Mahatma Gandhi Once Wrote That There Were Seven Sins In The World

[SOO MAAL]

Mahatma Gandhi Once Wrote That There Were Seven Sins In The World

 

Sept,26,2005

 

by Suleiman Egeh:

 

 

Wealth without work; pleasure with conscience; knowledge without character; Commerce without morality; science without humanity; worship without sacrifice; politics without principle

 

 

Are The walls Come Tumbling Down in "Somaliland" Yet ? Some Are Already Saying So, But others are Still Hopeful

 

Just Underneath the Cosmetic Democratic Pronouncements Lurk an insidious Grand Design To Dominate Everything

 

Introduction:

 

Societies thrive, prosper, develop and reach their pinnacles when they let all their citizens to participate in all aspects of the nation's life. Successful societies are those who put their minds, ranks, efforts, knowledge, expertise and word together. They are those who watch the civil, human rights, political rights and the property rights of their people. Societies under the stewardship of good leaders with great management and leadership qualities with vision and mission. Nations are no different than huge corporations as Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, General Motors, Mercedes Benz and others. They are like University systems such as University of California ( UCLAA), University of North Carolina (UNC), Ohio State, Amoud University, Mogadishu University, Hargeisa University and others. The latter relatively well managed compared to their surroundings.

 

Well run and well-managed multinational corporations and Universities systems succeed and thrive, while poorly run and poorly managed ones fail. Nation states are no different. No wonder why so many nations states fail in Africa. Among other things they disregarded the civil and human rights of their citizens. They used discrimination, segregation, clannism and every division in the books, to divide, incite, and polarize their people. They failed in the departments of vision, mission, leadership and management.

 

The leaders in this poorly run countries have run out of issues to rally their powerless people. During the cold war in order to finance their illegal and criminal enterprises, they all jumped into the anti-communism bandwagon, uttering the word anti-communist alone would have been used to earn them a big blank check with no strings attached from one of the cold war rivals-the U.S. or the Soviet Union. Those big checks sustained terrible and incompetent dictators such as Mengistu, Siyad Barre, Mobotu, Hassan Guled, Bakassa and many other despots. Those enabled crooks and criminals disguising as heads of state to wage aggressive and genocidal wars against their people.

 

Nowadays the only cash cow around is the war on terrorism. All diminishing despots are in the anti-terrorism bandwagon again. But this time around, despots are facing a totally different world and there are few blank checks to go around. meanwhile, their populace's political awareness is much better than than before. Therefore, dictators everywhere beware your life span is much shorter than before.

 

The average reign of terror for the average despots was 20 years between 1960-1990. Today the life span for an average dictator's reign of terror is between 7-10 years. Usually when they are violently ousted from power, their days among the walking is very limited even If they survive their forced ejection from power.

 

Somalia can not form a real government for about 15 years and for good reason. Until today many people of Somali decent seem to have a very little concept regarding the nation state. To Somalis and may be many other communities, the clan concept is much more deeper than both Islam and the nation.

 

Somalia disintegrated into tribal homelands or Bantustans if you will. This process doesn't gradually come about, it was an abrupt process, everything came spontaneously. Everything was swift and happened in the speed of light.Though this cataclysmic Armageddon happened everywhere. it primarily happened in the former capital of Somalia and the former capital of the former British Somaliland. These were places places of higher concentration of humanity. These two places were the most diverse places in the country at the time. Today they may be one of the most segregated places on the planet.

 

What had happened primarily in those two places amounts to astronomical plate tectonics activity, that unleashed a chain reaction of devastating earthquakes and volcanoes. The larva fall out from this cosmological upheavals spread out to the rest of the country like a brush fire, or like a metathesized cancer.

 

The afore-mentioned cosmos forces irreversibly destroyed the fabric of once a proud society. The body of this nation sustained a huge structural damage which may never make any recovery an almost lost cause at best and almost an impossible proposition at worst.The severe injuries inflicted on this individually hospitable, gregarious and industrial societies may never fully heal. Unprecedented virulent clan racism and chauvinism superceded everything else. Everything is done through the periscope of clannism, regionalism, sectarianism and a run away hatred which refused to go away.

 

In some areas like the North West (Somaliland), the aforementioned maladies have been somewhat neutralized or so you think, curbed, temporarily arrested or what have you. But It is getting clearer with each passing day that clannism and sectarian sentiment is well and alive. for the last year strong tribal sentiments have been rapidly surging in this region. Different groups started constantly talking about the not so good recent past which was replete with devastating tribal wars, indiscriminate killing of the unarmed innocent people and too much controversy.

