To Author's Page
Beside that the 22nd of May marked the first event in English for FS Economy & Politics, the guest speaker himself is a student from Frankfurt School. Mohammed Al-Salafi, who is currently approaching the end of his masters in International Businesses, was thrilled as we were. This is because, the event also marked his first event for Project New Yemen (PNY) – a development consultancy he just recently found in response to the gap incurred by the state’s capacity. While PNY envisions turning around Yemen via realizing good policies and materializing economic development, it first aims at becoming a hub of policy discussions for development agencies and the Yemeni youth. Mohammed thinks it’s not enough to have a purpose to change his country, but rather make everyone have purpose to change the country. Thus first allocate capacity potential, then turn around the country. However, despite the distance and limited resources, PNY took rather a lean approach: address policy issues and development topics in research (retrieved from academic learnings, conferences outcomes, and past experiences); and hold workshops in accordance.
As a result, the event took place. And an overwhelming 40+ interested students showed up, all tempted by the topic name: “Yemen conflict: answering why & how” probably looking for the answers. This post – although delayed – should thus serve as a recap to his gig and the discussions that took place.
At start Mohammed told us his story coming from Yemen to Germany constrained with very limited choices to make in life, followed by a brief orientation to the services PNY offers. To break the ice, he showed us a minute video of the show Friends, the part from Season 4 where Chandler claims moving to Yemen just to avoid the lady he found annoying – advising most guys in the room to use a similar excuse if ever confronted with similar situations *jokes*. Apart of the fun and the interesting historical facts that Yemen endows, only one stood out boldly: The world’s worst man-mad humanitarian crisis!
More seriously, he demonstrated the why and the how. With “why” being the factors making Yemen prone to conflict, and the “how” the trigger. Further classified into three major pillars in trapping the country in conflict. Namely:
Having outlined the causes, Yemen became highly prone to conflict, only a trigger left to spark a war. That trigger was the coup d’état by the Houthi rebels as stark shifts in power were formed due to the fragile transition underpinned by vested interests and bad policies.
Foreign interventions and proxy rhetoric contributed largely to deepen the complexities in play. Even more perplexing, and while the state fails to regain its central legitimacy parallel to burgeoning grievances, the one-time rebellion became multiplied. The once “big war” between the government and the rebels transmitted into many different “small wars”. The divisions disguised as autonomous regional and political representations became far strengthened.
“On the grounds of blood, fights entered an endless void, invoked by religious, ethnic and regional narratives. On the thrones of power, politics reached a stalemate status, inspired by the various vested interests. On the heavens of wealth, the fights strategically veered from gaining geographical legitimacy into allocating financial resources. As for the despaired Yemeni citizens, epidemics breakout, destruction layout, poverty standout and hope fades-out.”
In the end, we discussed the way out of this, with diverse remarks: criticizing foreign intervention, stressing out rigorous peace deals, proposing lean economic models, questioning governance and most importantly realizing hope.
In our humble opinion, Mohammed have demonstrated the situation in Yemen probably better than any journalists or politician. His efforts to help his country out go in line with his integrity, humility and ingenuity.
Frankfurt School gGmbH
Adickesallee 32-34
60322 Frankfurt am Main
