Introduction

Since capturing Sana’a in September 2014, the Houthi group (Ansar Allah) has steadily consolidated control over state institutions and assumed de facto governance in the territories under its control. Education policy is one of the key domains through which the group has sought to reshape state institutions and Yemeni society. From 2015 to 2024, Yahya al-Houthi, elder brother of the group’s leader, Abdelmalek al-Houthi, served as Minister of Education in Sana’a and oversaw a far-reaching transformation of curricula, pedagogical content, and institutional structures. These reforms formed part of a broader strategy to legitimize Houthi authority among teachers, students, and their families.

A key facet of this strategy has been the use of conspiratorial rhetoric, which situates the Houthi project^[1] within a broader discourse of resistance against external powers and domestic adversaries. This paper examines how conspiratorial narratives in educational materials and related rhetoric have contributed to the formation of a “society of resistance” under Houthi rule. This society is understood as a political and moral community organized around collective defense, permanent readiness, and vigilance against betrayal. The paper argues that these narratives promote and preserve internal unity around the group’s notion of resistance, while also fostering the emergence of a “new people” – a generation aligned with its political, moral, and religious order.

This paper is based on the findings of a three-year study of education reform in Houthi-controlled areas, including dozens of interviews conducted between January 2023 and February 2026; desk research on Houthi governance;^[2] and analysis of textbooks, school magazines, and pedagogical materials produced since 2016. The analysis also draws on approximately 30 issues of Jihad magazine, produced and disseminated by the Imam Al-Hadi Foundation, and on their pedagogical use in schools and summer centers. Building on Olivier Carré’s scholarship on Egyptian, Iraqi, and Syrian educational materials from the 1970s,^[3] the paper identifies the concepts and principles upon which these materials are based and examines the discourse to which children, particularly those aged approximately six to twelve, are exposed. Existing scholarship on political socialization within Hezbollah-affiliated educational institutions is used as contextual reading rather than as the basis for a direct comparison of training manuals.

While journalists have reported extensively on the transformation of Houthi educational structures – particularly the growing militarization of schooling in the context of large-scale recruitment campaigns – academic research remains limited, largely due to restricted field access. For security reasons, direct fieldwork in Houthi-controlled schools was not possible. A remote research design was therefore developed in accordance with established ethical standards.^[4] All sources were anonymized to protect participants.

The paper proceeds in three steps. It first examines how conspiratorial narratives concerning external actors frame Yemen as the target of permanent foreign aggression. It then analyzes the construction of identifiable internal enemies as agents of betrayal and subversion. Finally, it shows how suspicion moves beyond named adversaries and is directed toward people living, working, and studying under Houthi control. Together, these dynamics recast education as a site of wartime mobilization, sacralize political authority, and blur the boundaries between pedagogy and surveillance. The recommendations accordingly focus on preserving educational continuity across territorial divides, protecting access to pluralistic educational resources, and including curriculum and school governance in any future political settlement.

Since 2016, Houthi authorities have engaged in a state-building process intended to entrench the group’s leadership and loyalists as a dominant class, sideline opponents, and impose a measure of stability through coercive means. As with other rebel groups that acquire territory, Houthi state-building has combined institutional co-optation with the repurposing of existing bureaucratic structures.^[5] In education, this process has involved the appointment of aligned personnel, curricular revision, the circulation of pedagogical guidance, and the use of schools and summer centers to transmit the group’s political-religious project.^[6]

Houthi educational reforms pursue both immediate and long-term objectives. In the short term, they strengthen control over teachers and school administrators and make resistance to official directives more visible. Over time, they seek to cultivate support among younger generations. The promotion of an “alternative social order”^[7] through education bolsters the group’s position and secures loyalty.

