Saif Ahmed Haider Al-Insan…the man of dialogue and peace
Yemen
Yamanat
Qadri Ahmed Haider
With complete honesty and objectivity, it can be said that Saif Ahmed Haider was one of the most eminent intellectual and political personalities who embodied the meaning of “historical bloc” in his thinking, daily behavior and practical life practices.
He was a model intellectual and politician who linked intellectual vision and human behavior and made politics a moral act and not just an authoritarian exercise.
From his days as a student in Egypt in the second half of the 1950s, through his departure from the Ba’ath Party in the 1960s, to his founding of the Scientific Socialist Party “Yemeni Workers’ Party” with an elite group of the most eminent Yemeni minds – led by Omar Al-Jawi, Abdullah Hamid Al-Ulafi, Abdul-Qader Hashem and Abdul-Bari Taher – Saif Ahmed Haidar remained a distinctive voice in thought and politics.
I knew him in the 70s and our relationship grew stronger through the 80s and 90s until his untimely death, which left a void that cannot be filled.
Saif Ahmed Haider was by nature against violence in all its forms. His features, his wit and his inner tranquility gave those who sat beside him a feeling of familiarity, comfort and peace even before he spoke, and when he spoke – and he spoke little – you felt that the dialogue itself materialized before you, and that peace took on a human form that shook your hand through him. It was like a gentle breeze or a butterfly that lit up the place even though it burned for others.
He was truly a “sword” of justice and truth, a human being full of personal and national dignity, endowed with unlimited humanity. He is generous in nature, does not know avarice and his hand is extended to everyone without question or hesitation.
His weekly gathering at his home, every Thursday, was similar to the “literary salons” known in the Arab world. A forum of thought, literature and politics, frequented by Yemeni and Arab intellectuals and politicians, including Sudanese ambassador and writer Sayyed Ahmed Al-Hardallo, novelist and banker Al-Hassan Muhammad Saeed, Al-Mirghani and others. This council was an intellectual and dialogic forum, ignited by Saif’s calm, low voice and gentle smile.
He believed in civil and peaceful political action and saw it as the right way to wrest democracy from the clutches of oppression.
He considered that armed action in the countryside obstructed the civil process in the cities and unintentionally pitted the countryside against the cities. The result would be widespread repression and arrests of civil parties, paralyzing political life and disrupting its natural equation.
Despite his early support for the armed struggle in the south as a national struggle uniting the people, he viewed armed action in the north of the country as generating political, social, and class division.
He believed that true revolution began peacefully in the cities and then spread to the countryside, not the other way around.
Saif is a rare democratic and conversational personality. The moment you listen to it, it teaches you how to master the art of listening to others.
He was a voice for truth, justice and peace, and that is how I knew him and he remained, and with these values he departed, leaving his hand – and with it his soul – stretched out for peace until the last moment.
He was a pure civil political mind, with logical and realistic thinking in reading political, social and economic events, and he transmitted his ideas in condensed and profound language.
Saif Ahmed Haider is a model of an organic intellectual who peacefully and critically engages in non-violent confrontation with distortions of reality.
He left prematurely, and his departure was a shock that shook me deeply, not only because his departure was sudden, but because I saw in myself a bit of his spirit.
Mercy, love and eternity be yours, oh noble and great friend.
Yemen