The Start of the Herak (Movement)

It seems odd to me that the story of the southern Yemeni over the course of the past four years has been ignored, not just by media outlets such as Al Jazeera, the BBC or CNN, but more so by our northern brethren.  The suffering of injustices of the southern Yemeni has gone on long enough.   And without anyone to hear their cries it will continue to go on longer.  For this reason, I decided to blog about and try to reach out to those that care to listen - Yemenis and non Yemenis alike.

It all started in July 2007 when retired army personnel of the army (of southern descent and lineage) were refused their due pensions from the Yemeni government.  Those from the north were given their pensions without questions and without delay (some northerners even receive multiple pensions under fake names and multiple fake jobs with the government.  But that will be left for a different blog on a different day).  I was in Yemen at the time and remember seeing the protests in Abyan (outside of the bridge to Zinjibar).  The protests were small in number but they were constant.  Their voices were heard and they were being ignored.  Any northerner with any influential government authority or power that looked at their situation thought of them as peasants begging for money.

After months of protesting, the realization that peaceful protesting was not going to work had set in and the Herak (the Movement) started.  The movement towards secession from North Yemen and for an independent South Yemen to exist again began.  Once this movement started and gained a strong number of people in the south, Ali Abdullah Saleh gave in to the demands of the retired army personnel of the south and released their pensions to them.  It seems as if giving them their due pay was to be a “bribe” to shut them up from their talks of seceding or at least to get the southerners to curb their anger.

In those months that the retired army people protested for their rightfully due pensions, the tensions heated up in the south.  Why should a person who served their country loyally for all of these years deserve to be treated like a second class citizen?  Is the true meaning of unification that the northerner gets to reap the benefits while the southerners strive to get justice?  What has the unification showed us in the past 17 years in the means of justice?  Equality?  Economic growth?  Advancements in the quality of life?

Negative responses to each and every one of the previous questions boiled the blood of the common southerner.  The southerner that yearned for unification for over 300 years was now regretting the entire time under the unification.  The southerner that was once proud to have the most advanced Middle Eastern nation in the mid 20^th century was now ashamed to be known as a Yemeni.  They are so ashamed of the tarnished name of Yemeni that they wish to secede and to be called South Arabians.  The new country to be called South Arabia.