"Khuyut" reopened old wounds that filled my heart about this memory, when it asked me to write an article on the occasion of the 33rd anniversary of the Yemeni Unity Day. However, the questions that the situation poses today are: Is this day really still a holiday that evokes joy and rejoicing? Or is it turning into a big funeral that calls for feelings of pain, sadness, and oppression? Or is it turning into a topic that raises the controversy, dispute, and disagreement among Yemenis, divides them into northerners and southerners, and even takes us back to square one, when there was a state of south Yemen? Today, some people are talking about the South Arabia state, to distance themselves a light year from the Yemeni identity that was recently bringing us together.

Who is to blame? Is there still hope for the treatment and reform available?  Many big questions, certainly cannot be answered through these available lines, and in this haste, after they have become obsolete, rotten, and which neglected by those who held the reins of affairs in their hands. Nevertheless, even the in-depth studies that delved into the political, economic, cultural, and social reasons for the failure of unity were unable to diagnose the disease, analyze the dilemma, and may offer possible solutions, perhaps not to restore the pre-May 1990 state, but to preserve the national cohesion, brotherhood, and patriotic and national feelings that were naturally an inherent feature of the Yemenis, wherever they were, in the north, south, east, or west.

Who is to blame? Because unity in itself is strength and pride. It was really the hope and the dream of all the people of the country. However, the grave mistake was in managing unity with the military, security, and tribal mentality with which the Sana’a regime managed the Yemen Arab Republic and then the Republic of Yemen later. What added insult to injury, were the post-July 7, 1994, procedures by the Sana’a regime, when the pride and euphoria of victory prompted it to take more arbitrary measures against the people of the south, whose repercussions and effects are still continuing until today. On the other side, the media have circulated news of the decision of the Chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council, Dr. Rashad al-Alimi regarding the reinstatement of more than 52,000 civil, security, and military employees who were forcibly dismissed from their jobs in the country's southern provinces after the 1994 civil war. While the dossier of the settlement of the confiscated lands and public properties in the south is still open and has not yet been settled.

Today, after over 8 years of war, Yemen is facing a new, unprecedented situation, because we are not only given a choice between north and south, but other projects have emerged that talk about the grievances of east and west Yemen, despite the efforts to save not only unity but Yemen in general, land and people, based on the national consensus represented in the outcomes of the National Dialogue Conference and the draft of the new constitution.

Actually, the wounds are too deep. I have feelings just like any Yemeni who lives inside or outside the country, whose heart has worries and grievances that overflow its endurance, but specifically, the issue of unity occupies our greatest concern and our most severe disappointment.

What have we done to ourselves, our beautiful dreams, our great hopes, and our lofty and noble values, until we reach to the dismemberment of the homeland? Not only this, but rather tearing apart the one neighborhood and the one family, whether between a northerner or a southerner who adheres to unity, a southerner who does not want it to continue, and a northerner who is tired of the southerner’s discourse blaming him for all the burdens and shortcomings of what happened after May 22, 1990.

We were not like that before; we were more friendly, compassionate, and loving to each other, and more merciful and sympathetic. As a matter of fact, the Southerners were fleeing from the totalitarian regime to the Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen), which, of course, was not dominated by an ideal regime, but the people of the South were welcomed there, who had also turned to it in successive waves after independence, and some of them settled there and established their own businesses, instead of the properties and interests that were nationalized in 1969 in Aden, and some of them fled from restrictions on freedom of travel or to escape from the compulsory military service conscription abroad, especially young people. Further, they considered it a transit station to the land of dreams in neighboring countries, to find job opportunities in the markets of the rising oil cities.

Likewise, the northerners fleeing from the hell of the political regime, which stifled public freedoms, prevented the freedom of activity of political parties, and harassed opponents, were finding in the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen) a safe haven and an available climate for political work and charitable and civil activity.

However, the joy of the celebration of the Yemeni unity in May 1990 only lasted a few months until the southerners realized that this was not the unity they were seeking, which their children were singing in the morning and evening school queues, in the squares of their national ceremonies, and in their security and military training grounds: "My unity, my unity, oh a wonderful anthem that fills my soul", but rather, their souls were distressed, their hearts were broken, and their moods were disturbed; all of this happened, just before the ink of the unity agreement dried up. Furthermore, the efforts of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in January 1994 to heal the rift and reconcile the differences between the unity partners, were of no avail, and the document of the reconciliation agreement did not hold up much, because the war for the so-called restoration of unity was launched a few weeks later.

Today, after over 8 years of war, Yemen is facing a new, unprecedented situation, because we are not only given a choice between north and south, but other projects have also emerged that talk about the grievances of east and west Yemen, despite the efforts to save not only unity but Yemen in general, land and people, based on the national consensus represented in the outcomes of the National Dialogue Conference and the draft of the new constitution. But, unfortunately, the gun will eventually impose its conditions when the time comes to sit down at the table of dialogue and negotiations, and we, as civil forces throughout the country, have nothing but to improve the terms of that agreement so that it is more responsive to the values ​​of justice, human rights, civility, democracy, and good governance, and not turning a blind eye or ignoring the rights of victims of the current or even previous wars and conflicts; otherwise, we will experience a fragile peace that will not hold and warn of a recurrence of cycles of violence and conflict.