Question 1
Question 1: In your opinion, what do you think are the main challenges facing Yemen in its effort to combat terrorism?
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Resonate! Yemen 
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1-Poverty – More than 50% of our population lives under poverty line, or less than US $2 a day which makes it easy to attract anyone to do anything just by providing shelter and home for him.
2-Illiteracy
3-Unemployment
4-Weapons availability
5-Corruption – All the efforts being spent by our government are on how to spend the money on them selves and not on the country it self.
****Moderator’s Note: This comment was not consistent with the guidelines in the disclaimer and has been edited. This is not a platform to bash or reproach governments or individuals.****
Yemen is facing various problems leading to number of challenges in combating terrorism. Problems such as poverty, lack of education, lack of awareness and corruption.
To begin, The young, Uneducated and poor people are the ones that tend to be targeted for the terrorism acts. They are easily attracted by incentives such as financial rewards. But is money the only incentive? In my opinion the answer is NO. Not only people who are poor can get attracted. In fact people that are targeted can also get brainwashed, filled with wrong concepts and given fake goals, falsely Building up a belief inside them that they are in the right path, and doing the right thing in a religious manner. However, media focuses in those people, and expose this to the world out side, and this is what gives them the wrong impression and thoughts about us.
Another important issue that is facing Yemen in combating terrorism is the weak financial situations. A part is what leads to it is lack of awareness about useless habits such as chewing gat. Gat, which is given more priorities than its worth, causes a fall in the economic growth both in individual bases by putting it in their top list in priorities, and in a country’s wise since it replaces financial crops, and reduces working hours , commitment and advancement. Gat kills time for the most productive people in the community in my opinion, which in return is one of the challenges Yemen is facing.
I think that in order to eradicate terrorism, a level of education and awareness should be achieved. As well as taking care of the economic growth of the country.
First, the correct Islam concepts and interpretations should be taught. People should be taught correct virtues of our religion, that doesn’t justify killing innocents no matter what. And that doesn’t teach us violence or any aggressive actions towards people from different backgrounds. In fact the true deeds of Islam should be taught, such as harmony, peace fairness etc. Parents, are also responsible for their children. They should make sure to raise their children according to the correct concepts, and be always around and aware of how are their children thinking, and what is their goal.
Economic growth of the country should also be given a vital attention. This can be achieved by fighting corruption, and again spreading awareness against gat and motivating people to make better use of their times making more activities that can lead towards more success.
Finally, indeed a big part of this is expected from government, but it is also the entire Yemeni’s responsibility. Instead of pointing fingers, we should start by our selves, and by making initiatives to increase the awareness amongst our countries population. And by being and raising a generation that is aware.
In order to improve, we need to have a change; we can’t stay the same, and expect an improvement to happen all of a sudden. It is simply not going to happen. In order to change we need to wake up people’s minds internally. Not just by criticizing, but by making them really understand, and believe in what’s right.
I agree with Mr Khaled A. Alradhi and to add to his comments that Yemen has a long coastline (2000 kilometer) and has various of ports and land accesses;
* BY Air : Sana’a international airport, aden international airport, Taiz international airport, Hodeadh international airport, Almukala international airport and Sayun international airport.
* By land Accesses: Harad , Albug, sarfeet, Albeen, Shahin and Alwadya.
* By Sea: Aden seaport, Mocca seaport, Alahodeadh Seaport, Almukala Seaport, Nashtoon seaport, Gasheen sayhot seaport, Aldabah Seaport, Bear ali seaport, Balhaf seaport, radum seaport, Thubab seaport, Alkawkh seaport, Alsaleef Seaport, Rass Esa seaport, alkuba Seaport, Alluhyea Seaport and Mede Seaport.
All the above mention ports and land accesses definitely need to be secured from any terrorist logistics supporter.
