The Zaydis of yesterday, the Houthis of today

We know them by their current name, the Houthis. In fact, they are not exactly strangers to us. We are talking about Yemen, where the Ottoman Empire remained for 400 years but never established full sovereignty.  

Yemeni Shiism is called Zaydism. The Houthis are the most powerful Yemeni tribe that has adopted the Zaydi faith and creed. 

At a time when imperialism is attempting to redraw the map of the Middle East, it is time to take a closer look at Yemen, where the sturdy young men of Anatolia went and never returned.   

Yemen, which surrounds the Arabian Peninsula from the south, from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf, and faces the Indian Ocean on its other side.

Yemen, where the Ottomans stayed for four hundred years (1517-1917) and left without leaving a trace, leaving behind nothing but bitter coffee, bitter memories, and melodies that sting our noses. 

The wretched Yemen, which took the robust children of Anatolia and never gave them back, as the saying goes, "the wind blew and the desert hid them."

Yemen, which still lives in an atmosphere of sectarian and tribal/clan sociology.

"The road to Yemen is made of mud 

Our mess tin is made of copper 

Our rich pay a ransom 

Our soldiers are from the poor" 

as stated in the lament, Yemen, which mercilessly swallowed the Turkish sons who were rich in heart but poor in pocket.

Yemen, cursed by the brides with dark fates, whose faces turned pale before their henna faded; 

"A sound came from deep within at night 

Did you call me from the deserts of Yemen?" 

with the lament.

What kind of mental block is it to send the Mehmetçik (Turkish soldiers) back into the deserts of Yemen for the security needs of the petrodollar-spoiled Saudi medieval regime? What kind of lack of consciousness and memory is it to direct Turkish naval, land, and air power—which should be showing the flag in the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean in line with national interests—into the Middle East quagmire, and to so thoroughly forget Yemen, which exhausted the human and economic resources of the Ottoman Empire?

Let us conclude our article with the hope that the lack of knowledge and consciousness that learns nothing from the past and will bring new pains and new laments will be replaced as soon as possible by state reason and state memory.