Somalia, America, Values, Metaphysics and World Politics

[Xudeedi]

Somalia, America, Values, Metaphysics and World Politics

By Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

Published: 11/7/2007

It is not without reason that Somalia was early identified among all African Nations as the Nation of the Poets par excellence; due to refined thoughts, open minded attitude, noble behaviour, a deeply humanistic Weltanschauung, vast abilities in metaphors, great narrative skills, and a magnificent and unlimited power of imagination, Somalis approach everything, Literature to Politics, Faith, Death and Life, with their own way.

 

The problem is that it is at times difficult to match the wealth of the Somali Thought with the aridity of today’s world. Assuming a lot, and viewing everything through beatification lenses can have disastrous impact on a political group, a people, a nation. The thunderous strives of the Somali sociopolitical life have demonstrated very clearly over the past 16 years that the imagination spirals of the emerald-coloured Somali coastlines can be extremely dangerous in a world deprived of Poetry.

 

Among the dozens of mails I received recently from Somalis of different backgrounds, beliefs, ideologies, and visions, I have chosen a very particular, brief but thought provoking, mail that I intend to discuss in public. The mail offers me an excellent opportunity to clarify my criteria, my judgment, my values, and my approaches to World Politics. Above all, this mail corroborates my knowledge and perception of Somalia, which is not widely shared among readerships of various backgrounds throughout the world.

 

Precisely because among many people prevails the wrong impression about the Somalis as Islamic fanatics, I publish here this letter – Somali Plead for America. My Somali correspondent’s warm support of, great love for, and deep attachment to the American Values and Ideals is not unique, and is not fake.

 

Contrarily to mendacious Amhara and Tigray Abyssinians, who use America to promote the most inhuman barbarism, and to perpetrate the most appalling violations of Human Rights, this Somali intellectual’s pro-American enthusiasm is real and true.

 

I know many Americans who would not agree with my Somali correspondent’s idealizing presentation of America. I do not agree with him either; but does it truly matter? Anyone in this world has the right to an idealizing vision.

 

However, I do not know many people in the world who would expect a Somali Plead for America in 2007; to them I dedicate the present article. And to all the journalists who contributed to the fallacious portraying of the Somalis as extremists.

 

A Somali Plead for America

 

Dear Professor,

 

We understand these are difficult times. But our policy is to steer away from controversial issues.

 

We advise anyone against anti-Americanism. The United States, as the leader of the world may not have the best leadership at the moment.

 

But generally, the U.S is a force of good. It is the almighty who chose the U.S to be his world's super power.

 

Not to mention the U.S is home to all nationalities. Personally, I have 20 direct descendants of my father in the U.S.

 

My advise is the U.S is a terrible adversary. Do not make enemies. The purpose of life is to make friends and stay well clear of animosity.

 

Ahmed

 

Response on Anti-Americanism, Values, Metaphysics, and World Politics

 

Dear Ahmed,

 

Thank you for your letter and explanations. As you are a knowledgeable person, and your text hinges on several issues, I find good reason in discussing with you the following! It goes without saying that I would value your response!

 

If you advise anyone against anti-Americanism, this is certainly good, because nobody should be anti-anything!

 

Anti-Americanism, Anti-Russianism, Anti-Germanism and the like would truly look meaningless.

 

But what is Anti-Americanism?

 

There are already many people in America, native Anglo-Saxons, who find that the US has become a very negative center of power, and that it will soon be terribly punished by natural disasters; leaving the examination of their argument's correctness or incorrectness, I want to ask you this:

 

- Can we truly call these Americans "Anti-Americans'?

 

If you answer positively, I believe that this would create a comical repetition of usual accusations of some non Zionist Jews as anti-Semitic!

 

I believe this is the same paranoia as the real anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism or anti-anything of anyone....

 

Actually, I was never anti-American. Neither in the 70s nor in the 90s.

