Professor Samatar's speech at the Lund Conference.

[Gabbal]

Source

[QabiilDiid]

With regard to the khat damage on the Somali psyche the good professor mentioned in his speech, I once found a piece of jacbur accusing the Amxaaro of deliberately pushing this drug to the Somalis the same way the British Empire forced opium on the Chinese in 17-18 centuries.

 

It is reported in history books that the British trading companies could not penetrate a single legit market in China in 17-18 centuries while Britons were in desperate need of Chinese products such as tea and silk. To cover the trade gap, the British found out that the only possible product they can trade with China was opium which was easily plantable in some of their close-to-China colonies such as India. This was an “institutionalized policy” of if you can not beat them destroy their psyche with a product that can enslave them for you.

 

I thought it was kind of “Middle East conspiracy theory”. But here Prof. Samatar produces documents that support the message the following piece of comic poem presents.

 

Mijin qaada war weeye

Taa wadnahaaga halaagtay

Waa Shiine wuxuu

Waxgaradkiisu u diidday

Waayihii Ingiriisku u soo

waaridday xashiishka

Mililikhna ka warqaatay

In uu ku weeraro "Waryaa"

Warbahaarka qabiilkuna

Waa oksijiin walaxdiisu

Sii wayrixin mirqaanka

Oo walwal dhammaceed kugu wiifin

 

The author theorizes that Amaxaaro borrowed the British tactic and uses khat as their “institutionalized policy” to aggressively weaken the Somalis in every aspect.

 

 

In fact they have succeeded. I say well done to Amxaaro…

[Chimera]

Khat has been circulating in Somalia since the 13th century as it was recorded by Al-umari,but since you explained the Somali's reason for that addiction :rolleyes: maybe you could do the same for the Yemenis on the other side of the Gulf of Aden

 

 

Yemen kicks the khat habit

 

An organisation has been launched in Yemen to persuade people to stop chewing the popular narcotic leaf, khat. Many Yemenis spend up to eight hours a day chewing the stimulant and more than 80% of the agricultural land is given over to growing it.

 

But last month President Ali Abdullah Saleh announced he was confining his own khat habit to weekends only

 

President Ali Abdullah Saleh: Urged Yemenis to follow his lead and he urged people to follow his example and turn instead to sport and other healthier activities.

 

Doctors say chewing khat can cause unpredictable behaviour and lead to other long-term diseases and psychological disorders.

 

The Friends Without Khat Association was launched on Wednesday to support government efforts to wean people off the narcotic.

 

Government figures show khat takes up 75% of Yemen's irrigation capabilities.

 

The first written account of the effects of khat appeared more than seven centuries ago in an Arabic medical book.

 

Today, several million people in East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula are habitual khat chewers.

 

Source

[Naxar Nugaaleed]

Somalis and their conspiracies, when will we stop searching for some hidden national boogeyman and deal with the problem that face us? Ethiopia shares every problem that Somalia faces. Just because its bigger only means that its problems are bigger. stop making Ethiopia into something it is not not and never will be. Saddly, , it seems that every problem we face, now khat, is being blamed on the ethios. Somali Ancestors must be turning in their graves for Modern Somalis turning those lowly mountain people and formers (qotee) into a monolithic being that is responsible for every pin that drops in Somalia. War isku xeeshoda.

[Jacaylbaro]

Looser ! ! !

[Ojelle]

^War hanaga caayin ninka kaliya ee aan ka haysano meesha.

[Emperor]

^At these moments one realises that Somali professors know no better.

[Tahliil]

Khat has been circulating in Somalia since the 13th century as it was recorded by Al-umari,but since you explained the Somali's reason for that addiction maybe you could do the same for the Yemenis on the other side of the Gulf of Aden

The issue here has got nothing to do with whether Ethiopia has brought Qaad to Somalia or not. Samatar’s contention, (with facts and figures to support with it), if you don't try to read beyond the lines, is not anything pertained to Qaad and its origin but rather how governments and institutions use drugs to calm and control their subjects all over the world...what the good professor is confessing similarly and eloquently trying to explain is How QAAT is being used as a political weapon and a means to divide and manipulate the Somali population by foreign entities…

 

Of course Qaat, like heroine and its other sister drugs, might have been around since the 13th century, but the gist of this all is that it won’t and shouldn’t be a shocker to anyone of us to see Ethiopia somehow trying to exploit one of Somali’s weaknesses (Qaad in this instance) to its advantage.

[Chimera]

Tahliil no disrespect brother but that's b.s i have multiple uncles who chew Khat yet lead very productive lives and support their families here and relatives abroad. The people who chew khat and stay at a Somali marfiish 10hrs a day were allready lazy to begin with and probably were unemployed or had part-time jobs before they started chewing the plant

 

both Yemen and Somalia have a high unemployment rate and therefore young men have alot of time on their hands yet nothing to do and therefore some choose to kill their time with this plant but if both countries had jobs in abundance this plant would enable these youth to work two or more shifts a day and become a positive productive force for their countries

 

young women seek their meager livings from this plant because there isn't a alternative way of making money, if there was they wouldn't engage in this commerce but choose a different path when the ICU banned the plant IMO it was a good thing and many women did at the time complain but the ICU also created alternative means of making a living when they renovated the Somali ports and Airports and created jobs that would clean up the Capital etc etc so create more jobs and the youth will have something usefull on their hands

[rudy-Diiriye]

how true, u will sees where ever there are ills, ppl are bombard with drugs to provide them with scape goat.

