if people work on their differences.
It is always, in my impression, that the president has been very engaged in what goes on in the country. I simply note that the period prior to his becoming president was a period of turmoil at the national and leadership level. We haven't seen that in almost 30 years. I think you have to attribute this to his understanding of the people and his knowledge of Yemen as a Yemeni himself as he has to deal with all of these different aspects of life that we were talking about.
In a certain sense, the power is diffused because of that independence that I have talked about. So he has to be diplomatic, political and practical, sometimes take strong actions and sometimes permit things to be.
Do you feel over the different times you had been here that the tribal system has changed? Does it have to do with Yemen's identity?
I have only been here for short durations, but it seems to me that the tribal system remains quite strong, despite the expansion and the modernization.
There has never been any question in my mind that if you went to any place in Yemen and talked to people they would greatly identify themselves as Yemenis. They are not Saudis, not Egyptians…etc. Even before they would say they are Arabs, they would say they are Yemenis. Then if you go further, they would identify themselves with the tribe and the area where they live. It is a matter of the nation's attributes.
I do think that while there is this independence in the country in spirit, the tribal identification is very strong. There is an integration in the country that is more noticeable now to me than before. Just simply the fact that there are roads that connect places that when I was here were not as connected. It brings the country together and people can move from one place to other, and the telecommunications as well. I think there is a more engaged country in itself than before.
How would you describe the Yemeni people to an outsider?
I would say you are going to find great people. You are going to find that any individual that you talk to is going to be warm and welcoming. They tend to be happy people by nature, interested in you, independent and spirited. I know other countries where there are complaining people, where complaining is like a national pastime. But I would never use this as a description here. You see it at the airports when you come here, people laughing, talking, sitting around.
I am very happy to be here again, and I have been all my life on the optimistic side that even though things seem terrible, and often, such as the Palestinian question seems like it will never be resolved, I don't capitulate to this kind of negativity. Despite all these years, I always look to these potentials that can be used, can be engaged, can be developed to what we really want them to be. I do believe that with passion, individuals can make a difference. That a leader, at a moment in time, can use his or her position and influence to make things better. It can happen here in Sana'a, it can happen in any other place. That is what I try to search for.
Was Qat so prevalent in the seventies as is today?
Yes. It was largely here then.
How did you deal with 9/11, as a U.S. ambassador to Jordan?
It was a really dramatic experience. I had arrived at six in the evening the day before. That meant with the time difference, it was the next afternoon at four o'clock when the first plane hit.
I had earlier invited all my employees in the embassy; Jordanians and Americans to come to the residence for coffee or tea just to say hello. I heard about this while I was welcoming them through the door. So I stood in front of them five minutes later, and only four or five of the five hundred had heard about it. It was a shock. The king was in a plane off the coast of Canada to the United States, and he called me from the plane, and said “Skip, what should I do?” So I said, “Your Majesty, whatever the ground control tells you to do, just do it because they're scared and hyper.” He turned around and went to London, which was good.
We were given warnings from Washington that there might be other groups all over the world ready to move in the same time. This was the fear and we were warned to tighten security. So that night when we closed the embassy, some of our local Jordanian employees said they wanted to stay in the embassy for interpretation or for mediation in case there was trouble. At 5:30 or 6 a.m., just as the sun was coming up, my very alarmed security officer came to my residence inside the embassy, and banged on the door. There was a crowd gathering outside and he of course assumed it threatening. He was so fixated on the danger that he assumed it was trouble.
One of our Jordanian employees said, “I'll go around from the back and find out what is happening,” and so he did. He came straight from the front gate through the crowd and said they were there to express their condolences. Over the next four days, by popular demand, I had to open a tent for condolences. Three thousand eight hundred Jordanians came to the embassy in the next four days to express their sadness. They brought flowers, they brought little gifts, they signed the guest book; there were school children, there were Ulama (scholars). I was overwhelmed. In some cases, even in tears, because they were so emotional, basically saying this is a terrible thing to do, to kill innocent people. I was very touched.
