Houthi group.. transformations in the fighters’ authority

Religious groups (of all kinds) face fundamental challenges arising primarily from their ideology, which hinders their ability to become an authority. In addition to generating constraints resulting from their religious hegemony by imposing their religious character on the authority, the state, and society, and working to impose their model by force, they thereby work to perpetuate the conflict and then exploit it.

In this context, and after nearly a decade of the Houthi group’s control over the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, and the establishment of its authority, with the transformations that accompanied it, whether at the level of the group’s structure or its frameworks, including at the level of society, it is still governed by its religious ideology as the basis for managing power, not to mention its reliance on force and subjugation based on the condition of the continuation of the conflict, thus hindering the chances of its transformation into a real authority that represents the Yemenis or expresses the minimum of their interests.

The religious factor constitutes a restriction on authority, as it leads to emptying it of its functions. In addition, giving authority a religious character, even if it is similar to the beliefs of sectors of society, ultimately makes it an authority that represents the minority, not the majority, by imposing representation in authority on a religious basis.

In the case of the Houthi group, the group has established its monopoly on power over the course of a decade, by imposing its leadership in the system of power and its structures, alongside the forces allied with it, even if the choice was based on their loyalty to the group, and thus it replaced loyalty to the homeland with loyalty to the sect, which resulted in not only the sectarianization of power in the areas under its control, and its corruption, but also the establishment of an authority that represents the group, expresses its orientations, and of course its interests, and not the establishment of an authority that represents the Yemenis.

On the other hand, the group, through its monopoly of power, established its sectarian narratives based on religious Hashemite fanaticism, and then granted itself the exclusive and divine right to rule the Yemenis. This led to its tyranny in exchange for the erosion of the Yemenis’ democratic gains and opportunities for political transformation. Moreover, its coloring of power, in the areas under its control, with a religious identity color stripped the authority of its vital functions in managing society, in exchange for its transformation into a tool for imposing the group’s hegemony.

Due to its lack of experience in managing power, it worked to import models of sectarian group power in the region, and replace them in the traditional Yemeni power structures, and of course after emptying them. The result was the institutionalization of a distorted sectarian model that lacks any organizing features that could distinguish it, let alone reform it. The group’s structure, which is based on a hierarchical hierarchy, begins with the group’s leader, then other wings led by religious, political and military leaders, created, over a decade, differences in decision-making and power, which led to the creation of tensions arising from the nature of the loyal relationship with the group’s leader, and competitions for leadership, which led to deepening the distortion of the power structures, not to mention the exploitation of influence and the growth of corruption.

Its reliance on religious selection divided society between masters and subjects, thus establishing a permanent state of conflict between it and society, through which it feeds the frustrations of marginalization and escalating societal and regional tensions. Its preoccupation with imposing religion and sectarianism on the urban sphere did not only lead to the denial of manifestations of diversity in the areas subject to it, but also to emptying society of its vital force, not to mention the potential for developing itself, as well as the institutionalization of its religious authority.

In addition to the dimensions of continuing to impose loyalty to the group within state institutions, by forcing employees to listen to a lecture given by the group’s leader every Wednesday, which is broadcast in their offices, which means imposing sectarian coercion that goes beyond the public space controlled by the group to the life of the state, and then encroaching on the public office, and working to empty it of its functions.

On the other hand, the formation of hybrid entities within the state or attached to it, whether at the level of their names, functions or cadres, has become, after a decade, a factor in disrupting the function of state institutions, and also a burden on the group itself, with its bloated cadres whose salaries are deducted from the budget of state institutions, and at the expense of its functional cadres. This applies to its civil and security apparatuses, and its military sectors.

If the forms of oppression faced by the staff go beyond persecution to depriving them of salaries, the result was the continued transfer of successive batches of employees to branches of state institutions in the city of Aden and areas subject to legitimacy, specifically from professional and functional cadres qualified to secure their livelihood, which created in the areas subject to the group what is now known as a state dominated by fighters, consisting of an army of unemployed people without qualifications, which means rigging the entity of the state in the areas subject to it, and obstructing the chances of restoring the state of the Yemenis, perhaps for decades to come, in exchange for the state of the fighters.

The sectarian authority of the fighters dominates the manifestations of the state and the daily lives of citizens in the areas under the group’s control. Military force and permanent societal mobilization remain the factors that consolidate its authority, from waging wars against its opponents to carrying out attacks on waterways, in addition to the dominance of the fighter model in the areas under the group’s control, as a social and value-based example according to which the individual resides in society, and what this means in terms of undermining the foundations of civil life and its standards, not to mention transforming it into a permanent investment in the group’s conflicts.

If the expansion of the military and security sectors in its various apparatuses, over a decade, led to their dominance over civilian institutions, and also their ideologization, in contrast to the exclusion of the qualified military cadre, which represented the Yemeni state army before the fall of Sana’a... if that is the case, then its continued reliance on the militarization of power and life undermines the group’s other options, including its transformation into a political force in the future, since relying on wars alone, whether in the local or regional sphere, does not constitute a safe option, and of course, always guarantees the consolidation and stability of power.

In conclusion, and regardless of the characteristics of the Houthi group’s experience in power and its transformations over the course of a decade, what serves it, just like any religious group, is the cohesion of its internal structure, because it is a factor of support and assistance that may enable it to continue its dominance over power. However, the disadvantages of relying on fanaticism based on sectarian loyalty alone are not limited to ignoring the transformations of the societal condition, especially in an environment that has been torn apart by wars like Yemen, but also the effect of the time factor on sectarian loyalty, in addition to the effect of time on the structure of the group itself and the extent of its cohesion.

In addition to the contradictions of the interests of the leaderships of its wings, as well as the dynamics of the competitive structure within the group, whether within the framework of the structures of power and the state or in its multiple security and military institutions that generate conflict, which may lead to its weakening over time, and thus weakening its societal and political alliances based primarily on oppression and subjugation, which do not need an incentive to restore their dignity, let alone defend their interests, in addition to the mechanisms of action of the forces opposing the group, and thus if victory is conditional on the continuation of the conflict, and in the Yemeni case by war, then the movement of history, even if it is an upward path in time, does not necessarily mean the continuation of the authority of tyranny.

*Quoted from Al-Araby Al-Jadeed