The war in Yemen divides and weakens all who take part in it. This is where civil forces must rise to the challenge, present solutions and alternative projects through mobilizing the masses and pressuring leaders into ending the war.
Monday, February 28, 2022 – Sunday, February 27, the Culture and Media Track of the National Reconciliation Movement organized a symposium on the possible role of intellectuals and media professionals in contributing to ending the war in Yemen, reaching peace, and the prospects for unifying the efforts of the various peace currents and components within Yemen and beyond.
This came in an event which hosted the great Yemeni thinker and politician, Mohamed Abdalsalam Mansour, the Assistant Secretary-General of the Yemeni Scientific and Linguistic Academy, and advisor to the Ministry of Culture. He discussed the difficulties, failures and challenges faced by the ruling authoritarian regimes on the one hand and a society that still suffers from the legacy of centuries of backwardness and poverty on the other. Pointing out that the past forces have been fighting against intellectuals and the enlightened and marginalizing them in their quest to seize power and wealth, which is the main reason for disrupting the wheel of development and modernization in Yemen after the September and October revolutions, and causing the situation Yemen is in now.
Mansour pointed out that the civil forces that did not engage in the military conflict have made great efforts for years in an attempt to avoid the outbreak of war, and were able to gather the forces of the conflict at the dialogue table and make it clear to them that the war will destroy and divide Yemen and weaken everyone, and that they will be nothing but means in the hands of the enemies of Yemen to pass this project.
He added that all the conflict forces admitted that the dispute between them is political, but unfortunately they used social and ethnic agitation to mobilize the masses and supporters, and that the enemies of Yemen from abroad were able to exploit the “agitated psychology of the forces of the internal conflict” to seize power, and used them to make their divisive projects succeed.
Mansour called on the civil forces that did not engage in the conflict, and those who realized that the war is harmful to everyone, to mobilize the masses for peaceful pressure through demonstrations and protests to stop the war, reach peace and restore the building of the state, and that they should continue to communicate directly with the conflict forces and clarify The danger of war on everyone and the impossibility of any party winning over the other by force of arms, and that they present solutions to these forces to stop the war first and then pave the way for building a transitional national government that works to address the effects of the war and prepares for elections in which everyone participates.
At the end of his speech, he pointed out the importance of media professionals joining civil blocs calling for peace and playing their positive and influential role in mobilizing the masses.
On his part, Dr. Hamdan Dammag, director of the Culture and Media track in the movement, stresses the importance of the movement continuing to communicate with personalities and civil groups calling for an end to the war, which are working in various regions of Yemen, and building relations of understanding, cooperation and coordination with them in order to intensify and integrate efforts. Pointing to what the intellectual has today, after all these years of war, the duty and the national role to engage with the civil forces calling for peace, stressing that the current continues to extend its hand to all in accordance with its national consensus constants and its commitment to its independent political and cultural discourse.
The attendees of the two-hour symposium contributed to enriching the discussion with their questions and interventions, unanimously agreeing on the importance of continuing such activities in order for Yemenis to regain hope of stopping the war and correcting the compass towards the right path to a better future.
It is worth mentioning that Mr. Muhammad Abdul Salam Mansour, in addition to his poetic and intellectual works, is a legal advisor, arbitration judge, lawyer, translator, article writer, and one of the prominent activists in calling for an end to the war in Yemen and the achievement of peace.