Princess: Secrets to Share Read online

  Although Hussein al-Houthi is the face of today’s rebels in Yemen, the roots of the Houthi movement snake back through the country’s modern history, although there are some minor differences between the current rebellion and the original one, which began in 1986, prompted by the religious sheikh Salah Ahmed Feletah.

  Feletah’s passion for change attracted Hussein al-Houthi, a cleric with similar ideological leanings. The small rebellion led to great unease in the region. When a civil war in Yemen broke out in 1994, Feletah and al-Houthi cast their lot with south Yemen. When north Yemen won the conflict, Feletah and his party lost their power.

  I shall try to make the history of a long revolution short for my readers. Hussein al-Houthi was the physically attractive and personally charismatic son of Badr al-Houthi. Hussein became a man under the tutelage of his father. But unlike his father and Feletah, he believed that he could bring change if he participated officially. He ran for office and served in parliament. After a series of disappointments with a government that was moving toward the West, Hussein came to the conclusion that he could not successfully reach his goals as part of the regime, so in 1997 he resigned, establishing a political organization, the Believing Youth.

  The people of Yemen easily supported this handsome man with a magnetic personality. Instantly popular with the masses, he gained many followers. Instantly unpopular with the government, he was proclaimed a dangerous reactionary. His enthusiastic supporters flooded nearby governorates, calling for the most conservative interpretation of the Koran. Tensions mounted as al-Houthi’s support surged. Believing Hussein al-Houthi a true threat to the legitimacy of their authority, full-blown war finally erupted between the government and al-Houthi in 2004. The war became so costly that various government leaders met with al-Houthi, asking him to list his demands so that negotiations might result in the end of the rebellion. Hussein al-Houthi replied that he had no demands. He wanted nothing more than for Yemeni youth to be taught the true principles of Islam, and for Yemeni officials to move away from cooperation with the West, in particular the United States.

  Neither side could find their way to peace. Physical fighting renewed. That’s when government soldiers bombarded al-Houthi’s home with missiles, killing him and some of his guards while injuring many family members.

  As is the case with so many rebellions, when the leader is killed, the spirit of the rebellion swells. Hussein al-Houthi’s brother, Abdul Malik, assumed leadership of the spreading movement. Fighters following Abdul Malik called themselves Ansar Allah, or Supporters of God.

  At this stage, the Yemeni government realized that the Houthi rebellion was bigger than its deceased leader, for it threatened even more unrest without him than it had with him at its helm. The rebellion became so detrimental for the government that the president of Yemen offered a pardon, if only the rebellion would end. Abdul Malik and his fighters declined the peace offering.

  Fighting was intermittent over the years. Like a wildfire that would not go out, the fighting crept near our own Saudi border in 2008. By 2009, Saudi armed forces and Houthi fighters battled one another across the border. Alarm bells began to sound in Riyadh.

  Now to return to the long-dead Hussein al-Houthi. When Hussein was killed in 2004, the government feared that his grave would become a shrine. And so they refused the pleas of his family to return the body of their martyr for a proper burial. Instead, authorities unceremoniously buried his body in a prison yard. Their act caused such bitterness with the Houthi that finally, in December 2012, eight years later, the Yemeni government allowed the family to claim the body. The government hoped that their benevolent gesture would encourage national harmony.

  They were wrong. The burial stimulated the rebellion. And so, from that time until the present, battles have erupted alternately between Houthi fighters, the Yemeni government, and various other groups. Then after several years of unflagging fighting, the rebels finally toppled the Yemeni government and assumed control of Yemen.

  Most tragically, many innocent Yemenis have been caught in the line of fire, with thousands dying and many more losing their homes and becoming refugees.

  With the rebels making threatening moves toward our own country, the men in my family felt that there was no option but to go to war for the purpose of booting the Houthis from power and reinstating a less aggressive leadership.

  And so Saudi Arabia has entered a new and most unpleasant period in its history, when we feel we must defend ourselves against a neighbor with whom we have generally enjoyed close ties since ancient times. Our king sought a coalition of other Arab states, and with the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Bahrain, and Sudan the air strikes began. While no thinking person applauds war, I will not deny that the all-Arab military intervention sparked a sense of pride in many Saudis, a people whose government has been accustomed to looking to America and other Western allies for defense. Most Saudis calculate the enormous amounts of money spent on military might for the kingdom and believe that the correct course for our land is to defend ourselves, whenever feasible.

  And so the day arrived that Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations joined forces to solve their own problems in the neighborhood.

  ***

  Although my privileged husband, Kareem, is privy to many of the secrets known only to the male rulers of my land, from the first day of war he joined me in watching endless television news reports, as well as reading internet articles, about Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Yemen. When Kareem first informed me that the intervention’s title was codenamed Operation Decisive Storm, I was stupefied.

  “Husband,” I said, “this is not prudent. Most Saudi citizens will connect our military action with Operation Desert Storm.” This, of course, was the military reaction to Saddam’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait. Surely, our Saudi military minds could do better than imitate the Americans.

  Kareem shrugged without answering, as such a thing had not entered his thoughts.