 

However, I never make the terrible mistake of considering all the existing Anti-Americans as one group; they may belong to more 100 possible categories of ideological and political approach!

 

Anti-Americanism

 

Certainly Anti-Americanism exists; it is real, bit not in the dimensions some may think, taking as Anti-Americans people who simply are non-American or un-American.

 

Francois Mitterrand and Nikita Khrushchev were both Anti-American, but also extremely different one from another. And then Khomeini was also Anti-American, but also chaotically different from both, Francois Mitterrand and Nikita Khrushchev!

 

Furthermore, I believe it is very wrong to portray a non-American or an un-American as Anti-American; an attempt like this would be a totalitarian trick to enforce an incredible assimilation, namely an undesired Americanization. You understand of course that, although any anti- stance should be denounced, every person in the world has the right to identify him/herself in a way that is different from, other than, and unrelated to the American identity.

 

America, a force of good

 

America, a force of good? Well, most of the people allover the world, and most of the countries of the world have been forces of good.

 

In very few cases, a state admittedly becomes a force of evil. Nazi Germany, the Catholic Holy Inquisition in the Middle Ages, and so on.

 

Accepting the aforementioned, one is automatically confronted with the following puzzle:

 

Why – with all these ‘Good’ establishments – are we obliged to see ourselves in the middle of so fierce unrest, so terrible fights, and so disastrous wars?

 

Are the few evil countries able to counterweight the many forces of good?

 

No! This is not possible.

 

Simply, your analysis is wrong!

 

Neither America is a force of good, nor Italy is a force of good; neither Russia is a force of evil, nor Iran is a force of evil.

 

Good and Evil, West and Islam

 

In fact, after the Humanity’s early moments of the Paradise, Good and Evil coexisted in every man, every woman, every child.

 

If now this happens within a single human being, you realize how reasonable it is to see the vast realms that are the modern states as places where Good and Evil coexist.

 

Of course in difference proportions here and there, but unfortunately we have not yet found a measure to let us conclude that f.i. Norway is 86% "Good" and Belgium only 71% "Good"!

 

Certainly the Western world emerged in the Modern Times on the ideological - philosophical - intellectual - academic vehicle of Humanism, Enlightenment and Modern Democracy.

 

By definition, there is a moral superiority

 

not of the Western world over the Muslim countries,

 

but

 

of the proclaimed Values and Ideals of the Western World over the collapsed, unrevised and misperceived Values and Ideals of the Muslim countries.

 

Corrupt and disintegrated worlds

 

But, today, centuries after the emergence of the Western world, centuries after the times of Leonardo da Vinci, Pascal, Shakespeare, Montesquieu and Voltaire, the Western world deviated to a so terrible extent that in most of its expressions it violently contradicts the ideals, the principles, the concepts, and the wishes of the aforementioned thinkers, authors and artists, and those of many other pillars of the Western Thought.

 

In the origins of the Western world there is a great part of the Islamic Civilization’s values, and in today’s Muslim countries there is a great part of Western impact.

 

But both worlds are corrupt, disintegrated, and ready to collapse socially, politically, economically; they represent no value, either you like it or not. And this is due to the fact that both worlds reached an extreme degree of deviation that places them at the very antipodes of their founding constituents and fundamental ideals. Their moral collapse heralds their final breakdown.

 

To avoid saying that the total destruction of the Western World is very close does not make you pro-American or American-friendly; to announce the collapse of the West does not make you anti-American or anti-Western, as much as to denounce Islam’s absolute degradation does not make of you an Anti-Islamic theoretician.

 

When talking Politics, leave God out!

 

To go beyond, your next sentence, ‘it is the Almighty who chose the US to be the world’s superpower’ is equally meaningful and meaningless.

 

The simplest I would answer is that ‘it is the Almighty who chose Babylon to be the world’s leading power’, but the Jews rightfully fought against the Babylonians.

 

I should add that ‘it is the Almighty who chose Sassanid Iran to be the world’s greatest power’ but the early Muslims fought against it, and destroyed it.