External Conspiracies in Educational Materials and Practices

Many educational materials produced under Houthi authority foreground narratives of foreign aggression and conspiracies targeting Yemen. This discourse does not merely denounce foreign interference; it establishes a paradigm of permanent threat in which collective defense becomes a civic and religious duty. Houthi authorities have translated this framing into educational policy by “correcting” and “developing” textbooks in Islamic education, Arabic language, history, and social sciences at both primary and secondary levels.^[8] These revisions have been accompanied by pedagogical guidelines for newly appointed teachers, intended to standardize the transmission of the group’s ideology.

For analytical clarity, this paper refers to the revised materials used under the Sana’a-based authorities as the “Sana’a curriculum.” The “Aden curriculum” refers to the prewar national curriculum that continues to be used in areas administered by the internationally recognized government. Through its revisions, the Houthi group presents education as an instrument for militarizing public consciousness and shaping what it calls the “Generation of the Scream,”^[9] a new generation guided by the ideological teachings of the group’s founder, Hussein al-Houthi.

The rewriting of history provides one of the clearest illustrations of this external-threat narrative. The Aden curriculum presents a broad overview of ancient Yemeni civilization – political, economic, cultural, social, and religious – and includes references to the introduction of Judaism and Christianity to Yemen.^[10] By contrast, the Sana’a curriculum removes this unit and replaces it with one entitled “Foreign Covetousness Toward Yemen.” In a lesson addressing the Roman invasion of Yemen, the Aden curriculum lists three motives: control of trade routes, exploitation of Yemen’s resources, and suppression of coastal piracy.^[11] The Sana’a version omits the third motive but expands upon the first two, asserting that foreign powers aimed to control Hadramawt, Shabwa, and the Gulf of Aden. The revised textbook thereby reconfigures history as a continuous record of foreign predation and supports the group’s nationalist rhetoric.^[12] A newly added lesson, “Yemeni Confrontation of External Ambitions,”^[13] concludes by asserting the civic duty of Yemenis to defend their homeland against an “American-Zionist invasion.” This historical interpretation supports a teleological narrative in which Yemen is the perennial target of imperial designs and resistance is an essential element of national identity.

Civic education translates this historical narrative into a model of political and moral conduct. A “society of resistance” denotes here a community organized around collective defense, political loyalty, and permanent readiness for confrontation. This model recalls forms of socialization through resistance documented in scholarship on Hezbollah-affiliated educational institutions,^[14] although the comparison is contextual. In the first lesson of a Houthi-issued civic education textbook, entitled “Yemen, the Graveyard of Invaders,” heroic accounts of Yemeni resistance to foreign incursions inaccurately portray the country as the only Arab state never truly occupied. The narrative elevates resistance to the status of a foundational civic virtue. Subsequent lessons portray the 2015 military intervention by the Saudi-led coalition as a “failed occupation attempt,” embedding the contemporary conflict within a longer history of resistance to external aggression.

In much of the Sana’a-based curriculum, resistance is narratively conceptualized as a struggle against an outside “enemy” – a protean actor whose presence legitimizes the group’s defensive measures against foreign interference. References to foreign enemies recur across materials distributed to children under the age of twelve attending Houthi-organized summer centers. US interventions in Iraq, Somalia, Lebanon, and Afghanistan are presented as evidence of Western imperialism and systemic oppression. In sections devoted to the “history of countries,” anti-American ideology is reinforced through symbolic affinity with anti-imperialist figures such as Fidel Castro and Salvador Allende.^[15] The United States is identified as the “Great Satan” and Israel as the “Little Satan.”^[16] Even the United Nations is depicted as an instrument designed to advance US and Israeli interests and subjugate free societies. Arab states that have normalized relations with Israel are labeled “traitors” and accused of capitulating to the enemies of Islam.^[17]

Moral categorization is often strictly binary: good and evil, believers and enemies. Through short narratives and exemplary stories, children are encouraged to identify emotionally and ritually with figures of resistance. The principal figure through which this resistance is embodied is that of the “martyr.” Houthi educational materials portray children who walk “on the path to Jerusalem” – a formulation associated with martyrdom – as heroes of resistance.^[18] Through this pedagogy of sacrifice, martyrdom is linked to personal, collective, and political forms of jihad. Support for the Houthi-led war effort is thereby recast as part of the religious defense of Islam and Yemen, while national identity is reorganized around sacrifice, resistance, and readiness for confrontation.

