The relation between the ruler and the ruled has become tense [Archives:2008/1215/Opinion]

Jamal Anam
Opposing the authority is not an action. Instead it is a position, as well as a free option that is taken individually or collectively. Opposing the authority doesn't condition that the opposition entity should be from outside the government's structure or its official business.

To oppose the authority doesn't mean to be an idle, nor does it mean to be a surplus workforce. It also doesn't mean that the opponent must be free of any life-related obligations in order to be able to avenge against an unjust authority. The right to work is given precedence over the other basic rights, among them the right to object to an oppressive authority. The right to work must be granted to everyone without an exception or discrimination, and it means that all the most important requirements of freedom have to be satisfied. No liberty without work and no democracy without free economy and an open market that provides equal opportunity and multiple options to all competitors, and brings man the main components of good living. We lack much of the democratic foundations, the most important of which is democracy of work. In Yemen, the authority remains the only employer and the only master that controls funds and spends them as it likes. It is the only possessor of the state and controller of governance and ruled citizens. It is a tyrannous regime that only works on strengthening the master-servant relation. Despite all this, this authority seems to be unable to fulfill its obligations to such an unjust relation. The ruler dominated everything including the government job, which he considers as the most important means to control its citizens, particularly under the kind of democracy imposed on him from outside forces.

The ruler gives jobs to applicants on the basis of their political affiliation, favoritism or nepotism at the expense of eligibility verification. In other words, the tyrannous ruler has become a victim of its oppression as it failed to perform his slavery role as a master. It also failed as an emerging and small democrat.

The ruler has transformed the government into a private project, on the structure of which more private, racial and tribal projects grew while the beneficiaries of these projects, who are counted by fingers, make tax-free profits at the expense of the majority party and its government that waste public funds and property for the sake of maintaining opportunists' allegiance.

The ruler continues to destroy its structure by enhancing centralization of power and distributing resources to corrupt and influential persons to maintain their allegiance with its system of government. As a result, his behavior enraged the vulnerable groups in the different parts of the country that vented their anger at the rampant corruption, which the regime continues to feed until such an immoral and irresponsible phenomenon turned to threaten his stay in power.

Now, the regime found that it is so difficult for it to fight or even put a stop to growing corruption in the various government offices, mainly amid its poor policies, which judicious people hold accountable for destroying the main components of the real democratic experience. It is now when this authority learned that it lost the last deliverance opportunity.

Pluralism has changed into a moral authorization for the ruler to practice on his citizens while general elections have become a redundant process repeating the same image and reproducing the same bad and used version. It re-cooks the same ingredient that is notorious for its disgusting taste and smelling.

Continuing shrinkage of the state

The state continues to shrink, thus becoming smaller and smaller over time while democracy has began as a big fool in a plighted and vulnerable country, governed by looters and opportunists who are less than eligible to be described as dictators or tyrants because they even failed to play their tyrannous and oppressive role.

In South Yemen, military retirees demand that the government should reinstate them. The foolish government doesn't concentrate on such a demand while searching for the real motives behind escalating protests in the southern governorates.

Yemen's Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Abdulkarim Al-Arhabi announced earlier that Yemen needs to create at least 180 thousand job opportunities per year in order to meet the growing number of applicants. And, studies conducted by his ministry in 2006 confirmed that up to 34 percent of the country's young population is unemployed while, according to official reports, the government only provides 16 thousand job opportunities per year.

We demand that the government should fulfill its obligations to us for being good citizens who are more able to serve the society and perform the duty of government employees although such an ambition is not in line with our democratic expectations that object to giving jobs to applicants on the basis of nepotism and political affiliation. All such facts are the main reason why the ruler hates the ruled.

Source: Al-Sahwa Weekly
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