 

Following your logic, one would be right to conclude - as regards the latter example - that it is good to oppose God because like that one can manage to win!

 

Others would say that many people, armies and kings in the World History crushed God, by joyfully destroying what you in every case – like now with America – would be ready to describe as God’s choice, option, wish or predilection.

 

Of course, all this is utterly nonsensical; in fact the proper answer to your assumption is that in the same way the Almighty ‘chose the US to be the world’s superpower’, he may also choose a small country like Venezuela to cause a terrible damage to it, or that he may send three asteroids to turn the US to dust.

 

When we bring God into our discussions, either everything is absolutely possible, or the god we evoke is not God, but the expression of our erroneous perception of God, who – of course (!) – sides always with us and fights all our enemies.

 

This attempt has been widely attested in the World History as the Epitome of Sin. In real terms, it is a covered case of sick egoism, a paranoid persistence to our ideas that we erratically imagine as correct – to our own detriment.

 

I would therefore suggest that in our discussion we leave God at the door.

 

Criteria are only Moral Values, not Personal Interests.

 

Your sentence that the US became home to all nationalities does not make the US correct or wrong, good or evil. It only makes it different. I would fully agree with the idea that the Founding Fathers had truly great plans for the US, and did launch a completely new model of state that was absolutely unconceivable before 1773. And very promising it has been indeed!

 

Again the number of your relatives living in America does not prove anything except your vulnerability; this is nothing particular, everyone with 20 family members in America or China, Mogadishu or Washington, Stalingrad or Hiroshima, is equally vulnerable.

 

However, if the personal concern becomes the measure of evaluation of a country as good or evil, then the Nazi Germans were right to support Hitler, because they all had "20 relatives" in Germany!

 

When discussing Values, I would therefore suggest to leave acquaintances and relatives, friends and neighbors at the door.

 

A terrible adversary!

 

The US is a terrible adversary! Following such a statement, I feel the need to hide at the center of the Earth! I should rather consult Jules Verne, and find the way through a volcano in Iceland!

 

If I give your sentence a chance to analyze, it would make me explode to laughter! It consists in an over-generalization that means truly much and nothing at the same time!

 

Remember Vietnam? For the Vietcong forces the US was an embattled – not terrible – adversary over whom they won a staggering victory!

 

On the contrary, I would say that China is a terrible adversary because China invaded Tibet and Eastern Turkistan, Inner Mongolia ad Manchuria, and no one managed to drive the Chinese out!

 

To what misconception is your mistake due? Simply, when a great number of parameters is involved, the importance of one of them is automatically conditioned.

 

A great power? Certainly, America is a great power. But for many, Venezuela to Iran, Eritrea to Burma, let alone Russia and China, America is not a ‘terrible adversary’.

 

In fact, right at this moment, the US proves to be incapable to defend their position of superpower. In real terms, the world in 2007 ceased to be uni-polar; the basic traits of the current situation bear witness to the gradual shift to a multi-polar situation.

 

Friends or Values?

 

The same mistake you seem to repeat in everything; it’s due to over-generalizations. ‘Do not make enemies!’ To whom are you saying this? To Jews living in Nazi Germany? Or to fighters of Freedom in Soviet Union? It makes no sense. If you place your sentence within the context of a free and righteous environment, yes it does make sense; but only within such an environment.

 

Otherwise, if I make the axiom ‘Do not make enemies!’ my top priority, while living in a tyrannical regime, I will have to keep silent in order to please the obnoxious rulers, and this will mean that I have become a slave!

 

Your last sentence about the purpose of life has also to be seen within the context of the aforementioned differentiation – juxtaposition.

And my key question:

 

After all this, what I did not understand is where truly lies my supposed Anti-Americanism in the article entitled ‘How America is led to Disaster in Eastern Africa’. I would truly love to see what excerpts you would select from my article in support of your statement!

 

Thank you for your time,

 

Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis