Master of Combs.. Title of Multi-Level Conflicts

The school has a multi-faceted social function, including that it is the first and necessary entrance to the social ladder, and it is an indication of the extent and effectiveness of social justice, and through it social and cultural capital is formed, which Bourdieu was interested in studying to reveal tribal injustice despite the illusion of equal opportunities.

People study to gain knowledge but they do so with a practical awareness to find social opportunities. School forms the foundations of the middle class, both upper and lower.

School does not stop at the lower levels of educational stages, but continues until your doctorate and post-doctorate degree. This higher degree has a great social function outside its academic framework. It is a symbol of social status and cultural capital that returns in the form of material capital: improved salary, obtaining a higher job title, etc.

It is natural for people in their early stages of life or their initial career path to rush to maximize their academic degrees to maximize the opportunities available to them. But why are those who hold high positions in the Houthi authority keen to acquire higher degrees?

To answer this question, we need first to know the academic fields in which these individuals seek to obtain degrees, and secondly, to dissect the general context in which they announce or practice the ceremonies of obtaining higher academic degrees.

We find that recent years have produced the phenomenon of a large number of politicians, senior statesmen, and party leaders obtaining higher degrees, some of these degrees from fictitious institutions and some in cognitive subjects that reflect the field of political and intellectual conflict in Yemen, especially, and the majority of them are in the religious field.

The Houthi group came to power through the gun. It is a well-organized fighting group that was able to seize the opportunity and exploit the social and political cracks of the Yemeni elite until it took over the capital and major cities. It had no experience in administering any region because it did not practically control an area completely and govern it autonomously. Its hegemony was armed and a security grip, and the rest of the aspects of life in its regions were run by the resources of the central state and its employees.

But how did the Houthi group manage to manage the scene while it was so devoid of capabilities? It was able to do so through a large network of alliances created by the Houthi group and based on its control of military power and speed of movement.

Sana'a entered into an alliance with Saleh's regime and his men, but it did not trust his side. Its most important and organic alliance was the alliance of the Sa'dawi fighting elite with the Hashemite civilian elite in Sana'a.

In addition to the disintegration of the Houthi-Saleh alliance, cracks appeared in this Hashemite organic alliance, producing the Hawashim of the Tyremanat, the aristocratic civil elite, which was the soft tool of the administration due to its total immersion in the joints of the state, its great experience, and its enormous cultural heritage, and the Hawashim of Saada and their followers from the tribal fighters.

The Saadi component had to strengthen its position to take control. Every degree (master’s or doctorate) obtained by a Saadi Houthi leader means the potential removal of a Hashemite or leader from the capital.

But with time, and as a natural result of momentary alliances and the struggle over the distribution of power and wealth, at least two wings emerged within the Houthi group under the invisible and effective authority of Abdul-Malik al-Houthi.

The duality and multiplicity of agencies and institutions within the Houthi authority translates into these wings, in addition to the agencies that the Houthis inherited, creating parallel security, civil and military agencies.

The Revolutionary Committee is the counterpart to the presidency, for example, and yet there is also a struggle to acquire old apparatuses. If Al-Mashat is nothing more than a facade compared to the leaders who are supposed to work under his command, but who are accumulating tasks and powers, and the funny thing is that everyone is in a frenzied race to obtain higher degrees or to participate in lessons in political science, law, and administration.

Despite holding positions filled with exhausting tasks in the midst of conflict and war, the men and women of the Houthi ruling class did not neglect to attend lessons; ideological lessons to strengthen and prove loyalty to Abdul-Malik al-Houthi and lessons in the arts of governance and administration.

Within this ruling elite there is class, factional and regional division. The Hashemite class derives its authority from being a descendant of the sons of Fatima, and this is a tribal privilege that grants it an aristocratic rank, but regional affiliation deducts from this privilege in favor of the Hashemites of Saada, then come the sons of the tribes, the large landowners and the leaders of the military groups.

Al-Mashat stands at the head of the executive authority (theoretically) and is subject to an invisible authority, which is the authority of Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, but there are those who are lower than him and see themselves as having a higher (social) rank than him, in addition to the fact that Al-Mashat has only received a little education, and thus he has a double complex towards those who are lower than him in the administrative hierarchy.

Does he need a degree that would raise his status even though he sits on the highest seat of power? What does he need a higher degree that will not help him in a job promotion? The truth is that the degree in this context is nothing more than acquiring a new tool to win the internal conflict of a regional and social nature within the Houthi ruling elite.

There is a final point that reflects the mentality of the Houthi group. This group emerged from two things: a closed doctrine in history and closed in knowledge, and a war that calls for greed.

There is no room for partnership with it, and it is not only to rule and be preoccupied with the political field, but to rule and own. The Houthi group has its hands where the means and tools of power are: the economy and trade, banks and banking, the army and security, education and knowledge, and it is greedy to the point that it will not leave anyone the opportunity to live next to it.

*Quoted from the author's Facebook page