Dec.
17, 2005
He admonished me,
“Son, always have the courage to
value your friends above your Klansmen!
Be familiar and friendly with all the
clans of Somalia;
but beware of the Habar Gidir for they
don’t know what friendship or fellowship is!
I pondered upon what my father had
told me and often wondered
if my father were a clannish bigot who
just hated the Habar Gidir until…
One day, after I had returned from my
Prodigal Son years in the USA, I went for a long walk
with my dad.
I loved going walking with my dad for
often in these walks, angels would whisper sweetnothings
in our ears!
He would talk and reveal to me his
wisdom and his insights
Into life and
Into the lie called life and
what it means to be a Somali. On that
particular day, my father told me,
“I want you to meet a friend of mine
who has been like a brother to me
throughout all these years;
who has stuck to me closer than a
brother;
who often gave me money when I was in
want and you were too slow in sending dollars from
America.”
Truth be told I thought my father
would introduce me to yet another Macavity Majerten
like Hajji Qurmuune
like Ali Madowbe
like Ibrahim Uunlaaye;
but instead he took me to the dry
cleaning plant behind Corece Del Sud and introduced me
to the owner,
Farah Sabriye!
I was amazed for Farah Sabriye was
Sa’ad Habar Gidir!
I thought: if I stay alive long enough
in this world,
I may even be lucky enough get to see
camels copulating!
—Dad, I thought you had told me and
taught me that the Habar Gidir or the Ill-Jeh are no
good!!!
What happened!
—Son, Allah does not create anything
totally bad,
totally rotten,
totally useless!
Behold the dirty and untouchable pig!
On it there is one single hair
that is holy,
that is halal
but nobody knows where on the pig it
grows!
The Habar Gidir are just like that;
Farah Sabriye is a good and a decent
Somali
but he is as rare among the Habar
Gidir as that lonesome halal hair on the pig!!!
Farah Sabriye is the exception that
proves the rule;
if you want to be happy in this life,
have nothing to do with the Habar Gidir!!!
Right now all Somalis are desperately
looking for good and decent Habar Gidir
like Farah Sabriye,
like Abdullahi Isse,
like my brilliant childhood friend of
Mahadday Wayn Mennonite Mission days,
Abdi Weli Sheikh Labaale, the Somali
architect and engineer
who built the road from Mog to
Hargaysa;
who now lives in the holy city of
Medina, in permanent exile from his own horrid Habar
Gidir!
All Somalis
are now wondering like me
are now asking like me:
Where are the good and the decent
Habar Gidir?
If there are any, we (all Somalis)
would like them to stand up
right now
right here
and be counted
and speak up like good and decent
Moslem Somalis
against the crimes and the injustices
Indhacadde,
Dahir Aways,
Ina Salad Boy,
Yusuf Garad,
Osman Atto,
Hussein Aidid
and countless others
of their kith and kin,
of their Klan
are committing against the whole
Somali nation!!!
I say
Where are the good and the decent
Habar Gidir?
For Allah’s sake,
Speak Now or Forever Hold Your
Peace!!!!
I am afraid what V. S. Naipaul said on
a similar occasion is true:
“They say
there’s good and bad everywhere.
There’s no good and bad here.
They are just Africans.”
They are just Somalis.
They are just Habar Gidir!
They are just Ill-Jeh!
They are just the Cyclops of Somalia
who boast just like The Cyclops
(c.424-23 B.C.) of ancient days did:
“I sacrifice to no god save myself
— And to my belly, greatest of deities.”
I can’t help but recall a similar
time when US President Bill Clinton
and the whole civilized world were
so flustered and
so frustrated and
so flummoxed
by the flummery of the Habar Gidir
that they were all driven to despair
by that Mad Somali bald tar baby
called Aidid and his Habar Gidir!!!
Bill Clinton consulted a Macavity
Majerten who told him:
—Yes, Farah Gololay was right: The
Habar Gidir are only five minutes to the Macavity
Majerten;
but what Farah Gololay left out to the
imagination of the whole world is
that those five minutes are crucial;
they determine whether one is a beast,
a Hutu Hopeless, Hapless Hawiye.
Or a decent Moslem Somali like
Abdullahi Isse!
The Habar Gidir are actually Habar
Dugaag!
The Habar Gidir are defecating right
now
On the good name of Abdullahi Isse!
They are defecating right now
On the dignity and the decency of the
whole Somali race
With the whole world watching
On Larry King Live
On CNN
On BBC
On ABC
On CBC
On CBS
On PBS.
The Macavity Majerten continued:
—Mr. President, we know the Habar
Gidir, after all,
they are our kissing cousins;
they are also our killing cousins
who are nothing but like Cain, the
coward
who killed his own brother!
