Great 10 points. Many thanks to Liqaye, i will read it latter insha Allah!

Aw Tusbaxle halkaa ka wad awoowe!

Good to see you back Xiddigo!

Editor's Note: Simply put, Said Samatar treats us yet again with another masterpiece! Weaving together a literary, yet concise biography of B.W.Andrzejewski, capsuled in Europe's colonial history at the turn of the last Century, skillfully juxtaposed to the powerful poetry of the Sayid Mohamed Abdula Hassan, otherwise known by the British as "The Mad Mullah," this piece affords us a peak of Said Samatar's intellectual depth. In reading this piece, one is encountered with a difficult judgment of whether Said Samatar is a literary author or a superb historian. Perhaps, the inescapable outcome of a close read of this piece, in our judgment one of the best pieces that Wardheernews carried in its four years of existence, is that he is both! The author's command of the architecture of writing is vivid: Said, like an accomplished Venetian architect, walks us through the painful growing days of a young Polish boy, the late Andzejewski, and his yearning for Somali literature, only to pick his building blocks in the way to construct a superb piece. The product is like a fine architecture and a well-designed building, say one designed by the likes of Gary Frank that speaks many vernaculars; the piece evolves through the contours of literature, history, poetry, scholarship, before it delivers its main message - a powerful eulogy of a dear scholar most Somalis consider to be the "father of modern Somali language." Each reader would look at the piece from a different angle, just like a fine architecture, and still get his/her own message. Said is an author, a scholar, a literary and a superb social historian, all in one, whom Somalis lately began to speak of as a "national sheeko Xariir," or an exquisite story teller, of course to underscore their enjoyment of his writings, most of which are featured in these pages. Said is unquestionably eloquent, and this piece is adelight to read. =========================================== Remembering B.W. Andrzejewski : Poland's Somali Genius. Samatar, Said S. Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas, Ease after warm death after life, does greatly please. Edmund Spenser On 1 December 1994, Bogumil Witalis Andrzejewski (familiarly and affectionately known as Goosh by friends and admirers) died at the age of 72 after a distinguished literary career. His death ended the remarkable life of a man who began with so little and achieved so much. This mild-mannered scholar, who lived to become the world's greatest authority on Cushitic languages and literature and whose pioneering scholastic method revolutionized the study of oral literature on both sides of the Atlantic, was catapulted by fate across continents to belong, improbably, to three rather different countries: his native Poland, which he had fled in early youth in circumstances akin to the apocalypse; the England of his prime life that gave him an education, a job and a devoted wife; and the Somalia of his professional life that brought out the full play of his academic genius. In view of his turbulent beginning and later versatility, Goosh may well have approved of the above lines from Edmund Spenser which were "cut in the stone that was raised on the tomb of Joseph Conrad" (Zabel 1), another remarkable Pole whose biography by Zdzislaw Najder (Joseph Conrad: A Chronicle) includes a chapter that bears the title of "Poland's English Genius", thus inspiring the titular variation of this piece. Like Conrad, Goosh was a man who strove -- and triumphed -- against the buffeting waves of destiny. Born in Poznan, Poland, on 1 February 1922, his father was a skin and fur merchant of lower-middle-class means. His mother hailed from a landowning family that nevertheless lost their property and peace by the turn of the century, no doubt owing to the Poles' seemingly hopeless and perversely perennial insurrections against Czarist Russia. (Parenthetically, Conrad's family too knew its share of plunder by Czarists, bringing to mind the Poles' proverb of an almost existential nature: "God almighty is in heaven, the Pope is in the Vatican, but the Russians are across the bridge!") Goosh's mother fell ill when he was seven and died in 1939 when he was seventeen. The person in his family who appears to have had the greatest impact on the intelligent but impressionable boy was a maternal grandmother whom he recalled, years later, as "a wonderful narrator and a reciter of stories and poems."(1) To the end of his life he "still remember[ed] vividly some of her stories and poems" ("Biographical" 1). The internalization of poetry and the poetic temper that he absorbed from his grandmother would be transferred to a love of, and devotion, to Somali poetry. Goosh began school at Poznan, but owing to "some lung trouble," he was sent to study in Zakopane in the Tatra Mountains for a healthier climate. In 1939 Goosh turned seventeen when his world exploded with the outbreak of the war, resulting in the siege of Warsaw, which "lasted a month" ("Biographical" 1), forcing the starving and out-of-ammunition Polish garrison to surrender in the midst of a fearful epidemic. The patriotic young Pole, who would not submit to the humiliation and torture of a German forced labor camp, opted for a perilous escape to Palestine, journeying clandestinely -- and illegally -- through Slovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Greece, and Turkey. "The journey," he recalled years later with characteristic equanimity and understatement, involved many hardships including arrest by the police on several occasions, hunger and sleeping in the open air in freezing weather.... With a friend I had an amazing escape from an internment place in Hungary when I crossed the Balaton, one of the largest lakes in Europe, over the ice during a snow storm at night. This lake seldom freezes altogether but luckily it happened to be an exceptionally cold winter. The journey took about 12 hours, walking against a strong wind, and was only possible because some kind people gave us a luminous compass and provisions for the journey. ("Biographical" 2) It appears that the super-cold winter turned out to be the angel of mercy that prevented the surface from cracking and thereby sending them to death in the icy depths. In Palestine, after a hasty slip-shod military training, Goosh was ordered to an army unit