  I exhaled noisily, reminding myself that female minds often see dark corners not visible to male minds. All who live in my country remember that Operation Desert Storm left a sour taste on the tongues of nearly all Saudi Arabians. There was jittery instability in the country for many years after that time of war, for ordinary Saudis found it objectionable that, after many years of spending many millions of Saudi oil money on military hardware, their rulers felt our own Saudi military was incapable of defending our country.

  Yet I said nothing more, for I saw Kareem’s jaw clench, bracing for my retort. I chose to surprise him with silence. I like reacting in ways unexpected to my husband, as I do not wish to be a woman easily read. Rather than argue, I gave my husband a pleasant smile and asked if he might like a nice coffee with a sweet. Kareem agreed and was pleased to have a piece of Arabic honeyed dessert, which our kitchen staff had made especially for the men in my family, who greatly fancy such things. Still, even as he nibbled the sweet, Kareem failed to conceal the vexed, and slightly confused, look from his face, for rarely do I give in so easily or miss a chance to make my full point.

  As time passed, I concluded that men and women will never think alike. As I listened to my husband applaud our military successes, I felt increasingly gloomy, wondering if there was a less physical way than war to solve the problem. I am not ashamed to admit that as Kareem crowed, my tears flowed. I could only think of the Yemeni civilian heads poised unknowing beneath those falling bombs. With more then 200,000 Yemenis displaced, and the number of lives lost climbing higher every day, my unease increased. Once, when Kareem leapt into the air and clapped his hands in glee upon hearing the damage done in Yemen, I looked at my husband in dismay and fled to my bedroom, locking the door and ignoring his appeals to allow him entry.

  ***

  As I collapsed in abject misery, I asked myself: Sultana, how could you have forgotten our southern neighbor and its inhabitants? Since I was a child, Yemen and its people have been interwoven in nearly
every aspect of family life. When I was a small girl, my first knowledge of the country came from my father’s Yemeni tea boys. There were always two or three of the boys in our palaces, as in most Saudi royal households.

  Accustomed to seeing Saudi men dressed in the white thobe, a shirt-like garment that reaches the ankle, I was astonished by the attention-grabbing attire of those tea boys. On the first occasion I was of an age to become aware of non-family members around me, I stopped and stared at the short futa they wore, a wraparound skirt topped by a dark-colored jacket. Most appealing to my unaccustomed eyes was the famous jambiya, a Yemeni curved dagger, tucked comfortably into the skirt waistband. The tea boys topped off their native dress with a meshedda, a shawl that is wrapped around the head or shoulders, while they slouched around with simple sandals on their feet.

  While it was their national dress that first attracted my notice, it was their attitudes and faces that drew my attention. For some reason, every Yemeni tea boy I have ever seen has a painfully thin body. Those thin bodies loiter tenaciously, sagging with the tediousness of standing in wait for many hours on end. While the tea boys’ postures showed hopelessness, their faces were generally arched in hopeful expectation, anxious that someone in the family would request a cup of sweet tea or bitter coffee. If there is a more wearying duty than anticipating thirst in others, I do not know of that occupation.

  But I was only a child at that time, with no concern for the dilemmas plaguing others. I remember spinning around, rushing to tell my sister Sara about the captivating spectacle I had seen. But my noisy enthusiasm drew the attention of my mother. My beautiful mother looked at me in quiet disappointment before gently reminding her youngest child that female children should keep their eyes down, to count steps, anything to cease the temptation to stare at those different from us, and most particularly when observing the opposite sex. I tried to obey my mother’s teachings, but I never ceased ogling at those waif-like boys in our home, although I trained myself to look around to ensure no one in my family might see my bold stares.

  Later I remember political discussions between my father and his brothers regarding a few troubling circumstances with our neighbor Yemen. I recall something of their worries, for they felt the problems stemmed from the fact that our neighbor was very poor while Saudi Arabia was, and is, very rich. Such variance in economics resources means that the government of Yemen and the Yemeni people have looked to Saudi Arabia for generosity since the early days of the oil wealth. Yet the people of Yemen are very proud and will never accept humiliation. Therefore I have never known of a Yemeni who felt reduced in the presence of wealthy Saudis. No nationality or people is as self-respecting as the Yemeni.

  I sighed and slipped into something comfortable, for I had no intention of seeing my husband again that evening. After settling in bed and calling for a glass of cold apple juice, my mind settled on two specific Yemeni women whom I had come to know during my adulthood. Their names are Italia and Fiery.

  No two women on Earth could be more different from one another. Italia was born into stark poverty, her early life marked with fear and constant need. When she became a great beauty from the age of ten years, she suffered abuse due to the gift that had freed her from poverty.

  Fiery, however, was born into completely different circumstances, hers being a respected, middle-class family; her father was a scholar known as a wise and fair man to those who knew him. Her father’s position in life spilled deference over to his two sons and three daughters. Fiery was always ordinary in appearance, but with a colorful personality; those who know her well often say that the physically plain Fiery has achieved a certain female splendor reserved for those of magnificent beauty in my country, where what is on the outside is what defines women, not intelligence or personality. Despite her lack of beauty, Fiery was esteemed as much as a woman could, and can, be valued in Yemen, a country that has fallen below Saudi Arabia in terms of its treatment of women, in 2006 being named the worst country in the world to be a woman by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

  While I am pleased that Saudi Arabia and other neighboring Persian Gulf countries have moved up on this respected listing, I am not so happy that women in Yemen cannot climb the ladder of freedom with other Arab women to enjoy more independence and greater prosperity.

