The right to respondJane Novak not docile [Archives:2005/849/Opinion]
By Jane Novak
[email protected]
I am responding to the Yemen Times article entitled “Jane Novak a docile student of a monkey monk.” I find the author's derogatory tone toward his fellow Yemenis shocking. I have never seen such blatantly insulting statements expressed so publicly and with such assurance. He says: They are like chameleons, ungrateful like cats and sinister like vipers. I've never seen such words printed even about Americans. I am frankly astounded by this childish phrase to describe another Yemeni, a mentally retarded monkey. What? A what? This kind of abusive name calling about fellow citizens does not enhance pluralism and tolerance as the base of society. While calling for the unity of Yemen, the author denies its underlying principal, the equality of all Yemenis. He says the Houthis are racists and backward. I wonder who is the racist here.
Each article I write has at least twenty footnotes for the editors supporting the facts presented. And this author does not repudiate the concept that there is a slaughter in Sa'ada. Rather he tries to demean me for caring about it. He breaks the shocking news that the Houthis have chanted “Death to America.” I have been aware of this all along. Millions of people in the Middle East hate Americans. I do not hate them back.
Because the Houthis are anti-American, should I find it acceptable to bomb the women and children? No. Go arrest a whole village when none of them are fighting? No. Arrest any relative they can find of the guys who are fighting? No. Arrest anyone in Yemen who talks out about the violence? No.
Furthermore the author has not done his research. The articles about Sa'ada are only the latest in a series of articles I have been writing over the last year for the Western audience about the Yemeni people's shortage of rights. The first eight related to reform and press freedom. The next two dealt with civil rights. The last two focus on religious pluralism. The last version of the article, the one circulating so widely in the US, also references political and civil repression in society.
The last articles focus on the repression, arrests, discrimination, and deaths of one group, but the authors charge that I am biased toward a particular social stratum is incorrect. The targeting by the state seems to come in waves: by group, identity, profession, social position, or political inclination. In highlighting a certain pattern, I am not supporting one group to the exclusion of others. But a coherent expose on all the people who are currently denied their full civil, political or human rights in Yemen would be quite lengthy.
My last article contains quotations from a girl in Sa'ada saying the tank targeted her school and a mother saying she can't go to get food for her kids. I'm grateful I had the opportunity in my life to give that girl and that woman a voice. As an American, I have many rights and protections. I was honored to use them to let that little girl with no rights and no protections speak to millions in the West in her own words.
The charge that I am against a unified Yemen is absurd. That's the only thing I am for, the only thing any outsider can be for. It's up to the Yemeni people, finally given their proper rights of self-determination, to determine the political landscape. I support only the equal empowerment of all Yemenis, equal rights, equal opportunity, and equal respect. For years, I have publicly applauded Yemen as one Arab country with the good potential to develop a vibrant democracy solely through the efforts of its tremendous reformers. Without any external pressure, there is plenty of pressure coming from the Yemeni people themselves for real reform. I find the Yemeni people quite heroic in this regard.
A reforming regime is in the process of transferring power from an authority figure to the people and their representatives. I do not see the Yemeni people as being increasingly in control the structures of government and the functions of the state. What I do see from my vantage point in the West is a wall of propaganda: that Yemen is a functioning democracy and a reforming state. Also there is the perception that the Yemeni government is a partner in the War on Terror. The question for me is whose partner.
Finally, I was quite amused by the attempt at defaming me. Honestly I laughed for several days straight. The tactic of personal attack does not work in the US or on Americans, especially the phrase, a docile student of a monkey monk. I still cannot type this without laughing. The author said, it is only natural that there are other women who are for predators. There are also other women who are quite against predators.
Jane Novak is an American journalist and political analyst.
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