Most of us Somalis like to talk the talk by building castles in the air! Luckily, you are willing to walk the walk by making actionable plan with concrete and tangible resources.

I hope our sisters will respond soon and utilize your generous offer.

With admiration and support!

Bill

This is my tribute to Rosa Park & October being Stop Domestic Violence against women & children month (with the intended pun).

1. I have some little funds ( for art exchange for just peace) I can give to a Somali children’s organization led by a woman in Somalia/Somaliland. This is to create hope, healing, peace, & justice for artists & children. Please, pass the information if you know such an organization…contact Bill and he will contact me for the fund’s transfer. We sponsor events that will increase public awareness of the causes and effects of violence, injustice, and oppression in the world and promote long-term solutions.

2. A Somali women organization (must be led by a woman) working in Somalia/Somaliland in need of Personal Computers can contact me. Must be willing to pay for shipping or suggest ways to fundraise for shipping.

Sisters the ball is in your court I will be waiting for your responses.

I intend to focus on women’s issues rest of the month. I hope both you and other readers will take part by contributing their ideas to this campaign on gender equality awareness.

Sisters… please come out, shout loud and let your voices heard!

Regards,

Bill

We fortunate Somali’s living in this given diasporic life have come a long way learning, nourishing and with it lossing it all. In simple, we came a long way with out nothing at the end. The nothing is ………MY LAND and YOURS TOO. I would nt mind reading(irrespective to who is the writer) all those academic papers pertaining to issues facing my country, but I do mind loosing the elements of WORDS WITHOUT ACTION. Frankly, it has not been there persistanly and given the new developments in SOM, actions are lacking behind words…as it has always been.

Ladies & gentelmen, with all due respect I am trying to change the topic here. Iam trying to move and think of what we Somali’s in Northern America and in Europe can do to help. Are we only there to sit behind and notice, and then blame on Mr. He on the other end of the world. How dare?
U see, there has to be a VOICE within and out of a subject and a concept in order to affirm its pace and its pavement. Somalia have not been heard as of yet, it has not been heard because of this lack of VOICE within and out of the country. This is where we come in, and believe me this is where starts if we really want to see some changes.

Iam not suggesting that we ignore the intelligence and Security reports out of any publication or Organization. All Iam saying is that Freedon and Peace can be earned with the will of the people. It was US that gave-away the country to few corrupted warlords, and now it is for US to get it back. One way I see it happening is if WE MRACH ON THE STREETS OF WASHINGTON, IN THE STREETS OF LONDON, IN THE STREETS OF BORNE, IN TEH STREETS OF TORONTO….ETC, demanding the world powers to hear and accept the new developments in Som, and with it support those that are for PEACE.

One Voice can bring a change, and with it safe one life. Therefore, it will require us hundreds of VOICE’s to cure the ills of SOM. Someone Say Something plz.

regards,

Abdul Irro
Washington DC

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world”
- Mahatma Gandhi

“In addition to our separate responsibilities to our individual societies, we have a collective responsibility to uphold the principles of human dignity, equality and equity at the global level…We have a duty therefore to all the world’s people, especially the most vulnerable and, in particular, the children of the world, whom the future belongs”.

- Extract from the United Nation’s Millenium Declaration.

One more thing, can we be above the level of the person when discussing issues? When we waste valuabe time discussing an individual, we are distracted from the real issues afflicting our people. Having said this, I beg the author to explain to me in plain English how his article can help the poor people of Somaliland and how it is different from what Matt and other analysts have written about Somaliland (in an earlier discussion).

Let’s cut out the foreigners…if only we respect each other and unite then can we fight our enemies. At this point we know “everything” let’s roll up our sleeves and go to work. For once let’s keep off the headlines till we come up with at least some drinking water…One more thing, let’s get over the dream that Somalia was once this great homogeneous place on the face of the earth. We got our chance to get to the Diaspora: What are we going to do with this golden chance? Rebuild our country like others before us OR let it go to the dogs…if it hasn’t already?