Militarized socialization also crosses disciplinary boundaries. Grammar exercises expose students to stories of fallen fighters, invite them to compose or analyze laudatory poetry, and normalize the figure of the martyr within subjects apparently removed from religious or military instruction.^[19] In a sixth-grade Islamic education textbook, another lesson requires students to learn a Houthi war anthem glorifying jihad and divine victory.^[20] Flags, uniforms, slogans, firearms, and images of deceased children reinforce this narrative.

In contrast to the civil-state proposal presented by the Houthi representative Ahmed Sharaf al-Din during the National Dialogue Conference,^[21] the revised textbooks reinforce established Houthi doctrinal and theocratic principles. These include the sacralized authority of the “Leader of the Revolution,” Abdelmalek al-Houthi, the distinctiveness of Zaidi identity,^[22] and the renewal of political order through religious struggle against injustice. Senior Houthi leaders describe education as preparing a generation destined to defend the Muslim community (Umma).^[23] Educational materials thus project Houthi governance territory as a strong, sovereign, and modern state committed to protecting its borders and defeating its enemies.

The defense of Islam against external threats is further articulated through anti-Jewish rhetoric. The curriculum presents the historical expulsions of the Jewish tribes of Banu Qaynuqa‘ and Banu Nadir as “wise” and “heroic” acts and asserts that “the Jews are the most ardent enemies of Islam and Muslims.”^[24] Such passages essentialize hostility toward Jews and entrench a binary interpretation of interreligious and intercultural relations. Alliances with the “friends of Allah” are presented as guarantees of victory over “unbelievers,” and the eventual “liberation” invoked in this material is connected to Palestine and Jerusalem under the guidance of Abdelmalek al-Houthi.^[25]

These themes cannot be treated as wholly new without a systematic comparison with the prewar curriculum. Their significance in the Sana’a curriculum lies in the way they are connected to the contemporary conflict and reproduced across religious and political instruction. In a ninth-grade Islamic education manual, seven of eight lessons center on discourses that stigmatize Jews and expand upon themes introduced in earlier grades.

Finally, the external-conspiracy narrative extends from curricular content to the education system itself. Houthi authorities claim that the pre-2014 system was infiltrated by foreign actors. At the beginning of the 2024-2025 academic year, Houthi-aligned security forces denounced what they described as the decades-long “targeting” of Yemeni education by “spies” working for foreign powers.^[26] Foreign-funded educational programs, scholarships in the United States, returning graduates, and textbook reforms undertaken during the 1990s and 2000s were retrospectively presented as evidence of an American-Zionist attempt to reshape Yemeni education.^[27] These accusations have provided a justification for the personnel changes and curricular counter-reforms implemented since the group assumed power.

Across textbooks, summer-center materials, and official educational rhetoric, the external-conspiracy narrative incorporates Western states, Israel, international organizations, regional governments, and foreign-linked educational programs into a single and continuous assault on Yemen. This framing presents curricular revision and political mobilization as protective responses rather than as partisan interventions.

The Construction of an Internal Conspiracy

Whereas the external-conspiracy narrative identifies forces operating beyond Yemen, Houthi educational materials also designate domestic actors as intermediaries of foreign influence. These include education officials associated with the former regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh, teachers and returning graduates portrayed as vectors of ideological infiltration, Islamist organizations described as instruments of foreign powers, and political actors accused of capitulating to American and Israeli interests. By depicting these actors as morally corrupt, disloyal, or dangerous, educational discourse narrows the boundaries of legitimate political difference and recasts opposition as betrayal.

