Aleppo ? Gaza ? no Aden...
Laurent Bonnefoy sur Facebook
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Aleppo ? Gaza ? no Aden... and it’s not Saudi bombs that are behind these destructions but the Huthi/Salih offensive. The anti-Saudi/foreign agression narrative, however cumfortable (I mean, who “likes” Saudi foreign policy?!), is just too simplistic and highlights an unconscious Sanaa-bias that structures the framing of the Yemeni conflict amongst much of the academic community (I’m not saying a pro-Huthi one, but simply referring to the fact that over the last years, mobility outside of the capital for foreigners has been almost inexistent and has left other cities and governorates under the radar (and outside the affect) of many analysts, journalists, diplomats). As such, destructions and victims in Sanaa “affect” us more than ones in Aden, Taiz or Dhala’.
The true complexity of the war in Yemen resides in the fact that it is not only about a Saudi agression that we can as foreign analysts simply construct as illegitimate and criminal. The conflict can’t honestly be framed as good Yemenis vs. bad Yemeni guys. Both sides are at once resistants and agressors, depending on your post of observation, and both are being supported by means that are creating an assymetry. Saudi airplanes on the one hand and “Republican guards” on the other. Were Huthis and “Southerners” fighting one another on their own, it is likely that they would have found common ground - be it in the form of a partition. With the Saudis and Salih (and the “Iranian” boogeyman, largely fantasized) at play, it is increasingly difficult to even imagine a solution.
As a foreign researcher, I am constantly invited to take sides. As a human being, pictures of horrific destructions, names of casualties, emotions are also implicit invitations to make choices and to either “be Aden” or “be Sanaa”. I end up feeling that it is impossible to accept a manichean logic. I believe we can, and must, at once be against the Saudi military campaign and against the offensive in Taiz and Aden where the local populations clearly see the Huthis and their partners as an occupying force and as intruders. Caring for Yemen means caring for all.
