Every once in a while, in the form of an unconcious night time dream or a subconcious day dream, I feel like i'm witness to a Somali reality that is unfortunately not there. It could be the future, or an alternative timeline, which we might have experienced had this or that not happened. In any case, in that reality we are progressing as a people, we are prospering as a nation, were are flourishing as a culture, and we are winning in general! In the current Somali Civilizational Matrix, it's the direct opposite. The current system is failing. If we want to achieve a different positive reality, one where our people are secure, where our lands are secure, where our skies and waters are secure, we must re-invent ourselves. We have to analyse what's good for us, and what harms us as a people and country. Then we have to support the good points and eradicate the bad ones. Some of the bad ones are deeply rooted, discussing their removal might be welcomed with suspicion and rejection at first, but eventually the movement for change will prevail. There are many examples in history where people have managed to re-invent and propel themselves into a long period of prosperity after long eras of despair and grief. This is a common theme in Chinese History, where after a significant period of decline a new dynasty rose and completely eradicated many of the outdated traditions that held them back as a people. In our case the obstacles holding us back are clear and transparent to anyone that has an iota of knowledge about the Somali people; clan system, female exclusion, extremism, poverty and illiteracy. As long as these obstacles are in place, we as a people won't win. Our greatest ally is "education", through this we can shape progressive Somalis, not shackled by outdated traditions. The type that will transcend petty lineages and see themselves as a unified people instead. Prior to the Meiji Period, Japan was a land riddled with wars, ignorance and general poverty. The Meiji government successfuly managed - through educational programs - to induce in the average Japanese person a strong sense of belonging to a unified people and the vast majority of Japanese from then on rejected their petty clans. Not long after, they as a people rose to the world stage, and have been there ever since. It would wise therefore for us to revive the Bar ama Baro campaign that made us one of the most literate people in the world. This campaign should include a strong message showcasing our real economic potential. We are the gateway to three continents with many deep water ports, we have many proven (and speculated) natural resources, we have a sizable population that with well planned economic reforms could be uplifted to the level of Chile and the Eastern European countries in just one generation. To achieve this we must slay the multi-headed Dragon that is the clan system always thirsty for blood. We must unlock the golden box that imprisons the vast potential of human wealth in the form of our womenfolk. We must capture the wild beast that is extremism, for no family can share their house with a savage Lion and expect peace & quiet at the dinner table. Through these measures we can establish a fortress so high and thick, no amount of sieges by the armies of Poverty will cause it to collapse. The clan-system is useless today in a world sustained by countries driven by ethnic groups with strong unified identities, some ancient but the vast majority shaped recently. I see no reason why we can't drop this hideous institution that in most cases is a recipe for instability. It disintergrates a country into a thousand different groups. It explains why one group part of an ethnic denomination could feel joy in the despair, humiliation and pain of another group of that same ethnic denomination. The clan-system basically has the power to make one Somali person see another Somali as an alien entity, and at times more alien than a non-Somali. Its therefore imperative that we abolish this institution if we want a dignified future. If there is one positive thing that we can take from the war, it's without a doubt the undisputed evidence that our underrated womenfolk are a immense pool of human wealth, who have proven their weight in gold over and over again. No man, in a future peacetime era, can question their competence, their patriotism, their resilience and loyalty. Us Somali men have to re-invent ourselves mentally and practice equality for real, not just give it lip-service. Pearl of the Indian Ocean Mogadishu At the moment to many people focus on the conflict, not on ways to achieve long term prosperity, and with this I mean centuries of prosperity. There is no point in achieving peace in 2015, and lose it again in 2030, we must aim for better. For this people in power have to see war as less attractive to peace. Understand that today, Somalis of all creeds have the chance to sit down and discuss ways to make the Somali nation flourish. Indeed there are roughly 30 powerful men currently holding 10-12 million people hostage. Its their myopia and lack of vision about "Somali Prosperity" that is behind the current predicament. They have in their possession some of the most valuable ports in Africa, some of the most arable lands in Africa with two amazing rivers, some of the most serene beaches in the world. They have in their territories and waters potentially some of the largest deposits of oil, tin, uranium, fishery, and meerschaum, just to name a few. There is plenty to go around, if only they could see this and become partners in the name of prosperity, their current thievery is pocket change to what they could be making, while still benefiting the Somali people in general. In the past we maintained a flourishing Civilizational Matrix of port cities and inland cities that traded with the wider world. The Somali Brand was popular from Venice to Calcutta, and from Beijing to Cairo, Somali merchants were hustling and bustling with a myriad of popular trade items, but the reach of their descendants today in terms of foreign markets or diversity in trade items is utterly disgraceful. To overcome this Somalis have to re-invent themselves and take up lucrative occupations like for example, fishing by maintaining large fleets. They have to start manufacturing items such as mobile phones, computers and textiles, whether through joint-ventures or in the form of regenerating abandoned Somali factories. There are impressive transnational Somali companies active in various countries but they consist mainly of telecom, money-transfer and construction companies, they must re-invent themselves and branch out into other industries. Also there are many wealthy Somali entrepreneurs out there who invest that same wealth in non-Somali territories, that is simply unacceptable. Why not build in the peaceful Bajuni Islands? Why not invest in the many serene beaches of Somalia? Why not establish residential houses in the many growing Somali cities of today? It's bad enough that we are losing billions in Foreign Direct Investment, we cannot afford to lose this aswell. Bajuni Islands, Somalia(example) Though this a residential project in a non-Somali country by non-Somalis, many Somali entrepreneurs are constructing far grander infrastructural projects today in foreign countries. Places like the Maldives, Seychelles and Mauritius are smaller or the same size as any of the Somali Islands, so there is no excuse why they couldn't build it in the lands of their ancestors! Somalis have the potential to provide a good life for their children and grandparents, they only have to re-invent themselves and shape a new destiny, one where they are winners! We can't continue the same path and do nothing: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. " - Edmund Burke (1729-1797).

