Bashir Goth is angry????

[Jabhad]

Analysis: Could Mogadishu Islamic Courts be eligible for the Nobel Peace Prize?

 

afrol News / Awdal News Network, 22 June - If impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools as remarked by Napoleon Bonaparte, the world may see the Somali Islamist fighters of the Union of Islamic Courts in Mogadishu reversing the trend of history by turning tables on advocates of the clash of civilizations, by inventing a new meaning for the concept of Islamism and by becoming alien contenders for the Nobel peace prize.

 

A bizarre idea you may say and I would agree with you as long as you and I are normal people living under normal circumstances. But imagine if you live 15 years in a state of lawlessness where your day starts with death and ends with death, where your only hope in life is to return safely to your family from the shortest trip to the bakery, where you live in constant fear of an imminent rape for the womenfolk of your household, where an hour without seeing a bullet riddled corpse at your doorstep is heaven's gift, where your children's lullaby is the sound of mortar explosions and their sleeping riddles is to compete with each other on figuring out which sound belonged to which gun. Imagine if you live in a city that has been destroyed beyond recognition, where 90 percent of your neighborhood have either been killed or have left without any hope of returning, where ruthless warlords coercion you and rob you of anything of value that you own, where your relatives, your friends, your childhood classmates have either been murdered, crippled or have died on the high seas while seeking a safer place. Imagine you live in a city where the only familiar sound you hear, reminding you of the good old days and giving you hope for the future is the prayers' call coming from your neighborhood mosque.

 

This farcical situation is the life that millions of Somalis have led since 1991 when the late military dictator Mohahmmed Siyad Barre was driven out of power by a coalition of clan militias in 1991. Ever since, Somalia has fallen into the hands of feuding warlords who have divided the country into fiefdoms. The warlords have not only foiled the only humanitarian mission launched by the United Nations and international community for Somalia in 1992 to secure food supplies for tens of thousands of people trapped in war zones, but have blocked 14 attempts by the international community to restore peace and stability to Somalia.

 

Spreading a culture of gangsterism, big warlords have subcontracted lesser cronies, turning Mogadishu into the largest arms market in the Horn of Africa and a hiding place for terrorism.

 

They made dubious trade deals with international mafia companies that dumped all kinds of hazardous waste in Somalia's territorial waters and coastal areas. In their spree to capitalize on everything including the image and pride of the nation, the warlords have sent gunboats manned by trigger happy young men to the sea to hijack commercial ships, thus making the Somali coasts as one of the most dangerous and piracy infested waters on earth in the 21st century.

 

It is amid this background that Islamic clerics have stepped in to establish Islamic Sharia Courts with the aim of protecting their neighborhoods against the marauding militias of the various warlords. Tired of lawlessness and false hopes on stillborn transitional governments formed in foreign capitals, first in 2000 in Djibouti and in 2004 in Nairobi, the Somali people have found the idea of finding safety in their own neighborhoods, setting up their own bakeries and groceries, sending their children to school albeit Islamic Madrassas, and building their lives and peace in small steps to be more practical and attainable goals than building hopes on the return of a central government and restoration of peace and stability to a country that has been fragmentized beyond reparation. This is how local Imams preaching peace and brotherhood in the familiar language of Islam have won hearts and minds despite the terrorism stigma hanging over them like Damocles sword.

 

Using their greatest credence as dispensers of justice, the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) began asserting their authority in 1999 by taking control of the main market and soon bringing the vital Mogadishu-Afgoi road under their control.

 

As the warlords who held the country hostage for more than 15 years found themselves cornered they cried wolf, succeeding to exploit Washington's paranoia of Islamic extremism in the region.

 

The jubilation of the Somali people at the fall of the warlords from grace that they never earned was no less than the sense of liberation and freedom the people of Romania felt at the ousting and execution of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, a feeling that the U.S. Administration needs to take note.

 

The rise of the Islamists in Mogadishu, however, has sent fears through the region, drawing analogues to the march of the Taliban against the warlords in Afghanistan.

 

These fears, however, are not unfounded as the ICU is not monolithic in its schools of thought and agenda and includes a kaleidoscopic mixture of Islamic movements such as Al Ittihad Al Islami, Al Takfiir Wal Hijra, Al Islah and Al Tabligh. The Al Ittihad Al Islami, an organization suspected by Washington of having links with Al Qaeda, was found to be behind the killings of foreign aid workers in Somaliland, the self-declared state over looking the Gulf of Aden. Armed militants arrested in Hargeisa confessed that they had been taking orders from Ahmed Hashi Ayro, an Afghan trained militant and a senior commander of the ICU forces. Ayro is also accused of being behind the digging up of the old Italian cemetery in Mogadishu and dumping human remains in garbage pits. Another senior ICU commander and head of one of the courts, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who is on Washington's wanted list, is also former leader of the Al Ittihad Al Islami.

