The Down Fall of the Somali Middle CLass

[Flamboyant]

I don't know what you guys think but it is my believe that the Civil War has made all Somalies EQUAL in many ways; I have noticed for example how people who have no business being together are now neighbors and forced to live side by side(to the contempt of the Middle Class Somalies ofcourse)

 

However, it hasn't always been like this folks!

 

Back in the days when Somalia was Somalia, people often associated with people of their own kind and social status. Relationships where developed and harvested by people who shared same educational backgrounds, societal believes and life style. Society had an ad hoc structure that put like with like which amazingly worked. That is until tribalism, an evil destructive element that still haunts us today, showed its ugly head. This was when an individual was denied a job that he/she was more than qualified due to his/hers tribal affiliation, and another landed a job which he/she had no previous experience or relevant knowledge, or an entire people where harassed and victimized in there own country.

 

This single handedly singled the downfall of the Somali society and the country as a whole. New relationships where formed along clan lines, you no longer drunk cocktails with people of same educational background and intellectual level but you sat and drunk tea with illiterate folks that could hardly right their own names, never mind anything else, simply because they where from the same tribe as yourself. One famous tycoon in Somalia started-off life as a chauffer for a certain individual, and within couple of years owned half of Xamar (he belonged to the right tribe of course)

 

Anyways, the point I'm trying to make is that, the biggest losers in the civil war where the Somali Middle Class, these educated professionals and city dwellers lost everything and where forced to leave their homes and lives and start all over again as refugees in foreign countries. Where as the "rer badiyo" or the less educated poorer Somalies (the majority of Somalies) gained tremendously from the onslaught of the civil war.

 

Today, the later enjoy all the benefits the West has to offer, free housing/education and social services. They live in large mansions at the expense of the taxpayers of their prospective hosts, and frankly life has never looked better for them.

 

Consider the folks that actually had a life back in Somalia; they lost everything and had to come down few pegs in the social structure along the way. The contempt that the middle class Somalies have for these ex "jaaridio" and home-help not to mention the folks straight from "badiyo" is only too obvious. Imagine the indignity of living next door to your ex "jaariad" who now has a bigger house than you because she has 10 children so she gets the bigger house and bigger check!

 

Ooh What a Life!

[imperial-lady]

I absolutely agree with your article. It's amazing to see how war can even out everything. The way I see it is that life is a like a circle, and the middle class as u put where waiting for thier turn to live the life of their counterparts. The social structure of somalia and of all human kind is a like. U can't always stay on top, someday, somehow your numbered; and then only will u appreicate what u always neglected. In a sense it's fair that the upper class now lives amongst everyone else. But the trib thing is still a factore, and I hope one day someone's tribe wouldn't be a factor in order to determine someone's status.