Tawakkol Karman's Speech at Halifax International Security Forum 2020
We are in one world, and no one can go unaffected by what happens to the other.
This was confirmed by the Covid-19 pandemic, by Trump's racist phenomenon, and was indeed confirmed by the Arab Spring. And further reinforced by the retaliatory wars against our Arab Spring and popular revolutions.
The world has turned a blind eye to the wars of revenge and annihilation waged by tyrants and their regional and international allies in retaliation against our peoples who are fighting for democracy and freedom.
The Trumpism phenomenon, the rise of racism, isolationism, xenophobia, and immigrants in Europe, America, and the West, was a punishment for the societies of Europe and the West, not a solution and a wall against the consequences of the incidents in the world that drowned in chaos, wars and returned to the imperial conflicts.
Divided, we fall, the whole world will fall into tyranny, terrorism, racism, isolationism, and the rise of chauvinists.
We hope that the West has comprehended the lesson of the Trumpism phenomenon and its danger to its societies. We hope that Trump's defeat will be reflected in a new global approach that adheres to the values of democracy, justice, and human rights, that will prevail in the whole world, not just Europe and America.
China and Russia have long been viewed as two authoritarian states that are unable to integrate with liberal democracy and its principles, but the real threat to democracy came from its stronghold in America and the West with the rise of Trump in America and other similar racist and populist situations in Europe.
After four years, can we say that a new situation will prevail in the world with Trump's defeat in the recent elections and that it will be a defeat for racism and hatred?!
There is no doubt that Trump's defeat came as a result of the majority of Americans voting against the Trumpism phenomenon and the setback it symbolizes from the values upon which democratic countries in the West were founded.
They voted to defeat Trumpism threats to their society, their country, international relations, and the world, threats that sum up with words like racism, hatred, isolationism, recklessness, and populism.
It is no secret that the majority of public opinion in the Arab Spring countries saw in Trump and the Trumpism phenomenon an appropriate phenomenon to awaken Western democracies from their slumber, and to alert them to the injustice of the global system and its lack of a sense of justice towards peoples subject to extermination because they raised their voice in the Arab Spring revolutions demanding democracy and their right to change their corrupt autocrat rulers.
The West talks about the crisis in liberal democracies that began to appear sharp in recent years with the rise of Trump, racism, and hatred of immigrants, and xenophobia.
In our Arab countries, we did not taste the Western democracy. Rather, we knew that the major countries, including America, Britain, and France, colluded with and support dictatorships. That was during the Cold War and continued afterward.
The Arab Spring was a test that affirmed this face of the world order, which considers democratic transformation in the Arab region a threat to its interests and to the dictatorships and corrupt monarchies it sponsors.
The United Nations failed to help Yemen to stop the war and restore its state. It did nothing to stop the genocide of the Yemenis.
It cares less about the Security Council resolutions and international legitimacy, because the major countries prefer to sell their positions to the oil states "Saudi Arabia and the Emirates" and overlook their crimes in Yemen, and the first of these crimes is the overthrowing the state, turning against it and handing it over to the Houthi militia with Saudi, Emirati, Iranian support, and the second crime is using the "Legitimacy" in completing the circle of the war on Yemen from abroad and the guardianship over it that has been going on for six years.
This international betrayal to Yemen is part of the failure and inability of the international system to activate its collective mechanisms to stop internal conflicts and bloody wars that have claimed the lives of countless people in Yemen, Syria, Libya, and other hotbeds around the world.
This is a global crisis. A crisis of a global system that is unable to continue its unjust tendencies in support of dictatorial and sectarian regimes, genocides, and wars against peaceful popular revolutions.
The Trumpism phenomenon shock the centers of global democracies. Human rights and civil organizations, journalists, artistic circles, immigrants, African Americans, and the American community as a whole faced a new type of discourse and behavior unparalleled in the political platforms of states in the modern era.
Political leaders in Europe faced different diplomacy that does not place any weight on international humanitarian law or international trade agreements or political, economic, security, and military treaties.
The Trumpism phenomenon has shown little to no concern about logic, politics, and international relations. Not even the rules of diplomatic conduct were respected.
Racist chauvinism, in its acute Trumpism model, has placed Western countries in front of a magnifying mirror of the kind of world that the rising racist movements in Europe and the West preach.