 

There are also worries that the ICU may whip up Islamic dissent in the hitherto peaceful and stable states of Puntland and Somaliland as well as neighboring Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya. Suspicion is also building up that the ICU may re-ignite the old Somali irredentism, thus inciting the sizable Somali populations in Ethiopia and Kenya to take up arms against their governments to realize the dream of greater Somalia. Ethiopia, which is already entangled in an internecine war with the Islamic oriented Somali ****** Liberation Front, and a sworn supporter of the now disgraced warlords and the TFG government holed in the remote Baidoa, seems to be the bigger loser of the new situation. Its only option will be to give full support to its only loyal friends in Somaliland, Puntland and the TFG to prevent any ICU advance to these areas. The President of Somaliland's current tour of East African countries also reflects the fears that the developments in Mogadishu have sparked in the region.

 

Unfazed by all these worries, the ICU forces, riding on popular support, seem to be on the march and trying to capture as much land as they could. Securing their grip on the capital, they have swooped on the remaining strong holds of the warlords bringing almost all strategic towns under control and closing up on Baidoa, the seat of the beleaguered TFG government, in an apparent attempt to pressure the TFG to accept their terms if not to storm the town and disband the parliament altogether.

 

Up to here, Somali people may have watched delightedly at the ICU victories, thanking them for ending the terror reign of the warlords, but the ICU forces will run into their first serious hurdle if they try to cross into Puntland or show signs of interfering with the internal affairs of Somaliland. People of these regions enjoy peace and stability under elected governments and parliaments. Althought Puntland considers itself as an autonomous region of Somalia it wouldn't allow the ICU to enter its territory and will definitely not accept to exchange a strict sharia rule for its secular constitutional system. The situation will even be worse in Somaliland, a former British colony, which had declared itself independent from Somalia in 1991 and has since then succeeded not only in consolidating peace but also establishing one of the most admired homegrown democracies in Africa. Clan loyalties will also act as a deterrent of any advance by the ICU forces that will find themselves face to face with other clans other than the ****** to which they belong.

 

In a country where the clan is holier than creed, the ICU should be wise enough to know that alliances in Somalia don't last and a religion-based coalition will not be any different. The only way open, therefore, for the ICU to leave an indelible mark on the Somali history is to workout some sort of an agreement with the TFG government that could pave the way for restoring peace and stability and calling for a general parliamentary election in the near future. Press reports about ICU curbing freedoms, banning music and denying people to watch the World Cup, indicates a shallow understanding of the epoch making change they have brought and could turn them into religious warlords. While handing over the power to an elected government and returning to the pulpits may earn the clerics world admiration and could even make them serious candidates for a Nobel Peace Prize.

 

 

By Bashir Goth

 

© afrol News / Awdal News Network

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

LoL at the two complete different articles.

 

Ninkaan Bashiir Good la leeyahay waa naga badbadiseen runtii. He is just like a forumer, wax weyn masoo kordhinaayo labadiis erey uu cyberka ka booteeyo.

 

PS, I believe he reads SOL, if he is not an active member. A considerable Soomaali webmasters do read SOL, some even borrow ideas from here, if not outright steal them, including that editor called Ceynte from Hiiraan Online, who called SOL "a popular blog for young, Diaspora-schooled, urbane Somalis around the world."

[Jabhad]

Press reports about ICU curbing freedoms, banning music and denying people to watch the World Cup, indicates a shallow understanding of the epoch making change they have brought and could turn them into religious warlords. While handing over the power to an elected government and returning to the pulpits may earn the clerics world admiration and could even make them serious candidates for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Very confused writer. How can they hand power to the warlords[tfg] that have destroyed the country. Atleast he acknowledges the positive changes they have brought to the people which he even claims can make them serious candidates for NPP.

[Jabhad]

Ninkaan Bashiir Good la leeyahay waa naga badbadiseen runtii. He is just like a forumer, wax weyn masoo kordhinaayo labadiis erey uu cyberka ka booteeyo.

[Sophist]

This dear chaps is vomit and vile verging on fearfully finalistic vermin that is spreading through the veins of those who take his views seriously—the chap has following I hear. The wholesale incrimination of the named clan is nothing short of being xenophobic and downright clanist—something a lot of Somali “intellectuals” are guilty of.

 

We have a moral responsibility to respond to this guy and make him look as he is: twat hiding under a cloak of pseudo intellectualism. I urge those who share “the cause” with him (secessionism) to respond to him with forceful confutation otherwise alot of people will read the silence as an agreement.

 

This sort of buffoonery ought to be stopped otherwise many people who regard this man in high esteem will fall for his malicious and downright dishonest views.

 

 

Bravo to Samurai and the rest.

[N.O.R.F]

otherwise alot of people will read the silence as an agreement

LoL,,,,,and where have you been over the last 3 months?

[Fabregas]

Roobleh, I don't have the time to look for that particular artcile bro. It is a well established fact that prisoners of war were taken to Burco and beheaded and then their pics posted on the net. Infact i was with one of the relatives of the deceased who was mourning.Just ask the nomads on SOL. However, my point is that i cannot use this point to chastise and demonise a particular clan. This was carried out a by a small group of sick minded individuals, just like the acts of Muqdisho were. Just a few weeks ago a entire family was burned in Galkacyo, as they slept in their home. Again, it would be extremely clanish of me to blame on this on an entire clan. The clan elders have the responsibility to condemn such acts and the elders of Muqdisho have done so whilst extending their apologies to the relatives.