in Egypt in August 1941 to defend the besieged town of Tobruk. He fought well and survived the action without much damage to his person other than a minor wound. Having recovered in a British military hospital, he was recommended to enroll in an officers training school, "but did not complete the course," Goosh tells us modestly "on account of lack of talent in that direction" ("Biographical" 2). Poetry, not soldiery, was apparently the young man's forte. While slipping between internments in Hungary, he managed, incredibly, to teach himself some English "using a German book called `English in 30 Hours Without a Teacher'" ("Biographical" 2). Goosh indefatigably worked up his English proficiency in Palestine by practicing it with Australian and New Zealand soldiers in Palestine and by August 1942 acquired good enough command of the language to serve as an interpreter, a field for which "there was a great demand since most members of the Polish Forces did not know any English" ("Biographical" 3). In July 1942, Goosh's Polish unit was detailed to escort German prisoners of war on the Queen Mary bound for New York, and, by an ironic twist of fate, troops of the nation that made his beloved Poland captive were now his own captives. On the return journey to Europe on an American troop ship, an attack of jaundice practically incapacitated him; yet he recovered soon, sufficiently to join a Polish artillery unit from which he was transferred to the air force, but he came down again with a serious illness and, in consequence, was assigned from that point on to administrative duties. In October 1945, Goosh was granted final leave from military service and he enrolled, after passing an entrance exam, at Oxford for a degree in English language and literature on a scholarship for "any Polish student and was offered by a Catholic organization called the Newman Association, as a gesture of solidarity with the Polish people, in view of the systematic extermination of Polish intellectuals by the Germans on occupied Poland. [He] was selected on the grounds of my academic record and because [he] had achieved a certain degree of acclaim as a poet, writing in Polish" ("Biographical" 6-7). Modest of abilities in military service, Goosh finally found his calling in literature. In 1944 the young handsome Pole with the tremulous gait, translucently green eyes, cupped-out cherubic ears, and melancholy yet cheerful countenance (pardon the oxymoron) met his future wife, Sheila nee Weekes, at a Polish-English hospitality party. Two years later they married and the elegant English wife with the gracious manners was to become an indispensable helpmate, a loving sustainer, and eventually an academic co-laborer. The war ended and the Poles who suffered catastrophe during it did not regain their independence after it, the Nazi occupation having been replaced by a Stalinist tyranny under the new Polish Communist regime. Fearful of persecution in the new totalitarian Poland and sorely needing to lend economic support to his family that was in desperate shape (the mother died just before the war and the father was broken in ill health and his business ruined beyond repair), Goosh prudently realized the principle that charity began at home. After a one-year stint as a teacher in a school for Polish refugees, he fortunately began to take the academy seriously, and his rising linguistic and literary talents were handsomely rewarded when he received a post-graduate research scholarship as a linguist, to develop a scientific script for Somali language under the dual auspices of the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies and the Department of Education of the then British Somaliland Protectorate. This was to launch his distinguished career as an expatriate master in the Somali language and a ground-breaking pioneer in Cushitic studies. In 1948, Goosh embarked on his post-graduate work, completing the theoretical part of the program in 1949, then sailing for Somaliland in 1951, accompanied by wife, Shiela. They set up shop in Sheikh, some fifty miles inland from the coastal town of Berbera, and with the assistance of an indigenous research partner, Muusa H. I. Galaal, set to work to develop "a system of writing for a previously unwritten language" ("Biographical" 8). In fact, the system of writing that he developed with the active partnership of Muusa Galaal and Ahmed Shire was so well worked orthographically as to meet the idiosyncrasies of Somali phonetics and was chosen, hands down, from a number of competing systems as the official orthography adopted to make Somali a written language for the first time in 1972. Steadily, single-mindedly, and with a labor of love rare among academics, Goosh continued to work on Somali, acquiring, in time, a masterly command of the language, in addition to getting considerable expertise on Oromo (formerly Galla), a Cushitic language related to Somali. In 1952 Goosh joined the faculty of the School of Oriental and African Studies (of the University of London) as a lecturer in Cushitic languages and literatures, a post he held with distinction, first as lecturer, then as reader, and ultimately full professor. In 1982, in the face of the severe fiscal crunch that hit the British Academy owing to the Scrooge-like squeeze put on it by Thatcherism, an "appeal was made to older teachers to take an early retirement" ("Biographical" 8). In a gesture, very much vintage Goosh -- considerate, generous and altruistic -- he obliged by retiring in order to make way for incoming younger faculty. This was not without its silver lining, however, for it freed him from the obligations of teaching, the bondage of bureaucratic paperwork, and the tedium of endless committee chores that professors often chafe under. Although by this time he was racked by the pains of the illness that was to claim him, he was free at last to devote himself with prodigious energies to the research and writing on Somali and Oromo literatures that earned him the reputation as the world's foremost authority on these literatures. His researches into these fields have been so extensive and ground-breaking and his scholastic method so distinct that taken together they constitute a new school in the study of oral literature. It is to the "Andrzejewski School" that I now turn to discuss briefly. Those familiar with the daunting task of translating the poetry of one language into another are painfully aware of the demanding challenges involved in such an effort. Simply stated, the central problem concerns the dialectical relationship between literal and literary translation. All poetic translators must face this problem with judgment and discretion in the measure of their remaining faithful to the environment and inner vitalities of the original. A literal translation of works in languages like English and Somali -- languages informed by so alien worldviews -- would no doubt result in a nonsensical gibberish. Consider, for example, this extract from Muhammad Abdullah Hasan, "the Mad Mullah" of British colonial literature, Somalia's great mystic-warrior-poet, from his poem "Gaala-Leged," or the "Scourge of Infidels," judged by critics as the "finest of his noble lines": 1. Eebbow geyiga oo dhan waa, nala ka guulaaye, 2. Waa noo gedleeyaan dadkii, gaalada ahaaye, 3. Eebbow giriig kolay ku tahay, nala gamuunneeye. 