Then They Came for Me, and There Was No one Left to Speak Out for Me

Martin Niemöller  was a German clergyman who once described the program of the Nazi Party as a "Renewal movement based on a Christian moral foundation".

  Deep down inside, Niemöller did not remotely consider that he and Hitler had different perceptions of nationalism until Hitler eventually declared the rule of state over religion. After that, Niemöller became on the Nazi’s wanted list of executions as he started a clergymen war against the Nazis.

The world does not quite remember Martin Niemöller as much as it remembers what he said later about the Nazis:


“First they came for the communists

and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

Later in his life, Niemöller became against any sort of violence that he even opposed the cold war because, as he explained, the church cannot be saved by the same sort of violence it rejects.

You might be wondering why I remembered this story today… Well, today I happened to be 30 minutes away from a bombing that killed at least 17 men inside and around the Intelligence HQ in Aden, Yemen. I am not going to describe the scene as I was not there. However, I can go on and on for hours describing the scene everywhere else.

People in Yemen managed to get used to death. The media is too busy with holiday’s songs since tomorrow is the first day of Eid, a Muslim holiday that comes after one month of fasting. Life does not stop  here and Yemenis do not stop even for one second of silence when people die. Malls are loaded and so are the streets. People here live by a principle that allows them to rejoice and live normally as long as what is happening one block away is not related to them. More importantly, people refuse to relate to whatever is different from what they believe in or live by.
The state gets a big part of the blame here. When the state does not stop  not even for a second in official events and media, those souls become cheaper and cheaper every day. If people do not feel the importance of a Yemeni citizen’s soul, how are we expecting communities to get involved in fighting terrorism? And yes! Of course I want to involve people in fighting terrorism, for Saleh’s alliance with the US drones’ policy is not the answer in my opinion.  And I won’t spend more space in this blog to speak about how I am against US drones in Yemen since Jeremy Scahill  expressed most of what I would want to say.

And Ibrahim Mothana  summed up the whole story when he wrote: “DEAR OBAMA, when a U.S. drone missile kills a child in Yemen, the father will go to war with you, guaranteed. Nothing to do with Al Qaeda,”  


Bottom line is that people in Yemen started to form their own groups and each group hides within a bubble. What scares me the most is how every bubble is closed from the inside and at the same time wants a piece of the "New" state without wanting to be part of the wide society that forms the so called new state. Moreover, those bubbles are fed by all external petro-dollar stakeholders starting with the US and Saudi Arabia and ending with Iran.

Two days ago, this picture was all over the internet. It is simply a manifestation of how stinky those two figures can be. A very obvious example is how  for months, both of the Saudi and Iranian media invested in changing the image of the Syrian revolution to an ugly sectarian war. All those TV channels and newspapers on the both sides telling the world their sectarian version of the story while scores of Syrians bleed, and only in a picture like this, one can witness the blood stains on those hands that managed to shake in a 7 star conference.  Similarly, religion was used by both of Saudi Arabia and Iran redirect any sort of real reform in Yemen. 

Niemöller wanted his side of the story and he did not care who was going to sink in the Nazi madness as long as he is not included. Yet, he eventually got to learn that watching blood pouring into the ocean from a distant shore can only delay his own bloodshed and not save him from the inevitable.

Politicians of the world are sitting back and grinning behind their expensive crystal glasses as Yemenis kill each other under the orders of “Men of God” who secretly drink toasts of our blood with the same politicians who wash away our blood stains with petrol and dollars.
All theocratic poles in Yemen are growing in their own bubbles forming a timed bomb and the one thing that can stop the bomb’s clock from ticking is the anti-terrorism recipe: Food, infrastructure and education; in other words SOCIAL JUSTICE.

I don’t want to sit back and watch just because I am safe, for I know that when the time comes for me, no one would be left to save me…