[Suldaanka]

Originally posted by Northerner:

quote: otherwise alot of people will read the silence as an agreement

LoL,,,,,and where have you been over the last 3 months?

That was the crest of the message from our ultra-Sophisticated nomad.

[Sophist]

Northener: busy with work!!!!

 

 

Suldaanka! Sarcarsm doesn't suit you old chap. Laakiin arinkaan arin muhiim ah weeye so let us not drag the thread in the mud---- let us resist the urge shall we!!!.

[Suldaanka]

^^ahem

[AYOUB]

Originally posted by Sophist:

to respond to him with forceful confutation otherwise alot of people will read the silence as an agreement.

That is as dumb as Col Yey's shelling of civilians because they didn't stop attacks on his residence. As dumb as Bashir's call for elders to apologise for the mobs inhumane actions.

 

I'm not going to ask fellow Yey cheerleaders/collaborators to condemn your comments and accuse them of agreeing with you if they don't. That would be dumb.

[Sophist]

Dumb? a word I am sure you are very well versed with.

 

PS: the cloth says it all.

[NGONGE]

Originally posted by roobleh:

NGONGE

 

Sir, I am not ignoring the fact that Bashir Goth is blaming "such clan" for the horrible act. Remember, I mentioned how I disagreed with the author for this generalization. So, lets avoid boring ourselves by stating the obvious and not bogged down with minor details also. But, isn't it obvious that those who did it probably belong to "such clan." Okay, lets not go there!

 

I am interested to know your point of view about this barbaric act subjected to the dead bodies? Also, what effect does this have on Somalia such as Puntland deciding to leave the south and become an independent state? To me, those are the important issues, but somehow you are trying to evade this.

 

I hope our future arguments to be lively discussions and less like wrangling.

I'm not trying to avoid anything, saaxib. In light of the accusations Mr Goth was dishing out in his article, the topics you want me to comment on become side issues and nothing more. You seem to be in denial here!

 

Regardless. Since you chose to zoom into one small section of his article and decide that this is the message within, I'll oblige you by dealing with that now.

 

First of all, the idea that Puntland will want to secede and go its own way is a non-starter. In my opinion, Puntland will only consider that step if and when Somaliland succeeds in gaining recognition from the international community. The reasoning being that Somalia (as it was pre 1990) will not exist anymore and therefore the benefits of being part of a whole republic might not be as attractive. As long as Somaliland is not recognised Puntland will not seek to secede from Somalia. And, frankly, why should they? The way things are going they're in a great position to rule the whole of Somalia (including Somaliland). In fact, I suspect that SOME half-wits in Puntland circles believe they have a god-given right to rule Somalia.

 

Having read some of your contributions on this forum I'm almost certain that you are a Somalilander. I'm also guessing that you probably hail from Borama and its surrounding towns/villages! The second part is only a guess of course; I totally accept that I may be completely wrong here. But I'll still risk a wager and await your confirmation or denial.

 

The good news is that we're from the same country, if not region. I am also a Somalilander but not as patriotic as you. For now, and until recognition is granted, I choose to keep a foot in both camps and see how things develop before making a final choice. For if you're not involved in the politics I believe this to be the only prudent course of action. I have no faith in the incompetents of Udub, Kulmiye and Ucud who had sixteen years to secure recognition and still didn't manage it. Furthermore, they make the whole place seem like a fragile house of cards! Every time a little ruckus takes place in the South Somaliland disappears into the background (well, apart from Mr foot-in-mouth Waraabe). A country that seeks recognition should be actively exploiting the mayhem in the South and making its case heard (not in the Goth way though). Aloofness and a dignified silence are truly not on here (and now).

 

There! I have appeased you and Mr Goth by turning all this into a discussion about Somaliland. We happy?

 

Ps

The issue of the dead bodies and how they were dragged about the streets is really not that important. It's ugly, savage and clearly wrong. But, I still maintain, it's an expected action of an ignorant mob in a war environment. You may have some standard table of the top ten gruesome acts in time of war that you base your opinions (and level of condemnation) on. I sadly don't, and therefore, choose to condemn it in the same way I would the killing of children, raping of women or mass murder. Bad things happen in times of war and when criticism is apportioned it would be wrong to direct it at only one clan. The whole of Somalia is to blame for this. We created the conditions that allowed these fools to do what they did. So, unless you have a political point to make that will help you earn sick political gains out of this, I really do suggest that you ignore the wagging fingers and accept that the world is not really a nice place.

[N.O.R.F]

Northener: busy with work

yeah,,,,me too

[AYOUB]

Originally posted by Sophist:

Dumb? a word I am sure you are very well versed with.

Yep. Dumb. One more time...it is dumb, my sophisticated brother.

PS: the cloth says it all.

There you go again. I knew you're using this opportunity to address the usual complex and insecurities. That's why you ignored Togane and Duke's contributions. Bashir's "sophisticated" clanish comments might be news to someone like yourself but I know what he used to write about the clans he said supported the SNM in 80's. I'm not going to ask you to condemn those views because that would be .....