No Party Time in Yemen

Before I get to this, in a post below I asked what we should be calling the people in the street- demonstrators? protestors? revolutionaires?- and Anonymous responded with this, which I find delightful.

My comrades have been calling them the antis and the pros (especially as the pros are being paid for their demonstrating).

That sounds good to me. 

So, then, I want to point you to this article by Nasser Arrabyee, which gives a great outline of what is happening over there- and I think everyone feels we are a day or to away from something very big going down.  It is boiling, now, with martyrs.  A lot, I think, depends on the tribes.  Greg has talked about this- tribes are a lot more important than parties, and it looks like Hamid al-Ahmar, who has been fueding with Saleh, is poised to attempt to take leadership of this.   As Nasser says:

Armed tribesmen loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh were there to protect the pro-government demonstrators and armed tribesmen loyal to Hamid and Hussein Al Al Ahmar were there to protect the anti-Saleh demonstrators, according to eyewitnesses.

This is an old conflict now spilling into the streets.  This is what is most important to keep an eye on.  I think the JMP is going to quickly lose a lot of its relevance, even though overlapping loyalties will give it the illusion of control.   There is a lot more to say about the tribes, and I want to get to that this afternoon, but right now I am at a high school talking about the Middle East.  If anyone reading happens to go to Libertyville High School, feel free to see me 5th period.   I will say that some of the questions I got 1st period were considerably more insightful than things I've seen in the media.