4. Go'na lagama qaadine dulmey, nagu gelaayaane, 5. Gabbaad kale hadday noo helaan, waa gam'i lahaaye, 6. Eebbow waxay nagu gabreen, diinta soo gala e. 1. Allah we are pushed from the entire flatness, 2. The infidels threaten us from all sides, 3. Even the Greeks shoot arrows at us. 4. And we did not take a piece of cloth, they'd only oppress us, 5. If they could find other reasons we would have slept, 6. They hobbled us for telling them to enter the faith. (Sheikh Jaama' `Umar `Ise 228) This literalism so trivializes the letter and the spirit of the original as to offend a Somali's -- for that matter, any aesthete's -- literary temper and tastes. The intended meaning of the above gobbledygook would go something like this: 1. O Lord, we are hemmed in and harassed on all sides, 2. The European infidels have joined in alliance against us, 3. Even the Greeks would hurl lethal projectiles at us. 4. And they would oppress us without cause, 5. And we'd be satisfied if only they could show any cause for persecuting us, 6. O God, they turned against us solely because we entreated them to come to the faith. Not perfect, but at least intelligible. Andrzejewski possessed an uncanny knack for compromise between the sense and substance of the original and the imperatives of poetic coherence in the translation. This is what I have chosen to call Andrzejewski's happy medium, the brilliant gift for striking a balance between over-literalism -- which makes a poem nonsensical in the translation and over-literariness, which greatly departs from the sprit of the original -- that marks Andrzejewski's enduring contribution to the study of oral literature. It may be an exaggeration to say that all works in contemporary translation from oral poetry bear Andrzejewski's indelible imprimatur; but the case can certainly be made that the translational work in recent years of students of African folklore in general and of African oral arts in particular displays, unmistakably, the fingerprints of his hand. This creative flair for the happy medium, for balance between the demands of the original and dictates of coherent translation, was struck in Somali Poetry: An Introduction, coauthored with the eminent British social anthropologist, I. M. Lewis, a work of intelligence and ability that marks the first systematic, scholarly study of Somali poetry. Consider, for example, the tact and sensitivity with which the authors introduced and handled in this memorable book Sayyid Muhammad's famously mocking diatribe on Richard Corfield, the dashing, arrogant colonel who commanded the British Somaliland Protectorate Camel Corps and fell in a battle against warriors of the Somali Dervish nationalists against colonial powers. "This poem," the authors tell us, was composed to celebrate the death of Richard Corfield in the battle of Dul Madoba...on 9 August 1913, when a large party of the Dervishes surrounded and launched a fierce attack against the camel detachment which Corfield commanded. Corfield had been sent to Somaliland to organize a camel constabulary to restore some order out of the chaos which had followed the ill-fated policy of coastal concentration pursued by the British government between 1910 and 1912. His field of action was, however, firmly restricted to protecting the main clans friendly to the British within a limited area. He was to avoid engagements with the Dervishes as far as possible. But Corfield was a man of courage and determination and in the events which led to his death at Dul madooba disregarded order. In the battle he was struck in the head by a Dervish bullet and apparently died instantly. Consequently, the savage manner of his death described exultantly by the poet seems to be exaggerated. (Somali Poetry 70) With an obscene gloating unworthy of a living warrior over the fall of a dead one, the Sayyid exulted in the "Englishman's death" thus: You have died, Corfield, and are no longer in this world, A merciless journey was your portion. When, Hell-destined, you set out for the Other World, Those who have gone to heaven will question you, if God is willing; When you see the companions of the faithful and the jewels of Heaven, Answer them how God tried you. Say to them: `From that day to this the Dervishes never ceased their assaults upon us. The British were broken, the noise of battle engulfed us; "With fervour and faith the Dervishes attacked us.' Say: `They attacked us at mid-morning.' Say: `Yesterday in the holy war a bullet from one of their old rifles struck me. And the bullet struck me in the arm.' Say: `In fury they fell upon us.' Report how savagely their swords tore you, Show these past generations in how many places the daggers were plunged. Say:' "Friend," I called, "have compassion and spare me!"' Say: `As I looked fearfully from side to side my heart was plucked from its sheath.' Say: `My eyes stiffened as I watched with horror; The mercy I implored was not granted.' Say: `Striking with spear-butts at my mouth they silenced my soft words; My ears, straining for deliverance, found nothing; The risk I took, the mistake I made, cost my life.' Say: `Like the war leaders of old, I cherished great plans for victory.' Say: `The schemes the djinns planted in me brought my ruin.' Say: `When pain racked me everywhere Men lay sleepless at my shrieks.' Say: `Great shouts acclaimed the departing of my soul.' Say: `Beasts of prey have eaten my flesh and torn it asunder.' Say: `The sound of swallowing the flesh and the fat comes from the hyena.' Say: `The crows plucked out my veins and tendons.' Say: `If stubborn denials are to be abandoned, then my clansmen were defeated.' In the last stand of resistance there is always great slaughter. Say: The Dervishes are like the advancing thunderbolts of a storm, rumbling and roaring.' (Somali Poetry 72-74) As the authors point out above, this savage detailed description of the inhuman desecration of the body of a dead warrior, though not unknown in the violent history of Somali warfare, did not in the particular event of 1913 take place, but stems, rather, from the poet's flight of imagination and the brash touch of his poetic license. But an argument over historical accuracy is for another context; what counts here is the extraordinary skill and sympathy with which Andrzejewski and Lewis translated this rather daunting poem into simple lyrical English lines. While the translation sounds a little flat and unpoetical in comparison to the Somali original, Andrzejewski and Lewis have triumphantly retained enough of the original's poetic ring and much of the conceptual scheme. In much the same way Andrzejewski, throughout his venture with and forays into Somali poetry and prose in a career spanning forty years, has made accessible a considerable body of Somali oral literature to countless non-readers of Somali, therby making "a place in the sun" for Somali poetry. His latest serious effort, An Anthology of Somali Poetry coauthored with companion and co-laborer, Shiela Andrzejewski, reveals the same technical virtuosity and aesthetic reach in converting Somali poetry into English that has become the hallmark of his pioneering hand. Witness, for example, Andrzejeweski's way with the work of the pastoral poet Raage Ugaas, dubbed the "wise poet" and ranked by Somalis as one of the preeminent masters in their rich pastoral poetic heritage. In the poem "A Broken Betrothal," the wise poet laments the loss of his lady love: Sore are my ribs, sore are the very bones of my spine -- Bones which are to men as a support-pole is to a hut -- And dammed up and unseeing are my eyes. Only God knows fully the hurt that makes me wail like this!... I grieve over my sorrow like a young girl Whose mother has gone to rest in the other world And whose father has brought home another wife And made the girl sleep at the entrance of the new wife's hut. (Anthology 9) I am a man whose betrothed was made to accept another -- I am a man who has seen a spring full of water But whose thirst must stay unquenched forever. I should think that these lacerating jeremiads of grief and heartbreak over the loss of a loved woman transcend the boundaries of class and culture and argue for the universalist principles of being human that made Claude Lévi-Strauss's structuralism a prominent branch in modern anthropology. Andrzejewski's literary technique of the "happy medium" in translation has influenced mightily and inspired meaningfully a generation of Somali literary circles and translators, both native and expatriate, the crop of craftsmen now busy in the field including the very solid and versatile American folklorist John Johnson, the Somali critics Ahmed Farah Ali "Idaajaa" and A. A. Afrah, and the folklorist Hersi Farah Magan, the Italian Somalist Francesco Antinucci, and of course the writer of this piece, to mention a few. We all owe an enduring debt to him for showing the way into the methods and manners of grappling with the arcane art of putting Somali poetics into other languages. As powerful as is Andrzejewski's methodological imprimatur on Somalists, his global impact on the modern study of oral poetry is likely to be even more remarkable. Up until he arrived quietly on the scene, the dominating theory in the nature and evolution of oral poetry was that of the "Formulaic School," first advanced by Milman Perry and subsequently comprehensively articulated by his student Albert Lord in his memorable The Singer of Tales. Perry and Lord discovered a handle on a problem that baffled scholars for years as regards the composition and presentation of the Homeric epics, The Iliad and The Odyssey: how was it possible, baffled scholars asked themselves, that a poem thousands of lines long (The Iliad counts 15,000 and The Odyssey 12,000) could be delivered extemporaneously in its entirety from memory? While musing over this puzzle, the scholars noticed the plethora of words, epithets, stock phrases, and "ready-made groups of words" that recur repeatedly throughout the poem: "Achilles, son of Peleus," "grey-eyed Athene," "many-counselled Hector," "rosy fingered-dawn," etc. From this and from further content analyses, the scholars concluded, rightly as they were to be proved, that these poems were composed from formulae -- a ready-made store of epithets and stock phrases that the poet has learned beforehand and only links end-to-end into a complete line at the very moment of presentation to a live audience. From this was born the theory of "composition-in-performance," the demonstration that an oral poet, far from memorizing his/her text in advance, composes by improvisation, delivering lines even as he instantaneously creates them. Contemporary oral poetry of Yugoslavia, a region where the tradition of composing oral epics still thrives vibrantly, was seen to be composed on the same principle. It may be said at the outset that the discovery of the formulaic technique was a stroke of genius as an analytical tool. It gave scholars a penetrating insight and a powerful handle on how literature was created and how it managed to survive, indeed thrive, in the ages before the dawn of the technology of writing. The theory seemed to have explained, once and for all, how oral poetry is made, preserved for posterity and transmitted over time and space. Perry and Lord have done a good day's work by this contribution. But then there jumped a fly into the ointment. Advocates of the formulaic system made what turned out to be a leap in the dark, by claiming the formulaic to be the compositional principle underlying all oral poetry. In doing so, they nearly discredited a good analytical tool by making too much of it. Thus no less an authority than the Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics offers this on the matter: Fluidity of text, or to put it in reverse, the absence of a single fixed text, arises from the technique of o[ral] composition, which the poet learns over many years, no matter which genre of verse is in question. It is a technique of improvisation by means of "formulas," phrases which say what the poet wants and needs to say, fitted to the varying metrical conditions of his tradition. These "stereotyped" phrases have often been thought of as the building blocks from which the poets construct their lines. Actually, they are probably not so stereotyped as was at first thought. For one thing the "formulas" pervade the poetry; every line and every part of a line in o[ral] poetry is "formulaic." (591; emphasis added) Every line and every part of a line in oral poetry is "formulaic." This sort of discourse became the sanctified dogma on both sides of the Atlantic, thereby turning "formula" into the "holy grail" of oral poetry explaining the compositional principle of all oral poetry in all ages. Then Andrzejewski came along and blew a gigantic hole through the exaggerated claims of the "Formulaic School." From a lifetime of research and reflection into Cushitic Oral poetry (the Oromo, `Afar, Somali, "a nation of poets") Andrzejewski convincingly established that Somali poetry, for one, is neither formulaic nor composed in performance, nor multi-authorial in composition. That is, Somali oral poets create their works prior to performance and present it before an audience entirely as a memorized text, and that subsequent presenters of the same poem aspire for a word for word memorization in performing it to other audiences. Thus in Somali Poetry, Andrzejewski and Lewis observe cogently: While we may admire Somali poets for achieving worthwhile results in the very difficult medium of Somali prosody, we are no less impressed by feats of memory on the part of the poetry reciters, some of whom are poets themselves. Unaided by writing they learn long poems by heart and some have repertoires which are too great to be exhausted even by several evenings of continuous recitations. Moreover, some of them are endowed with such powers of memory that they can learn a poem by heart after hearing it only once, which is quite astonishing, even allowing for the fact that poems are chanted very slowly, and important lines are sometimes repeated. The reciters are not only capable of acquiring a wide repertoire but can store it in their memories for many years, sometimes for their lifetime. We have met poets who at a ripe age could still remember many poems they learnt in their early youth. In the nomadic interior whole villages move from place to place and there is constant traffic between villages, grazing camps, and towns. Poems spread very quickly over wide areas and in recent times motor transport and the radio have further accelerated the speed with which they are disseminated. A poem passes from mouth to mouth. Between a young Somali who listens today to a poem composed fifty years ago, five hundred miles away, and its first audience is a long chain of reciters who passed it one to another. It is only natural that in this process of transmission some distortion occurs, but comparison of different versions of the same poem usually shows a surprisingly high degree of fidelity to the original. This is due to a large extent to the formal rigidity of Somali poetry: if one word is substituted for another, for instance, it still must keep to the rules of alliteration, thus limiting very considerably the number of possible changes. The general trend of the poem, on the other hand, inhibits the omission or transposition of lines. Another factor also plays an important role: the audience who listen to the poem would soon detect any gross departure from the style of the particular poet; moreover, among the audience there are often people who already know by heart the particular poem, having learnt it from another source. Heated disputes sometimes arise between a reciter and his audience concerning the purity of his version. It may even happen that the authorship of a poem is questioned by the audience, who carefully listen to the introductory phrases in which the reciter gives the name of the poet, and, if he is dead, says a prayer formula for his soul. (Somali Poetry 45-46) As the above makes unmistakably clear, verbatim memorization together with individual authorship -- two defining characteristics which, by the argument of the "Formulaic School," should not be true for oral poetry -- sanctioned by an unwritten copyright law -- marks the essence of Somali oral verse. In establishing this decisively, Andrzejewski has performed a great academic service, at once liberating the study of oral poetry from the stifling clutches of the "Formulaic School" and opening the way to new vistas of oral method and theory across cultures. The youthful refugee from wartime Poland, washed up alone, penniless, and sick on the shores of England, rose from the ashes of despair and indigence to become not only the world's preeminent expert on Cushitic poetry but also a global iconoclast shattering, with ability and insight, the China store of constrictive theories that might well have stymied the freedom of myriad approaches to the exploration of unwritten verse. Though I was born and raised in the vibrant and awesomely harsh traditions of Somali culture (I did not learn to read or write until the age of sixteen), I would venture to opine that Andrzejeski would have approved of, in keeping with his winsomely good humor and appreciation of Somali notions of versification, this short doggerel poem of mine dedicated to his memory. The quintuplet stanza structure is an attempt, however inadequate, to imitate Sayyid Muhammad's legendary poetic style of the triplet-line verse design: Poland geesigeedii Poland's hero OO Goosh la oran jirey The beloved named Goosh Soomaalida gargaaroo he who helped the Somalis Far u gaar afkeeda ah By crafting a script for their tongue Ku hirgaliyey dunidaba That gave it respect in the world Hohey geeridiisii Alas, by his death qarankeen la gaasiran Our nation is stunted forever Qoraxdiina gaabatay And the sun has stink low Gabbalkiina waa dhacay and darkness engulfs us Geeridaas daraadeed On account of his death Geeriyey magacaa ba' O Death, thy name be damned Geeriyey magacaa ba' O death, thy name be damned Geeriyey magacaa ba' O death, thy name be damned Sowdigaa na gassiray Look how you've deprived us Geesigii markaad dishay! When you slew our hero! Iskaga naso godkaagaa Rest in thy grave Garashada nafyahay weyn Thou Great Soul Iskaga naso godkaagaa Rest, rest, rest Garashada nafyahay weyn Thou Great Soul, rest Koombadaas isagaar Rest in thy ashen can.(2)