In the textbooks and pedagogical materials examined, the internal traitor appears as part of a fifth column linked to foreign interests. Descriptions remain fluid and draw upon religious, political, and cultural cleavages within Yemeni society. At this stage, suspicion is directed primarily toward identifiable political and religious adversaries situated outside the loyalist community. The following section examines a different process: the diffusion of suspicion among students, teachers, families, and ostensible supporters living under Houthi control.

The narrative of internal conspiracy extends to Islamist organizations such as the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, which are portrayed as Western creations intended to fragment the Umma and sow division.^[28] Afghanistan and Iraq are presented as precedents in which elite capitulation led to societal collapse and the loss of freedom, independence, and dignity. In this narrative, the foreign project unfolds in successive stages: military intervention, control of security institutions, bureaucratic infiltration, and ultimately cultural domination through education. The internal traitor thus serves as the link between foreign ambition and domestic decline.

The figure of the loyal youth promoted in contemporary textbooks draws on the historical legacy of the Believing Youth (al-Shabab al-Mu’min), a Zaidi revivalist organization founded in Sa’ada in 1992, from which the Houthi group later emerged. Islamic education textbooks extol the qualities of the “true believer,” elevating jihad and love of the homeland as cardinal virtues.^[29]

Particular emphasis is placed on the Prophet’s lineage and Hashemite heritage.^[30] Textbooks combine elementary religious instruction with Qur’anic verses praising the Prophet’s family, thereby associating religious authority, guidance, and the establishment of justice with his descendants.^[31] This narrative reinforces a hierarchical social order in which the descendants of the Prophet are presented as natural guides of the community. Loyalty to this lineage is framed as a marker of piety and legitimate authority. These passages reinforce a hierarchical conception of legitimate authority without, on their own, establishing that non-support is treated as internal subversion.

The history of the September 26 Revolution, which overthrew the imamate and heralded the establishment of the Republic in 1962, is also revised. References to social classes and civic equality are removed,^[32] while a parallel is drawn between the September 26 Revolution and the group’s September 2014 takeover of Sana’a, presented as the corrective culmination of earlier, incomplete revolutions. Shadowy actors are blamed for past political failures and depicted as agents of foreign interests.^[33] The narrative of internal conspiracy thus provides the interpretive framework through which both historical setbacks and contemporary opposition are explained.

Having constructed the internal threat, Houthi educational discourse presents Abdelmalek al-Houthi as its principal antidote. He is portrayed as a spiritual guide, political authority, and military leader entrusted with leading the community toward justice and prosperity.^[34] In the fourth lesson of a Qur’anic textbook interpreting Surat al-Fatiha,^[35] he is implicitly associated with the “righteous” and described as a “banner of guidance.” His authority is thereby sacralized and integrated into everyday educational practice.

Excerpts from Hussein al-Houthi’s collected sermons, or malāzim,^[36] are directly incorporated into lessons. In a unit entitled “Allah Is the Ally of the Believers,” students are encouraged to follow his guidance as that of a divinely sanctioned authority.^[37] Abdelmalek al-Houthi’s weekly speeches also address educational issues and denounce what is described as the “comprehensive targeting” of Yemen,^[38] aimed at exerting cultural and intellectual control and reshaping the political and moral orientation of young Yemenis.

Within this framework, curricular reform is justified as an act of collective protection against alleged infiltration. The recruitment of “volunteers”^[39] aligned with the Houthi group is presented as a corrective measure following the alleged betrayal of education officials under Ali Abdullah Saleh. His government’s removal of Qur’anic verses referring to jihad from earlier textbooks^[40] is portrayed as an attempt to undermine national independence, dignity, and pride.^[41] This diagnosis culminates in the “Qur’anic March,” the group’s political-religious project to reorder society through its interpretation of Qur’anic guidance.^[42] The Qur’anic March is presented as the only authentic counter-project capable of restoring moral clarity and resisting the allies of the “forces of arrogance.”^[43] In this framework, resistance is also epistemic and cultural.