Cute: Alternative Reality Life is full of choices! Having stepped into a mysterious mirror portal, her reflection is caught between two worlds and she must decide to which reality she belongs. Should she enter the hurly- burly of Victorian London street life that feels so familiar to her, and yet so distant? Or perhaps the eerie neglected buildings are all that remain of a palace where once she was a princess. The indecision is yours! - Josephine Wall

Ninkan caadi ma'aha 6000 calories!!!?!! I wish I was a celebrity, then I could just hire a cook that makes proper Protein-Carb loaded meals for me 8 times a day. Wolverine 2: Hugh is Jack'd, Man! Take a look at Hugh Jackman as he heads to the gym getting jacked up for "Wolverine 2." The actor is said to be on a 6000 calorie per day diet recommended by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. "Basically it's steak or chicken, broccoli and cauliflower, and sometimes rice but only up until lunch time," he explained. "That's it eight times per day. It's like a job in itself."Jackman has stated that he is trying to look more like Wolverine - who is actually around 5'2'' in the comics - for the new Wolverine movie directed by Darren Aronofsky. "Darren said with the last one, ‘Hey you looked great, but you’re so tall that in those long shots you looked kind of like Clint Eastwood, and that’s not Wolverine,'" explains Jackman. "He said that Wolverine, in the comics, is powerful, stocky, you know, he’s short and thick. So he said, ‘I want you to go there, get bigger.’"In the previous movie, X:Men Origins: Wolverine, the 6'2'' actor only came in at a buck-ninety.“Right now, I’m at 210,” Jackman says of his current weight, the result of an intense diet and workout regime. “It’s 6,000 calories a day. It’s rough.” This new Wolverine is actually not a sequel and is a stand alone where Wolverine heads on over to Japan based on the 1982 Wolverine comic book mini series, from legendary comic scribe Chris Claremont and Frank Miller -who also penned 300 and Sin City. http://movies.cosmicbooknews.com/content/wolverine-2-hugh-jackd-man

Alpha Blondy, I pity brothers and sisters like you. From your acid writing I deduct that your dealing with a myriad of emotions. You reply to every post I make, with some weird comment that i'm living in a Utopian bubble. Personally, I think you envy my persepective of the world. Somehow, something or someone in your life caused you to become a vile bitter man, and your agitated that I don't share your evil un-Islamic sentiments. Instead, I have several half-blood Somali friends, and I love them dearly. Indeed, i'm very glad that I allowed them into my life, had I adopted your state of mind, I might have invited individuals like you instead, which would be counter-productive to my goal of maintaining happiness and success in my life. In the end all of that venom dripping out of your ears, nose and mouth would leave a horrible stain on the rug that is my world, and hence become a disturber of my harmony. While I have chosen a Somali sister because of love, compatibility and plain personal aesthetic reasons, I have no problems with anyone who finds love outside the community. There are brothers and sisters on this forum who are in such relationships now, or are the product of such relationships, yet you have the audacity to call the former's future children and the present children/adults "inbred". What a sick, sick puppy you are. This is not even your usual comical degenerate style of posting, this is simply sinister Nazi-like speech, which shouldn't be tolerated on a high-quality forum such as this.