Emp, ma jb iyo cadde rabtaad inaan material witness u noqdo ninyahow?

looooooool@misana waan ka baqay ninkaan sidaa u damdamta leh inuu reerka xabis dhigo! 3 dex beri sug! jb will be sane again!

^^labadiinna iyo aniga waqtigaa nakala saarayya haddii alle idmo!

JB is understandably angry. He was there and witnessed the carnage! He lost his friend, and perhaps knew other innocent souls who perished as a result of yesterday’s incident. All that said, what good jb is spewing here is BS. I mean pure rubbish! He speaks as though what happened yesterday was a reprisal against secession. What happened yesterday, misguided as it was, was an act against a perceived injustice. Hargeysa was not the first, nor will it be the last. The root cause is not secession. It’s a pure rabble-rousing to rally the shacb in the name of defending dal iyo dawladnimo! The irony is those who were behind this were doing under the same name, defending dawladninada iyo sharafta soomaalida! Of course both are wrong. Big time!

jb, is daji saaxiib! Bootada inta iska deysid, Allah waxaad ka baridaa inuu fitnadan soomaali ka saaro!

Jamaacah, wax walba lama difaaco! Deg-deguna sidiisaba ma fiicna. Sheekadan yeysan idin danbaajin ee sidaa uga hara.

Sh. Sharif oo ka hadlay shirka IGAD ee Nairobi By Oct 30, 2008 - 6:24:33 AM Guddoomiyaha Isbaheysiga mucaaradka, Sh. Shariif Sh. Axmed ayaa sheegay inuu ku kalsoon yahay in Ethiopia eey ciidankeeda kula baxayso intii ay qabsatay ee 120 cisho ah. Isagoo wareysi dheer oo dhinacyo badan taabanaya siiyey Laanta Af-Soomaliga, ayuu Sh. Shariif sheegay in intii uu Nairobi joogay ay is arkeen Jendayi Frazer, haweeneyda Mareykanka ku qaabilsan Africa, ayna ka hadleen xaaladda xagga bani'aadannimada ee ka jirta guud ahaan Soomaaliya, gaar ahaan Muqdisho. Bixintaanka Ethiopia Sh. Shariif, oo ka qeyb galay shir-madaxeedkii urur-goboleedka IGAD, ayaa mar la weydiiyey kalsoonida uu ku qabo in Ethiopia ay ciidankeeda kula baxdo muddada ay qabsatay ee 120-ka maalmood ah, wuxuu sheegay inuu si weyn ugu kalsoon yahay. Wuxuu sheegay in Ethiopia ay ciidankeeda kala baxday magaalada Beledweyne, kaddib markii uu Isbaheysigu wada-hadal taas ku dhameeyey. Awood-qeybsi Sh. Shariif ayaa sheegay in hindisayaashii ay beesha caalamku usoo bandhigeen uu kamid ahaa in Isbaheysigiisu uu ku biiro dowladda KMG ah. Wuxuu sheegay in ay ka fiirsanayaan arrintaas, isla markaana ay go'aan ka gaari doonaan. Cambaareyn qaraxyada Sh. Shariif ayaa ugu dambeyntii si kulul u cambaareeyey qaraxyada lala beegsaday magaalooyinka Hargeysa iyo Boosaaso, ee khasaaraha fara badan geystay. Wuxuu sheegay in kuwa ka dambeeyey aysan u adeegeyn danaha shacabka Soomaaliyeed.

