Yemen’s riches should be better protected

These days Yemen hosts conferences celebrating its rich tradition of folklore and cultural heritage. 

There is a great deal of cultural diversity in Yemen, with each city boasting unique traditions. But the authorities do not guard these riches closely enough and many cultural artifacts are under threat of disappearing. An artisan making silver jewelry complained that his market is being invaded by many foreign-produced items that look good but have no authenticity or quality. Simple machines are needed to produce excellent jewelry work of silver, agate and coral.

Songs and dances from all governorates for different occasions need to be documented. We don’t need people from the outside world to tell us how to appreciate and protect our own culture—we need to do it ourselves. 

There are some efforts by people to document Yemeni culture. A case in point is the Folklore House of Arwa Abdu Othman or organizations like the Cultural Development Planning Foundation headed by Dr. Raufa Hassan.  This foundation presented the State Dress Exhibition of Yemen, which detailed different dress from the 1448 to 2004. Dress of leaders, stamps, emblems, flags and national authors of those periods were displayed and exhibited in four major cities. 

The sad thing is that the authorities take notice whenever there is a foreign organization that has anything to do with protecting culture. We all know that Zabid is now under threat of exclusion from the World Culture Heritage because of the random building that is done in the city. What is the role of Preservation of Historical Cities Authority in this? 

How many documents are missing and how many researchers, local and foreign, have complained about the lack of reference materials in the field of culture? Not to mention the complete lack of information on places that are off the beaten track.

Important action is needed here in order to save the cultural riches that are scattered all over Yemen among the people, some of whom do not realize the importance of what they have. There are many families across the country with great libraries containing ancient books.  

In short, we at the Yemen Observer say, like the famous speech of Martin Luther King, “We have a dream.” This dream is to see the state working on Yemen’s encyclopedia of culture, and work on this reference source should start as quickly as possible, before it’s too late.        

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