What Will Somalia Be Like In The Year 2100

[Cowke]

January 1, 2100

 

Phone Fear in Somalia

 

By NOAM SHERIF

 

BOSASO, SOMALIA, 17:08 U.T.C. -- The five nations of Somalia formally and finally reunited today in a restitching of the Horn of Africa that also combined the continent's five major satellite telephone companies. The consolidation has thus raised fears around Africa that phone rates will spin out of control.

 

The Somali people, divided two centuries ago by European colonists, have reigned for nearly 100 years as the pre-eminent providers of telecommunications in Africa. As long as they were divided, their national telephone companies competed against each other, keeping rates relatively low.

 

But since the Somalis began moving toward reuniting -- in a swell of nationalism rare for its peaceful conclusion -- other African nations have argued that the competition will disappear and prices will become unaffordable to Africans. Though still relatively poor, Africans have slowly caught up with the rest of the telecommunicating world, with nearly 80 percent owning mobile telephones.

 

Today, in a ceremony in the new seaside capital of Bosaso Today, in a ceremony in the new seaside capital of Bosaso, jammed with luxury cars and banner-bedecked camels, Mohamed Ahmed Duale, the president of the New Somali Republic Today, in a ceremony in the new seaside capital of Bosaso Today, in a ceremony in the new seaside capital of Bosaso, jammed with luxury cars and banner-bedecked camels, Mohamed Ahmed Duale, the president of the New Somali Republic, worked to calm those fears. "This is as much a merger as anything," Mr. Duale said, sounding a characteristically prosaic note in a ceremony marked by high emotion. "The Somali people are happy to be back together. From a practical perspective, we will be better positioned to deliver our services more efficiently and effectively into the new century."

 

Considered one of the world's most lawless people only 75 years ago, the Somalis came to dominate telecommunications; despite their refusal to give up their nomadic lifestyle, they still wanted to be reached wherever they roamed. Until the Somalis began to consider union three years ago -- in a joint effort to rebuild after the meteor shower that knocked out 70 percent of their satellites -- there were few complaints about their virtual monopoly, because prices were low and service high.

 

Next month, though, the Pan-African Supreme Court is scheduled to rule on a lawsuit opposing the merger, brought by Greater Nigeria and by the Federation of Former Congolese States. They have argued that nationalist yearnings should be separate from business, a philosophy that has been steadily losing ground on the continent as commercial imperatives erase both colonial-era boundaries and postcolonial tribal schisms. Indeed, one of the principal rebuttal arguments offered by the Somalis is that Greater Nigeria and the Congolese state were themselves the products of economically motivated amalgamations of formerly feuding nations.

 

The territory of the new Somali state, stretching from Rahsita at the mouth f the Red Sea around the Horn of Africa and south on the Indian Ocean shore as far as the Boni Game Reserve, joins in one nation a number of geographic advantages for satellite communications that had been split up among the former rivals.

 

Jubaland, the southernmost of the three states in the former Italian colonial territory, lies on the Equator on a coast facing east, making it an ideal site for space launches. The mountainous portion of Migiurtinia in the northeast is well suited for ground stations because of its bone-dry climate.

 

And the rich cultural life in the cosmopolitan port capital of Djibouti, the northernmost of the five, is a magnet for a labor force of young university-educated professionals from throughout East Africa.

 

Though many Somalis still spend all or most of their lives herding livestock in the interior of the country, the region's economy now depends on communications for two thirds of its gross domestic product, with much of the rest accounted for by tourism. In his remarks today, President Duale said that the new country has "no choice but to pursue our competitive advantage aggressively" in mobile telephony.

 

Once combined, the five Somali satellite telephone companies would be the sixth largest worldwide, but the largest by far in Africa and the second largest in the Middle East after the Beirut-based Holyland Bandwidth.

[General Duke]

The problem is we will all be dead and my great grand kids will not know me.

[Xaaji Xunjuf]

I dont care i am not going to be on this earth in 2100

[Saalax]

Xaji Xunjuf, don't be too sure inadeer you never know allah might make your life longer.

[Xaaji Xunjuf]

inshallah allah knows best

[ANWAR]

^^yea inshallah allah knows best