Preparing Somalia's Future: Goals for 2015!

[Paragon]

Well folks, what you often seem to forget is that our dear NGONGE here has a valid license to critique and ask practical questions. His license is expiring in 2015 and until then we should allow him to do his good work. I suppose a critique can in Somali terms be classified as 'negative commentary'.

 

But if NGONGE continues on this path without written permission from Mr. Mahiga then we would be forced to consult with the new dastuur's saviours and sanction him - mildly. On a serious note, however, I see why Xiin would see NGONGE as a killjoy.

[xiinfaniin]

^^ :D @killjoy

 

NGONGE is irrelevant in the larger debate . He is mere separatist , Paragon.

[Paragon]

^Xiin we should give the man more rope to hang himself adeer. Kolleey SL wayba soo noqon doonaane maxay karaamada isaga dilayaan? NGONE maadaama uu caaqil reerka u yahay inuu ciyaalka xamaasadaysan dejiyo ayaan loo qaatay ninyow. Illeen hadhoow weji rag lagu la xaaltamo ayaa loo baahan yahaye? Dhakac dhakac hore dhiikac dhiikac dambe oo dhabana hays leh ayay leedahay baa la yiri.

[burahadeer]

fake unionists in deep trouble,they can't pull it,somaliland,somaliland,somaliland that they can't do a sh!t about .

Hadalbaa ka soo hadhay:D

[xiinfaniin]

Paragon, I agree we all thought that NGONGE was the intellectual type (he still has it in him), alas he was taken by Oodweyne's windy essays

 

Soomaali meel ma kala jirto awoowe, waa reero isku carooday, wey isku soo noqon

[NGONGE]

Paragon;828571 wrote:

^Xiin we should give the man more rope to hang himself adeer. Kolleey SL wayba soo noqon doonaane maxay karaamada isaga dilayaan? NGONE maadaama uu caaqil reerka u yahay inuu ciyaalka xamaasadaysan dejiyo ayaan loo qaatay ninyow. Illeen hadhoow weji rag lagu la xaaltamo ayaa loo baahan yahaye? Dhakac dhakac hore dhiikac dhiikac dambe oo dhabana hays leh ayay leedahay baa la yiri.

Adeer labada ha isku darin. My support for SL has nothing to do with my amazement at the daydreams displayed in here. These are two different things. In fact, if I heard Siilaanyo or any in his government peddling the rubbish that limited people like Xiin try to peddle in here, I would be the first to accuse him of being a fraud.

 

A child can dream and believe that his dreams will come true. An adult on the other hand must work to achieve those dreams and must (because of his experiences in life) know that some of them are not achievable in the short term. Nuune is the eternal optimist who always tries to remain positive and encourage himself with dreams of a better tomorrow. I don't mind him or his dreams because I believe that he's experienced, sensible and responsible enough to know that most of them are impossible in the short term (certainly not the 13 years he suggested in his other thread). Adam is young and full of misplaced testosterone (we all were there once and some of us are still there). Again, I don't have a problem with him or his visions. However, as a good Samaritan, it is my job to remind him of the huge obstacles and problems in his way and ask him to temper his overwhelming enthusiasm with a pinch of realism.

 

As for sheeko ciyaalka aad wadataan about ulterior motives, well that is what limited people do. But then I do extend the benefit of the doubt even to Xiin and his apparent limitations. It is the world he lives in and the people he mixes with that keep holding him back. That he then believes that everyone who comments on Somali affairs is of the same caliber as he is no major surprise to me (this is not limited to Xiin either, most Somalis suffer from such a limitation).

 

So let us see. Maxaan hada ka hadlayna? Progress for Somalia? Well, in order to progress you first need to make an inventory of what you have and what needs improving. Tell me, what do you see before you?

