Sean Rocha

Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh can see!

In the movie ‘Trading Places’ Eddie Murphy plays a blind, legless con man who pushes himself around in a cart and begs for money; when the police drag him from the cart and rip off his glasses, Murphy shouts with mock joy, “It’s a miracle, Officer.  I can see!”  Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh must be saying something similar to the Saudi doctors who treated him for burns after he suffered a bomb attack in Yemen.  How else to explain Saleh’s rude good health in the most recent videos — especially considering the video I wrote about not long ago that showed someone who looked so little like Saleh that I, and others, wondered who it was.  But the real point, then, was that the video suggested that Saleh was finished as a political force in Yemen; now, he appears to have reclaimed his old vigor and his promise to “See you soon” contains a hint of the old menace with which his citizens are all too familiar.

This improbable turnaround in Saleh’s fortunes inspires a question for the millions of Yemenis who sustained demonstrations for months demanding his ouster.  You had your chance while he was incapacitated.  What happened?

This entry was posted on Friday, August 26th, 2011 at 10:49 am. It is filed under Travels and tagged with Middle East, politics, revolution, Saleh, Saudi Arabia, Yemen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.