Not everyone who took to the streets in Sana’a to participate in the demonstrations staged by the group Ansar Allah (the Houthis) is pro-Houthi. A large number of Yemenis in those protests were motivated by the dismal economic conditions in the country and to reject the government’s decision to lift subsidies on fuel.
Sana’a – “I am not a member of Ansar Allah or a follower of al-Houthi, But I came to protest for the goal of toppling the government and reversing the decision to raise prices,” says a young man wrapped in the Yemeni flag who looks like he is in his twenties. The young man is one of many like him, who came out on Friday morning to take part in the second phase of the “escalation” declared by the leader of Ansar Allah, Abdel-Malik al-Houthi.
The young man’s statement suggests that what had motivated the majority of protesters to descend on Sana’a’s streets was the feeling of injustice inflicted on them by the interim government. Many Yemenis believe that this government – after taking power following the popular uprising in the county, would bear its moral responsibility toward the people – and that economic and administrative conditions under it would improve, rather than worsen.
The external appearance of the members of Ansar Allah or those ideologically aligned with the Houthis suggests their concerns are not that distant from the general objective of the protest either, namely, to address economic issues burdening all Yemenis without discrimination. Also, the remarkable number of Yemeni flags throughout the protest areas seems to have been a message from the leader of Ansar Allah, as if to say that what drove people into the streets and united them is the collective economic concern, especially with the decision to increase fuel prices.
The government’s decision to end subsidies on fuel has hit the poorer segments [of the Yemeni population] the hardest, particularly farmers who rely heavily on subsidized fuel in their daily lives and livelihoods. The lack of fuel at affordable prices has inflicted heavy losses on the current planting season, and it will be difficult to compensate these anytime soon.
Here, it is not possible to ignore the possibility that raising the national Yemeni flag in the protests was a deliberate gesture from Abdel-Malik al-Houthi to stress that collective economic pain had driven people to come out in large numbers to demand government to step aside, and that there are no sectarian motives, or intentions to overthrow the republic, as Houthi stressed more than once in his recent speeches.
The Yemenis we met at the protest echo this idea. The gist of many of what many of them had to say was, “We are with al-Houthi in order to achieve our rights and restore our stolen revolution.”
Meanwhile, a protester we spoke to expressed his surprise and shock over the counter-protests staged by the authorities in support of the government’s economic measures, which have broken the back of ordinary people.
“It never happened anywhere in the world that people came out in a demonstration to say they were happy with economic measures that turned their lives into hell,” said one young man, before he revealed that he is a soldier with the First Armored Division, which was previously under the command of Major General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar. “They have succeeded in corrupting the popular revolution with their alliances and their exploitation, in a way that has brought us to the current economic situation,” he adds.
Maliha al-Asadi, a human rights activist who had taken part in the February 2011 Revolution, confirmed the apparent diversity in the backgrounds of the protesters. She said that it is possible to clearly discern the presence of one group seeking to achieve sectarian goals, and others from the ruling Congress Party who are disgruntled with al-Islah Party, and also youths who had taken part in the revolution and whom al-Islah betrayed and hijacked their revolution.
Asadi explains that the majority of the protesters represent the poorer classes, which have been worn out by the repercussions of the recently approved economic measures. She also says that it is possible to conclude that the Houthis have learned remarkably from what she called the mistakes of political action in Yemen, something that has helped the group achieve the prominence we can now observe.
Asadi believes that it is imperative to integrate the Houthis into a political framework in line with other parties in the country, and to assimilate its arms in a legal framework, “in order to allay the fears of those who came out alongside the group against the current government.”
Indeed, some protesters could not hide their annoyance with the slogans raised by supporters of al-Houthi, saying, “If those slogans were more emphatic to the suffering of the people, it would have been more appropriate for both al-Houthi and the protest.”
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
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