My argument, therefore, is that if we have such intelligent people among the policy shapers of Somaliland why is it after 14 years we are still stagnant on development, education, and economics? ( I use the word “we” loosely as I’ve been socially constructed as a Somali)…What’s the simmering dissent between the former SNM “fighters” and the new breed of political & tribal opportunists? Remember we lack natural water as a basic need.

We don’t have to go far to learn. We either go the Eritrea way and perish from the globe (waiting for the rest of humanity to sing us another song of “We are the world” and send us yellow maize), OR we should learn something valuable from visionary leaders like Museveni (NRA & NRM) who had smaller army than the SNM… and behold where is Uganda politically, economically, and socially today compared to the big talking Somalilanders? We need action folks and not mere words and chest thumbing. Listen to what others are saying and watch and learn. Dissent is healthy and let us not label individuals when they don’t agree with us. This is the sole reason why I do not participate in “patriotic fronts” like the Somaliland forum. As I like saying such arguments don’t put food on the table

Me I suggest that we take a step back and really put together the real problem facing our homeland. There are in my view several ways to do this, but let us indeed pin-point the crucial problems in light of todays efforts and developments brought by the newly established gov’t.

This is how I see it! If the likes of the so-called speaker of the house, could hinder the direction of the govt with all the messy-ness adjoined with those immoral warlords, then hope less. I might be giong off topic here, but Mr. Bill the problem is not Mr. Hassan to an extent. The problem is much greater, it is bigger than what those warlords in or out of the country could ever bring on the table.

15 years my ppl, I mean really look at it, how long and for what and who are players? Who are these ppl? what are their vision? what is their background like?The great Nelson Mandela once said (after he became the president of S-Africa) that; In order to understand your enemy, you should read and learn about who they are as human being.”

In general I believe that if and only if the political minds of todays Somali gov’t dont comprehend and ask themselves the question mentioned above , it woud be a long road to Peace in SOM otherwise.

Mr. Bill, I therefore suggest that we should think and write about the whole social and mind setting of those you mentioned in your informative article.
It would have been better if you had indeed mentioned the real truth, of who is this speaker and his interest and on what he really operates on? How far can he go, and what are his connections with those silent so-call peace makers in or out of Somalia? SomeOne Speak.

Salaam.
Abdul Irro III

Well, for starters, I did happen to recollect some of the incessant arguments, that you always seemed to have been involved within the floor of the Somaliland Forum; which I believe, you were once a confused member of it.

And the reason, I alluded to your natural confusion, that you seemed had harboured, at least in a tentative sort of way, while you were there with us, will only make sense in retrospect, when one finally see that things have change in your political outlook; or at least, one can say, if they have not change, then in that case, the confusion has been lifted; particularly, as to which side, your political bread is buttered on henceforth; in the sense, of whether you were always a closet federalist masquerading himself, as truly and proud Somalilander; or whether, as I suspected it, all along, that you are sort of person, that can best be approximated in political terms, as that of grasping opportunistic political dilettante of any given time; to the extent, that probably develop in fine-art proportion, that exercise of putting one handsomely moist index-finger to the blowing wind, and then see to it, to figure out as to which direction is the nearest joint, in which meaty shameless political opportunism can be had by all without a social price to pay in return; and hence, as to why you ended up being at the moment a such card-carrying hired pamphleteers for Col. Yey’s ever-shrinking mendacious conceit that passes itself off as that of legitimate government of Somalia.

And I hope, in your defence, you shan’t pull that old chestnut out of the convenient political drawer, in the sense of trying to sell to any passer-by, that you’re a genuine Somaliweyn’s believer, or die-hard Pan-Somalism proponent; least of all, the chap - i.e., Col. Yey - that you seemed to be supporting tirelessly, with your hired pen, happens to be, in case it has not dawn on you yet, the worst imaginable enemy of the fifth-columnist sort to that idea of Pan-Somalism or it’s political attainment in the first place.

