Daily reports emerging from Yemen show Houthi behaviours and practices increasingly fitting the description of “internal colonialism”— a term originally coined in Western political literature and was later expanded upon by the renowned Yemeni researcher and Sana’a University philosophy professor Abu Bakr Al-Sakkaf.
Al-Sakkaf used this term in the 1990s to describe the authoritarian, aggressive, and occupying behaviour displayed by the Northern Yemeni authority, led by Ali Abdullah Saleh and his military entourage following the unification of North and South Yemen.
In 1994, the Northern Yemeni army abruptly launched a war against the South, under the pretext that it was plotting to secede or stage a coup against the unified country. The Northern forces invaded the South, subsequently subjugating its population.
Their actions included:
Purging of institutions
Tens of thousands of employees and southern soldiers were dismissed from their government positions and military ranks, akin to the de-Baathification measures implemented in Iraq after the US invasion in 2003.
Detention and assassination of dissenters
Pursuing, imprisoning, or assassinating individuals who opposed the war and its consequences in both the North and the South, as well as those who voice concern over the mistreatment of Southerners. Any dissenting voices questioning the unity, rejecting it, or advocating for secession were labelled conspirators and traitors.
Under the pretext of unity, many Southerners, branded as separatists, had their land ownership rights revoked. Vast tracts of southern lands were confiscated and seized by Northerners, displacing their original Southern owners.
Based on these actions and numerous others perpetrated during and after the war, a coercive quasi-occupational unity emerged between the two Yemens, which Abu Bakr Al-Sakkaf referred to as internal colonialism.
Today, the Houthis are behaving the exact same way.
Malicious intent to dismantle society
Another concept that can be applied to Houthi practices is Hannah Arendt’s (1906-1975) Theory of Totalitarianism. The German-American researcher in political philosophy used this theory to analyse the rise of the Nazi totalitarian movement in Germany between the two World Wars.
According to Arendt, this movement was driven by a malicious intent to dismantle societies, fragment and destroy them, and return them to a pre-civilised state in order to establish a new totalitarian society that thrived on cruelty and absolute power.
The actions of the Houthis in Yemen seem to exhibit elements of this malicious intent, which sharply contrasts with the name they have chosen for their military militia: Ansar Allah (Supporters of God). They try to mask the evil embodied in their deeds as something sacred — claiming to be the sole representatives of this sacredness.
To maintain power, the Houthis foment tension and division, spread fear and terror, practice discrimination, and exact revenge. They also forcibly recruit people to join their ranks and detain or even assassinate dissenters.
