The pen is mightier than the gun

[macalimuu]

The pen is mightier than the gun

 

Mogadishu University and an affiliated school network have done more to rebuild the morale of Somali's capital than all the UN and Western relief agencies put together, reports WILLIAM MACLEAN.

 

THE potholed route from the airstrip winds through streets lined with wrecked cars and alleys clogged with rubble before depositing the foreign visitor, with a bump, at the entrance to Mogadishu University.

 

Grazed by the goats that wander every street, the area may not look much but behind the iron gates lies the neat, white- and blue-painted home of what many say is the most influential institution trying to revive broken Somalia.

 

Perhaps its main gift, apart from knowledge, is hope.

 

 

WHERE HOPE LIES: A man and his donkey pass next to Mogadishu University, founded in 1977 by a group of middle-aged academics using funds from the diaspora and Islamic relief agencies in the Gulf.

“I dream of being in a big company like Microsoft,” said computer student Mohammed Abdulkarim, 20, sitting in the front of several rows of gleaming workstations in a spotless classroom.

 

Speaking above the hubbub of fellow men and women students, the middle-class youth says he could have studied in Pakistan where he went to school but chose to study at home instead.

 

“When I came back from Pakistan, I was afraid of what I heard of Mogadishu. But I found things are improving because people are tired of war. And I want to rebuild my country.”

 

This is not the usual image of Somalia, which has been without a government since it collapsed in anarchy with the 1991 toppling of former dictator Mohammed Siad Barre.

 

An estimated 60,000 gunmen and their rifles, truck-mounted machine guns and rocket launchers still roam the cratered streets of the capital of an estimated one million people. Among the first sights on the drive in from the nearest airstrip are a burnt out tank and the looted former army academy, now inhabited mostly by refugees.

 

Appearances can be deceptive. The spoils of full-scale war have long been exhausted, the wholesale slaughter of the 1990s has passed, and lawlessness is currently the main curse for a city that was once one of Africa's safest. War may return, but for now businessmen and professionals are growing forces.

 

 

 

Guns and battlewagons

 

“There are two Mogadishus,” said Maxwell Gaylard, who coordinates all UN operations in the Horn of Africa state.

 

“There's the Mogadishu you see when you drive around – the boys with the guns and technicals (battlewagons). And then there is the Mogadishu behind the iron gates, where people are getting on with life and resurrecting the social sectors.”

 

The university, which opened its doors in 1997, was founded by a group of middle-aged academics using funds from the large Somali diaspora and Islamic relief agencies in the Gulf. Many spent their early careers overseas but returned to risk Mogadishu's mean streets because rebuilding Somalia, they say, means more to them than the comforts of expatriate life.

 

“When I am in the US, no one knows me, respects me, or calls me professor. Here I get all that, and I am helping my country,” said California-trained agriculturalist Hussein Iman.

 

“There are risks but death is everywhere. Some of my friends went to Canada: They died there. Some died in the ocean between here and Yemen. Some went to Libya and died in the desert. Some were killed in Nairobi.” Salad Ibrahim, 46, taught English in Yemen for years before bringing his wife and nine children home to join the university.

 

“We live near the Mogadishu gun market. You should hear the noise from customers testing the weapons. But we are back among our extended family. And in a moral sense, I am happy,” he said.

 

Residents say the 1,400-student university and an affiliated Mogadishu school network that teaches more than 150,000 pupils have done more to rebuild the city's morale in recent years than all the UN and Western relief agencies put together.

 

Residents hail the teachers' achievement in getting young people off the streets and behind desks. They also recognise it as something the fractious political class has never managed. “Your future will not be good if you have guns,” said nursing student Mohammed Abdul Rashid Kursow, 25.

 

“I urge young people to take up the pen instead of shooting, looting and raping women.”

 

The university teaches four-year courses in Islamic law, education, English, Arabic, economics and computer science. An affiliated programme provides a three-year diploma in nursing. Fees are US$400 (RM1,520) a year, which covers a third of running costs per student. The gap is made up by diaspora funds and charities.

 

The university has ties to counterparts in Egypt, Pakistan, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen and plans to win recognition for its degrees from Western universities. Most warlords are only vaguely aware of its existence, and the university's president, Saudi-trained historian Ali Sheikh Ahmed Abubakar, says that isn't a bad thing. “If some of the warlords knew about us they could create problems,” he said.

 

Residents say the university and its affiliated schools enjoy far more grassroots popularity than clan-based militias.

 

“We are not in competition with politicians,” said Abubakar. “But we advise them: While they are struggling for power, do not demolish the educational system.”

 

Not everyone is applauding. The university's existence and its teaching of Arabic in most of its courses is seen by some in the West as evidence of the influence of radical Islamists.

 

Somalia watchers say its leaders are moderate Islamists, noting tuition is co-educational and teachers include Christians and Hindus as well as Muslims. Arabic is essential because the Gulf is historically a big job market for Somalis.

 

Abubakar said Western counter-terrorism investigators would be wrong to focus attention on the resurgent educational system.

 

“If there is any problem in the future concerning what these investigators fear, it will come from those who missed schooling and not those who went to school,” he said. – Reuters