New York Times By ELAINE SCIOLINO Published: October 8, 2007 SCHWERZENBACH, Switzerland, Oct. 4 — The posters taped on the walls at a political rally here capture the rawness of Switzerland’s national electoral campaign: three white sheep stand on the Swiss flag as one of them kicks a single black sheep away. “To Create Security,” the poster reads. The poster is not the creation of a fringe movement, but of the most powerful party in Switzerland’s federal Parliament and a member of the coalition government, an extreme right-wing party called the Swiss People’s Party, or SVP. It has been distributed in a mass mailing to Swiss households, reproduced in newspapers and magazines and hung as huge billboards across the country. As voters prepare to go to the polls in a general election on Oct. 21, the poster — and the party’s underlying message — have polarized a country that prides itself on peaceful consensus in politics, neutrality in foreign policy and tolerance in human relations. Suddenly the campaign has turned into a nationwide debate over the place of immigrants in one of the world’s oldest democracies, and over what it means to be Swiss. “The poster is disgusting, unacceptable,” Micheline Calmy-Rey, the current president of Switzerland under a one-year rotation system, said in an interview. “It stigmatizes others and plays on the fear factor, and in that sense it’s dangerous. The campaign does not correspond to Switzerland’s multicultural openness to the world. And I am asking all Swiss who do not agree with its message to have the courage to speak out.” Interior Minister Pascal Couchepin, of the Liberal Democratic Party, has even suggested that the SVP’s worship of Christoph Blocher, the billionaire who is the party’s driving force and the current justice minister, is reminiscent of that of Italian fascists for Mussolini. [On Saturday, a march of several thousand SVP supporters in Bern ended in clashes between hundreds of rock-throwing counterdemonstrators and riot police officers, who used tear gas to disperse them. The opponents of the rally, organized by a new group called the Black Sheep Committee, had tried to prevent the demonstrators from marching to Parliament.] The message of the party resonates loudly among voters who have seen this country of 7.5 million become a haven for foreigners, including political refugees from places like Kosovo and Rwanda. Polls indicate that the right-wing party is poised to win more seats than any other party in Parliament in the election, as it did in national elections in 2003, when its populist language gave it nearly 27 percent of the vote. “Our political enemies think the poster is racist, but it just gives a simple message,” Bruno Walliser, a local chimney sweep running for Parliament on the party ticket, said at the rally, held on a Schwerzenbach farm outside Zurich. “The black sheep is not any black sheep that doesn’t fit into the family. It’s the foreign criminal who doesn’t belong here, the one that doesn’t obey Swiss law. We don’t want him.” More than 20 percent of Swiss inhabitants are foreign nationals, and the SVP argues that a disproportionate number are lawbreakers. Many drug dealers are foreign, and according to federal statistics, about 70 percent of the prison population is non-Swiss. As part of its platform, the SVP party has begun a campaign seeking the 100,000 signatures necessary to force a referendum to let judges deport foreigners after they serve prison sentences for serious crimes. The measure also calls for the deportation of the entire family if the convicted criminal is a minor. Human rights advocates warn that the initiative is reminiscent of the Nazi practice of Sippenhaft, or kin liability, under which relatives of criminals were held responsible and punished for their crimes. The party’s political campaign has a much broader agenda than simply fighting crime. Its subliminal message is that the influx of foreigners has somehow polluted Swiss society, straining the social welfare system and threatening the very identity of the country. Unlike the situation in France, where the far-right National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen campaigned for president in the spring alongside black and ethnic Arab supporters, the SVP has taken a much cruder us-against-them approach. In a short three-part campaign film, “Heaven or Hell,” the party’s message is clear. In the first segment, young men inject heroin, steal handbags from women, kick and beat up schoolboys, wield knives and carry off a young woman. The second segment shows Muslims living in Switzerland — women in head scarves; men sitting, not working. The third segment shows “heavenly” Switzerland: men in suits rushing to work, logos of Switzerland’s multinational corporations, harvesting on farms, experiments in laboratories, scenes of lakes, mountains, churches and goats. “The choice is clear: my home, our security,” the film states. The film was withdrawn from the party’s Web site after the men who acted in it sued, arguing they were unaware of its purpose. But over beer and bratwurst at the Schwerzenbach political rally, Mr. Walliser screened it for the audience, saying, “I’m taking the liberty to show it anyway.” For Nelly Schneider, a 49-year-old secretary, the party’s approach is “a little bit crass,” but appealing nevertheless. “These foreigners abuse the system,” she said after Mr. Walliser’s presentation. “They don’t speak any German. They go to prostitution and do drugs and drive fancy cars and work on the black market. They don’t want to work.” As most of the rest of Europe has moved toward unity, Switzerland has fiercely guarded its independence, staying out of the 27-country European Union and maintaining its status as a tax haven for the wealthy. It has perhaps the longest and most arduous process to become a citizen in all of Europe: candidates typically must wait 12 years before being considered. Three years ago the SVP blocked a move to liberalize the citizenship process, using the image of dark-skinned hands snatching at Swiss passports. And though the specter of terrorism has not been a driving issue, some posters in southern Switzerland at the time showed a mock Swiss passport held by Osama bin Laden. Foreigners, who make up a quarter of the Swiss work force, complain that it is harder to get a job or rent an apartment without a Swiss passport and that they endure everyday harassment that Swiss citizens do not. James Philippe, a 28-year-old Haitian who has lived in Switzerland for 14 years and works for Streetchurch, a Protestant storefront community organization, and as a hip-hop dance instructor, said he is regularly stopped by the police and required to show his papers and submit to body searches. He speaks German, French, Creole and English, but has yet to receive a Swiss passport. “The police treat me like I’m somehow not human,” he said at the Streetchurch headquarters in a working-class neighborhood of Zurich. “Then I open my mouth and speak good Swiss German, and they’re always shocked. “We come here. We want to learn. We clean their streets and do all the work they don’t want to do. If they kick us out, are they going to do all that work themselves? We need them, but they need us too.” SVP officials insist that their campaign is not racist, just anticrime. “Every statistic shows that the participation of foreigners in crime is quite high,” said Ulrich Schlüer, an SVP Parliament deputy who has also led an initiative to ban minarets in Switzerland. “We cannot accept this. We are the only party that addresses this problem.” But the SVP campaign has begun to have a ripple effect, shaking the image of Switzerland as a place of prosperity, tranquillity and stability — particularly for doing business. On Thursday, a coalition of business, union and church leaders in Basel criticized the SVP for what they called its extremism, saying, “Those who discriminate against foreigners hurt the economy and threaten jobs in Switzerland.” “In the past,” said Daniele Jenni, a lawyer and the founder of the Black Sheep Committee who is running for Parliament, “people were reluctant to attack the party out of fear that it might only strengthen it. Now people are beginning to feel liberated. They no longer automatically accept the role of the rabbit doing nothing, just waiting for the snake to bite.” Source