I repeat this in my country every time I speak on terrorism to let Americans know that friends of ours in the region reacted sympathetically. Because the impression the media gave to America was that people out here hate us and jumped up dancing in the streets. The only film was from Palestine where that happened, and as I said, Palestine is different. They are under occupation and are living in very different circumstances.
Ali al-Khalifa al-Sabah, Kuwait's Finance Minister, described you in 1991 as “unassuming and unflappable xactly the kind of guy to deal with Arabs like us.” How do you comment on this?
I had come to the region in 1974, which is over 34 years ago. I love the people and I understand the culture. Differences don't bother me. Culture and religion differences are wonderful aspects of human life. I have tried all my life to bridge the differences because of the misunderstandings and lack of comprehension in both sides.
When I helped restore Kuwait's stability after the Iraqi invasion, I needed no glory, or to say that I was almost the most important person at that transitional time. I just wanted to make sure actions to help return Kuwait to what it was were done. I think people appreciated that. I was in Ta'if for many months before the liberation. We worked very closely together. The Amir, when he went to Washington, had only one request from the president. It was, “When Kuwait is liberated, will you help me rebuild the country?”
I thought this conveyed two important signals: one is that he accepted America's help to liberate Kuwait without asking. The president knew he was going to liberate Kuwait and the Amir accepted it, so he did not want to ask for it. That was a signal to the president that he trusted him.
The second is the obvious one, because in his mind, it was most important to rebuild. So that began as a joint effort. We worked every second to plan what we [would] do the day we went back. We signed a contract with Turkey that water would be driven down through Syria, Jordan and across Saudi Arabia. We knew there were no water sources in Kuwait. We assumed that Iraq would destroy the reservoirs and we knew we had to truck water in through Saudi Arabia for everyone.
We worked together, and this is an example how we did not impose. I would like to make this one political observation: that our going to Iraq in 2003, we did none of the planning like what we did in Kuwait. I am very critical of the administration for not planning adequately before we went to Iraq. Some will tell you it is because we didn't think we would stay, we would turn it [over] to the Iraqis, etc.
An article about your diplomacy in Kuwait in TIME Magazine describes you, “Through it all, Gnehm speaks softly and smiles constantly. What he knows is simple: most governments are like most people. An outsider can educate and elucidate ) and even kick butt. But in the end, no government can be saved from itself.” What do you mean governments are like people?
What I meant by that, at the time, is that it is so easy to treat a government as something impersonal, something institutional without feelings, without a heart. I guess that I tried to convey in those days that governments are made up of people and people do have feelings. Governments, or individuals in governments, are caught today between what they know they need to do for their own countries globally and the passions and intensity of their populations, which can be very different. For example, I think that many people in government today understand the value of good relations with Washington, being a super power. But they also know that their populations are angry with us for our policies in the region. So the leaders are caught. They certainly, as government leaders, want to maintain their popularity, their position in government through elections, but they also don't want to take actions that will hurt their country in the global or the regional sense.
I think this is probably the result of the communication. Government leaders in this region and in Washington have to be sensitive to what their people feel, because they see the news and the news is no longer is effectively controlled in each country. People have satellite dishes and watch all kinds of news on the Internet. All of these are information distributors and so anyone who wants to know what's going on can easily find out.
Have any of your children followed in your footsteps?
My son was asked if he would join the diplomatic service and he said, “no, I am going into business where I can make money!”
My daughter is in the IT area, but they love to travel and they both loved the Middle East.
You were quoted in the George Washington University Alumni newsletter saying, “One thing that always stood out over my years in the Foreign Service was the prominence of the Elliott School in preparing myself and other students for careers in international affairs.”
How does it feel to come back after all these years to the same university you graduated from, but this time as a lecturer?
I love it, because the young people are so interested in the Middle East. They are thirsty for understanding. My classes are always overflowing and there are more people who want to take it. Our younger generation, like all the youth around the world, is into globalization, into seeing themselves as part of a big world.
I enjoy sharing my experiences with them, and if I can have my students go into the Foreign Service, as some have, or into business where they understand the region as I have explained it, I would be making a great contribution for my country and also for the relationship with the Middle East.
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