 

all drugs including alcohol and cigarettes should be banned from somalia completely. they do nothing good for the ppl and destroy the youth and families period.

[Tahliil]

but if both countries had jobs in abundance this plant would enable these youth to work two or more shifts a day and become a positive productive force for their countries

None taken...Iska hadal walaal looma hadlo and no disrespect meant either....but do u ever thnk that it could also lead, instead of your rosy pciture, dream like scenerio of a productive society, did it also occur to you, ever put it into account that it could have a reverse and a negative effect on the community...doubling the rate of crime for instance, like leading and making it easy to commit murder, to rape and to many family problems in the Diaspora...

 

you see no one can effectively argue that the Moryaans in Somalia are catogarized as being lazy and idle in the physical sense of the word but the question is what do they do with their Qaat high? besides insomnia and oral cancer, they kill and maime and rape little innocent girls that is the most common thing the Moryaan chew that Qaat for, to give them a comfortability level to commit to these horrible things and it has done a pretty good job ...

 

I have been around Qaad and dealt with families with Qaat problems and I know its effect on families...and it aint productive the least...did you ever work in community center in Minneapolis or Seatle or Ohio or London...did u ever chew it yourself.???

 

I hope and pray (sincerely) for your multiple uncles to find a way to kick this habit...trust me they could have been ten times more productive than you have said they are....

[Chimera]

Originally posted by Tahliil:

None taken...Iska hadal walaal looma hadlo and no disrespect meant either....but do u ever thnk that it could also lead, instead of your rosy pciture, dream like scenerio of a productive society, did it also occur to you, ever put it into account that it could have a reverse and a negative effect on the community...doubling the rate of crime for instance, like leading and making it easy to commit murder, to rape and to many family problems in the Diaspora...

Bro i processed the point you put forth and it's not a satisfying explanation cause places suffering from unemployment always double in crime, places with no central authority will boost an even greater statistic of crime and plunder because it's so easy to do and because of the lawlesness people can get away with it and therefore it's seducing

 

i do not rule out khat completely i'm sure it's playing it's role but when looking at the situation of Somalia it's simply not satisfying to me to revolve all Somali ills around this plant, i know individuals who do not chew yet lead a lazy unproductive life and reason for that being; they don't have a disciplined work ethic which my Grand mother taught her sons and they absorbed it

 

the criminals of Somalia grew up in crime and plunder so they asorbed this destructive way of life, khat didn't teach them to rape and plunder and neither did it neutralize their conscience it's simply life for them

 

Personally i have never chewed that plant and i'm not interested to do so, but i do know one thing i would never change my work ethic because of it. I have a friend who's mother and father are close to divorcing eachother and neither of them chew the plant, it's personal issue's not related to any addiction they are suffering from

 

btw my intial point in the first post was don't make Jews out of Ethiopians meaning don't make imaginary Higher beings who know it all and see it all out of them (similar to the Zionist crap people use as an excuse to hide their own mistakes and blunders)

[Tahliil]

i do not rule out khat completely i'm sure it's playing it's role

I think we are sayin the same thing...would u ban it though...???

[QabiilDiid]

Originally posted by Dhulqarnayn -alSumaale:

The view that khat circulated in Somalia in 13th century might have some truth. It is possible that it was used in Harar but not in the rest of Somalia. Except in Borama, Hargeisa, Burcao and Barbara khat was unknown in the rest of the country as late as 1968. Even in these four cities, few townspeople starting chewing the stuff in 1950s. In the south the twig was unknown completely. If you are thirty or more years old, ask your father if your grandfather munched the drug. You will find he did not.

 

Here is a recent Washington Post dispatch from Gaalkacyo. In the opening paragraph it says:

“GALKAYO, Somalia On a dusty street that runs through this town of 80,000 in central Somalia, a cluster of men sit on low stools, lost in their daily ritual -- chewing the green leaves of a mild narcotic called khat. Lethargic and stupefied, they seem oblivious to everything. Only when their cellphones jangle -- a surreal sound in this otherwise primitive place -- do they snap to life. Soon they've arranged the money transfers they've been waiting for and lapse back into their somnolent masticating.”

 

In 1960s when khat was spreading southwards from Hargeisa, a prominent resident in Gaalkacyo in a farewell message to his son going abroad for studies said:

 

Bushumahayga uma quurikaro buuri iyo jaad eh

Lama baayactamo naagahaa geedka beecsade eh

 

From these two verses you can understand how strongly our elders rejected the consumption of the drug. But Amxaaro and their evil stuff have succeeded....

 

To highlight the economic disaster that this drug causes, the Washington Post reporter gives us this picture:

“Only men chew khat, but retail sales (and, in Galkayo, wholesale as well) are the exclusive task of women. And it's a serious business: a bunch of twigs to satisfy a man for a day costs the equivalent of $10. (Per capita income is roughly $130 a year.) If payment is made in Somali shillings, the banknotes fill a shopping bag.”

 

Full article

[Kashafa]

From the WashPost article:

The import and internal distribution of Catha edulis, or khat, from neighboring Kenya

has endured all the "failed state" periods

, with the

exception

of the months

between June and December 2006, when the Union of Islamic Courts ran the country

. The Islamists banned khat, along with alcohol and cigarettes, sparking protests

Yet it turned out that not only was it possible for Somali men not to chew khat, but all the locals I spoke to agreed that it was the

first peaceful period in Mogadishu since 1991

Women mentioned that their husbands had even started working in the afternoons

Where you find Jaat, you will find a dhabo-dhilif. Where you find combating Jaat, you will find a thoroughbred. It's that simple.