Yemen and the Wizard of Oz

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 16:45

Turned on the radio this morning to the BBC World Report and before my morning cup of Pakistani chai that I was making was finished steeping I was hearing news about the Americans warning regarding travel to Yemen being revived. It is really annoying when the U.S. Government has to make a statement such as this while shamelessly basing it on the abstraction of the makeshift concept of terror. So after my chai kicked in I went online and chatted with my pal Mohammed in Sana’a to ask him if there was anything new going on in Yemen to substantiate this revived travel warning. Of course Mohammed was saying that everything is the same in Yemen; nothing much ever changes in Yemen. For centuries Yemen has stayed the same and that is precisely the appeal of Yemen to travelers – you can find modern Arabia there in Sana’a alongside a millennium old cultural tradition still very much alive like it was in the time of the Prophet Abraham. If you want to visit the land of the Old Testament and not be bothered with Charlton Heston playing an unconvincing hairy Moses with a wig then opt for Yemen over Palestine – this is why Yemen is a viable travel destination!


So what is different today in the American government’s paranoid mind of fear regarding southwestern Arabia? – is there anything different or what sort of corporate screwing is the U.S. up to with Yemen regarding this travel advisory? Not that many American’s go there or work there and certainly Yemen is no more a hotbed of “terrorism” than the states itself so why this revived fear mongering travel advisory? Why is it the U.S. is asking its citizens to always blindly trust its governance when we aren’t convinced this administration has our best interests at heart or even on its agenda? Not that the U.S. ever provides answers to any substantial question on the part of its citizenry (just try and ask your nearest U.S. Embassy when you are abroad for even the least amount of information!) but still a good explanation for this travel advisory would be the minimum to ask for of the current administration in Washington. Perhaps something not explained away so easily by that simplistic talk of terrorism. It is such blame shifting rhetoric that we are now numb to it. We have all evolved beyond this idea of FEAR behind this word: Terror. Terrorism. Terrorist. War on Terror – like what the fuck kind of idea is a war on Terror? Does Yemen have another name called Terror as in The Yemeni Republic of Terror? I hardly think so - go there and see for yourself: Yemen is the most amazingly generous and hospitable place – a nation of kind hearted happy people who are surprisingly able to differentiate a single American from the foreign policies of the U.S. Government. This ability is a lesson the Americans could definitely learn from.

If Yemen conveniently changed its name from Yemen to TERROR then making war on it would be a bit more grammatically accurate at least for your tedious 8th grade English grammar teacher. Again it’s another fart of hot air from the Bush II administration: Nothing more than a lot of useless hot air at huge expense of the American taxpayers.

We are not afraid anymore Mr. Bush Junior! We the people will not be manipulated by your peddling fear and paranoia tactics to control us – we want to be a land of free and fearless people welcome around the world again. Anyway fear never really suits Americans or their image abroad that well. If the states knows something about Yemen that it isn’t letting on about regarding this then where were the travel advisories for people going to the states prior to September 2001 (or after). For that matter where were the travel advisories for New Yorkers going to work that day or for the rest of nation then to prepare themselves for the inevitable reap what your elected Corporate leaders foreign policy sowed to come back on you the uninformed yet well meaning consumer, pretend voting, taxpayer, citizen.

The thing is no one much feels the Bush II administration is making any American’s life safer at home or abroad with these fearful warnings because they have proven with Nine Eleven this administration can’t be bothered to protect the Nation itself. So why then this sudden meddling by the U.S. in the name of protecting its “citizen” consumers in another country far away and inconsequential to American interests? It is all a bit like the idle classroom student who busies himself with something arbitrary when the teacher passes by to make a face saving good impression.

Yemen unlike most places could use a few tourists not that anyone interested in that part of the world wants to see the place over run with tourists but there are still good Yemeni people who depend on an income by foreign travelers and why does the Bush II administration want to hurt them with this statement. Perhaps if more Americans went to Yemen they would see what Dorothy could see from behind the Wizards curtain that he wasn’t as fierce as he seemed from another vantage point. Perhaps that is the current beauty of traveling to Yemen - it is like going to Oz and from there you can see that Bush II administration “wizard” as the illusion it is – an illusion of terror, an illusion of protection and an illusion of war but most regrettably an illusion of governing a people. Such illusions are only used to mask unethical corporate manipulations of this criminal regime running itself out of Washington. So this is the real reason there are now travel advisories to Yemen – its just yet another tired example of the Bush II administration trying to save face when we all see clearly what they are up to: Not much but lining their own corporate pockets and unmaking America in the process.

So my advice is go to Yemen and find OZ Dorothy, take Toto and don’t worry about Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West is in Washington, DC as usual. Her face might change every four or eight years but it’s still her. We just all like her better when she is dressed like the fairy Godmother better known as Lady Liberty.

It is time again I go watch the MGM production of the Wizard of Oz on DVD before rereading the book WICKED by Gregory Maguire.