Frazer oo shir jara'id qabatey By Oct 30, 2008 - 5:50:59 AM Kaaliyaha xoghayaha arimaha dibada Mareykanka dhanka Afrika Mss. Jandyi Frazer ayaa ku boorisay madaxda DF inay la yimaadaan maamul wanaag, isla markaana ay ka shaqeyaan nabada si meesha looga saaro kooxaha xagjirka ah. Jandayi Frazer, waxay sheegtay in Mareykanku uu si aad ah u cambaareynayo falkii argagaxiso ee lagu weeraray Magaalooyinka Boosaas - Puntland iyo Hargeysa - Somaliland. "Mareykanku wuxuu taageerayaa nabad ka dhalata Somalia, iyadoo la qabtay shir si cad loogu sheegay madaxda DF inay guuldareysteen, ayna muujiyaan isku duubni iyo wadashaqeyn" ayay Frazer ku tiri shir jaraa'id oo ay shalay [Oct 29, 2008] ku qabtay Magaalada Nairobi. Frazer, waxay sheegtay in dowladeedu ay taageerayso in xal siyaasadeed loo helo mushkilada Somalia, taasoo caalamka fursad u siin karta taageerida shacabka Soomaaliyeed gaar ahaan dhanka gargaarka aadamnimo. Mar la weydiiyay mowqifka Mareykanka ee ku aadan in la badalo hogaanka Somalia ayaa sheegay in arintaas aysan ahayn mid quseysa Mareykanka, balse Somalida looga baahan yahay inay ka tashadaan. "Somalia waxaa muddo dheer ka taagnaa qalalaase; xaalada Somalia waxaa lagu tilmaami karaa mid fashilmay, hogaanka qabaa'ilka Somalida ayaa laga doonayaa inay isku yimaadaan kana tashadaan qaabka ugu haboon ee ay dalkooda ku hogaamin lahaayeen" ayay tiri Frazer. Jandayi Frazer waxay ka dhawaajisay in Mareykanku uusan doonayn inuu badalo hogaanka Somalia, iyadoo xustay in ka qaybgalkoodii shirka IGAD uu ahaa mid ku aadan sidii ay u ogaan lahaayeen waxqabadka xukuumada Somalia. Frazer, waxay cambaareysay burcadbadeeda Somalida, waxayna ku tilmaantay kuwo hortaagan ganacsiga caalamka iyo isaga gudbida bada adduunka. "Dunida iyo Mareykanku waxay si weyn uga walaacsan yihiin Markabka laga leeyahay Ukrain ee sida hubka, waxaan ka walaacsanahay in hubkaas uu gacanta u galo kooxaha xagjirka ah ee ku sugan Somalia" ayay tiri Frazer. Jandayi Frazer ayaa waxay shir jaraa'id ku qabtay Magaalada Nairobi kadib markii uu dhamaaday shirkii ay lahaayeen DFKM iyo IGAD, kaasoo laga soo saaray qodobo muhim ah. Garowe Online, Muqdisho

October 30, 2008 5 Suicide Bomb Attacks Hit Somalia By MOHAMMED IBRAHIM and JEFFREY GETTLEMAN MOGADISHU, Somalia — Five suicide car bomb attacks rocked a presidential palace, government security posts, United Nations offices and an Ethiopian consular unit in two regions of northern Somalia on Wednesday, killing or wounding dozens of people, according to officials and witnesses. Five suicide car bomb attackers struck within half an hour in the two regions, in Hargeisa, the capital of breakaway Somaliland, and in Bosasso, in Puntland, said Faisal Hayle, a security official in Mogadishu for the transitional government of Somalia. Several buildings were leveled by the attacks. According to officials, the bombers struck between 10 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., first attacking in Hargeisa, long considered the safest city in Somalia. They struck the presidential palace of Somaliland, an Ethiopian consulate office and a United Nations office. In the port of Bosasso, two huge blasts rocked the city as suicide bombers attacked two offices of the Puntland security forces, killing a woman cleaner and injuring six soldiers, residents and officials said. The Somaliland president, Mr. Dahr Riyale Kahin, who spoke to the BBC Somali service, said that his secretary and his adviser were killed in the attack on the palace and urged the people to collaborate with the police. “We are very, very sorry for what happened,” he said, adding that Somalilanders’ “independence and existence has been attacked.” “I am telling you that the enemy is among you and you must pick them up,” he said At least 20 people were killed and more than 30 others injured in the attacks in Hargeisa, according to officials and witnesses. Reuters quoted witnesses as saying the death toll from the two attacks totaled 28, and that at least 20 of the deaths occurred at the Ethiopian office in Hargeisa. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks. Mr. Faisal blamed a militant Islamist group called the Shabab, which the United States considers a terrorist organization. The Shabab has been waging a relentless war against Somalia’s weak transitional government, but most of its attacks have been confined to south-central Somalia. Hargeisa, in northern Somalia, had been considered an oasis of peace and stability. The Somaliland government has been credited with setting up a small but functioning democracy, and providing a degree of peace and safety to more than a million people. It was in the middle of presidential and government elections. Several United Nations agencies are based in Hargeisa. Neighboring Puntland is a semi-autonomous area known increasingly as a center of piracy and kidnapping. In a statement on Wednesday, the United Nations Development Program said a suicide bomber had entered its compound in Hargeisa and there were known casualties and deaths but the agency gave no precise figures. The attack may have been timed to coincide with a meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, between Somalia’s transitional leaders and foreign forces supporting them. Militant Islamist groups were not invited to the talks and organizations like the Shabab have shunned the discussions. The militant group says it wants to turn Somalia into an Islamic state and has demanded the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops. Ethiopian forces have been backing Somalia’s transitional government and have been one of the targets of previous suicide attacks claimed by the Shabab. Last year, there were several suicide attacks on Ethiopian-Somali government army bases, but a coordinated assault with five suicide attacks in a single day was unprecedented. Witnesses in Hargeisa said that many of the buildings that had been hit were badly damaged and dozens of people had been killed or wounded. At a news conference after the attacks, the Puntland president, Mohamoud Mose Hersi, blamed the bombings on terrorists seeking to jeopardize Puntland’s security. “It was two shocking blasts that we haven’t seen before,” he said, accusing outsiders of carrying out the attacks. “We know their faces and they are not Puntlanders.” The first bomb exploded at a security service intelligence office close to the presidential palace in Puntland, according to residents and officials. Two minutes later, another explosion hit the agency’s office in the Laanta Hawada neighborhood, killing one intelligence officer and injuring six. Mohamoud Awale, a resident of Bosasso, said he saw a speeding car drive into one of the offices. “I was really very shocked, because I haven’t witnessed such a catastrophic event.” Mr. Awale said. Hawa Mohamoud, a 40-year-old resident with four children, said: “When I heard the explosions, I realized that we were under attack. I don’t know where I can go with these children and it seems that our turn for the insecurity has come.” Somaliland broke with Somalia in the early 1990s and Puntland declared itself semi-autonomous in 1998. The Somaliland police were securing the streets of Hargeysa and government offices and other international organizations to prevent further attacks. Residents in Hargeysa poured onto the streets, showing solidarity with the government, and chanting, “We support our sovereignty and unity,” according to Ifrah Nor, a resident. Mohammed Ibrahim reported from Mogadishu, Somalia, and Jeffrey Gettleman from Nairobi, Kenya. ny times