I can't believe these threads are still continuing. Originally posted by Northerner: Apart from your tribe being from Puntland and not Somaliland (who wish seperate) for what other reason(s) do you wish people of Lasanod to fight it out for a favourable entity (in this case Puntland)? Is it for a better govnt? Better economy? More prosperity? Do tell old chaps. What a funny question. The real question is how dare a secessionist entity not supported by the vast majority of Las Anod folks finance, arm and incite a small number of greedy thugs who hail from SSC to invade, disrupt, kill and cause general havoc against the general populace of that region. How dare you support that - and even deign to debate with others regarding what's happening in Las Anod now. The appropriate reaction for any fair minded is to condemn this clear falaago and the Somaliland government policy of funding and inciting these thugs. I cannot begin to imagine the cabaad were a similar policy subjected on Burco with bought agents of federalism.

^This is nice and I wish them the very best. And as someone else said success in every field of endeavour is good. I just have problems with regarding sports stars as role models along with rap stars, actors etc. It is an easy way out for youngsters who are lucky enough to have the educational and cultural opportunities that one is privilieged to have in the West.

^War nimankan faalago baa ka so hartay kaliya.

Somali Thinker and Red - easy there boys. You guys are not known for modesty when it comes to victories, imagined or otherwise and the accompanying propaganda. Soon all be clear. What fascinates me is what Somaliland has to do with Las Anod or how engaging in this fighting serves your purposes. Or is this how 'the best kept secret in Africa' forces those who oppose it into its yoke?

^Yipeee War! The solution ot all our problems.

^Or maybe there is no way to spin an embarrassment.

^Diqsi = fly, Dhaqso = quick. I'm schooling people now in Af-Soomali Tuujiye - u lazy find your own name.

^amateur hour!

^It's simple. It's called PGSS - Prolonged Gulf Stay Syndrome. One of the symptoms is the conviction that ladies should mind hearth and home and not fill their pretty(hopefully) little heads with anything else

Ahh - shoulda searched instead of just posting. FB- Are you sure it wasn't your personality and not the words per se?

Sixteen-year-old Somalia-born schoolboy Abdul Abubakar took first prize at the finals of the 19th European Union Contest for Young Scientists in Valencia last week. As reported in The Voice last January, Abdul, who attends the Christian Brothers school on Synge Street Dublin was hailed Ireland's 'Young Scientist Of The Year' when he won the BT sponsored competition. His entry was a system to crack what had previously been the world's most secure computer encryption in the world, the RSA system. Entitled 'An Extension of Weiner's Attack on RSA Encryption', Abdul's system used complex mathematics to challenge the security of keys associated with encryption. Using cutting edge mathematical research, he succeeded in decreasing the security of the safe keys, used to decode mathematical messages. Experts say that Abdul's discoveries have many practical applications in the areas of IT and internet safety. Abdul, beat 120 other talented young scientists from 32 countries to scoop the trophy and €5,000. (£3,492 approx). Blown away Interviewed at the award ceremony he said, "I am completely blown away by the news and can't believe it. To win at the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition in January was an amazing moment. 'But to come here and win again is incredible. I saw some really interesting projects from across Europe so I am so excited that mine was chosen by the judges." Chief Executive Officer of BT Ireland, Chris Clark, adds "We're delighted to hear the result from Valencia and wish Abdul continued success with his area of research. 'In January, Abdul's project struck the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition judges as being innovative and advanced while having many practical applications in our technology driven world. 'Abdul is a fantastic ambassador for the sciences and for Ireland and his success will hopefully inspire other young Irish people to enter the 2008 BT Young Scientist which closes for entries on 5th October.' BY Simon Walsh Source: The Voice Source

^LOL - that is a classic. The Somali language lends itself well to pithy wit.

Originally posted by Faarax-Brawn: I am just saying,you have no right to denounce him that is all. He has a right to be extreme in his opinion & most importantly,he has a right to say whatever he feels like. But how can she not?? - that impinges on her freedom of speech. If the dumb dentist can be extreme so can anyone in opposing him.

Undoubtedly one of the nastiest most anti-Muslim congressmen out there. Hope he has a long fall from grace.