Val, maybe not equivalent to Af-Somali written with the Osmaniya or Latin scripts, but old Somali manuscripts written in Arabic would be mostly unintelligable to an Arab person from say Bahrain or Lebanon, there is a reason why its called Wadaad's writing. From the 18th to the 20th centuries, there were many places in Greater Somalia where scholars sought Islamic knowledge; Harar, Barawa and Mogadishu being prime examples, which spawned important individuals with large followings from across the Muslim World. This however is not what my above post was about; the elite of Turkish society for most of their history wrote in Arabic, but this does not equal Turkey for most of its history being an unwritten society. Secondly most of the pre-20th century world could be dubbed an oral based realm where traditions were passed on by word of mouth. Literacy in the Ottoman Empire stood at a measly 5%, same for the Qing Empire, before the Brothers Grimm went on a collection spree, many European folk tales had never seen a drop of ink.

^Unwritten dear sis? There are many old private libraries in Somalia with manuscripts about different parts of Somali History, there are written poems by Saints and Poets discussing nature, wildlife, love, war, and life in general including death and the hereafter. This is usually overlooked by those that intentionally(or sinisterly) want to romanticise Somalis as an oral society exclusively. That is incorrect we are an oral society with a rich written literature, the old museum housed one of the largest manuscript collections in East Africa. btw, Somalis migrated back and forth between the South and North(and the rest of Greater Somalia) for several milleniums. The oldest burial graves in the Horn of Africa come from Southern Somalia, with skeletons that have the same measurements as modern Somalis.

Somalina;698001 wrote: It is just hard to stay detached from the conflict sometimes, specially when you have a family living in Xamar and other parts of the country. That is true, but the worst thing you can do is engage in long-winded discussions on a forum(any forum) that will change nothing on the ground, nor will it have any direct positive benefits for your family back home, on the contrary it might push you to the brink, and oversaturate you. Its better to stay in close contact with your relatives, and follow the news through their eyes instead, this way when they need something, you can actually respond. I'm talking from experience, 2009 was a year of epiphany for me, I got completely sucked into the conflict since 2006 and later realised all of the stress and depression that I periodically felt originated from Hiiraan.com and the myriad of Somali websites bombarding me with horrible news, so I cut them all off before they actually affected my day to day life and interaction with family and friends.

^We have tons of half Somalis with Somali fathers, but i'm sure in their case it was all about love, right? Focus on yourselves man, you guys are full of hate. From personal interaction, some Half-Somalis have more Somalinimo than the so-called full blood Somalis, talk about self-hate. To me its all gravy baby, its funny to have once in a while a non-Somali looking girl address me as aboowe and ask for directions or the time in Af Somali lol, like what the hell just happened? Nice icebreaker though!

^Thanks, I wasn't aware there was Objective as well, so much left to explore.