 

Turkey improved a few places. Mahiga got his road map going. Somalis are excited! Hada sheekada o dhan waa inta uun! These are the only new things here the rest is the usual Somali xamaasad that we see over and over and over again. You never learn your lessons and are forever chasing a new rainbow or a new caravan. But that in itself is not bad. Hope is good and must always be encouraged or life will be unbearable. However, reasonable hope is what is needed not this childish excitement and empty dreams. You’ve been there before; you’ve seen it all and by now should know that someone somewhere will throw a spanner in the works. So, tell me, when I see nuune’s visions or Adam’s deliberations as to the future of Somalia, am I wrong to scoff and point out the improbability of it all?

 

This is Somalia, people. This is a place that recently suffered from a major famine. A place with no proper functioning state for over twenty one years (even if one be a unionist and include SL & PL there). To waste your time dreaming about railroads, skyscrapers and becoming a force in Africa is to not understand the problem at all. Give your certificates back; go tend to your camels, all your education and acquired knowledge has become a total waste.

 

Sustained peace does not come about because Uganda, the UN or the West said so. It needs lots of work to maintain, it requires understanding, continuous dialogue and stubborn will. In addition, one can’t declare that the years of strife are over just because peace reigned for sixth months (remember the Islamic Courts?). It needs to be maintained for longer periods to prove that this is not another flash in the pan. Furthermore, once lasting peace is attained (or concomitant with such a peace) the other SERIOUS work of rebuilding must take place.

 

What rebuilding are we talking about here? Paragon building a six story building in down town Mogadishu or GT building a private school? Well, these count (I suppose) but they’re not that important. If anything, like in the cases of SL & PL, they are only visual monuments to the endurance of peace and simple (note the word) signs that progress is taking place but they’re not the be all and end all of progress. What is a state without its civil servants, its police force, its army and its health & education services (but even these last two can wait for the time being). How long would it take and need to have a functioning police service for the entire country? Can the Somali army replace AMISOM any time soon? Will the post transition government have enough competent employees in its various public sector institutions?

 

SL with its 21 years of peace has not managed it. PL with its long peace and progress has not managed it. But the dreamers here expect all of that to take place in Somalia in no time at all! The dreamers here are the ‘educated’ Somalis that a nomad on this thread was hoping would go back home and help. But how could they help when their visions and dreams are not based in reality! This is not Coelho’s alchemist world, this is real life.

 

There is much more to deal with before any reasonable person could begin to think of fulfilling the expansive dreams about green airlines, nationwide railways and silver spoons in every mouth. Any other argument put forward here will either mean you’re an idle romantic or, sadly, just limited.

 

Indhaha fura.

[Chimera]

NGONGE, I respect you, but kindly don't patronise me for I'm 25, a grown man by any standards, and my testosterone levels are very much balanced. I'm aware of the realities at home, however this doesn't mean I should keep my visions of the future to myself, and instead indulge in the rubbish regional rivalry or cloaked clan-politics that takes up 90% of the bandwidth on this forum. It's amusing that in such topics a good samaritan such as yourself is found missing in terms of advice and a dose of Islamic guidance for our misguided brethren, indeed as a Muslim that likes to guide people, that should be your first job, with clear priority status over intervening in the visions of the future by young men. I certainly don't need anyone to tell me the limitations of the Somali people, for even with all the events that happened in the last twenty years, the potential is still there, be it manpower, infrastructure, private sector or international markets. Nuune's 2025 vision is absolutely within our reach, and capability.

 

Today's reality is completely uncomparable to any previous year since 1991. The Islamic Courts Union did not have powerful friends such as Turkey, Qatar, the UAE and most of the OIC, who all want a stable Somalia. and are going through great lengths to make it happen. The reconstruction in Mogadishu, the engine of the Somali World, is of a whole different scale, only comparable to the urban projects during the Central government period. Indeed even in terms of military and law-enforcement, the Somali army and police are making the biggest progress since 1991, and within two years will be fully capable of standing on their own two feet. Military prowess is not the issue here, unity was, and just yesterday we heard about the development of a single command for all Somali soldiers. This combined with a united capital, is more than enough to kick-start a major comeback for the Somali State.

