Sykes – Picot 2010

In Yemen and Elsewhere: We Simply Let It Be

A very dear friend of mine (A Roamer of the World – as I call him) from the university days of Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck (NJ) Campus sent me the following observation on the London meeting of last week on Yemen, which I would like to share with my good readers, as it came:

"near the former colonial offices
the major powers conferred:
what is to be done to deter
exploding underpants?
the south arabian gibraltar
could join the commonwealth
[dredge the harbour, chase pirates
practice amphibious landings on socotra]
each press release emphasized the theme
'not a failed state but a failing government'
a necessary disclaimer before pursuing
a lesser evil"

Christopher Seymour

My answer to Chris, who is the only one of the many friends I had at that time, who actually made it to this now Arabia Infelix, was as follows (with a feeling of nostalgia for the idealism filled days that arose out of the hip culture of the Seventies in the good old USA:

Nice to hear from you again with a delightful short treatise on the fallacy of our programmed lives by people who never give a damn about how much human suffering their interests must be served by just so they can satisfy their rotten egos and live high on the hog at the expense of nine-tenths of the population of the world. Twenty nations met to work out the future of Yemen, without even asking anyone in Yemen just what the hell is going on in this God-forsaken land?

Tyranny and oppression have once again been rewarded and the victims of it all have been told once again, go to hell!

We really had a whole different vision of what the world ought to have been like in the Seventies and almost believed nothing could stop us from making it so real. Naiveté surely overtook us! It is not that they outwitted us. We simply believed that evil would never find any grounds to be entrenched in anymore. We were fooled by the beauty of our dreams and overwhelmed by the goodness of our aspirations. We thought for sure we knew what God and all those prophets and philosophers really wanted to make of this world, only to find that we hardly knew ourselves well enough - our strengths have been turned into submissive apathy and non-chalance, while the bad guys of the world were slowly eradicating all desires for goodness in this world.

What do we do? Surrender and let them destroy the beautiful virgin island of Socotra? Hell no! We got to believe in ourselves again, otherwise God will forsake us for our reluctance to maintain our self proclaimed honorable mission. We must uphold goodness, fairness, equality and justice in their rightful position in our hearts and minds. Oh sure, it is not our fault, since the power in our voices slackened with our content with letting the heavy sounds of rock music and electric blues assure us that we have reached the fulfillment we should strive for. May the Lord forgive us!
For now the only consolation we have is the knowledge that God could never be on their side! Even if we have lost the momentum desired of us, and the guts to call a spade a spade, humanity's destiny must end at the end of the rainbow we pictured in our vision. If that is not God's will, then what the hell are we here for?
Keep the faith - we must be sure that we are right and they are dead wrong!

Yemen Times Issue 1334
February 1, 2010