The intentional prolongation of the conflict is ment to serve as a "war of attrition". We know that the loss of innocent lives has been immense, the loss of vital infrastructure has been devastating, the unravelling of the ancient social fabric that maintained us for centuries and in the past allowed us to flourish is being burned and replaced by something sinister. That aside, there is also the psychological aspect of the conflict, a conflict that should have ended ages ago, if it had been allowed to go its natural course, but it wasn't! It was internationalised and regionalised multiple times, so the title Somali v Somali is not applicable to the history of the conflict and the current situation. When a conflict rages on longer than it should, people affected by it become disillusioned. People forget what the war is actually all about and how it started, people forget important things like peace. During the 100 years war in the Medieval period, there was mass depression amongst French people, nothing but pessimism and despair, and who would blame them? Imagine World War II still raging on till this day, and not stopping untill the year 2030!! This doesn't mean French people can't rule themselves, or that French people should have been put under the rule of a foreign body, this is not a real solution, but will result in more bloodshed. Everytime Somalis came together without foreign influence, it resulted in peace, and there won't be peace in the South and other hotspots until this is taken into account. To go back to the psychological aspect and the war of attrition I mentioned above, I can see in your writing Somalina, that you have been disappointed recently, you saw a silver lining in the cloud, but it ended up being a vicious storm cloud. Now your experiencing a feeling of hopelessness, a backlash of negative forces that you managed to ignore all this time by focusing on the positive, but now they're loose to do damage. You're a real patriot no doubt, but there are currently two roads in front of you, either all of this will make you a determined Somali force for good, or you will be engulfed by this sea of bad news, that in most cases will numb you down and influence you to see your own people in a negative light. Every bad aspect will be magnified tenfold, and you'll end up a self-deprecating individual. That is the psychological impact this conflict has on diasporans, many take the first road, many take the second, and many opt to stay where they are, by detaching themselves from the conflict. My advice to you is to go for the latter option and stay where you are( i.e detached). Unless you have the means and resources to actually do something for your people on the ground, in the form of building a school, a hospital, a factory, or as a politician (regional or national), you will be disappointed over and over again. There are sinister Somali entities and Foreign powers active in the conflict, who prefer the current situation, and who will go through great lengths and immense depths to maintain the status quo, this means a whole lotta bad news is still coming our way until these negative forces are finally purged out of the country and peace is achieved. Their war of attrition serves to keep you down mentally, so that you give up on the country permanently, and never become a force for good. Don't allow this to happen! Stay detached from the conflict, by for example entering SOL through its Camel Milk Threads link instead of the front page, by removing all Somali news websites from your bookmarks, and by ignoring the politics section for a substantial period of time. Your love for Somalia is like a tasty "Apple" with an unknown expiry date(Allahu calam the day you or I die), what your doing right now however is equivalent to leaving that same apple on a tray full of negative worms, slowly but surely your apple will be eaten by these forces, and you will be left with nothing. You can prevent this by simply protecting your apple.

What a shame!

MMA, welcome back big brother, its been a while, hope you have a great time there. btw I lost the password you gave me a few years ago, my Toronto connection is finito, but that's ok.

The Cheese dreams are becoming really intense, I was sitting on a bench with a young female toddler, in a nice looking Somali City, could be Garowe, or Hargeisa. The toddler called me daddy. I think i'm time-travelling to the future, walahi that feeling was such a joy, the entire day felt like I had won the lottery. Bit disturbing though, why was my better half not there?

Four of your American compatriots have been kidnapped by Somali buccaneers, if you do not emulate the Somali-Brits by negoitiating their release, the American media will eat you up. You guys are plain Somalis in their eyes, good, bad; tomato, toMAto.

Ms MoOns;695242 wrote: Gladdd I left Cheese land before Sir Wilders took over the place. Chimera - We are no longer friends as you're pallies with that man LOL, don't listen to the Elephantman called Sayid*Somal, Wilders means nothing to me.

A chance encounter between a Somali girl and the ghost of a schoolboy is the starting point for this thought-provoking story. In the toilets of her East London primary school, Aisha meets a boy called Richard who grew up during the Second World War. The plot switches seamlessly from the1940s to the present day, as Aisha travels back in time to witness the destruction of the Blitz while Richard travels into the future to become her invisible best friend. Richard helps Aisha overcome her fear of the school bully and resolve her cultural identity crisis. But when she discovers that her school was bombed during the war she must find Richard and warn him of the danger before it’s too late. This highly original ghost story depicts a touching friendship that spans two different conflicts, cultures and countries. Aisha’s first person narrative is immediately accessible to young readers, and Layburn’s use of contemporary vocabulary brings a refreshing dose of realism to the dialogue. The themes of bullying and multiculturalism are handled superbly in a very short space of time. This is a great book to keep in the classroom. It’s concise enough to read over two lessons and will appeal to both boys and girls. Ghostscape is based on true events, and the vivid descriptions of wartime London combined with excellent illustrations by John Williams provide a perfect introduction to Second World War projects. some quotes from the book: I opened the cubicle door, my eyes bleary with tears. It was a boy. A boy in our toilet! Sometimes they'd get dragged in by a gang of the noisy, flirty girls from Year Six. But this one just stood there. I didn't recognize him. "Blimey, look at you!" he said. He stretched out a pale hand and touched my headscarf just above my left eye. "What the hell have you got on your head? I actually laughed. It wasn't as if I was an unusual sight — there were lots of girls like me who kept their heads covered. He didn't sound like he was being unkind though. He seemed genuinely amazed. I sought refuge in a corner of the playground under a skinny dead tree with Leyla and Sufia. About twenty boys were playing football, all shrieking "pass it, man! at sufia's big brother Omar. But he played like he was possessed, never looking up to pass to anyone. The other kids couldn't understand how he'd picked up their game so quikly. Of course, in Somalia he would have run around in a cloud of dust with a ball at his feet any chance he'd had. He didn't let on to these boys though. Gooaal , he shouted, a flash of white teeth, proud brown eyes, a glance towards where we were standing. Leyla and I smiled shyly, but he ignored us. Typical.

