Victor Ponsford writes:  Yemen has a complex and colourful history and society, and its politics reflect this.  The media, however, are often guilty of reducing Yemen, along with its recondite culture, into one easily understood word: ‘terrorism’. Over the last ten days, a number of pieces from the BBC and other broadcasters and newspapers have reflected this one-dimensional view. Indeed, during the early days of the story, many reputable news sites were using a single source for the information: the US and UK governments’ travel advice and warnings.

A recent article by Atiaf Zaid Alwazir, a researcher and blogger based in Yemen, takes issue with this flawed media narrative. She argues that the portrayal of Yemen in international news does not reflect the actual experience of Yemenis in the country. She says this is most obvious when a big news item about a terrorist is published and most Yemenis haven’t heard of him. Perhaps this is because for Yemenis terrorism is not the biggest story. As Yemen has succeeded in forcing its ruler of 33 years – Ali Abdullah Salah – out of office, the most important topic is: ‘How do we move forward?’

For Yemenis themselves, this week’s biggest story is the army mutiny that took place a few days ago outside the presidential palace, rather than the closure of the US embassy. Reports vary widely: some sources suggest it was an attempted coup, as in Egypt, while others say that it was the former president flexing his muscles. Still others report that it was born from a sense of frustration when the Ramadan bonus, usually provided by Saudi Arabia, was not paid this year. Whatever the case, it barely made headlines or even featured on the websites of Western news outlets, compared with the coverage of the coup in Egypt, for example. Where it did feature, however, it was inevitably a body-count story with little analysis about the implications of the mutiny on Yemeni society.

Over the last few days, particularly, the pictures, films and stories about the capital, Sana’a and Yemen describe a city and a country on the brink of a terrorist uprising. Yet, what one actually hears from Yemenis themselves is that the streets, due to the arrival of Eid, have been bustling with people purchasing gifts and food. Indeed, one man that I recently interviewed spent a good five minutes complaining about the traffic and wishing for rain so that the streets would become less congested. The fact that the average Yemeni is out on the street and finding the time to complain about the traffic is in opposition to the view of “Fortress Sana’a”.

While I was finishing off this blog piece, the BBC posted a story about a drone strike in Yemen, which mentioned the Eid celebrations. Initially, they used the following image of Yemeni children celebrating Eid.

I asked Angela Phillips, who runs the postgraduate journalism programme at Goldsmith University to comment:

“[The] use of that particular image is a crude stereotype. Little boys in every country play with guns. The use of it to illustrate this particular story suggests a culture in which little boys are encouraged to ape the behaviour of militants. It is easy to see why it was used – it seems to ‘go with’ the story but in fact it distorts the story. Al Qaeda by all accounts have little support in Yemen so this picture is positively misleading.”

We need to be better served by our media if we are fully to understand the complexities of the modern world.

Tags: Yemen