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Yemeni stampede a familiar tragedy in a chaotic land
Lawlessness and endemic corruption at the government and societal levels are challenges that need to be overcome.
By Abdulrahman Bindamnan
April 21, 2023 at 10:30PM
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Millions of Muslims around the world woke up on the Islamic festival of Eid, when Muslims end the fasting of Ramadan, to news of a great tragedy. Seventy-eight Muslims were killed this week and dozens more were injured in a stampede in Yemen.
I was getting a haircut in preparation for the Eid when I got a text from a professor asking if my family was OK.
Since I immigrated from Yemen to the United States in 2016, I have tried to distance myself from the horrifying news of Yemen, which comes at a rapid pace. But not this time. Panicked, I visited Google and YouTube to learn what had transpired in my native land, which I left to pursue my studies.
I visited the local news sites in Yemen, which are inaccessible to foreign journalists who do not understand the opaque dialect of spoken Arabic in Yemen. After reading the story from multiple local news sources, and after watching YouTube videos, I find a story line that is typical and tragic.
Each year at the end of Ramadan, wealthy people in Yemen donate to the poor so they can buy nice clothes for Eid. In this particular incident, hundreds of people had gathered outside a school, where a wealthy person was scheduled to provide money to needy citizens. This Yemeni practice is unfamiliar to Americans, yet essentially the scene is not too dissimilar to what we see in the United States on the day after Thanksgiving, when people stand in line outside department stores hoping to get first crack at good deals.
There's one difference, however. People in Yemen are desperate financially, so their motive for standing in line is not just to secure a good price on the latest PlayStation, but to get money they need to survive.
Tragically, instead of waiting in line, attendees broke through the door of the school, causing people to collapse on top of each other, resulting in death and injury.
When I saw the news, I shivered. I could have been one of those crushed. As a kid growing up, I relished standing in line to receive free money. My family needed it.
According to local witnesses, people were not organizing themselves naturally in line, which again may sound unfamiliar to American readers. But as someone who grew up in Yemen, this situation is all too familiar to me. Most people in Yemen struggle to follow orders. Even when we are trying to get in line for gas or stores, there is always a tendency to break the line and defy instructions. It is, unfortunately, part of our Yemeni culture.
Back in 2015, when I was living in the south of Yemen, a similar incident took place. A truck carrying gasoline stopped in the middle of the road due to mechanical issues. Since Yemen was suffering from an acute gas problem, the people gathered around the truck and began stealing gas. I passed in my car and almost stopped to fill my tank, but I decided it was not worth it to wait in line. I am admittedly an impatient person and I also had my younger brother with me.
On the way back, I smelled the smoke near the big truck.
While people had been stealing gas, it had spilled onto the ground. Someone decided to smoke a cigarette. Once he ignited his cigarette lighter, he and the people around him were set aflame. Dozens were killed and more were injured, simply due to carelessness.
Aside from the proxy war, the main challenges in Yemen are lawlessness and endemic corruption at the government and societal levels. The deadly stampede was not destruction coming from the sky, but rather an act of carelessness on the part of ordinary people.
To permanently address the chaos in Yemen, what we need is a transformative education that teaches the people of Yemen how to navigate the conditions of the modern world. Otherwise, the country will continue to drive itself toward extinction.
Abdulrahman Bindamnan is a Ph.D. student at the University of Minnesota.