Sure, sure and my advice to you is; cover yourself in goat blood and then jump in the nearest Somali sea, there is a good chance you will be devoured by 60 thousand sharks, but hey, you might be born with a different destiny, so why not try it?

Welkom terug zus, post jouw favoriete art!

A friend passed me this: Peter Grant is just a rookie cop in the Metropolitan Police Service when he discovers an aptitude for magic, and is taken on as an apprentice wizard. As he comes to realise the complicated supernatural life that infuses London, he is caught up in a case involving a malicious vengeful spirit. A spirit who is twisting the lives of ordinary Londoners and leaving a trail of nasty deaths in its wake. Peter has to learn the magic trade quickly before he and his colleagues becoming part of the game. I'm liking it so far!

Sayid*Somal's life captured in one picture: Hehehe

This Somali brother is taking the Art world by storm: Although Abdi Farah had a fairly consistent season on Work of Art, fellow contestant Miles Mendenhall seemed to have it in the bag. I’ll admit that my predictions yesterday were far off: In the end, Miles had the weakest collection, and Peregrine and Abdi were the last two standing. It was the latter’s personal, multifaceted art that most impressed the judges, particularly guest judge David LaChapelle: Abdi won the title of “The Next Great Artist.” This morning I had the pleasure of speaking with Abdi about his Work of Art experience, what he learned from his fellow contestants, and whether his bromance with Miles lives on. TV.com: First of all, congratulations on the win. It must be so nice to be able to talk about it now. Abdi Farah: Thank you so much. I know, it is a bit of a relief, but I have fun with that, so it’s all good. It’s kind of fun having people not know. How would you say your art changed over the course of being on the show? It changed so much. I feel like the judges and the competition in and of itself really spurred me to dig deeper than I had ever gone before in my art. I feel like I was making art that I liked on one level, but it really wasn’t as intense, it really wasn’t as artist, it really wasn’t as good as I had the potential to make art. So I think the judges saw that in me and really forced me to confront that about myself. It seemed like you bonded a lot with your fellow contestants. Do you think that you all influenced each other throughout your journey? Oh, yeah. I feel like that that was one of the most amazing parts of this competition. As an artist, in your normal life, you’re kind of just in your own studio, doing your own thing. You kind of do the same thing all the time. Whereas when you’re surrounded by other artists, who work in completely different ways, you can’t help but learn so much just seeing how they go about challenging themselves, how they solve problems, how they do this technique, and do that. It just completely opens up your world. I think you were also the only contestant who didn’t have any beef with anyone else. Are you really just a nice, friendly guy, or was that clever editing? [laughs] I was actually pretty fond of everyone in the competition. I don’t know. I wasn’t forced to be in any bad situations, and I kind of like to just see things in the big picture and it’s kind of hard when there’s one room with 14 people trying to survive. I just know that no one has any control over my art except for me, so at the end of the day, it’s us making art together. Were there any contestants who you were particularly impressed by, week after week? Sure, sure. I was super impressed by Miles’ work, of course. Week in and week out, I learned something new from that kid that I have implemented into my work. And I was really impressed as well with Nicole Nadeau, and the fact that she just has this freeness and this fearlessness about how she attacks art. She just completely goes for it and makes really beautiful, cool things. I was also really impressed with Peregrine’s work. It’s funny that Peregrine and Miles were in the finale, because I was impressed with their work throughout. And I think Peregrine just has this way of doing exactly what she wants to do without caring about how art school it looks or how professional it looks or how finished it looks. She does exactly what she wants, and in the end, it has this really honest, really pure, really beautiful quality to it that I was really impressed with. She’s a really gutsy, gutsy artist. So are you keeping in touch with your former contestants? Because I would love to see a