Institutionalizing Suspicion: Paranoia as a Means of Governance

The institutionalization of suspicion differs from the designation of external powers or identifiable political opponents. Here, vigilance is directed inward, toward students, teachers, families, and ostensible supporters living in areas under Houthi control. Sincerity is assessed through visible conduct, participation, and willingness to conform to prescribed political and religious practices. Educational materials frame doubt and the questioning of loyalty as religious and moral imperatives, turning schools into sites of observation, discipline, and social control.^[44]

Schooling is explicitly described as an “education front,”^[45] a concept circulated by the Houthi-aligned outlet Al-Masirah in language that echoes that used by Hezbollah’s Al-Manar.^[46] This framing turns education into part of the war effort and presents constant preparedness as a moral obligation. Major wartime events – bombings, assassinations, and mass destruction – are interpreted not only as consequences of foreign aggression but also as the result of internal weakness or a failure to fulfill collective duties. The possibility of renewed attack is thus used to maintain a permanent state of alertness among students and educators.

Curricular revisions also reshape the historical figures through whom legitimate authority is represented. The Aden curriculum presents four Yemeni figures who shaped national history, whereas the Sana’a curriculum replaces Al-Shawkani, Mohammed al-Zubayri, and Ali Abd al-Mughni with Imam al-Mansur al-Qasim bin Mohammed.^[47] Al-Shawkani served as chief judge under the Qasimid imams and challenged aspects of doctrinal Zaidism.^[48] By removing a juristic reformer and two republican figures in favor of a seventeenth-century imam associated with the establishment of Qasimid rule, the revised curriculum narrows the range of political and religious traditions presented as legitimate and privileges imamic and genealogical authority.

This substitution does not, in itself, demonstrate that students are taught to fear traitors. It nevertheless narrows the range of political and religious traditions presented as legitimate and privileges imamic and genealogical authority over juristic reform and republicanism. The revised historical memory provides a normative framework within which alternative allegiances are treated with increasing suspicion.

Schools and summer centers also appear as spaces in which participation can be interpreted as evidence of loyalty or reluctance. Youth are tasked with embodying the Qur’anic project of Hussein al-Houthi while navigating a climate of suspicion that may extend to their families. Educational policy thereby allows political authority to reach beyond the school and into family relations.^[49]

Within this environment, vigilance is directed not only toward recognized political opponents but also toward everyday conduct among those living under Houthi rule. Resistance is described as an “eternal mission” intended to protect future generations from humiliation.^[50] Personal jihad acquires a disciplinary dimension: vigilance and visible commitment are presented as conditions for the victory of the Islamic community.^[51]

Alongside formal schooling, Houthi summer centers, organized since 2017-2018,^[52] function as important sites of political-religious socialization. They aim to awaken a “Qur’anic consciousness”^[53] through faith, rigor, and divine will, and to form the identity of a new generation. Participation is strongly encouraged and may serve as a visible marker of commitment. Summer centers use educational content distinct from ordinary school instruction, and their supervisors assume responsibilities that extend beyond conventional pedagogy.^[54] They are described as preventing deviation and combating what is defined as “corruption.”

A particularly significant feature of these materials is the introduction of a nine-part typology of the “hypocrite.” The hypocrite is not simply an unbeliever but an ostensible member of the Muslim community whose conduct reveals insincerity. Commitment is assessed through visible forms of military, political, and ideological participation, while refusal to align with the Houthi group can be categorized as hypocrisy. The listed characteristics include alliance with the “People of the Book” – explicitly, Jews and Christians – reluctance in the face of confrontation, and mockery of fighters.^[55] Disagreement, non-participation, or insufficient enthusiasm can thereby be reinterpreted as signs of religious and political disloyalty.