 

Groups claiming to be the remnants of the SNM, the clan based group that besides fighting with Siyad Barre's forces, that also attributed to the killings of many unarmed civilians during the eighties and the nineties are recently stirring up trouble in the north. The surviving remnants of this group keeps on invoking the clan card. They have also took a number of foreign trips and in each and every stop, they spewed hatred, incitement of tribal sentiments and a heavy dose about the recent messy past of the country. They were surely part and parcel of the political and tribal relations mess the area has witnessed in the just recent past. What these groups were up to, remains a riddle wrapped in an enigma. But I think they are very distraught, because they didn't realize most of their destructive clan agenda.

 

These groups failed to understand that clannism can not build anything. They failed to understand that killing and revenge killings destroy the fabric of nations. By now, I thought they must have learned that inciting people through false and pointless crisis-es will not take them anywhere. I thought by now they have learned from their past mistakes and stop refraining from their attempts to cash in through incitement, and what divides people and not through what unifies them.

 

This is a group which have a history of feasting on the weak, the down trodden and the dispossessed. Though at the present they are not more than featherless birds who are unable to fly, they can still polarize community relations by invoking controversial issues. The remnants of this aging merchants of hate resorted to the clan incitement rhetoric. At the end of the day, they will be held accountable of their actions.

 

Now they are bent on starting crisis and eventually clan wars of attrition in these mountainous Awdal country, adjacent to the red sea. This is a strategic guerrilla warfare country, in which the indigenous people will be always favored to repel and win a renewed SNM aggression on their homeland.

 

The SNM waged a war of aggression against the natives of these neglected coastal villages through out the eighties, and all their attacks have been thwarted. May be they are trying to make their last gasp attempt to annex this area. What they were doing lately through their rudimentary clan oriented media, and through some so-called parliamentary candidates is nothing but an all out rally the troops effort.

 

All of a sudden they created a new crisis from the blue. They must know the people from this area are very closely watching their movement, and will vigorously defend their land If they are attacked by the radical SNM fringe.

 

In southern Somalia nomadic groups from the arid middle part of the country annexed large swaths of land from Afgoi to Kismayo. These occupation gangs have brought a reign of terror to these areas, which are inhabited by the most productive and peaceful people of all Somalia. Lately local groups are organizing to dislodge this marauding primitive groups from the fertile Jubba valley.

 

All of a sudden what was supposedly started as a rebellion against tyranny and dictatorship changed into a brutal war of occupation, mass murder and may be genocide of the unarmed and peaceful communities. What we are seeing is heavily armed violent nomadic groups who are feasting on mostly unarmed, peace-loving civilians. But that is changing now and the indigenous victims of these primitive alien occupiers are rapidly organizing and planning to finally eject these atrocious gangs from their lands.

 

Therefore, If the resurgent SNM loyalists want to start a new land graping aggression against the state of Awdal, I would like to warn them, they will not be welcomed with flowers. My warning to them is, they must prepare for a very long nationalist war of liberation to repulse their aggression and these wars may not be limited to that area. But nobody wants war and violence.

 

 

They know that, they didn't accomplish much at their pinnacle when Mengistu armed them to the teeth, except the sowing of the seeds of virulent hatred between neighbors, and between people related to each other in one way or the other.

 

shallow clan sentiment, a mentality that seeks glory and grandiosity through falsehoods, sweeping generalizations, claiming other peoples' work, lands or history and virulent clan sentiments has led communities to oblivion, devastation, backwardness and a life-long regret. What you individually accomplish will make you proud, not empty clan myth of supremacy and majesty. Causing trouble between people and creating an atmosphere of intolerance and hate won't take you anywhere. The saying goes, " those who won't learn from their mistakes will be condemned to repeat them".

 

The loose, chaotic Somali confederation of tribal affiliations is not bond by any laws, be it bylaws, a code of conduct, Islamic jurisprudence or secular law. it is a vehicle whereby no membership card is needed. It is the only system in the world where individuals are not accountable of their actions. That is why criminals, killers, mass murderers, fugitives from justice, shady figure, suspects accused of crimes against humanity and incompetent leaders are getting away with everything they perpetrated.

 

This area is tired of unscrupulous pseudo-politicians who don't know the art of politics, bad politicians and impostors masquerading as the champions of the clan interest. I think it is about time to reassess the clan family system and the way it works.

