Yemen and the greatest moral test of our lifetime – genocide in Gaza and beyond

I speak with Isa Blumi, historian and author of Destroying Yemen: What Chaos in Arabia Tells US about the World

29th September – I speak with Isa Blumi about Yemen’s courageous stand against the Zionist bloc genocide in Palestine and beyond. What makes Yemen so representative of what Humanity should fight for and hold on to – our collective dignity, compassion and moral integrity. We touch on the historic roles of China and Russia in the region and their present day role as a “counter” to Western hegemony, a narrative very much amplified in the independent media sphere. Finally it is a plea to the world to recognise the threat that does not only hover malevolently over West Asia but will also prey upon all the “little” people of the world, especially those who challenge its existence.

Isa Blumi is Professor of Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies at Stockholm University within the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. He holds a PhD in History and Middle Eastern/Islamic Studies from New York University (NYU-2005) and a Master of Political Science and Historical Studies (1995) from The New School for Social Research, New York. Isa’s full bio can be seen here.

I have included a beautiful Yemeni Nasheed (hymn) at the end of the interview and the intro is also part of a Yemeni Nasheed (voice only).

The full Nasheed:

This is another beautiful Nasheed sung by a Yemeni children’s choir. Source is Pure Stream Media.

Dr. Isa Blumi 2018 in an interview with The Nation:

More importantly for understanding what unleashed the last period of resistance that overthrew Hadi’s government was the attempt to impose a federation on Yemen, to divide Yemen into six distinct districts or states, delineated along lines that had no historical bearing. The federation plan assured that the majority of oil and gas wealth, and the offshore assets that have still to be exploited, would go to a vast southern Yemen territory with the least amount of population. The goal of this natural-resource gerrymandering would have created an area ruled by two or three very corrupt officials, leaving the vast majority of Yemenis impoverished, living in resource-poor regions of the rest of the country. It was also an attempt to politically isolate those in the north who were demanding collective rights throughout the 2000s and 2010s and the period after Saleh.

Hadi’s mandate was two years, but when the two years were up, it just continued on as is. It went from worse to worse. Each new measure made it increasingly clear that this was a move to completely fragment the country politically and gut it economically. So what we had in 2014 was a collective outburst: “Enough is enough! This is pillaging our country, we see where this is going, and we’re not going to accept it.” When they overthrow Hadi, they went to the negotiating table. But the Obama administration and the regional allies that would ultimately form the coalition in 2015 said, “No, we want Hadi back. We like the relationship he’s established with the international organizations, with the international economy.” So you had a clash between Yemenis, who were demanding sovereignty and their rights to negotiating their future, and the outside world, what we would call the neoliberal order.

Other work by Isa Blumi:

Destroying Yemen: What Chaos in Arabia tells us about the World

Speaking above Yemenis: a reading beyond the tyranny of experts

PDF: Re-worlding the Gulf: Anomaly as Geopolitical Function

Special Issue Middle East Critique: The Gulf and the World (2025)

Special Issue IRCICA: Islamophobia in Europe (2018)

Ottoman Refugees, 1878-1939: Migration in a Post-Imperial World (2013).

War and Nationalism: The Balkan Wars 1912-1913 and their Sociopolitical Implications (2013).

Foundations of Modernity: Human Agency and the Imperial State (2012).

Reinstating the Ottomans: Alternative Balkan Modernities, 1800-1912 (2011).

Chaos in Yemen: Societal Collapse and the New Authoritarianism (2010).

Rethinking the Late Ottoman Empire: A Social and Political History of Albania/Yemen, 1878 (2003)

https://beeley.substack.com/p/yemen-and-the-greatest-moral-test