Eid & Compunction [Archives:2001/11/Culture]
By: Mohammed Al-Hakimi
Yemen Times
Taiz Bureau
Whenever you wish to smile at the shadow of Eid, you get withdrawn into agonies of the poor being ignored and totally neglected, with their outstretched hands fully washed with tears and headed for you, everywhere you turn to.
Just then, you realize why little joy has been felt on Eid-why poets and singers have failed to feel the Eid’s happiness and boastfully reflect it in a remarkable way through their depiction and imagination. Besides, you feel how hard it is for insurgents and sincere people to lead a life of ease and comfort while their countries and people are being oppressed and downtrodden.
“I wonder, why these hymns and singings don’t raise my mind and impress my deeper sensation. Am I a rock?! Whenever I wish to smile, a face of my depressed homeland appears, begging me not to do so and creating a revolution within me” said father of insurgent Al-Zubeiry.
Overwhelmed with grief, you feel uneasy within a society stuck in total poverty and unemployment. It is impossible to ignore those thousands of people among those you know who couldn’t get the necessary articles for enjoying Eid-couldn’t get clothes for their children, at a time when some sheikhs and officials buy qat with a hundred thousand rials for a one day afternoon qat session.
Large number of beggars and indigent people at mosque doors, streets, and in all neighborhoods stress the glaring fact that still more needs to be done by our government to achieve welfare in our society. I think those pains the Yemeni people are suffering from are enough to make people in key positions frown for ever.
Yemen’s reality on the ground is just the opposite of the reality untruthfully boasted about on TV and described in official media and press. In fact, administrative and financial corruption is covering almost every sector in the country, yet no serious measures have been taken to stop it.
Most important to mention here is that lots of people have a callous attitude and they are a mere people, neglecting the inglorious destiny their motherland is coping with.
As a matter of fact, we should somehow request people to take responsibility and give them a chance to plan the way they think properly. However, we should not be passive: we ought not to ignore critical public issues which have now reached their peak. Those urgent issues should be soon considered, or otherwise, even more disastrous consequences will have greater influence.
To confound those who get fatigued reading Yemen Times because of the way it bravely and fairly presents Yemen’s reality, they should simply refer back to official statistics that highlight the rate of unemployment, illiteracy, downfall of the value of the Yemeni rial, deterioration in personal income, economical inactivity, lethal diseases, and deterioration of values and principals among the youth in our society. Therefore, they may judge themselves and accordingly make feedback.
In fact, the writings on the wall are quite clear and the consequences we will reap are clear. As opposed to the contrary, we should not continue to be hypocrite and negligent.
As four decades of the Yemeni revolution pass away, should the Yemeni people, who took place in the war of liberation and the September revolution, and firmly established the buttress of unification and democracy, settle down and get improved!
The point here and the thing we would like to remind king-pins of, is that benevolence should be returned. Shouldn’t it?! Pray, we want actions not words.
Let’s act together even more sincerely to make a glorious future in our country.
Hunch
Completely adrift,
we’re made for surrender
Made to bow low,
to woes and invader
Yielding up everything
we’ve been given
Living with the long odds
of being forgiven
——
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