spin-off with you and Miles and Nicole, possibly fighting crime. [laughs] Me and Miles do stay in touch, and we’ve been thinking about so many ways we could collaborate and just do this cool, like, “Ebony and Ivory” thing for real, and just take over. I don’t know. I’m a huge fan of his work and it would be really good to put our heads together. It would be really fun. I bring up the superhero thing because so much of your work does seem influenced by pop iconography. You have drawn yourself as a superhero. Classic question: If you could pick one power, what would it be? Wow, that’s a hard one. I go back and forth between this year by year. I feel like you can’t beat flying. That’s just ridiculously cool. I don’t know, other than that, I wish I could make amazing art every time I step into the studio, or I wish—the ability to shrink would be really cool, because then I wouldn’t have to be afraid of anyone, ever, which would be great. Looking back on the season as a whole, are there any specific pieces that you were completely satisfied by, that turned out exactly the way you wanted them to? Sure, sure. There were a couple. It was funny. I feel like this competition made me do some work that I had never thought I would do, like the piece in the second challenge, [“Tube”], I had no idea how that was going to turn out, I was just going. And in the end, I really loved the finished product. And then in Episode 9, the nature challenge, I had just reached this really kind of zen moment in my art, and in the end, that piece [“Baptism”] was just so fun to make and is probably the best thing I’ve ever done. A lot of people were down on Work of Art from the beginning, saying a reality show could never pick the next great artist, that a construct like this couldn’t produce great art. And I think you and your fellow competitors really proved them wrong. Thank you. Wow. I think people should be so impressed by what we were able to do on this competition. Like, I’m so proud to be a part of this. Have you faced any of those critics yourself? I mean, I really don’t care about critics at all, except what I can learn from them that can help me in my art. There are always going to be people that don’t believe in something, which is good. It keeps you humble, it keeps you realizing that there’s always work to do. But in the end, my life is not determined by what someone else thinks about me. And in the end, that’s what I love about art. At the end of the day, if you make good art, no one can ever say anything against you. They’ve just gotta enjoy. It doesn’t help for me to walk around and tell people I’m the next great artist. It’s only gonna help if I have really great work. - SOURCE

How sick must Somali women be, if the're still attracted to me. right? I think secretly this list by Shankaroon is what really TURNS HER ON, not off.

Sayid*Somal;695130 wrote: School teacher 'sprayed children who smelt of curry with air freshener' Teacher Elizabeth Davies sprayed air freshener on Asian children if they smelled of curry in the mornings, a disciplinary hearing was told yesterday. The 48-year-old was said to have told Bangladeshi children who smelled of onions or curry, ‘ There is a waft coming in from paradise’ before blasting the air freshener. Loool what a Beech! Mrs Islam told the hearing: ‘ LMAO!

OMG!! that description fits me to a T.

Mad_Mullah;694709 wrote: The Egypt and Tunisia protests shamed Somalis. Why didn't they do the same thing in 1991? Instead of walking with Guns and rpgs and destroying their own country? Wallahi I dont get it!!! These filthy thugs destroyed their own city, I mean the actual place where they live !!! Why would anyone do that?? The difference between Somalia in 1991 and today's Egypt and Tunisia is that the latter two enjoy a unified military command answering to the people, very similar to the Somali army's peaceful takeover in 1969. The Somali Military was once one of the most competent forces in Africa but then completely disintergrated at the hands of myopic commanders and a powerhungry dictator by the time it was 1991, remember that neither Dictators of these North African countries before their ouster had been fighting rebel movements for atleast three years. This means powerful militias already existed before the collapse of the state, therefore any sort of peaceful protests Somalis did in the capital were rendered irrelevant by these well-armed entities, neither the Tunisians or the Egyptians would have fared better in such a situation. Somali Peace Demonstrations, early 90s.