^^Ashuufak ghaddan then! Duke, you are next! Maxaa ka sharqammayya ilaa maanta adeer? Do you think you have credibility to pass judgment on this group? Was it not you who was rooting for them when you thought your perceived clannish interest would be served if you do so? Pardon me if I do not take you serious! Adeer Somalia will move forward, and the majority of this group will be onboard inshaa Allah.

^^War illeen ibtilo. War maxaa ku qaniinay? Stop this sagging argument of yours! Do you think repeating 'you are not getting it' buttresses whatever argument you are making? All I am saying (I hate to repeat my self so many times) is: this is NOT new! It was done before! It does NOT define Somalia’s long running tragic conflict. Shaqalkeeduu ka mid yahay adeer: it is just part of its punctuation! Do we oppose it? Yes! There is a larger conflict that is being waged as we speak in many parts of the country. If that gets resolved this will go away IA.

The Point, if you really think a conflict in a failed state has rules and there is stability to it, then (and I mean this) I have overestimated your raw intelligence! What I am saying is very simple: unless the core conflict gets resolved, talking about an explossion here and there waa garaad yari adeer! Iska sug marka tuuladaada xunta ahna la qarxiyyo...then blame that group or whatever!

The Point, yours is (I must admit) a noble pulse! But this sweeping generalization of wadaads being the cause or the primary driver of Somali conflict as your words imply is grossly unfair! If it’s your anger at this particular ncidentthat threw you off balance, then the real question becomes where have you been for the last two decades brother? Is this a new thing? Did it not happen before? And for you to assume who actually did this while no one even claimed it shows your bias adeer! No sane person with Islaaminimmo would rejoice the death of innocent! Even if one is angry at the policies of those corrupt admins in the North, these tactics will probably have reverse effect and will not bring any positive changes. It’s a debase tactic. Truth is though; the north is part of Somalia. Somalia is ablaze! Hence although I am saddened by today’s incident, I am not surprised. And unless the Somali conflict gets resolved in a holistic manner, this, and I am sorry to say it, is the future!

Is that all you have to say saaxiib? Is that the central argument you were talking about? You want us to condemn a group you think somalia has a problem with! Caku!

^^Lets give him a chance to present what he thinks is a central argument to the somali tragedy!

^^What is the central argument as YOU see it then?

The Point, your target is a bit clearer now. But two things to keep in mind: 1-Wadaads are not homogenous group. 2-Terror activities in Somalia are not only the ones that grab the western news headlines.

^^ Raggeedii...but i hope you realize the scantiness of your arguments when it comes to minor, and mere regional admins, which the Riyale admin certainly is, signing treaties with bigger, more dominant nation states like Ethiopia!

Excuse me Duke! You’re known commodity around here. You blame whoever opposes Yey!

^^So you are blaming wadaada for this recent terror in Hargeysa and in Boosaaso?

Originally posted by Oodweyne: And, finally, let’s hope for the sake our sanity and as well as for the sake of our collective need of having a smooth debate of this kind in here, that at least we should base our arguments and analysis on the reality of the international state system that exist today; but, not so much of what we wished for it to be so, on the contrary. Regards, Oodweyne. If only you could hear your own plea of having sanity! The reality is, despite what you wish or SL local admin would desire, as of today, SL is legally part of Somalia. Even Ethiopia, a country you claim you have entered a treaty with does not honor you with the status you so desperately seek! But who could object the fleeting pride a wandering mule amongst horses feels!