This use of the “People of the Book” does not contradict the anti-Jewish rhetoric examined earlier. Presenting alliances with Jews and Christians as evidence of hypocrisy extends the enemy-believer binary to the evaluation of conduct within the Muslim community.

Conclusion

The Houthi transformation of education has become a central component of wartime state formation in northern Yemen. External-conspiracy narratives situate Yemen within a continuous history of foreign predation and naturalize resistance as a civic and religious duty. Narratives of internal betrayal designate identifiable political, educational, and religious adversaries as intermediaries of foreign influence. The institutionalization of suspicion goes further by directing vigilance toward students, teachers, families, and ostensible supporters, whose sincerity is assessed through visible forms of participation and conformity. Together, these processes turn education into an arena for producing legitimacy, restructuring social and political hierarchies, and defining the boundaries of political and religious belonging.

The reforms seek to replace the prewar national curriculum – still used in areas administered by the internationally recognized government – with an educational system aligned with the Houthi political-ideological project. Their objective is to form a new generation grounded in the political and religious legitimacy of Abdelmalek al-Houthi. This project operates through rewriting history, reinterpreting religious texts, and redefining national belonging.

Resistance to changes in curricula and school activities appears to have prompted the Ministry of Education in Sana’a to issue stricter directives to school principals.^[56] Certificates of participation in summer centers have also reportedly been used as a means of pressure. The available material does not, however, establish that students have actually been denied school admission for failing to present such a certificate.

More broadly, the Yemeni case demonstrates that education is a foundational domain of political order during civil war. When conspiracy becomes embedded in pedagogy, it shapes the institutions through which authority is reproduced. Houthi educational reforms show how schooling can consolidate wartime rule, redefine national identity, and prepare future generations for continued political and military mobilization.

Recommendations

The following recommendations aim to limit the long-term effects of Houthi educational reforms while taking into account the constraints imposed by the group’s military and political control.

First, UN agencies and international donors engaged in education in Yemen or working with Yemeni educational organizations should seek to preserve channels of educational continuity across territorial and political divides. Curriculum reform should not be approached as a purely technical matter. In northern Yemen, the Houthi group’s rejection of foreign involvement makes direct curricular intervention nearly impossible, but this should not result in the isolation of the educational system in the north. Support should include teacher training accessible to educators in Houthi-controlled areas, scholarship opportunities abroad for Yemeni students, and pedagogical resources that offer alternatives to the group’s ideological content. Access mechanisms should be developed with Yemeni partners and should not require public affiliation with foreign organizations or political endorsement by local authorities.

Support for alternative educational resources should, however, be pursued with caution. In a context marked by surveillance, suspicion, and the politicization of family and community life, openly parallel educational structures may expose students, parents, and teachers to significant risks. Remote learning tools, diaspora-led educational and cultural programs, and civic or media literacy initiatives should not be presumed safe merely because they operate online or discreetly. Programs should minimize the collection of personal information, avoid publicly identifying participants, and be designed with educators who understand the local security environment. Their objective should not be to create an immediate substitute for formal schooling, but to preserve critical thinking, historical pluralism, and non-sectarian forms of civic belonging over the longer term.

Second, the Office of the UN Special Envoy for Yemen and the Yemeni parties should include education within the scope of any future political settlement. A settlement should commit the parties to curricula and schooling that promote peaceful coexistence, social reconstruction, and justice. Concrete provisions should address curricular revision, teacher retraining, the depoliticization of school governance, and the reintegration of educational institutions into a nationally recognized framework. Without addressing the epistemic and normative foundations laid during wartime, post-conflict reconstruction risks leaving intact the narratives through which exclusion, suspicion, and political violence have been normalized.

This paper is part of a series of publications produced by the Sana’a Center and funded by the government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The series explores issues within economic, political, and environmental themes, aiming to inform discussion and policymaking related to Yemen that foster sustainable peace.