Somalia: An Opportunity to getting Right This Time Around.
Mahdi Haile
February 18, 2009
I feel obliged to join hundreds of thousands of Somalis at home and abroad, in welcoming President Sharif sheik Ahmed and his new Prime Minister of rulers as they assume the onerous task of pacifying and sanitizing our common patrimony. I must also seize this opportunity to strongly commend the resilient people of Somalia, who remain undaunted, despite being subjected to all forms of insanity and degradation in the past 18 years.
It is noteworthy that in spite of all the horrors unleashed on them over the years, Somalis generally remain compassionate and optimistic about the future of their dear country.
And so it was not surprising that the arrival and induction of the Shikh Sahrif-led transitional government were with euphoric fanfare and jubilation in Somalia and abroad. I believe that ordinary Somalis, like myself, mean well for that excruciated country and are always inclined to lavish compassion and forgiveness on their heartless compatriots who are bent on tormenting them, just to satisfy their inordinate ambition for power and wealth.
I was in Nairobi , Kenya on 2000, when Abdiqasin Salad Hassan and Ali Khaif Galayr were given tumultuous, messianic welcome by the same Somali people warlords had been smashing their relatives with rockets and all forms of death toys.
The hope then was that since the warlords was defeated by Islamist, then Mogadishu´s
Senseless war would have ended. But as it turned out, the Somali people were wrong! Ethiopians invaded the country and defeated the Islamist.
There was another round of turmoil; hundreds of innocent people were killed. finally Ethiopia withdrew and we elected new President.
As Somalis people welcome another President. There is warring factions-dominated by Alshabab an extremist group with foreign fighters. They are in control much of the country.
There are mixed feelings whether Alshabab, a war-mongers will not again repeat the follies of history to turn Mogadishu to a hell-hole.
In any case, i remain cautiously optimistic, assuming that as a nation and a people, we have all learned our bitter lessons at this point in time. there are several lessons one can learn from the senseless Somali war, but the cardinal one is that as Somalis, we are all intertwined and therefore, our fate is inextricably intertwined. Another bitter lesson is that no group of people has an exclusive monopoly over violence and therefore, no group of people must delude itself that it is stronger than the rest of the Somali people.
In other words, the reality is that we are all in the same ship of state and must stress our Somalines rather than exploiting our clan diversity for parochial political gains as a few disgruntled groups had myopically sought to do in the past.
I am cautiously optimistic because I strongly believe that the advent of this transitional government under the eagle´s eyes of the international community is a grandiose opportunity for us to lay a formidable foundation for democratic pluralism and economic resuscitation. We must also set in motion the necessary mechanism for socio-cultural sanitization.
This time around, we must convince the global community that as a people, we are equally susceptible to political refinement as the rest of the human species; let´s prove our detractors wrong! There are hundreds of tax payers in the developed world who believe that we are beyond political redemption and Somalia is a "failed state" that must be placed under the tutelage of the United Nations for political rehabilitation before sovereign statehood can be restored upon it in the future.
Such cynics can´t fathom why their governments must continue to spend taxpayers´ money on peacekeeping in a country where the citizens themselves continue to plunge their homeland into abysmal degradation. It is such people we must strive to convince, through our exemplary deeds, that we are a proud people very anxious to optimize our potentials, when given the chance and needed assistance.
In the next 24 months, our actions must convince the world that the 18years of insanity which pathetically devastated our patrimony and devoured some 500, 000 of our compatriots and foreign residents was a cultural shock, or political mutation, which must not be allowed to rare its ugly head once again.
Now that the Moderates are in charge, Somalis will be keenly watching to see whether this transitional regime, whose content was almost exclusively dictated by the
Islamist can deliver the peace and democracy we so desperately yearn for.
As i see it, if the Alshabab and other groups and their cohorts have the political will, such possibility is not remote. The first indication that they mean well for Somalis will be demonstrated by the qualification, competence, stature and character of their nominees to the various positions allotted to them at gunpoint.
If they go beyond the parochial confines of their respective groups and enlist the services of qualified, competent and capable Somalis with the requisite rectitude and orientation to fill the various positions, that will show to the world that their military onslaughts were selfless nationalistic undertakings, primarily aimed at ridding the country of a heartless, inhumane dictators so that the Somali people can come together and lay out a decent democratic foundation in a serene and secure environment.
On the other hand, if they are seen in the next couple of days, to be nominating political neophytes of checkered character with past criminality to occupy otherwise honorable posts, that will indicate their desire to replace one dictatorship with another rebel dictatorship. In any case, many logicians would reason that the factional gurus be given the benefit of the doubt.
Whatever the case may be, Somalis must not be passive spectators at this time, but potent participants. We must insist on expeditious disarmament! Let´s demand accountability and fiscal discipline from our new rulers. Acceptable legal precepts must be followed in the administration of justice, being mindful that we have perennially been victimized by arbitrariness under successive groups; we must not shirk our civic responsibility at this time, because when the misrule of tyrannical groups ultimately culminates into chaos, it is the unarmed majority that are victimized.
