Al-Khansa Abdulrahman Anwar
Researcher and academic, former member of the Development Committee at the National Dialogue Conference
You cannot claim to be a “San‘ani” simply because you have lived in this city; Sanaa is not a city you own, but rather a city that owns you. The Sanaa whose streets and alleys I walked, whose ancient walls I saw, and whose school benches I sat on… it takes you in and embraces you.
I left Aden in 1987, and since that time I have lived in Sanaa. Yet my heart has remained suspended between the two cities:
The birds that once left the homeland of dreams always return to Sanaa with longing, embracing the heart of hope in Aden.
As a little girl, I passionately loved the goals of the September 26 Revolution—especially the goal of achieving Yemeni unity. In my imagination, I envisioned a new form that would unite the two parts of the country, erase the borders, and ease movement. Yes, I was a bit selfish… thinking only of myself: of solutions that would heal the longing of a child who left her birthplace for the place of her heart, torn between memories of childhood in Aden and beautiful experiences in Sanaa.
And so, every year noble September returns to us—lofty in its goals, radiant with its torch in Liberation Square. A revolution that has never lost its greatness; rather, it is we who have fallen short—we did not achieve its goals, nor did we hold on to its spirit. The fault is not in the revolution, but in us Yemenis, who reduce its memory each year to a mere official holiday, as if that were its greatest purpose! We are content with fireworks, as though they were the greatest achievement of a revolution that made the history of an entire nation.
Yemenis are without doubt the most advanced people in applying modern technology! Our “great” government runs the state remotely, ministries operate on a system of “always online,” and national celebrations we attend remotely—through recorded slogans and memories. Even salaries are managed remotely—so remotely, in fact, that we no longer see them at all. Thus, we have ironically become unrivaled pioneers of technology: standing endlessly in breadlines while imagining life in the “cloud.”
As Yemenis in exile, we celebrate the September 26 Revolution the way a hungry man celebrates a picture of a plate of mandi. We raise flags, sing anthems, and circulate the same old photos as if they were new achievements. In reality, we live off memories, embracing the past to cover the void of the present. We laugh bitterly and say: our revolution brought us out of the caves… yet we are still searching for electricity and water as though we had never left them. We celebrate remotely, with distant hope, satisfied that the revolution endures in slogans, while our reality remains in bread and diesel queues. We celebrate in exile and dream of the homeland, chanting for the republic from across borders.
A revolution of distance, a memory of presence; slogans fill the walls, but stomachs scream from hunger, the scales of justice have tilted, and the citizen is impoverished. Damn you, so-called “Ansar Allah”—truly the “Followers of Satan.”
Let us keep this flame alive to burn away the darkness and open doors to the future—not a return to the Imam.