 

Somaliland, and Puntland in the last twenty years never had access to the type of funds that is being made available to the Somali government and which is being pumped into the capital. Through those funds, Somalis will be enabled to revive their state nationwide, and expand further across the country, mainly the unstable South. The ICU, as promising as they were, did not have all the major powers of the world working with them, nor is the current government or the post-transition government under any threat of military destruction. There are more embassies in Somalia today than in any other year since 1991, there are more foreign companies, and entrepreneurs in Somalia today than in any other year since the 90s, the world has returned to Somalia, its finally out of its decades long isolation and pariah status. There has also been a major shift in discourse with regards to Somalia in international circles, and its acquiring a reputation as a land with vast untapped natural resources, the world is therefore adamant in stabilizing the country to get long-term access to these resources, we already saw it with the British, we know its one of the reasons why the Turks are assisting us, and steadily other major powers like China and India are coming forward with their interests to rebuild the Somali state and its institutions.

 

You focus on the negative side of the last twenty years, yet you ignore that Somalis build across the country more universities than before the war. The country has more airlines than before the war. The country has more schools today than before the war. The country has more companies, entrepreneurs, shops and businesses than before the war. The country has a vibrant private-sector, something it didn't have before the war. The country is more connected through technology than before the war. The country is exporting 10 times more products than it did before the war. The country has an immense pool of educated Somalis in the diaspora, which it didn't have before the war, and who can easily be given an incentive to return and fill the civil-servant positions you mentioned above, indeed did you forget that the majority of the previous and current technocrat cabinets were enlisted from that same diaspora?

 

You don't need decades to rebuild your country if your blessed with natural resources. Take for example Angola, it suffered 25 years of war, and in 2002 was worser off than 99% of the countries in Africa, yet within 10 years they have build the most impressive skyscrapers and hotels in Luanda, and all across the country they established highways, roads and railways, all within 10 years of peace. Somalia could make the same comeback as Angola, or Bosnia, or Lebanon, or any other country that suffered decades of war but then had a rennaissance. The Somalis have history as a friend and a guide in terms of what they are capable off, so please let me remind you:

 

Somalia

 

- A country that was hailed as one of the greatest democratic countries in Africa in the 1960s, and President Aden Abdulle was the first head of state to step down peacefully in an African election year.

 

- A country that made the greatest advance in literacy history, outshining the much hailed Cuban literacy campaign.

 

- A country that maintained a military complex considered in the top five militaries of Africa, a continent of 50+ countries. It send troops to Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe, and trained the South Africans and the Eritreans during their independence struggles.

 

- A country that was one of the few self-sufficient countries in Africa, and the breadbasket of the Middle East, and even exported food to Europe. A single Somali crop like 'bananas' was the biggest employer of people in East Africa.

 

- A country that was the first muslim country to grant equal rights to women through the 1975 Family Law, and the participation of women in the work-force was higher in Somalia than the percentages of Algeria, Sudan, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco put together.

 

- A country that in peace was building more deepsea ports than any country in East Africa.

 

- A country that was building more highways and roads than its larger neighbour Ethiopia. Even today Somalia's paved road-network remains larger than the road-networks of Uganda and DR Congo put together whose combined territory size is five times larger than Somalia.

 

- A country who's aviation sector maintained Africa's largest runway at the Berbera Airport, whose record was only broken by the 4500m runway expansion at Mogadishu Airport.

 

- A country who's 1000 year old city of Mogadishu was one of the cleanest and safest cities in Africa, and a major political and cultural capital hosting fashion shows, sport-events, major political conventions and annually presided over two of the four largest African Film Festivals, and had the region's largest Museum.

 

- A country that was the only country in Africa with whom the Soviet Union signed a friendship-treaty, and the first African country to be visited by a Soviet Head of State.