AL-AHRAM Reading Islam's holy book The great conundrum of Islam for the non- Arabic speaker is: Can the sacred text be translated without losing its sacredness? Is the true meaning "lost in the translation"? Translations of the untranslatable abound: probably close to a hundred by now, with new ones appearing all the time. Of course, the Quran should be read in Arabic, for many reasons: according to the Prophet himself, for the magic of the sounds and the power of recitation of the poetic language, perhaps simply as a mountain to be climbed for the faithful. But fewer than 20 percent of Muslims speak Arabic, so most Muslims can study the text only in translation. The process began soon after Mohammed died: the first being of the Fatiha into Persian by Salman Al-Farasi, one of the Prophet's dearest companions. The first Western translation -- into Latin in 1143 by the English monk Robert of Ketton -- was a belated recognition by the then crusading Catholic church of the need to understand the enemy, and was intended as a refutation. By the 18th c there was an increase in Western translations of the Quran, reflecting the ascendancy of the West in the dunya and its need to penetrate, understand, convert and/or conquer its great rival. Alexander Ross, chaplain to King Charles I, offered the first English version in 1649, The Alcoran of Mahomet translated out of Arabique into French, by the Sieur Du Ryer...And newly Englished, for the satisfaction for all that desire to look into the Turkish vanities, "that so viewing thine enemies in their full body, thou must the better prepare to encounter his Alcoran." George Sale, a lawyer and corrector of the Society to Promote Christian Knowledge's Arabic New Testament translation, brought out The Al Koran of Mohammed in 1734, which until quite recently was the most widely available English translation. Sale based his translation on the 1698 Latin translation by Maracci, the confessor of Pope Innocent XI. His exhaustive Preliminary Discourse claims the work is a "manifest forgery", his interest to "effectually expose the imposture" with rules for "the conversion of Mohammedans". Though there are inaccuracies in the translation and an obvious bias on his part, he grudgingly showed admiration for Islam and provided a respectful rendition. It was republished in 1975 and is still available free on the Internet. By the 19th c, as the grip of Christianity weakened in the West, a new appreciation of Islam took root. Whereas Dante assigned Mohammed to the depths of hell, Goethe in East- West Divan writes: "the Koran, at first disgusting us each time afresh, it soon attracts, astounds and in the end enforces our reverence. This book will go on exercising, through all ages, a most potent influence." Edward Ross's 1877 preface to a new edition of Sale's translation shows the advance in the understanding of Islam in the century and a half since Sale: "What was good in Muhammadanism was entirely ignored, and what was not good, in the eyes of Europe, was exaggerated or misinterpreted. The central doctrine preached by Muhammad to his contemporaries in Arabia, who worshipped the Stars, and the Turks, who had no particular worship, was the unity of God, and that the simplicity of his creed was probably a more potent factor in the spread of Islam than the sword of the Ghazis. Through all the vicissitudes of thirteen hundred years the Koran has remained the sacred book of all the Turks and Persians and of nearly a quarter of the population of India. Surely such a book as this deserves to be widely read in the West, more especially in these days when space and time have been almost annihilated by modern invention, and when public interest embraces the whole world." Unsympathetic translations persisted, however. Reverend J Rodwell produced a translation in 1861, inventing the so-called chronological sura order and requesting his missionaries to critique the Prophet's revelation as resulting from "self-deception, catalepsy, or hallucination." As late as 1937, University of Edinburgh Orientalist Richard Bell produced a translation still attempting to rearrange the text chronologically and arguing that the Quran was "actually written by Muhammad himself". Because of the increasing academic interest in Islam, there was a blossoming of English translations among scholars in the 20th c, the most notably being The Koran Interpreted by Cambridge Arabic scholar AJ Arberry in 1957, probably still the best by a non-Muslim in terms of both its approach and quality, the