I agree with the 5 points listed by ‘anonymous’ above, and would even assert that these are not unique to Yemen and characterize the environment in many countries where terrorism is a very real concern. With respect to corruption, it is linked to foreign interference, as many of the failed governments in many countries are supported by several of the world’s powers and as such these governments do not represent their citizens and do not act in their best interests. For this reason, there is no real effort to improve education systems, the business environment is difficult to navigate which prevents growth which is one of the causes of unemployment and underemployment. This leads to frustration and even desperation which is expressed through terrorist acts.
While I am not from the UAE, we need more Sheikh Zayed-type leaders in the Arab world. Leaders who empower their citizens by providing access to a functioning education system, who pass economic reforms to create employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for their citizens, and who through these initiatives allow their citizens to feel a certain amount of ownership over their future. If you can create hope through incentives to succeed, terrorism will largely disappear as it is largely an expression of frustration and desperation.
One of the biggest challenges to fighting terrorism in Yemen is the fact that the people at the forefront of this fight lack moral credibility. Particularly, the opportunistic, self-serving officials governing Yemen. For the average Yemeni, the amount of harm that the governing “elite” does to Yemen outdo the harm from any terrorist group. Of course this doesn’t mean that terrorism is acceptable; it’s just another evil Yemeni’s have to deal with.
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The religion in Yemen has been fairly moderate, but the practices are a bit out-dated for this new economic-capitalist-westernized and globalized world. We need to have some sort of revolution in yemen, a peaceful one, but a cultural one that will make us Yemenis with great qualities and reaching a civil societal living strategy. Yemen’s resources, manual labor capita, and location has made it prosper before, and it can prosper again. Religion needs to be modernized. Some clerics’ non-sensible claims has gained them power; as religious leaders and to some, some sort of spiritual heros.
We need to preserve our heritage, work with NGOs to help yemenis self-sustain. Rebuild our fortresses and wear our traditional colored veils perhaps rather than the new Saudi Arabian Burqa.
We need to educate the yemeni children. They run around the streets and its easy for them to go on literally, any path.
The southern movement might have some legitimacy to their responses, but rather than call it a southern movement, it should be a national one because the whole of yemen suffers from problems of oppression, corruption, and so forth.
Terrorism, hopefully, wont find its place in Yemen if some sort of nationalism, like this website, will be invested. Imagine, controlling the Khat market, exporting coffee, grapes (Yemen’s grapes are famous for their pre-islam flavor, imagine what would the west can do with it. People should work and live in a form that evens the modern and the old. Yes, we will wear the Jambiya and chew khat occasionally, but I will also adopt to allowing my female members of my family to attend a a school, get a job, and etc.
****Moderator’s Note: This comment was not consistent with the guidelines in the disclaimer and has been edited. Thank you.
The near and the far knows the main problems in Yemen. Even the illiterates farmers of my old town understand Yemen issues. You can not find almost anyone in Yemen who has not experience some injustice prosecution by the local and or main government officials. Every one is corrupted from head to tones in one way or the other.
So here are some easy to understand issues;
1. There is no justice system
2. The essential education does not exist
3. There is no security to protect the ordinary man.
4. There is no laws to solve people problems and treat people with dignity.
5. There is no social systems to take care of the sick, elderly and the poor.
7.There is no values and morels of the entire government officials.
8. There is no electricity for most of the country regions.
9. There is not enough hospitals to treat the public and most ill people get treatment abroad and only those who have money can travel.
10. Do not let me forgot about jobs!!!
11. There is so much problems I can list here, I will let you “readers” to fill the gab.
12. And most of all the primitive religious leaders who remind me of the dark ages of the West, are keeping the country divided into different sects have no idea what the rest of the world has achieved and continued to brain-wash simple people in the name of religion, spread wars, hatred and mostly terrorism against their own people and any one who has a different opinion and do not agree with them…
I am sorry, we do not need any Shiekks, Your comments about UAE has no thing to do with Yemen Problems. One of the main reason that Yemen is as it is now in the UAE and the cooperation committee “Majless Alta’awon Al-khaliji”. It makes me sick just to mention their names.