A MOTHER'S PRAYERS MAY SPARE SOMALIA.....

[so-so_good]

A Mother's Prayers May Spare Somalia

 

 

 

Right after the September 11th tragedy in New York, I called my mother to find out if she had heard the bad news on the BBC radio to which Somalis religiously listen. I learned from my mother that her town and its almost all Moslem residents were mourning for the victims of New York. I felt a sigh of relieve After My mom informed me that she and several other mothers whose children live in America staged a vigil and conducted prayers for the victims of September 11th.

 

 

My mom is a rational Somali woman who is fond of America. She likes America for the right and practical reasons: America has been good to her family by giving fourteen of her children and grandchildren hope, education and a safe home. For almost over 19 years now, she has been receiving stipends from her children here in America.

 

 

I first started sending money to my mom in 1982, when I first got a summer job at UCLA. This tradition, which helped sustain life in my mom's extended family, was called to a halt this past November when the US Government banned Somali-owned money transferring agencies due to alleged links with terrorist groups responsible for the New York tragedy. Instead of receiving money from America, my mom has resigned now to the reality of future American air strikes against Somalia; hence the prospect of death in her family and in her community doubly frightens her. With American air strikes, the often-feared combination of war and starvation or a calamity Somalis call "Ol iyo Abaar," may befall on millions of innocent civilians.

 

 

Ten years ago, former president George W. Bush ordered approximately 28,000 US troops to go into Somalia with two goals in mind: To secure a safe rout for food distribution and lead the United Nations Mission for Somalia (UNISOM) to avert famine in that country. A second objective was a modest effort of nation building.

 

I strongly supported the president's action then in an op-ed piece that I wrote for the Los Angeles Times. I still vividly remember the enthusiasm with which I watched the news media covering former president George Bush's Aircraft landing on a dusty runway in Mogadishu, Somalia.

 

Former president Bush's words at the time -- to stand by the poor Somalis whose hunger is caused by a senseless factional fighting -- were very humbling to the ears of most Americans, the 28,000 strong troops in Mogadishu in particular. American News papers were quick to seize the euphoric moment associated with a sitting U.S. president walking among the dead and the soon-to-die multitudes in a remote African country and promising them a resurrection.

 

No sooner had these pictures emerged than one paper claimed that Jesus Christ was spotted in Mogadishu during the week of Christmas Eve of 1992. With gratitude and appreciation, most Somalis then saw George Bush’s mission in their country as good as it gets.

 

However, in 1993, a recalcitrant warlord, the late General Farah Aideed, challenged America's noble objectives. The result was the killings of 18 U.S. rangers in Mogadishu, Somalia, which is the subject of the recently released Hollywood movie, "Black Hawk Down." Since the September 11th tragedy, American intelligence community has been asserting that General Aideed Farah had received a helping hand from Osama Bini Ladin's Al-Qaida terrorist networks.

 

Unlike the Christmas Eve of 1992, all that I heard this past Christmas time, unfortunately, was the impending air strikes against Somalia. Most of the implicating intelligence information is so far coming from two unreliable sources: The Ethiopian government, a country that has had a long standing feud with Somalia over the Somali-inhabited region of the Ogaden, has been supplying unsubstantiated accounts about the location of terrorist networks in Somalia. The other source for such information is Somalia’s own notorious warlords, including General Farah Aideed's son, Hussein Aideed, who, after deserting his U.S. marine assignment, became the most feared warlord in Mogadishu. None of these parties’ information has so far been substantiated either by the UN mission in Somalia or by Western Aid organizations stationed in various parts of that war-torn country.

 

 

To the Somalis, former president George Bush would always be remembered in conjunction with the Christmas Eve of 1992--the Christmas of deliverance. And, it would have been doubly noble if president Bush were to follow suite a presidential/family tradition and decided on the act of deliverance in time of dire need, and not order air strikes against Somalia.

 

 

Nonetheless, if president Bush chooses to strike their distraught nation, Somalis will remember him as the president who punished them without proving them guilty, or one who listened to the words of criminal warlords. And that, my mother believes, is not consistent with America's fairness and magnanimity that she has come to know through her children and grandchildren who are America's newest immigrants.

 

 

When I last talked to her, she told that whatever president Bush decides to do, she wouldn’t stop praying for the victims of terrorism in New York and for innocent civilians who may die during U.S. strikes in Somalia. Despite false information, which the U.S. government has been lately receiving from Somalia warlords and From the Ethiopian government, I hope that it is the power of prayers of millions of mothers, like my mom, that may spare Somalia from American air strikes.

 

Faisal Roble

E-mail: Fabroble@cs.com

 

Faisal Roble is a City Planner for the City of Los Angeles and a contributing editor of the Ethiopian Review Magazine. Mr. Roble has written numerous articles on the political conflict in the Horn of Africa.

 

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

Salaan...

 

"Moslem?????" He should know at this time Moslem is an offensive word. Same as in Muhammadism league. In Arabic, there is a word that sounds like moslem and has a negative nature. So, today it is a wonder still to find some Muslims among ourselves use that name.

_______________

 

Macsalaama!!

[barliin]

MAY ALLAH BLESS UR MOTHER THAT WAS VEREY KIND OF HER

 

[Hibo]

 

 

Faisal Roble and his Mother don't know eventually the fact that my own family are those who hate the capricious Americans at any demensions in life. I also hate their hypocritical policy towards any human species that doesn't match their characteristics, and of course I don't blame Roble's mother who said so becuase of her ignorance, but Faisal himself who was primerily been brainwashed and then left nothing except his dimwit favoritism to America.

 

 

the word "sinji" best defines his devalued personality that he considered nobody in humanly perspectives, but rages materialistic point of view to better vain what he doesn't belong at the first stage. Therefore, SINJI-GAALO, comes into my mind, that he is either homogenious and have some infidel traits in his blood, or else he is backing up the idea of being part of rotten white civilizations who should somehow intermingled Tribe X for their will of love upon GAALO.