first non-Muslim to acknowledge the orthodox Muslim view that the Quran cannot be translated, but only interpreted. NJ Dawood (Daud), an Iraqi Jew, produced a translation in 1956 which is still available in a Penguin edition and is perhaps the most widely circulated non-Muslim English translation. The author's bias against Islam is readily observable in the introduction and he adopted an unusual sura order. While it was Christian missionaries who spearheaded translations of the Quran, followed by academics, Islam also encourages conversion, and the increasing challenge of Christian missionaries around the world naturally spurred Muslims into launching their own efforts to make the sacred text more accessible to all. Indian Muslims were the first from within the faith to translate the Quran into English. All wrote at a time of British colonialism and intense missionary activity. In the introduction to his 1912 translation Mirza Dehlawi writes he was motivated consciously by a desire to give "a complete and exhaustive reply to the manifold criticisms of the Koran by various Christian authors such as Drs Sale, Rodwell, and Sir W Muir." This early 20th c reaction spurred a lasting translation trend. In 1917, Muhammad Ali published his translation which was adopted by the Nation of Islam, both under the stewardship of Elijah Muhammad and current leader Louis Farrakhan. Ali's biases show through, however. Consistent with his Lahori-Ahmadi creed, he sought to eschew any reference to miracles; so, for instance, God's command to Moses "Strike the rock with your staff" was changed to "March on to the rock with your staff". The Quran makes frequent mention of jinn (spirits), from which the English word genie is derived, whom Ali curiously argues are the Jews and Christians. He also denies Jesus's virgin birth. Muhammad Marmaduke William Pickthall, an English intellectual, son of an Anglican clergyman, novelist, traveller, and educator, converted to Islam in 1917 and published his translation in London in 1930. He was the first Western translator to insist that the Quran was untranslatable but that the general meaning of the text could still be conveyed to English speakers. His work is now criticised for using archaic, if elegant, prose, though it is nonetheless popular and still available as a Penguin paperback. It provides scant explanatory notes and background information, restricting its usefulness for an uninitiated reader. The most popular among the seven available at Amazon along with Pickthall's and Hilali's (see below) is Abdullah Yusuf Ali's The Holy Quran: Translation and Commentary, published in Lahore in 1937. He sought to convey the music and richness of the Arabic with poetic English versification. In 1989, Saudi Arabia's Ar-Rajhi banking company financed the US-based Amana Corporation's project to revise the Yusuf Ali translation to reflect an interpretation more in line with Wahhabi thought. Ar-Rahji offered the resulting version free to mosques, schools, and libraries throughout the world. The footnoted commentary about Jews raised hackles in Zionist circles, and in April 2002 the Los Angeles school district banned its use at local schools; however, Yusuf Ali's translation has not suffered and is still #8321 at Amazon. Whatever their respective merits, the enduring popularity of Yusuf Ali and Pickthall is largely due to their extensive distribution in Pakistan, India and Indonesia, where copyright laws are ignored and cheap editions are snapped up by the huge English-reading Muslim population. Muhammad Taqiyuddin Al-Hilali and Muhammad Muhsin Khan published their Explanatory English Translation of the Holy Quran: A Summarized Version of Ibn Kathir Supplemented by At-Tabari with Comments from Sahih al-Bukhari in Chicago in 1977. Born in Morocco, Hilali taught at Baghdad University and the Islamic University in Medina. Now the most widely disseminated Quran in Islamic bookstores and Sunni mosques throughout the English-speaking world, again with Saudi backing, this new translation is meant to replace the Yusuf Ali edition and comes with a seal of approval from both the University of Medina and the Saudi Dar al-Ifta. It is highly criticised at Amazon and in US academic circles for using the commentaries of Ibn Kathir and Al-Bukhari who Mohammed Khaleel dismisses in the tendentious Middle East Quarterly (Spring 2005) as being "medievalists who knew nothing of modern concepts of pluralism". Khaleel blasts Hilali's translation as "a supremacist Muslim, anti- Semitic, anti-Christian