Dear Readers,
Here is an excellent article for your enjoyments, it details the dichotomy of our time as a somalis, paricularly the difference between the past and the future, between consent and coercion, and most importantly between our real socially-correct history and that of perverted imposter known as socialist history of Somalia by siyad barre, in short it re-evaluate and re-discover the bye-gone moral accent of our forefathers, and most importantly how it is relevent to re-birth of the struggling soul of somalis, and it particularly how that eferverscent spirit is finally showing it's tentative feet in the Republic Of Somaliland.
PS: Please Read it, and try to make a constructive appraisals of it's central conceit in a intelligent manner befitting of a decent discussion.
Thank You,
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**************a The Spirit of Somaliland**************
In Civil War, Civil hands get dirty. William Shakespeare -
The forces of intolerance and the culture of coup d'états that have wrecked havoc on the face of Africa’s political landscape have once again gained a foothold in that tragedy that the former Somali Republic.
The idea that a dictatorship is the answer to the turmoil and strife that has engulfed the former Somali Republic, has gained wide currency among many Somalis. Maddened and exasperated by the brutal and mind numbing violence that has been wrought on ordinary men, women and children the Somali mind has reacted with that simple rudimentary answer to solving this tragedy: coercion.
Somali history though teaches us that this brutish way in which ordinary men and women have been forced to live is anathema to the whole moral and ethical universe of the Somali people. This history need not be repeated here, however, one thread of this historical fibre can account for a past that involved a moral affirmation, that involved an intellectual leadership that was activist and indeed, a society that was governed by the idea that one ought to get the consent as a pre-condition for not only politics, but indeed, to partake in social intercourse itself, be it economically, politically, and culturally. I believe that this was the Somali experience, an experience that involved consent rather than coercion, an experience that always returned to consent when coercion’s iron fist spilt too much of the social blood.
Furthermore, the Somali experience has been one of remedy, the resolve writ large in the emotional consensus of the Somali mind that extreme forms of exclusion, prohibiting the general consent, was wrong and immoral, for it opposed the very founding myths of our culture, religion and history. Instances of the return to consent can be seen and many periods of Somali history. When the great and tragically flawed Sayed Abdullah Hassan strayed from the poetry of consent to that of coercion and spilling of the social blood he’s reading of the Somali mind failed, when the politics of factionalism overthrew consent with the party politics of the formerly Somali Republic, the dark forces of illegitimacy overthrew the legal government: that was in 1969.
Even in the beginning the propaganda of the coup leaders held sway for some time until the social blood was again spilled and coercion reared its ugly face. We are still paying the price of that hideous and revolting dictatorship.
Today, even the discourse of consent is laughed at, derided and mocked in high and low circles of the Somali mind. The dictatorship did something to us; it stripped us of our ideas of consent and replaced them with images of a backward Somali, who had to be violently educated about structure, the basics of the command and control formation, and finally, if there was opposition, the social blood had to be spilled. The dictatorship wrought another contradiction, it used our traditional vocabulary, or what a recent commentator called the “initial intelligence” our respective clans, to poison the collective socio-political well that we all historically drunk from. This more than anything has left us morally punch drunk. For, the dictatorship spoke to our dark side, that part of the human condition that seeks unkindness, malice and brutality. The dictatorship spoke to this condition with training from either the KGB or the CIA and thereafter created what remains of the day.
Today, some decade and half after the dictatorship collapsed, there is this spirit of consent that is emerging, and it is emerging in a place we all know: Somaliland.
The word Somaliland for some reason creates lament for many, and even astonishment to those who continue to cling to that coercive concept of a greater Somalia irrespective of what lives under it and how we live under it. But that is another subject, and another debate, I wish to speak of this country that has a right to be called a country because it upholds that spirit of consent, that spirit that is prevalent in all society unless it is shrouded by its opposite – coercion.
The Spirit of Somaliland therefore is not a spirit that she holds because of some special privilege, or because the human constitution there is somehow special, or for that matter superior to others. Somaliland merits to be called a country because it has started the first step in a long journey for a democratic dispensation. Notice that I write about a democratic dispensation rather than cursed terminological minefield “democracy” which is from the Greek words ‘demos’ and “kratos’ meaning rule of the many. Obviously, this singular interpretation of democracy would rub off the shine of this important word, I therefore believe that a “democratic dispensation” or the most palatable rule based on a peoples sense of who they are, that is, their culture, religion, history, individual human rights etc, etc, one can add to the list, constitute the foundations of “a democratic dispensations”. The substance however must dispense a democracy whose core is consent, and consent is another name for democracy and even freedom.
Today in Somaliland, Somali life is awake and aware, the ideas of consent and the creation of a democratic life system, is taking root in Somaliland. Peace and the respect for human life, the construction of a vibrant polis, the idea of erecting a democracy suitable to their social space, the rejection of chauvinism, and most off all the election of a new leader under a legitimate political process, not only makes Somaliland a country, it is the example that should be followed.
The spirit of Somaliland then is about consent. The idea that dialogue, mutual give and take, debate, and the pursuit of the common good as agency for escaping coercion, regression, blood letting and dictatorship, is the infrastructure that this country is trying to build with no resources to speak of. The buoyancy and resilience of this country in the face of its position early in this millennium is sign of the strength of the idea of consent in human affairs.
I also wrote this piece because a simple man who represents what every Somali wants never to return is causing mischief again. I will not bother with characterising him in this or that way! For his simplicity makes him a brutal nemesis to the forces of democracy. Abdullahi Yusuf as every man, woman, child knows is an assassin. His target has been and will always be, consent. Coercion is his spirit, consent is ours, let us all ridicule and mock his assassination attempt in Las Anood, a place where another Somali leader was assassinated by the forces of coercion. Then it was Abdirashid Sharmarke, today it was Dahir Riyale Kahin, if we all do not speak out the forces of dictatorship and coercion will soon spill our collective social blood all over again!
I wrote this short piece as a witness to the struggling people of Somaliland.
Long Live Democracy
Long Live Somaliland
Mr A. Mohamed Ali Hashi “Dhimbiil”
Ottowa-Canada
E-mail : dallo57us@yahoo.com
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