This shock emanating from within America and some European countries, we hope in the distant and forgotten Third World that, it will be a reason for a comprehensive review of international policies.
How can the West be democratic when it sees the peaceful Arab Spring revolutions calling for the rule of law, democracy, and human rights as a threat to their interests?
Whoever is shocked by the Trumpism phenomenon, how can he not be shocked by the genocide massacres practiced in Yemen, Libya, and Syria as punishment for our rebellious peoples?!
The world fought a war against defenseless peoples. They used ousted regimes, terrorism, and regional axes against us that aspire to share our countries and our wealth.
There is nothing left of the international community but envoys to fill job vacancies routinely, and do nothing to prevent crimes against humanity and stop wars of genocide.
Militias and rogue regional states abandon human values and fight their wars with comfort and openly before the world without restrictions or fear of punishment or sanctions of any kind.
The trade-off should be between unjust world order and just world order.
It is not a change to replace an unjust global trend of flagrant chauvinism and racism with an unjust global trend that differs from it in its soft and evasive methods and approaches.
Any continuation of the unjust American and Western trends that cooperate with despots and supporting them against their people will result in the return of the Trumpism phenomenon and the rise of racist chauvinists in a more extreme manner.
The trends of isolating Western countries from what is happening in the Third World are not an appropriate solution to ensure the security and stability of your countries and keep them away from the effects of the collapse of states, the prevalence of mass massacres, the spread of terrorism and sectarian militias, and the intrusion of religious countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia in their geopolitical surroundings.
Xenophobia and anti-immigrant control are not a solution. Immigrants are not the problem. You have remained silent before the retaliatory counter-revolution wars that have turned the Arab Spring countries into a hell in which hundreds of thousands are killed and millions of displaced people and refugees whose homelands have collapsed, lost their shelter, and found themselves in the open between the borders of countries in a wild world that does not recognize their humanity and does not consider them as human beings.
The Arab Spring revolutions have put the whole world before the moment of truth. Ancient democracies have faced crucial options, either to prove the credibility of their tendencies and support the right of peoples in their struggle for the rule of law, democracy, and human rights and support the peoples' struggle for justice and democracy, or retreat and concede from all modern values of liberal democracy, justice, human rights, and its global legacy. It is a setback that will include advanced democracies in Europe and America, and will not stop at the borders of third world cities whose rulers have transformed into great enclaves that are more like prisons for people who are ruled by militias, oppression, tyranny, and comprehensive, and they find themselves without states or nations and without any guarantees, legal protection or real support that relieve them of the grip of oppression, that is returning to retaliate brutally from the Arab Spring revolutions.
Yemen is part of this world, but it is experiencing the tragedies of the fascist war and a humanitarian crisis that is the worst in the world, alone and without any real support.
For six years our people are facing all-out retaliatory war. A fierce war represents a new pattern of undermining the foundations of life for the entire population. The state collapsed, and sectarian Houthi militias invaded the capital and other cities. Salaries were cut, the health and service system collapsed, and militias took control of international aid. Saudi Arabia and the UAE bombed our cities and infrastructure and formed other militias loyal to them in the city of Aden. Prevented the legitimate government from operating from inside the country, and the UAE controlled the ports and oil and gas installations and controlled Socotra Island by militias affiliated with it.
We call on the world to stop this brutal war against our Yemeni people. We call on the world to support our people to restore their state and complete the transitional phase according to the three mechanisms, based on the international legitimacy as expressed in the UN Security Council resolutions, and national legitimacy as seen in the power transfer agreement and the outcomes of the National Dialogue Conference. We call on the democratic world to stop supporting Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which are implicated in war crimes against humanity in Yemen, and to stop arms sales to these two countries. We call on the international community to support us to lift the Saudi-Emirati guardianship of our country, Yemen, and to prosecute those involved in war crimes in Yemen before international courts, and to oblige Iran to stop its support for the Houthi militia. We call on the world to impose sanctions on warlords and militia leaders, not to deal with them as political parties.
We demand the world to respect the right of our people to live and to put an end to a fascist war in which Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE gathered together with militias supported and partnered with them in their war against our people and our country.
I salute you, and through you, I salute all those who fight for humanity and a better world dominated by the values of justice, equality, freedom, democracy, and human rights.