But, be that as it may, given that it does not profit us at the moment, to distract ourselves silly, as to what motivation, may lay behind, of you being that of well-tuned serenading violin for Col. Yey’s political cause; and therefore, let me see to it, to return to the gist of this report; and I can say, I hope, you have used your eagle-eye to spot the larger meaning, or shall we say the theoretical direction, in which this report, seemed to be gingerly pointing it out; and that is, as follows:

Firstly, that it will be largely, Mr. Meles Zenawi’s Ethiopia, that will decide, whether it will be low-level war of attrition, between Col. Yey’s conceit of a government that is based in Jowhar on one hand; and that his opponent, namely those assorted bloodthirsty warlords, and the rest of jihadist misfits, that are holed up currently in that once proud city of Mogadishu, which was, literally, the jewel of Somali’s eye, wherever they may from, on the other hand.

Secondly, you’ll also see, I hope in no time the implication, of the security concern of Uncle Sam(US) towards the region of Horn-of-Africa as a hole, Somalia/Somaliland in particular; which means, given that American forces, are unlikely to entertained any large-scale hot pursuit of any suspected terrorist in Somalia in general or for that matter, in Mogadishu in particular; then in that case, the default option, of the pentagon’s neo-conserative policy-makers, such as Mr. D. Firth(Under-Secretary of State), will be to rely on the ears and any biddable Somalis and Ethiopian alike, with the potential of rumours and counter-rumours clouding the judgement of policy-makers across the defence department as well as at the State Department - i.e., Foggy Bottom - consequently, what follows from that policy directive, will easily be, that the market for the security-related intelligence for Somalia, will be very lucrative, indeed, for the coming years; hence, Ethiopia will probably have, a great deal to gain from that of any transactional deals at the behest of American’s over-all geo-strategical concern of this horn-of-Africa’s region, at least in so far looking the other way by Uncle Sam(US) official is concern, when it comes to Ethiopia’s imperial agenda.

Thirdly, it also means, that US, by-and-large, had abandon any hope, that they may have entertained originally at the State department, in so far as that faint hope of seeing a functioning Statehood emerging at the back of Mbagathi’s peace process; so that what was started there, could be made, solidly going concern entity, in the ground in Somalia; hence, the reason the issue of Somalia, is effectively been reduced, to that of “Security Concern” only, in-terms of minimising, what spill-over of sort, that the consequences of the failed state of Somalia, could have for the wider east Africa region; and therefore how should one go about in minimising it in so far as humanly possible, without waiting around, some sort of effective government that can do the job emerging it, within the confines of any peace deal amongst the faction-riddled Somalis; with their ever bewilderingly shifting political alliances across that failed Nation.

Fourth, you will also may have notice that Somaliland, will be the net recipient of the fast-imploding Col. Yey’s TFG, in so far as her desire of having a clean break from the shackles of that failed State of Somalia is concern; this last prognosis of this report, is most important one(at least to me, given that I am coming from, in political prospective term, that of pro-Somaliland’s angle); of course, one genuinely understand, that this last political rite of passage for Somaliland at the hand of Col. Yey’s legendary incompetence towards his government’s speedily approaching demise, will most assuredly grieve you in no end; for one can easily understand, that this analysis or this exercise of reading the tea-leafs of the Somali’s political destiny, and how that is essentially, to the advance desire of the present-day Somaliland, may cause you no small amount of ulcer-induced stomach pain, as well as a temple bursting migraine by the account of that possibility happening in our life time.

Lastly, but not least, the most, revealing thing in that report, is essentially, the way it went about, in-order to lay the ground work, for the American’s policy elite that deals with the issue of Security concern, in the sense of urging them, to accept that the applicability of the Old European’s concept of balance-of-power, with it’s heavy reliance of diplomatic stagecraft and crude power-politics in action; in so far as the Somali’s destiny is concern; in the sense, of informing those this report may concern, particularly within the corridors of American muscle-bound and forward deployed power, that Somalis of the horn-of-Africa had blown away, their chances of joining the comities of nations, with that last Mbagathi’s conference, and therefore, the best American can hope for, is to consign Somalia minus Somaliland, under the sphere of influence of Mr. Meles Zenawi’s Ethiopia.