 

Apparently non of this people care about the clan interest. If you read their report cards-the recycled transitional, situational or defacto leaders if you will, most of them will not walk away with anything better than a grade "D" minus or "F". Can people like that be trusted with the huge responsibility of managing the lives of people. Most of them can't manage their own-selves or their individual families let alone whole nations.

 

Is the Tribal wars over Yet

 

I don't think so, the self-declared region Northern Somalia (Somaliland) was not initially founded on ideology, political reality or ethnic identity. It was perhaps mostly based on clan affiliation, clan supremacist ideas or may be on a good intentions. Overall, some regions are faring better than others, but so far non of the relatively functioning regions such as Somaliland are Puntland were initially build on ideology, well thought of vision or mission. But they filled a huge vacuum whereby the country has no choice and can accept any kind of a government led by any kind of leadership.

 

Thanks to community elders, intellectual, religious leaders, women's groups that so many good things happen in Somaliland and at least in one other region-Puntland. Had the SNM has not been marginalized, the North West(Somaliland) would have not been different than Mogadishu or Baidawa. I believe the tribal wars are not over yet and If people will not come together and peaceful resolve their conflicts, a new and more devastating wars will engulf the area again.

 

In the afore-mentioned regions, there are some rudimentary institutions of justice, law enforcement, nominal parliament, some private human rights institutions, k-12 schools and some few number of Universities. So far one of the brilliant things they succeeded to do and other places failed to do is the creation of a peaceful environment, and the establishments of several institutions of higher learning. The Establishment of Amoud from scratch set an unprecedented example whereby others immediately followed.

 

This is a positive immolation of some noble thing. All of a sudden Hargeisa University has been established and now followed by Burao University. The sustainability of peace and the establishment of community institutions of higher learning are the two things which are working well.

 

My expectations regarding the rudimentary clan-oriented local media is not that great in the first place, and my suspicions have been exacerbated by the ongoing created, exaggerated and erroneously reported expansionist land grape, regarding towns and villages who were historically part of Awdal. The creation of non existing land disputes is the nexus of Rayaale hatred, tabloid media bound by no standards of journalistic ethics, unscrupulous leaders and the remnants of the fringe radical SNM .

 

Rayaale regime also is part and parcel of the problem. Rayaale as a matter of fact have accepted their controversial and radical overtures such the allotments of parliamentary seat based on the 1960 format.

 

By letting the failed ultra radical SNM fringe a free ride to dictate public policy is a disservice to all. Recently regarding the explosive controversy on how the parliamentary seats are allocated, the rejuvenated surviving SNM radical fringe got their way.

 

Clearly both Rayaale and the election committee pondered to them and their proposal to apportion the parliamentary seats using the despised and unfair 1960 format succeeded. A decision that has triggered a sharp reaction anger in all Eastern/ western Awdal, north/western Gabiley, Djibouti and the diaspora.

 

If you remember when an Awdal member of the election committee died, some groups especially the opposition parties vehemently opposed the replacement of the deceased Awdal commission member with another Awdalite. Without the replacement of the deceased Awdalite, the state of Awdal, north/western Gabiley will not have a voice in the election committee. The fringe SNM loyalists masquerading as opposition parties succeeded in both controversial proposals:

 

(1). The election committee which has a token Awdal representation ruled the parliamentary seats allocation format should based on the 1960 format. (2). They decided the voter nullification, and the disenfranchisement of six Awdal towns and villages.

 

In both the above-mentioned cases, the clearly biased election commission, with Rayaale's blessing, ruled in favor of the radical SNM loyalists and against the state of Awdal and north and western Gabiley district.

 

I don't believe these decisions have been reached by accident. This has the smell of a hidden radical SNM loyalist group, who are bent on dominating everything in this region by any means necessary and at any cost. In both cases Rayaale dropped the ball and conceded to these groups.

 

That represents a major set back and creates a point of huge contention, casting a serious doubt on the clannish under tones and the intentions of this unfair, unjust and dubious decisions. This successive utterly wrong, and unfair strategic mistakes propelled the insidiousness and the sinister intentions of the framers of the Somaliland project into the open.

 

Chronology of the SNM loyalists activity

 

As soon as they realized that, they went away with their first proposal regarding the allotments of the parliamentary seats, they started claiming land which was always part and parcel of Awdal. Now the one-sided and biased so-called election commission decided to disenfranchise about six villages and towns inhabited by people who have been neglected by every Somali government that ruled this land since 1960.