To put it squarely, the Shikh Sharif-led transitional team has a herculean task to set the nation on an irreversible democratic course in next 24 months and therefore, needs the guidance of Somalis from all walks of life. It is in consideration of this that I have lifted my self-imposed journalistic moratorium, by reactivating my NEW THINKNING column, so that together we can begin a robust national debate that will hopefully culminate into carving out a better political landscape for posterity and ourselves. It is a patriotic call, a national exigency that no one must ignore.
It is noteworthy that in spite of all the horrors unleashed on them over the years, Somalis generally remain compassionate and optimistic about the future of their dear country.
And so it was not surprising that the arrival and induction of the Shikh Sahrif-led transitional government were with euphoric fanfare and jubilation in Somalia and abroad. I believe that ordinary Somalis, like myself, mean well for that excruciated country and are always inclined to lavish compassion and forgiveness on their heartless compatriots who are bent on tormenting them, just to satisfy their inordinate ambition for power and wealth.
I was in Nairobi , Kenya on 2000, when Abdiqasin Salad Hassan and Ali Khaif Galayr were given tumultuous, messianic welcome by the same Somali people warlords had been smashing their relatives with rockets and all forms of death toys.
The hope then was that since the warlords was defeated by Islamist, then Mogadishu´s
Senseless war would have ended. But as it turned out, the Somali people were wrong! Ethiopians invaded the country and defeated the Islamist.
There was another round of turmoil; hundreds of innocent people were killed. finally Ethiopia withdrew and we elected new President.
As Somalis people welcome another President. There is warring factions-dominated by Alshabab an extremist group with foreign fighters. They are in control much of the country.
There are mixed feelings whether Alshabab, a war-mongers will not again repeat the follies of history to turn Mogadishu to a hell-hole.
In any case, i remain cautiously optimistic, assuming that as a nation and a people, we have all learned our bitter lessons at this point in time. there are several lessons one can learn from the senseless Somali war, but the cardinal one is that as Somalis, we are all intertwined and therefore, our fate is inextricably intertwined. Another bitter lesson is that no group of people has an exclusive monopoly over violence and therefore, no group of people must delude itself that it is stronger than the rest of the Somali people.
In other words, the reality is that we are all in the same ship of state and must stress our Somalines rather than exploiting our clan diversity for parochial political gains as a few disgruntled groups had myopically sought to do in the past.
I am cautiously optimistic because I strongly believe that the advent of this transitional government under the eagle´s eyes of the international community is a grandiose opportunity for us to lay a formidable foundation for democratic pluralism and economic resuscitation. We must also set in motion the necessary mechanism for socio-cultural sanitization.
This time around, we must convince the global community that as a people, we are equally susceptible to political refinement as the rest of the human species; let´s prove our detractors wrong! There are hundreds of tax payers in the developed world who believe that we are beyond political redemption and Somalia is a "failed state" that must be placed under the tutelage of the United Nations for political rehabilitation before sovereign statehood can be restored upon it in the future.
Such cynics can´t fathom why their governments must continue to spend taxpayers´ money on peacekeeping in a country where the citizens themselves continue to plunge their homeland into abysmal degradation. It is such people we must strive to convince, through our exemplary deeds, that we are a proud people very anxious to optimize our potentials, when given the chance and needed assistance.
In the next 24 months, our actions must convince the world that the 18years of insanity which pathetically devastated our patrimony and devoured some 500, 000 of our compatriots and foreign residents was a cultural shock, or political mutation, which must not be allowed to rare its ugly head once again.
Now that the Moderates are in charge, Somalis will be keenly watching to see whether this transitional regime, whose content was almost exclusively dictated by the
Islamist can deliver the peace and democracy we so desperately yearn for.
As i see it, if the Alshabab and other groups and their cohorts have the political will, such possibility is not remote. The first indication that they mean well for Somalis will be demonstrated by the qualification, competence, stature and character of their nominees to the various positions allotted to them at gunpoint.
If they go beyond the parochial confines of their respective groups and enlist the services of qualified, competent and capable Somalis with the requisite rectitude and orientation to fill the various positions, that will show to the world that their military onslaughts were selfless nationalistic undertakings, primarily aimed at ridding the country of a heartless, inhumane dictators so that the Somali people can come together and lay out a decent democratic foundation in a serene and secure environment.
On the other hand, if they are seen in the next couple of days, to be nominating political neophytes of checkered character with past criminality to occupy otherwise honorable posts, that will indicate their desire to replace one dictatorship with another rebel dictatorship. In any case, many logicians would reason that the factional gurus be given the benefit of the doubt.
Whatever the case may be, Somalis must not be passive spectators at this time, but potent participants. We must insist on expeditious disarmament! Let´s demand accountability and fiscal discipline from our new rulers. Acceptable legal precepts must be followed in the administration of justice, being mindful that we have perennially been victimized by arbitrariness under successive groups; we must not shirk our civic responsibility at this time, because when the misrule of tyrannical groups ultimately culminates into chaos, it is the unarmed majority that are victimized.
To put it squarely, the Shikh Sharif-led transitional team has a herculean task to set the nation on an irreversible democratic course in next 24 months and therefore, needs the guidance of Somalis from all walks of life. It is in consideration of this that I have lifted my self-imposed journalistic moratorium, by reactivating my NEW THINKNING column, so that together we can begin a robust national debate that will hopefully culminate into carving out a better political landscape for posterity and ourselves. It is a patriotic call, a national exigency that no one must ignore.
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