  I came to learn much about Yemen and the women who live there by getting to know beautiful Italia and intelligent Fiery. Their lives are meshed fully with the good, and the bad, of our neighbor.

  I believe that there is no truer way to discover the most significant aspects of a country and its people than through the private lives of the native women.

  2 - The Beauty from Yemen

  For my entire life, I have measured female beauty against that of my older sister, Sara. So physically magnificent is she that the first time Kareem’s brother Assad, accidentally saw Sara in the women’s garden of my father’s palace, he was, temporarily, speechless! For those who have read the first book of my life, you will know the full details of Assad and Sara’s courtship and marriage; it has been a wonderful love story from the first day until now, and promises to last for their lifetimes.

  Assad’s reaction was no surprise to anyone in our family, for all so fortunate to see Sara’s unveiled face never fail to declare that nowhere have they ever seen a more beautiful woman.

  It is especially agreeable that my sister Sara’s beauty is not limited to its physical form. Sara’s heart and mind are as exquisite as her physical self.

  Assad, her husband of many years now, frequently emphasizes that there is perfection in all aspects of his wife. Truthfully, Assad would become wearying with his repeated exclamations if all did not love Sara completely. We are in agreement with Assad that our precious Sara is a perfect woman in every way.

  But when I first saw Italia, a woman from Yemen so striking that I openly stared, I was nearly as stunned as Assad had been upon viewing Sara. My own eyes beheld a great beauty—and while Italia’s physical splendor did not surpass Sara’s, it at least equaled it.

  The occasion I first met Italia was some time ago at the palace of Ameera, a royal cousin who is the daughter of my father’s youngest sister. Ameera was hosting an intimate party of eight royal female cousins to specifically confer about several scandals that had erupted in our royal midst.

  While the al-Saud men are the public face of the royals, the women often quietly solve problems from within our female family circle so that they do not reach the world at large. Sometimes there are royal princesses who travel abroad and behave badly, their conduct known only to the women of our family. When such things happen, a group of older princesses endeavors to counsel the young women, discouraging them from misbehaving in future and thus avoiding potential severe punishment meted out by the men of the family.

  With a large royal family whose numbers are expanding by the week, there are many such human complications. There are times when our humiliations are intentionally leaked to the Western press. For example, many readers will recall the episode when one of my cousins was arrested in Europe for physically assaulting one of her maids. We could do nothing to solve that specific problem, for her vicious conduct was splashed across numerous foreign newspapers, embarrassing those in our family who treat our domestic help properly.

  And so some of the more modern royal princesses use our energy to solve tribulations in our innermost circle. But the purpose for the gathering at Ameera’s home was more political than usual, so I was surprised to see the elegant stranger sitting quietly, turning the pages of a large, illustrated book about the most picturesque gardens in the world.

  I instantly knew that the beauty was not a Saudi woman, for there are identifiable indications of our nationality. I cannot describe them precisely, but as a Saudi woman I am rarely mistaken when presuming whether an Arab woman is a Saudi or not. While I could not guess the woman’s exact nationality, I knew she was not “one of us.”

  Then our hostess introduced her, gently coaxin
g our unknown visitor to her feet. “Dear cousins,” Ameera said, “Italia is a special guest in my home. I wanted to present her to you before she retires, as she is quite exhausted from a tiring journey.”

  Italia smiled with a distinctive sweetness, nodded, then spoke gracefully in her soft voice, revealing a conspicuous Yemeni accent. I was more than surprised. Despite Italia being the most physically striking woman at the gathering, it was rare for women from Yemen to be part of our social gatherings. There had been occasional instances when the wife, daughter, or sister of the ruler of Yemen might visit Saudi female royals while her husband, father, or brother conferred with the Saudi king or high-ranking Saudi government ministers, but I could count those events on the fingers of one hand. But perhaps this was the case with Italia, I thought to myself, for at that particular time in our history I had little knowledge of the sisters and daughters of the rulers of our neighboring country. Nonetheless, I felt strangely drawn to Italia. As I smiled at the woman, I made a mental note to ask Ameera later to share something of what she knew about her unconventional guest.

  Our family gathering ended once we made plans on how to solve a few important problems and I sat quietly, intentionally lingering as my cousins exited the palace. Once alone with Ameera, I encouraged her to share details of Italia.

  “Ameera, dear, I am intrigued by your guest, Italia. Can you tell me something about her?”

  For some reason, Ameera was shy to provide personal particulars about the young Yemeni, saying that her brother, who was considering marriage to the woman, would be annoyed. But she did accept an invitation to bring Italia to my palace the following day, so that we might have a private lunch. “Italia is free to tell you whatever she likes, but I must keep private what I have been told.”