 

Again these eternally marginalized Awdal coastal communities were denied to right to vote, If outsiders who don't know them and don't care about them are not getting their vote. This seems like these people are not in control of their individual votes. Isn't this the same as Siyad Barre's trade mark tactics. Isn't this "tyranny" pure and simple. I won't see where is the democracy many people in this neck of the woods talk about.

 

That may have been the whole objective in the first place at least for the short time. These expired SNM radical fringe has no other good issue to run on, other than to constantly repackage their seriously blemished records. All they know best is their 19Th century stump speeches which is based on clan division, segregation, incitement and hatred. we have seen what people like that are capable of doing if they reach to the top echelons of power.

 

There was more balance of power between the clans in the first few months of 1960.

 

Of the 4 representatives from the North, two of them Mr.Mohamed H. Ibrahim Egal and Ahmed H. Dualeh (Kaise) were from the Isaak community, Ali Garad Jama was from the ***** community and H. Ibrahim Nuur from the ********** community. The short lived 1960 government has been more balanced than all the following Somali governments and Somaliland governments for that matter.

 

Clearly coming into the open, is a very strong tendency to dominate everything from parliamentary seats, cabinet posts, directors of the cabinet agencies, seaports, trade and almost all the economical life lines of the country. The feeling behind dividing the parliamentary elections seems to be the corner stone of the tenants of the domination I have enumerated.

 

Some samples of some of the failed ethnic/clan oriented movements of the past and the present

 

The Khmeroug of Cambodia, the lord's Resistance in Northern Uganda, Charles Taylor clan militia, Moise Tchombe Belgium backed gangs, the Christain dominated crook leaders of Ivory Coast backed by the French and others, and many other armed groups, all led their countries to oblivion under the false guise of liberation and change for the better.

 

Conclusion

 

The people of Awdal/Gabiley, Sanaag and Sool won't be hoodwinked into believing that Somaliland is a genuine country, phenomena and a belief. Though many good things have already happened in the country, due to the good offices of the community elders, religious groups, intellectuals and other groups, the Somaliland project appears to smell like a grand clan project. Superficially everything looks like a well functioning country run by nationalistic leaders, who have the welfare of their people in their hearts. By far all the people in this region look nominally equal. But the reality on the ground sees otherwise.

 

What has been happening recently made many people very vigilant and cautious about this complex country. Bad government decisions, the easy government approval of controversial proposals from radical fringe elements, that can easily jeopardize the fragile relative peace in the country. The easy winning of two extremely controversial proposals by radical groups, seem to suggest that, this Somaliland government is behind the scenes dominated by one ethnic group.

 

The inference from all these government bad decisions is that, all kinds of controversial proposals including those that may cause an all out war between the different communities can easily pass, because, the government is dominated by one group. This will show the lack of check and balances. If the government decides to declare an unjust war against a certain ethnic group or clan, nobody has the ability to stop it. A government like this is very dangerous and there is no way to stop bad government decisions, without checks and balances in place.

 

Had there are some checks and balances in place, the genocide against the Tutsi community perpetrated by the Rwandan government would have been averted. The decision for the final Tutsi solution has been decided years before the on set of the genocide. In the same token Siyad Barre would not have the ability to wage a war of attrition and genocide against his country men, If checks and balances have been in place. How come any government will be different from Siyad Barre's dictatorship, had there is no checks and balances in place.

 

In Africa no government without a separate branches such as the executive, judiciary and the legislative branches, human rights organ and a clause in the constitution for the safeguarding of minority rights should be rejected by the people of those individual countries.. This is the only way to guarantee that, governments will not wage wars against certain groups of their citizenry in the future.

 

At the end of the day justice for all, the rule of law, safeguarding human rights are the ultimate solution of the perpetual political morass and the eternal gridlock and stalemate.

 

Impostors to the Saylac crown

 

I would like to tell those who got used to the unfair notion of been unopposed in elections in Saylac. That time is gone, If you have people there, you need to bring them on and let them vote. The diminishing village dictator across the border should not lie to you. There is nothing he can do for you. He himself sitting is in an active volcano which may erupt at anytime. Opposition groups against his clannist and racist mini-state is forming everywhere. Get along with the other communities who were residing in the area for thousands of years. Empty claims without a concrete proof can not work for you. this time around. If it worked for you yesterday. It won't work today. Remember, everyday is not a holiday.

 

 

Suleiman Egeh is a freelance writer and a senior science instructor. He is also a contributor to Saylacnews