 

- A country that in 1974 became the first non-Arab country to join a traditionally exclusive organisation like the Arab League.

 

- A country that maintained the largest commercial Merchant fleet in the Muslim world; larger than seafaring nations like Turkey, Pakistan and Morocco.

 

- A country who's national carrier 'Somali Airlines' was the only national airlines in Africa to have in its work-force exclusively 'African pilots and technicians' (all professional Somalis) and had one of the largest networks flying to the Middle-East, Europe and other parts of Africa.

 

- A country that was in the process of constructing Africa's second largest Dam (after the Aswan dam) in the form of the Bardera dam project.

 

- A country that constructed the largest Fish production factory in East Africa, the biggest meat processing factory. The SNAI sugar factory was the largest in the region, and Somaltex manufactured more textiles than any country in Africa, with so much produced that one could stretch it from Mogadishu to New York according to an 1980s journalist.

 

- A country who's largest university is reponsible for educating globally renown scientists, judges and professors:

 

Somali National University

 

It therefore baffles me that you would deny us our right to have a vision of a better future, when we have all this information of the past available to us. You pretend like the Somali people are incapable of peace and have been in perpetual conflict since B.C times and ignore the VAST MAJORITY of their long rich history where they lead prosperous and peaceful commercial lives with ties across the world.

 

No NGONGE, a man that is incapable of dreaming, has an empty soul.

[nuune]

The largest hotels and resorts in East Africa is owned by Somalis, from Kampala, Dar Es Salaam, to Zanzibar, Arusha, to as far as Lusaka, Nairobi, just shows you how capable Somalis are when they have peace, in a very short time they achieved that, even as little as 2 and 4 years, the largest resort in Tanzania is owned by Somali, built by him, designed by him, financed by him, and he employs more than 10 thousand local people(Tanzania government always thanks him for that).

 

Kampala same story, Nairobi, haba sheegin, even the Luanda Chimera has mentioned is being partly transformed by Somali businessmen, they are even building temporary houses that will be used by foreign workers.

 

 

I am not saying Ngonge is against my impossible projects, but he yet to tell me a revised version of how long it would take banking system to be established in the country(13 years is too much, I want to hear maximum 6 years).

[NGONGE]

Adam, I am not sure why you would feel patronized when I refer to you as a young man, twenty five is young, saaxib. It is not an insult or meant as one. It is a fact. Were you the same person at nineteen (for a nineteen year old is a grown man too)?

 

As for the testosterone well it is in clear evidence here. Angola, Rowanda or Outer Mongolia are not the countries we are concerned with here, Somalia is. Now you’ve given me a list of countries interested in bringing Somalia back to its feet and an entire feel-good record of things that promise a rosy future but nothing approaching the dreams you keep sharing with us has or will come of any of it in the immediate future.

 

We were this and we were that tells me nothing. We have the natural resources and are having a couple of shiny glass buildings in the middle of the capital adds nothing. You are talking about a nation here, adeer. You are talking of starving children, displaced people, wicked politicians and a whole load of (now) idle moryaans. To hide your head in the sand and tell me that I am focusing on the negatives is the height of denial, saaxib. These are not just negatives; they are the clear-as-day-light realities.

 

I am aware of the work that the International Community (and Turkey in particular) is undertaking in Somalia. I am aware of the progress being made in that front and I am aware of the potential Somalia has. But, more importantly, I am aware of the tendency of Somalis to exaggerate positives, to never learn their lessons and to become excitable over the first grain of good news they receive.

 

Going by the principle that nothing stays the same way forever, I too believe that Somalia will improve and attain all that you suggest and more. But I am a realist, my friend. And, you, as a Somali Diaspora member should be one too. Before I think of entrepreneurs, brilliant schools and silver spoons I know I have to think of semi-competent politicians, skilled civil servants (not the ten and twenty that came back from the West but several thousand, at a minimum) and simple amenities. Let’s see the politicians deliver that to the long suffering and downtrodden Somalis and then I may entertain your fanciful notions about Somalia turning into another Japan or Angola. It is these simple first steps that are the most important and most difficult to achieve. Once they’re in place, the world is your oyster.

