By Marina de Regt – On Thursday the 26th of September, my social media filled up with messages commemorating Yemen’s revolution of 1962. I read poems and short texts accompanied by pictures of the Yemeni flag, sometimes using #Yemenrevolution. On this day, more than sixty years ago, a military coup by republicans dethroned Imam Muhammad Al-Badr, and Yemen was declared a republic. A seven-year civil war between royalists in support of the Imamate and republicans followed and only in 1970 the Yemen Arab Republic was officially established. For Yemenis living in former North Yemen, the 26th of September used to be their national day; an official day off and a day full of festivities celebrating the end of the Yemeni Imamate which had ruled the country for centuries.
However, since the Houthis took control of a large part of North Yemen, exactly ten years ago, the 26th of September is not celebrated anymore, at least not officially. Instead, the 21st of September, the day they occupied Yemen’s capital Sana’a and a number of other major cities in North Yemen in 2014, has become a sort of national day. The Houthis are descendants of the Hashemite families that were ruling Yemen during the Imamate, and thus were overthrown in 1962. Even though Western media like to portray the Houthis as “rebels”, opposing the Internationally Recognized Government of Yemen (IRGY), all government institutions in North Yemen are controlled by the Houthis. They have even established their own banks and introduced a new currency. The Houthis came to power by force, and therefore are not recognized internationally as (North) Yemen’s government. Moreover, their regime is based on large-scale oppression of the Yemeni population, and of women and minorities in particular, continued violations of human rights such as freedom of speech, detentions without trial, the denial of access to humanitarian aid and using famine as a weapon of war, and the deployment of child soldiers. And last but not least, the Houthis have established a very profitable war economy by imposing taxes on almost everything one can think of. While the large majority of Yemenis has great difficulties to survive, those that are affiliated with the Houthis prosper.
The social media messages commemorating the Yemeni revolution of 1962 must therefore be seen as outspoken resistance against the current regime of the Houthis, and a call for a Yemeni revolution just like the one that took place in the 1960s. In the past decade Yemenis have increasingly used the 26th of September as an occasion to show their rejection of the Houthi regime, through public manifestations, the use of the Yemeni flag, and other forms of peaceful resistance. However, this year the Houthis responded much more violently than before. There have been large scale arrests of anyone celebrating the 26 September Revolution, including children carrying flags.
These arrests follow the kidnapping of around 60 Yemenis working for international aid organizations in May and June, who the Houthis accused of espionage for the West. In reality, these arrests must be seen as a response to the attacks of the United States and the United Kingdom, which started early 2024. Since December 2023 the Houthis have attacked hundreds of vessels as a way to call a halt to the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. However, these attacks are mainly meant to gain international recognition of their rule and show their strength and power. While many people supporting the Palestinian case applaud the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, most Yemenis are highly sceptical of them. They see these attacks as just another way in which the Houthis try to use violence to attract international attention. In their eyes, the ways in which the Houthis occupy land, impose taxes and use violence to impose their rule can be compared to Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Moreover, for the large majority of the Yemeni population, the attacks have only worked out negatively; ships that carry much-needed food items (as most of Yemen’s food is imported) are avoiding the Red Sea or have to pay high costs to dock in the port of Hodeidah. As a result, food prices have increased tremendously, affecting the humanitarian situation in the country even more than before.
The recent arrests of hundreds of innocent people, including children, who peacefully tried to show their discontent with the current regime in North Yemen is another blow to the Yemeni population, which has already suffered so much over the past ten years. While all eyes are currently focused on the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Lebanon, we should not forget the atrocities going on in other parts of the Arab world as a result of the genocide in Gaza. Last Friday US airstrikes have hit Yemen again, in order “to protect freedom of navigation”. Many family members of arrested people are afraid their loved ones will be used as human shields by the Houthis, and fear that they might never see them again. Paying attention to the ongoing oppression in Yemen, even if it is via social media posts, is therefore extremely important. #donotforgetYemen.
Marina de Regt works at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology and writes regularly about Yemen.