SOMEWHERE IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH

In my dreams, the war is silent. No missiles, no air raids, no murder, no famine, no fear, no hatred. But when I wake, the war is still raging, just as it has been the past four years. Air raids light up the Sanaa night sky; ambulance sirens pierce the quiet of night. And while I write, I think about the time it took for war to reach us.
    After all, a war like this doesn’t break out without warning; it takes a long time. A full turn of history. It took years, decades in fact, to push its way into our lives. I remember how its head drifted unmistakably towards us. It had been during the first weeks of March 2015, but our eyes weren’t open wide enough to see it coming. Or maybe they were, but we didn’t realize that what we were seeing were the harbingers of war. Houthi militia were on the streets, but it hadn’t been anything like the day Sanaa had fallen a few months earlier.
    As night began, armoured vehicles and individuals in military fatigues holding weapons could be seen coming forth. These troops proceeded on the same desert roads used by ordinary travellers. I remember seeing military trucks rolling along the route from Sanaa to Aden. Slowly, they advanced through the mountain pass, blocking civilian traffic. The vehicles carried tanks that seemed fresh out of storage. Then a long line: rocket launchers, machine guns, more equipment, guarded by exhausted soldiers on foot. And even more trucks, this time with soldiers jam-packed on the back, some of them grinning stupidly at the Peugeot drivers beside them. And finally, the military police cars. They escorted the army on its way to the south of the country.
    I reached Aden in the second week of March. The missiles shook the city from all sides. Houthi militia bombed the Presidential Palace in Maashiq. Army tanks trundled down the main streets. For the residents of Aden, the gunfire brought back bitter memories from the war of the summer of 1994; they had no idea that a new, much bloodier one awaited them. On 23 March 2015, the decision to go to war was made; diplomats and international employees left Sanaa, while foreign embassies closed their doors and evacuated their personnel. Likewise, political party leaders departed the country with their families. I bade farewell to some of them in good faith. It didn’t occur to me that they – having sensed the war was coming – decided to flee and leave us to our fate.
    At that time, I was convinced the so-called civilized world wouldn’t leave us to the foolishness of politicians and generals, that this world wouldn’t just stand by idly watching us in the impending wreckage. That somebody would inevitably intervene – tomorrow, or maybe the day after, and stop us from wandering like an unknowing flock of sheep off a cliff. At 2 a.m. Thursday, 26 March, when the Arab Coalition’s fighter planes suddenly cut through the Sanaa sky, war became a reality. From that morning, what’s engraved on my mind isn’t the roar of the explosions, or the horrifying thunder of planes piercing the sound barrier, nor my anxiety over the trajectory of missiles hitting targets further than I could see, nor the sounds of war that I had grown accustomed to. Rather, it is the shock of how war was conjured, how life collapsed in one fell swoop: civil infighting, the humiliation of hunger, the indignity of it all, our generation’s lost dreams. They split the citizens into two warring camps, leaving the majority of us transformed into victims or voiceless beings.

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I’m not concerned with listing the political details of the war here; instead, I have recorded in the introduction to this book the memories remaining in my mind of the bitter war we are still living through. An attempt to capture the essence of it all: the images of war I’ve seen and experienced, the disappearance of any kind of normal life, the damage and defeat that took root in my soul when the godfathers of war trampled patriotism, sovereignty and national unity beneath their heavy boots. But how can life in the shadow of a war that has destroyed everything be fully encapsulated? What’s undeniable is that we have returned to pre-civilization: all cities are without electricity, and we are living by the candlelight and gas lanterns used by our ancestors. And when the gas runs out at home, families resort to cutting down trees to use in wood stoves. There’s no clean water to drink, so it has become a daily occurrence to witness children and the elderly queuing up with empty pots to fill from tankers donated by some good doer. Poverty can be seen wherever you turn: citizens have lost their jobs and livelihoods, impoverished to the point they don’t even question the meaning of war, it has devastated them so. Women and children fighting over scraps from rubbish piles, families sleeping outside, people displaced in miserable camps on the out- skirts of cities, abandoned by the world and left forgotten there. Citizens have been stripped of their civil rights, blockaded by warring parties and countries that have taken military action in Yemen. When the Arab Coalition closed off the sea ports, land routes and national air space, thousands of citizens were stranded abroad. When the Arab Coalition finally reopened Aden International Airport, the blockade was still intact. No plane could take off from Yemeni airspace without permission from the leadership of the Arab Coalition. Friends shared the utter humiliation they endured at Bisha airport. Police dogs sniffed their luggage as if they were criminals – yet another country violating their rights. The Arab Coalition even shut Sanaa airport in August 2016, further exacerbating the situation.
    In the midst of this complete misery in which we are living, a different world has emerged: one of new villas whose cement boundary walls span several streets, lavish high-rises glittering in dusty backstreets, sprawling malls, new petrol stations, currency exchanges, private schools and hospitals – all financed by stolen national revenue. This is the world of the new war rich, the war profiteers, the black-market tycoons, the relatives of the Houthi militia and of ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh. The glamorous world of war has expanded, spreading to other capitals without us even knowing. The ministers, ambassadors and agents of the official Yemeni government waved the business flag of war from abroad. Elites who enrich themselves at the expense of the millions starving in Yemen. This is precisely why they, along with those they are fighting, are so keen for this war to last as long as possible.
    They all live in a different time. A time outside the one where every day people are killed by air raids, missiles and mines. Where people are dying in prison cells, where people are made to disappear, their executioners leaving no trace. Where people are dying from hunger, cholera, or some other plague. Where the war robs people of their dreams. And our lives carry on in this time, ruled by invisible forces, whose laws only apply to the likes of us. It is only we who have to face the absurdity of this war, only ordinary people who are paying the price.
    I remember April during the first year of the war. The war was fresh in the city streets, shops were closed, and petrol stations out of service with lines of parked cars in front. It was four in the afternoon when my husband and I made our way to Dh’Amran Centre. Fighter planes dropped bombs over different areas in Sanaa. Though it was close by, I paid no attention to the roar of the explosions. But when the clouds of smoke veiled Attan mountain and Dh’Amran Centre, I suddenly felt in my bones the meaning of war. Moments like these happened again and again: planes bombing, militia firing missiles... But I remember that day at Mount Attan because my friend Mohammed al-Yemeni, who had been taking photos of the explosions that day, wrote to me saying, ‘Why on earth did you come to Attan? You could have been killed!’ Mohammed was himself killed a few months later by militia gunfire. In the wake of his death daily questions abound about this absurd war that spills the blood of innocents. Around me the list of the dead grows longer and longer: family, relatives, friends, neighbours – all civilians killed for no reason.

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