 

p.s.

On Islam, maybe you were not here back when I started posting on SOL but if you do a search you will see that I have hounded many an empty head on that topic and exhausted all the possible arguments that I could ever forward. On that issue, there are many who are still happy to don the religious garb and issue their fatwas, I choose to stay out of it for the most part. On the dreams however, I can’t trust any other Somali to tell you things as they are (for most are as idealistic as you are; and yes, that includes those from SL).

 

Now I’ll repeat: dream all you like but FIRST, try and deal with the reality.

[NGONGE]

nuune;828714 wrote:

The largest hotels and resorts in East Africa is owned by Somalis, from Kampala, Dar Es Salaam, to Zanzibar, Arusha, to as far as Lusaka, Nairobi, just shows you how capable Somalis are when they have peace, in a very short time they achieved that, even as little as 2 and 4 years, the largest resort in Tanzania is owned by Somali, built by him, designed by him, financed by him, and he employs more than 10 thousand local people(Tanzania government always thanks him for that).

 

Kampala same story, Nairobi, haba sheegin, even the Luanda Chimera has mentioned is being partly transformed by Somali businessmen, they are even building temporary houses that will be used by foreign workers.

 

 

I am not saying Ngonge is against my

impossible

projects, but he yet to tell me a revised version of how long it would take banking system to be established in the country(13 years is too much, I want to hear maximum 6 years).

Kala saar, saaxib. Lakshmi Mittal is one of the richest men in the world yet India has appalling levels of poverty. In other words, what individuals do for their own wealth is no reflection on how a country can or will do.

 

I don't have a problem with your vision but I believe your time scale is totally out of synch with reality. As for the banking system, dee if you want a building (like the one in Hargeisa) to refer to as the central bank of Somalia, you can have that in two days never mind two or six years. If you want it to function properly, you might need a slightly longer time. It's not the buildings or names of institutions that matter (Khaatumo has a minister of aviation) it is their ability to function and be fully operational within the periods of time you specify and it is the ability of the central/federal government to run it all smoothly. In a world where the biggest man is Sheikh Hotel, do you really expect such visions to be realised in such a short time? Indhaha fur, saaxib. Choose a realistic time frame.

[nuune]

lol Sheikh hotel, maadba naga deysid kan, intaa ka sokoow,

 

Every project I mentioned needs peace, security, strong government that will assess each and every project, such as government owned postal services, ports, aviation and so on, these need a very strong government in every department of its ministry, maybe my lack of mentioning of strong government is what is making the whole projects impossible.

 

 

I think we are on the same page now, that we agree that we need strong institutions.

 

 

I didn't mean the projects to be achieved while we are in this situation, waxan by a year time or 2 waa laga baxayaa, that is when we expect things to roll, and you take your Rabo Bank with you

[Carafaat]

I subscribe to the optimistic vision (where to go) of Chimera and Nuune. But Ngonge has a point and is talking about the strategical actions (how to do it).

 

two diffrent things saaxibeyaal.

[xiinfaniin]

I trust most of you by now know that drama queen that is NGONGE. For those who did not know before look at him now.

 

Feker baa la yiri, markaasuu soo buraanburay. The gist of his talk: hebel waa limited, anna waa fiicanahay

[NGONGE]

^^ As limited as ever, saaxib. Now you're resorting to the old habit of school girls to form gangs (look at NG, he's a bad bad boy). O yeedh, o yeedh, kolay you're too limited to cope on your own.

[xiinfaniin]

^^School girls? that is quite the foodley talk

 

Waad isku dhexyaacday . Waxani waa xaajo rag, maaha sheeko ciyaalkaad soo qori jirtay.

 

Iga baro, Caqliyow