It's been a week since Embassy Sanaa was invaded, and a busy week at that. Still, I feel I owe the three readers of this blog some clarifications and observations, particularly after watching the news coverage of the events.
First and foremost, everything is alright. We were all totally safe, and no people from the embassy were hurt. The staff has been incredible. A week ago the compound looked like the aftermath of a tornado; it now looks nearly as it did before the protests. This has been nearly entirely due to the tireless efforts of the local staff.
The media bundled together every protest at an American embassy into one convenient package. All were about an offensive film. This, of course, misses just about everything that these protests were about, particularly in Yemen. Yes, the film was offensive, and many, many people in Yemen don't like the film and are unhappy that it exists (which is likely the case in America as well). But this was primarily a pretext, not the root cause of the destruction of embassy property. It is important that people understand this.
The United States has been supporting a new, democratic government in Yemen. We were quick to support the removal of the former president, and have stood behind the new government as it fights to build up rule of law and a struggling economy. With any regime change there are winners and losers. Al Qaeda, for example, was used by Saleh as a reason for his autocracy. The new regime has chosen to fight AQ, and the evidence of this success is a reversion to bombings. Since they lost their territory, they have been forced to again fight asymmetrically. Some tribal leaders also are hurt by this new balance of power. Leaders that relied on hand-outs from the former government (or used the former government as a foil) are finding that democracy weakens their grip over people, and dilutes their voice in national politics. These groups look to the US as the reason for their relative decline, and decry our involvement in their politics because it adversely affects them to benefit others. It is these groups which were the primary instigators of the protests. Some commentators pointed to these protests as evidence of poor foreign policy. In Yemen, they are evidence of the opposite. Players who benefited from autocracy are angry that we are supporting a democracy that erodes their importance. This means the transition is working.
While there were several leaders responsible for stirring up the public outrage, the majority of the actual destruction was done by a different group of people for a different reason. As you can see in many of the videos of the protests, many of the rioters are young. There is a set of poor, uneducated, Yemeni youth growing up. They are frustrated by their lack of prospects as any youth would be in their situation. They are growing up into adults who will fail to find a job in a country with 50% unemployment, who will struggle to provide food and water for their families, and who are members of a proud nation being left behind by the rest of Arabia. Many reporters found that rioters had only just heard of the video and very few had actually seen it. To many of the protesters, this was an opportunity to vent frustration at an easy scapegoat. To others, it was a chance to loot without likely repercussion (we're looking at you, person who took the case of beer and person who took our floor driers).
This is not to belittle the unhappiness that most Sanaanis share with the video produced. But keep in mind that, in a city of nearly 2 million, less than 1000 actually showed up to protest violently. Not all Yemenis like Americans, but many were still disappointed by their countrymen for the conduct which they saw on TV. As a member of a religion which is frequently maligned both in the US and internationally, I can understand the frustration, but not the violent lack of control. Mormons have had many such slanderous things said about them (keep in mind it was technically legal to kill a Mormon in Missouri until 1976), but we have found that in most circumstances it is better to politely correct the error, show by example the true principles of our belief, and continue in our lives, rather than violate our principles of peace. I suspect many in Yemen and elsewhere would agree.