This Somali anecdote from
Gaal-ka’ayo will help you understand
The horror!
The horror!'
The heart of darkness of the Habar
Gidir!
One day, one of us Macavity Majerten
was holding the hyena called Habar Gidir by the ears
when an innocent Abgal donkey driver
happened to pass by:
“Please,” the Macavity Majerten
called out to the innocent Abgal donkey driver,
“Help me! My sarong is about to fall
off!
Hold this hyena by the ears for me for
a while, while I tighten my sarong!
That innocent Abgal Donkey driver is
still holding the hyena called Habar Gidir by the ears
in Mog!
Mr. President, I know what you are
thinking: Somalis, as Samuel Johnson said about the
Irish, are fair people:
they rarely speak well of one another;
that I am just badmouthing the Habar
Gidir
because I am Omar Mahamud and
they are Hopeless Habar Dugaag!
Fair enough:
Let me introduce you to my good friend
here, Ali Dhoaf or Ali Gulaid who is Sa’ad Habar
Gididr.
—Ok, Ali Dhoaf, Clinton cut to the
chase. You are the US representative of General Aidid;
We would like to get our CIA to
eliminate,
by hook or by Habar Gidir or by crook,
this Habar Gidir nuisance in Mog
called Aidid!
What do you think of that?”
—What’s the use of killing Aidid?
Everybody is Aiddi.
If he goes tomorrow you will have a
million Aidids around.
After killing an estimated 7000 to
10,000 Somalis, Clinton was still not satisfied:
—We're not inflicting pain on these
fuckers, Clinton said, softly at first.
When people kill us, they should be
killed in greater numbers.
Then, with his face reddening, his
voice rising, and his fist pounding his thigh,
he leaned into Tony Lake, then his
national security adviser, as if it was his fault.
I believe in killing people who try to
hurt you. And I can't believe we're being pushed around
by these two-bit pricks [called Habar
Gidir!]
He wished just like I wish now that he
could say, Exterminate all the brutes!
That lonesome innocent Mudulood Abgal
Donkey driver is getting tired and weary
of holding the Hyena called Habar
Gidir by the ears in Mog!
All by himself!
Abandoned by the world!
I hereby send out an SOS to all
patriotic Somalis at home and abroad
to go to the assistance of the
Mudulood in Somalia
who are valiantly struggling to
deliver the Somali Nation
From the horror, the horror called
Habar Gidir
From the Habar Gidir Greedy Guts
From the Ill-Jeh
From the Cyclops of Somalia
Who boast just like The Cyclops
(c.424-23 B.C.) of ancient days did:
“I sacrifice to no god save myself
— And to my belly, greatest of deities.”
A friend of mine, an old hand of
Somalia, told me:
—The only time I was deathly afraid
for my life
in Somalia,
in all my years of studying Somalis
in their natural habitat was when I
was traveling among the Habar Gidir.
Upon entering their territory, I asked
them to introduce me to their chief.
They replied, “We killed him
yesterday!”
Shocked, I asked them to take me to
their Sheikh. They replied,
“We also killed him along with the
chief yesterday!
We are now acephalous, headless and
heedless and we all like it that way!”
The Habar Gidir are
like the locusts and
like The locusts have no king, yet
they go forth all of them by bands.
No wonder now, the Habar Gidir
gangster and Sharmuut called Indha’adde styles himself
The Sheikh of the Habar Gidir!
Imagine a Klan that boasts and is
proud of the fact that Inda’adde is their Sheikh!
Imagine a Klan that boasts and is
proud of the fact that Dahir Aways is their Qadi!
……………………………..
There was a time when I admired Al
Haji-Muse Sudi Yalahow.
That was when he spoke the truth and
correctly identified the enemy of the Somali nation
thus:
—The world is engaged now in a
struggle to the death
With an enemy called terrorism in
English
With an enemy called AlQaida in Arabic
With an enemy called Habar Gidir in
Somali!
…………………………………..
My friend, Said Samatar, the Somali
historian used to tease me and tell me that I remind him
the Roman Senator, Cato the Elder,
who was obsessed with his own Habar
Gidir called Carthage and Cato kept repeating
regardless of the topic at
hand—Carthage must be destroyed!
—In the 150s B. C. this was Cato's
slogan, repeated endlessly.
At parties he would bring it up —Carthago
delenda est!
In the Senate he might be speaking on
any subject,
but always found a way to work in his
slogan:
the harbor at Ostia should be expanded
. . . and Carthage must be destroyed!
The appointment of Gaius Gaius to
provincial governor should be approved . . . and
Carthage must be destroyed!
