Moving in Time, and In Time Only [Archives:2000/01/Viewpoint]

I here take the opportunity to wish you all a happy new millennium. It is indeed a moment of glory as we enter the year 2000, which has inspired many historians, science fiction writers, and the superstitious all over the world.
While the whole world witnessed the brirth of a new century with hope and anxiety, what were we doing here in Yemen? When I went out of my office in the afternoon on the first day of January 2000, I was shocked to see that people didn’t care. They simply did not care about which century, year, decade, or even the millennium they were living in. What they thought of was providing food for their families, managing to get the money to buy qat for the evening chew, and looking for their friends to find out where the ‘maqyal’ will be tonight.
I do not blame these people in any way. The blame goes to the environment around them that has forced them to keep on worrying about how to make ends meet. It is the harsh conditions and low income level that have forced people to give priority to more important issues than celebrating, or even thinking of the new millennium. They simply float in time as though nothing is happening. In other words, life in Yemen has made us forget our sense of time. The whole world is moving into the millennium in terms of developing new ideas, projects, programs, and hoping to achieve ever higher standards of development, economic strength, technology, etc. But we in Yemen are merely moving into the millennium in terms of time, and time only. It is a trivial mathematical counting of years, as we float like a piece of wood on the sea, with no specific objective, with no vision and without much hope. “Why?” is a question that I have tried to answer during the last three days. Why do we see ourselves as isolated and not part of the world around us?
I was not upset that we didn’t celebrate the new year. I was upset because of the hopelessness that I saw in the eyes of the people while entering the new millennium. “A new millennium?! So what? Will it provide me with shelter and food for my family?” These were the statements that I heard from a poor beggar when I asked him about his impression of the new millennium. He further continued, “What happened in the transition from 98 to 99? More poverty and misery. Why then do you expect me to be happy this time?” Hasn’t the time come when we need to change all of this? There is a question that needs answering!
We use the Gregorian Calendar to mark the years, and we are dependent on this calendar because it has become a universal dating system. We cannot change it, but we should rather adjust cleverly with it. We do not need to celebrate, but at least we need to show that we have some hope in the years to come. We cannot ignore the fact that the whole world is thinking about how to adjust to the new millennium through more improvement, more development, and most important of all, a stronger commitment to be among the developed nations, and these celebrations are just for that.
As an example, look at China. You can feel the hope in the Chinese children’s eyes while celebrating the birth of the new millennium. They know that it is not just a mere celebration. It is a beginning of their creating a super power in competition with the west. The same applies for many other countries. The celebration should not be thought of as a few hundred fireworks, music tones, etc. The celebration should be thought of as the start of a long period of struggle for construction and building. It should indicate the intention of the nation to rise to the challenge, and hopefully celebrate the 4th millennium with pride as a developed country.
We have a misunderstanding of celebrating a New Year. We unfortunately have the sense that celebrating the year is just for Christians. OK, I agree that we should not celebrate the same way the Christians do. I also do not mind that we should not celebrate at all on that date. But at least there should be a time in the year in which we renew hopes and examine the passing away of time. It should not necessarily be the first of January, but it can be a day in the Islamic Calendar, or any other day in any calendar. It can be any day in the year, for its importance doesn’t lie in its location, but rather in its signaling of a new year, a new period, a new era, full with new hopes, new ambitions, and new commitments to hard work!
Some may still disagree by saying, “let’s just live our lives without counting the days that pass!” To these I say, “It is not your lives only that will be wasted, but it will be our future, our coming generations, and our hopes that will be diminished if we continue to live with that same mentality.”

Even though I have not celebrated the new year myself the way people expect, I still have celebrated it in my way. I celebrated it by writing down a resolution for the coming year. I celebrated it by feeling hope for the future, by looking back at the problems, mistakes, and shortcomings in the last year, and setting up some solutions for these. I know it will be a tough year for me, and for the rest of the Yemen Times staff without our founder, but yet, I am ready for the challenge. I do realize the importance of time, and know that every second is precious in an ever changing and developing world. I hope my fellow Yemeni citizens realize this importance. However, I also hope that they will realize it before it is too late, and before we enter the 4th millennium just staying where we are, at the end of the list of developing countries.
Walid Abdulaziz Al-Saqqaf   
Chief Editor

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