A call for the return of sanity in thinking about Yemen and the entire Muslim world

Many countries, especially Muslim majority countries in the Middle East, these days are contemplating (although some have already arrived at their utterly thoughtless and even un-Islamic conclusion of siding with one group vs. another) their position in regards to the crisis in Yemen, following the flee of the Yemini president to Saudi Arabia after the uprising of the Shia-led Houthis. With Iran supporting the Houthis and Saudi Arabia and their allies supporting the ousted president, Yemen has practically turned into a battle-ground between extremist Shias and Sunnis, a division that has its roots in Islamic history, but not in the Quran, the book that all Muslims, including Shias, Sunnis and every other off-shoot, believe in and revere immensely. 

At the end of the day, the Shia-Sunni divide, like many other things, is as big or small as you make it. If one looks for differences, there surely are uncountable differences, just as there are differences WITHIN each of these two group. But if one looks at the similarities, there are many overarching similarities, which I argue are much more pivotal to the Islamic belief than the hairsplitting differences, the magnitude of which is far from equally distributed among each group. E.g. not all Shias attribute the same level of divinity to the Imams, just as not all Sunnis interpret a given Hadith in the same manner. The common themes, which should unite all parties, is the belief in one and the same God, one and the same prophet, one and the same Quran, the five pillars, etc. Now thinking Muslims have to decide if is it worth going to war and killing each other on the basis of the claim that one group differs in their devotion to a certain companion of the prophet, while turning a blind eye to all the fundamental common elements briefly mentioned above. 

Back to present, these days many other Muslim majority nations are asking themselves the tough question that once Bush had famously asked, whether they are with the Saudis or against them. I argue the right question to ask is not which side of the line one stands on, but to question the line itself, its existence, its politics, and most importantly the consequences of choosing a side, which requires much needed soul searching than being put forward as simplistically as was Bush’s question on the eve of the US invasion of Afghanistan after the tragic event of September 11. Just as in retaliation to the events of 9/11 the US alone has lost nearly as many soldiers as were killed during 9/11 - not to mention the multi-trillion dollar cost of war, the astonishing suicide rates of US soldiers and PTSD among the survivors, the lives lost of the other coalition forces during the last decade, the thousands and millions of innocent Afghan lives lost and those continuing to get killed and maimed, etc. – the choosing of sides in the crisis in Yemen and the rest of the world for that matter, will not have significantly different results. We often forget that golden lesson that violence begets violence and we often forget that at the end of the day, it is ordinary human beings who pay the most in such conflicts. Both the Houthis and the Saudi-led airstrikes continue to take way someone’s father, mother, sister, brother, child or other family members. A recent BBC article reports on the killing of at least 62 children by Saudi air strikes. 

The world leaders, and especially the Muslim world leaders, need to stop falling in the trap of choosing sides in war and ultimately being held (at least in front of the God that they claim to believe in) responsible for the tragic consequences of war, and instead choose peace. Yes, it is as simple as that to a sane person.