Dr Mohamed Al Rumaihi
The Houthis are trying through their media device that operates mostly from Beirut, to steal the discourse, misleading the Yemeni public first and foremost, and then the Arabs.
The crisis of the Houthis is spread over two locations: Tehran and Sana’a.
In Tehran, there is insistence to export the revolution, which is an attempt to run forward to justify the idea of ‘Wilayat al Faqih’ (Guardianship of the Jurist) founded by Ruhollah Khomeini, through which he ascended to rule Iran.
The Twelver Shias, at that time, witnessed the golden stage of their history after a long historical conflict with the temporal powers at different stages of Muslim history in a number of places where their leaders were killed and assassinated.
By then, the Twelvers had the idea that wrestling timely power is a waste of effort causing a pointless lasting conflict, so it resorted to discarding the timely power, and take care of their ethnic heritage, waiting for the appearance of the Mahdi.
Khomeini himself was not in most of his actions outside this circle. He has a book published in 1994, named ‘Secrets Revealed’, confirming the same thought: the necessity to leave the timely power for politicians.
For known historical reasons, in a struggle with the Shah’s authority, and in the light of the modernisation battles documented in Iran’s contemporary history, the power followed the concept of ‘Wilayat al Faqih’.
A combination of a number of interrelated factors came together till we reached what we have witnessed as a “hybrid Islamic state” in Iran that now has a written constitution, but an absolute jurist authority of ‘Wilayat al Faqih’.
In the second plot, the Houthis, who are a Zaidi Shia sect that historically believes in the ‘permanent revolution’ concept, discovered that ‘the true Zaidi faith’ lies in the latter idea, which is applied in Iran. The Houthis followed that thought, accepted all its conditions without being encouraged, funded, or even tempted. Based on that, a consensus occurred between them and Iran.
That consensus was the result of the circumstances that befell Yemen, like corruption, abusing the authority, and the atrophy of development.
I said at the beginning that the Houthis’ crisis is in two places, and I described the first one, the second is about the political opportunism of Saleh’s followers who control an overlapping network of interests.
This network had been built and raised for many years on corruption, and is the reason behind the poverty of Yemen during the last thirty years; in the sense that the elite fill their pockets from people’s wealth and do their best to defend
their interest.
All we have now is a ‘defeatist discourse’, literally, enveloped by misleading and blinding slogans that create illusions.
There are no objective conditions for the acceptance of exporting the revolution to the Arab region that is adjacent to Iran from the west, for a number of reasons, the most important of which is that large segments of the social fabric and the elites in the west of Iran (Arab region) are eager for a modern civil state that equals the citizens.
All forms of divided warring communities are outdated and no longer suitable for our time. In addition, the slogans of bringing justice to ‘the oppressed and vulnerable’ people are clearly shown through a glance at a large forgotten sector, the Shia Arabs in Ahwaz.
This faction of society has been admitted to the Iranian state in less than a century.
In loose conditions during and after the First World War, the Shia Arabs consist of about 7pc of the Iranian population (this is a little less according to official statistics) and became more than being an oppressed minority; they have lived in poor and disadvantaged areas, such as Khuzestan and Hermstan, while the rest of them are dispersed in other locations.
The defeatist discourse is contrasted with the march of the world towards a media revolution that expresses itself in the acceleration of the means of communication, transportation and through transmission of ideas. People around the world reap the fruits of modern science by relying on their minds.
Finally, 48 years have passed since the 1967 defeat. One of its causes was misleading the Arabs via unrealistic emotional discourse, as the Houthis are doing today. Should we then get stung twice in the same snake hole?
The writer is an academician and researcher in GCC affairs.
