I Have a Dream [Archives:1999/33/Focus]

Shaker Al-Ashwal 
Vice President 
Yemeni American League 
New York – USA 
In 1962 my father was in New York City on a vacation from his work aboard a cruise ship. One day while he was listening to the Radio and following the news from the Middle East, he heard that the Imam died and that the Yemeni revolution gave birth to Yemen Arab Republic. He couldn’t believe the news and stormed out of his home, running as fast as he could to share the news with the other Yemenis who were hanging out in the Yemeni cafe along Atlantic Avenue. When he reached there, and before he could catch his breath, he announced them the news. From the corner a friend yelled, “stop lying, you always joke”; “feel my pounding heart” my father replied. 
Since that day, my father and every Yemeni have lived with a dream, the dream of a democratic, and prosperous Yemen. As proud people we have been strengthened by our dreams and hopes. And many of us, tired of political and economical instability, became content with a stable country that was moving forward. For people like me it did not matter who was on the wheel, as long as he was driving forward. And Yemen indeed moved forward, but did so at a very slow rate. Today as one looks back one tries to understand the causes of the delay and the slow progress in Yemen’s development. An objective analyst will attribute that delay to lack of resources, mismanagement, deeply rooted corruption, and external forces. Though this list is an oversimplification, it provides the major categories under which the other factors can be listed. 
Our dreams and hopes have been shattered by those factors over and over again. Every event that signaled a positive change in Yemen is celebrated in our hearts, and we aspire for greater achievement. Our hopes and dreams grow and we yearn for more. When Yemen has an opportunity to implement another positive change we often pray that the government will do the right thing and move forward with another positive change. Despite our hopefulness and our optimistic outlook, the occasions of disappointments have exceeded the occasions of celebrations. 
The presidential election 
The presidential election represented another chance for the government to make a “positive move” in the right direction. The constitutional duty given to the parliament to select the nominees is without a doubt an exclusionary procedure that is not fair to the people of Yemen. This procedure is self-serving; it benefits the ruling party and the dominant parties and excludes everyone else hence excluding qualified nominees who may pose a threat to the ruling party’s nominee. The problem becomes more complicated when the parliament is as powerless, as partisan as the current one is. The parliament voted down the nominees of all the opposition parties, and permitted only one candidate who was also a GPC member. Only in Yemen, many would say. A presidential election between the nominees of the same party. What choice do our people have? 
Where do we go from here? 
The presidential election will go on, and the new candidate will not have much time to present himself to the people of Yemen. The campaigning time is another flaw in this procedure that renders it questionable. The new candidate will have to introduce himself and his programs and whether the government media allows him equal access remains to be seen. We hope that the process from now on will run a normal course in which Yemenis are given a real chance to choose and elect their new president. Though it is hard to expect things to run smoothly considering how things started; yet we still have our dreams, and we’ll definitely know if the polls are %99.999 in anyone’s favor. 
As Yemenis abroad we celebrate Yemen’s progress and we are filled with pride when it does, we are also saddened when Yemen regress and when conditions worsen. We pray for a prosperous, democratic Yemen in which the people are in control of their destiny and not the World Bank. That will not happen until the government of Yemen attacks the root of corruption in the system and begins to create a government of institutions instead of a government of individuals. The government so far has implemented the World Bank plans and have gotten praised for their adherence to the economic reform package. The World Bank reports have remained critical of the government for its inability to implement strict administrative reforms. The people have experienced the reforms most damaging to them, namely the economic reforms, but have not seen any reforms, which would truly signal an overall change in the system. Our people are getting poorer, the United Nations human development report said that poverty rate rose to 27% in 1998. About 4.3 million people in our country are poor, which is not to say that the rest are living comfortably, we do not need expert dieticians to tell us that Yemenis generally suffer malnourishment. 
At least the World Bank is happy with the government’s implementation of the economic reform package and the number of Yemenis who live in poverty continues to rise. This reminds me of that ironic statement “the operation was successful, but the patient is dead.”Like most Yemenis abroad, I am not politically affiliated with any Yemeni party, but like all Yemenis abroad a I bear a dream, a simple and modest dream of a country with free people, who have a choice. A country where the government is one of institutions, where individuals are treated as equal by the a law no one can bend; a country that is no longer described as “lawless”; a country where people’s access to adequate health care, and an education to prepare them for the next century is guaranteed. 
I may be called a dreamer, but like my father before me I cannot help but dream.
——
[archive-e:33-v:1999-y:1999-d:1999-08-16-p:./1999/iss33/focus.htm]