Yemen needs help [Archives:2003/684/Letters to the Editor]

Abdulsalam Hidarh
[email protected]
First of all, I'd love to say is 'Ramadan Mubarak' to everyone. I would like to say that the future and present danger is the topic for Yemen.
Every Yemeni knows that Yemen is facing a real natural disaster in the shortage of water and food as shown on Al-Jazeera TV network recently. This is happening as Yemenis continue to spend much of their time on chewing qat and wait for a solution.
We, Yemenis are destroying our country with our own hands because we brought about an environment where we see our families and friends sitting in their 'mafraj' chewing qat and caring little about the future. We are suffering from lack of education, illiteracy, poverty, and pretend as if nothing is going on, while waiting for our God to solve our problems claiming that we trust in our faith.
God didn't tell us to sit and sleep and wait for food and other requirements to drop from the sky into our mouths. No, we have got to work and pursue higher education in every possible way. We should start with education, as our school standards are extremely weak.
We Yemenis need to work hard in our own country to bring a better and brighter future. We need to abandon outdated social habits and improve our educational standards. Only then will we be able to build a better future for Yemen's coming generations.
I believe that qat, which is an evil plant that originated somewhere in the region, has come to destroy everything in Yemen. It has destroyed our land's beauty, agriculture and Yemenis' own lives. We are suffering from scarce water resources, which we need to drink and live on, while qat farmers are wasting millions of gallons on qat farms. This is happening in a time our government has a lot of laws, but which are rarely enforced and usually ignored.
To get out of the current situation we are in, we need a lot of help, and we need it urgently.
——
[archive-e:684-v:13-y:2003-d:2003-11-09-p:letters]