polemic" and Amazon gives prominence to similar scathing reviews. Muhammad Asad, né Leopold Weiss, a Jewish convert to Islam, published The Message of the Quran in 1980. It is the most highly praised of all available translations by readers at Amazon but is criticised by Muslims as deviating from the viewpoint of the Muslim orthodoxy on many counts. It is banned in Saudi Arabia. Asad denies the occurrence of such events as the throwing of Abraham into the fire and Jesus speaking in the cradle. He also regards Luqman, Khizr and Zulqarnain as mythical figures. Sayyid Abul Ali Maududi, founder of the Islamic Party (Jamaat Islami) in Pakistan, published The Meaning of the Quran in Lahore in 1967. In advice to readers Maududi writes: "The Quran was not revealed as a complete book at one and the same time; nor did Allah hand over a written copy of it to Muhammad (peace be upon him) at the very beginning of his mission and command him to publish it and invite people to adopt a particular way of life. Moreover, it is not a literary work of the common conventional type that develops its central theme in a logical order; nor does it conform to the style of such a work." Maududi thus provided introductions to each sura with historical background and explanation of the text which is very useful and is available online at the University of Southern California website. The Internet has transformed Quranic studies, allowing you to pick from among perhaps 50 translations, with dozens available free online, including several heretical versions, which are interesting as examples of the challenges that Islam faces in the 21st c. Rashad Khalifa's The Quran: The Final Scripture, published in (of all places) Tucson in 1978 is one such. Khalifa was an Egyptian chemist who emigrated to Texas, where he undertook an extensive computer analysis of the Quran beginning in 1968, claiming that he proved the divine origins of the Quran via the number 19. He was stabbed to death in a gruesome unsolved murder in 1990. His life and death are shrouded in mystery and his writings and translation of the Quran, completely rejecting the hadith (traditions associated with the Prophet) and sunnah (actions attributed to the Prophet), have developed a cult following. Another just published, by Edip Yuksel, Layth Saleh al-Shaiban and Martha Schulte-Nafeh, The Quran: A Reformist Translation, also rejects the hadith, sunnah and tafsir (interpretation), dismissing them -- Khaleel at the Middle East Quarterly would no doubt agree -- as "ancient scholarly interpretations rooted in patriarchal hierarchies. It is time to remove the accumulated layers of man-made dogmas and traditions that have attached themselves to the text." Finally, Laleh Bakhtiar, a Chicago Sufi convert to Islam, published The Sublime Koran this year, billed as the first translation by an American woman and providing a woman's point of view. She questions the conventional meanings of some of the Koranic concepts; in particular, in 4:34 "daraba" is usually translated as "to beat", supposedly condoning husbands beating recalcitrant wives, which Bakhtiar translates as "to go away". As a result of the availibitiy of multiple translations and commentaries on the Internet and the revolution that blogging has brought about, there is a rising tension between the traditional guardians of Muslim orthodoxy and a new crop of secular educated Muslims. But that is another story. Suffice it to say that these revisionist translations, rejecting the accumulated wisdom of centuries as outmoded, would mean dispensing with the works of the great Islamic philosophers Al-Bukhari, Ibn Sina, Al-Farabi, Ibn Rushd, Ibn Arabi, and Omar Khayyam, to name but a few. As Maududi argued, to strip the Quran of its historical context is wrong; but to strip it of its history is just as wrong. The hadith, sunnah and tafsir are part of any educated Muslim's heritage, and can only enrich one's reading of the Quran. So which to choose from? This depends on your purpose. Downloading from the Internet is no substitute to having your own personal copy. And translations are only interpretations, so if you want to have the definitive experience in reading the text, you must read it in Arabic. In that case, your choice would be a bilingual edition where the English is as literal as possible, striving to provide a neutral, accurate translation with good tafsir (however patriarchal). In fact, a literary translation gets in the way of the Arabic novice's efforts. For the rest: Source