Particularly, in the sense of him - Mr. Zenawi - being the Imperial viceroy of Somalia, the same manner that Mr. Warren Hastings of East India Company in Bombay in late 18th century was the Imperial overlord of the subcontinent, while, indirectly, Muslim Moguls Sultanates, in Southern State of India, were to all intent and purposes, the force and the whip-hand, in which overlord Mr. Hastings governed the fate and the destinies of the conquered people of the Subcontinent.

And of cause, it will be Col. Yey, who will try to fulfilled the role, that history had designated for those quisling of Imperial viceroys, such as the infamous Muslim Maharajas, who were the enforcers in the subcontinent for Britain’s Mr. hastings Imperial Viceroy pretension; and without a a doubt Col. Yey, will see to it, to fit himself with the infamous shoes that is the reserved for any hired quisling for other people larger interest(which will be a task he will miserably failed, as he had failed everything that he ever touch, politically), so that history may record him to be a rather fetchingly useful idiots(something Joe Stalin would of understood it) for Mr. Zenawi’s Imperial ambitions.

This is, as the Ancient chinese would say, an interesting time to be in Somalia, for we are living, historically speaking, an interesting time, whereby, the worst of it, is that none of it’s unexpected twist and turn, will ever be the Somali’s collective design; apart from Somaliland, who will have a larger measure of how, her destiny may unfurl before the verdict of posterity.

Regards,
Mr. Ali Ismail.
London, UK.

PS: I find it hard to believe the nostaligic notion that Islam ruled the world once upon a time and “others” lived happily among them.

Amnesty International has a program called “STOP Violence Against Women” and UNIFEM has a lot of resources too, including the “Women, War, and Peace” report (2002) on the progress of the world’s women. It may be too late for Domestic Violence Month 2005 but it is never too late to do the right thing for women and girls around the world.

In his blog, Somali-Norwegian Bill Ainashe shoots down Hazem Saghieh.

http://opendemocracy.typepad.com/wsf/2005/10/muslim_empire.html

The topic for this discussion thread is about the “weasel” or if you like the run-away speaker of the transitional federal parliament! Hence, I am bit puzzled how the election in Northern Somalia get into the picture. Can you please explain?

Thank you

Bill

For many years I have been surfing the internet without being impressed by the large news, information and discussions of the nomadic peoples websites but, now I`m glad that you put togethar this website and atleast I don`t have to feel that “I`m the only one with clear vision”

Now back to my story, when God evicted Adams family from the paradise and told them to work hard and survive on the earth then God sent an angel to Adam (PUH) and the angel came to Adam (PUH) and said; Oh Adam (PUH) I have come to present you with the choice between these three things.

1) INTELLECT (Brain) 2) DECENCY 3)RELIGION (Belief).

Which one would you choose it?

Lets make it easy for the sake of the simplicity and to give you a few things to add to your Somali research.

Firs IF Adam (PUH) was a Somali, he would choose the RELIGION and then would declare a Jihad agains(and kill) the Angel who came to save him from being another monkey among the monkeys.

So what Adam (PUH) did at this moment of difficulties?
As you know these three things are what makes us diffirent from the rest of the animal kingdom.

Adam thought for a while and then said I choose the INTELLECT.
And the rest (DECENCY, RELIGION) said; We depend on the intellect

Dear readers as you can see from here, WE as the Somali Nation have chosen the religion but, not Intellect and then you ask WHY?
Why are we killing, raping and destroying everthing?
Why are we even killing the people who came to help us, like 1993?

The INTELLECT is what translates the religion and puts into action and NOT vice versa.
Sources:The history of Adam (PUH), by Ebn El-qeyim El-jowzi (May God bless his soul)

ABDUL-WAHAB M WARSAME (HEYBE)
LONDON / STOCKHOLM
ABU_LADAN97@HOTMAIL.COM

I think you hit the nail on the head! I wish all other countries including our neighbors will do the same by rounding up all those heartless warlords who slaughtered their own people for political greed and mypoic tribalist agendas!

This website will do its part to help achieve that noble objective!

Bill