^The title is a big tease but there is little evidence of an alliance much less treachery within it. During the Shah's reign - there was an alliance - one of convenience. After the 'Islamic' Revolution - there was no alliance - just hosility apart from the episode where Iran bought weapons to use against Iraq. And that for Israel was pure gold - watching its 2 biggest enemies bloody each other and profiting from it at the same time.

Good for some, bad for others. If the Ontario economy sinks even more - Somalis will get negatively affected and that would reduce the amounts they would be able to send home. PS - what the hell is 'quuni'?

^Why would anyone do anything they will not profit from? That's the point of private entreprise. Hence - why this won't be happening anytime soon.

^Seekknowledge - you will have to admit guys who do dacwa aren't exactly victims of random murder every day of the week. God knows best.

^Yes - with much success despite the season

^Yes - but we're still beautiful people. Can't take that away from us!

^ME is right. Where you have a united community you have better access to public funds and support in order to provide rehab for wayward community members, programmes to keep them off the streets and more clout with law enforcement and political leaders to ensure a fair hearing and an attempt at justice.

Sad. I was told of a killing of 2 Somalis roughly in the same time period in Alberta though not sure whether it was Calgary or Edmonton. That one was one Somali gang on another - and this from sources close to it. I'm not sure if this is the same one since the article said that the two individuals killed had no gang affiliation. May God have mercy on their souls and deepest sympathies to parents. But I must say I can't find the slightest sympathy for gang-bangers who get it in the end. Just sympathy for parents who have to put up with all this. They should all be dumped over Antartica.