A vote of thanks to a loyal tribal
chieftain . . . and Carthage must be destroyed!
And I still repeat,
the Habar Gidir must be destroyed!
Or they will destroy Somalia and all
of us Somalis!
Somalis themselves must solve
this Habar Gidir Headache,
this Habar Gidir Heartache of
Hooliganism and gangsterism and nihilism.
Do not expect the world to come to our
aid again.
The last time we Somalis involved
foreigners and outsiders in our affairs,
it was an unmitigated disaster on all
sides.
One vignette reported by Scott
Peterson in his book, Me Against My Brother,
will do to illustrate what I mean:
—One dawn I watched armored
bulldozers smash up UN vehicles,
so they couldn’t become
battlewagons. New furniture was burned.
This pathetic sight was topped only by
the madness of one frustrated UN official,
who stayed awake all night drilling
holes through the bottom of each of a thousand plastic
cups
that were to be left behind.
Somalia would be left alone but, he
was damned if it would be left with usable UN cups.
To complete this craziness!
To clinch this bizarre picture, last
time I was in Mog ( 1992) Unichef was
keeping busy producing Somali kiddy
porn. And right now as I write this,
the UN and all her agencies designated
to help Somalia sort itself out are living high off the
hog in Nairobi,
Stealing
All the funds earmarked for the
reconstruction and the rehabilitation of our country;
All the funds earmarked for the
reconciliation peace process in Somalia.
DID YOU REALLY BELIEVE
(For Musse Bulshale)
Did you really believe
That
George Bush
Or
Soi-disant
“ compassionate conservative W”
Or
Uncle Sam
Really gives a hang
About starving Somali Moslem kids
Did you really believe
That
Kofi Annan
And
His assorted Kaffirs[i]
Of the UN
And
The Lords of Poverty[ii]
Of the IMF
And
Of the World Bank
Give a diplomatic
Fart
Or
Fug[iii]
About silly sad Somalia
Did you really believe
That
Kapungo[iv]
And
His moneybag Swedish
Condom and catamite
Sture Normarck
And
His institute of Hype & Hypocrisy
Would really help
Elman[v]
Disarm the mad moriyaans[vi]of
Mogadishu
Did you really believe
That
This cruel cold old world
Really gives a damn
About mad bad had sad silly Somalia
Did you really believe
That
These infidels would really suffer
For a second
With those they daily see suffering
In Somalia
Did you really believe
In the copious crocodile tears
Shed on coloured TVs
By these cruel chameleons
By these myopic midgets of me-me
Who were hungering after
Who were smacking their lips over
Their 15 seconds of fame and fortune
Did you really believe
That
These Gaalo[vii]
Would really feel
Some touch of pity
Would really hear
And
Listen to
Somalia’s
Crie de coeur[viii]
De Profundis[ix]
Did you really believe
That
This Cantankerous Canada
This “sanctimonious icebox”[x]
and
Her booze born regiment[xi]
Would really
Comfort & bind
The wounds of the Somali people
Did you really believe
That
“Tear-falling pity dwells”[xii]
In the eyes of
The bureaucrats
And
The Pooh-Bahs
And
The buzzards
Of the UN
Who gumshoe and glare in glass houses
Why did you confuse
The diabolical
Cold calculated
Career moves
Of these bloody gutless greedy guts
With compassion
How could you & I forget
The immortal come back of
Our favourite American prexy
LBJ
At
MLK
When MLK suggested
That
LBJ let the UN
Handle his
Nam Nemesis
When LBJ sharply riposted
And
Rebuked:
“Martin Lutheran King
The UN
Can’t pour
Piss
Out of a boot
Even if the instructions were printed
On the heel.”
Why did you & I forget
What the Somali poet taught
What Qamaan Bulhan taught[xiii]
What Hancock chronicled
That
There is a certain
SOB
A suave Swede
Who will accompany you
Everywhere
Like your shadow
Searching
Searching with you
From the bottom up[xiv]!
Searching
For what you have lost
Searching
Desperately
For what you are in sore need of
And
This certain
SOB
Will even get
More weary than you
Looking
Looking
Looking for
What you are in sore need of
But alas
Truly
Really
In the secret chambers of his heart
This certain
SOB
Never ever wants
For you to find
What you & he are
So desperately seeking
What you & he are
So desperately searching
And yet
You yourself
And the whole world
Believe
That
This suave Swede
This certain sobbing SOB and you
Are tight
Are together
Like two brothers
Are together
Like a finger & her ring
Are close
As close as
Tongue & teeth
And yet
Everybody and you
Believe
That
You two are
Of one mind
Of one purpose
That you two are indeed friends
Who harbour no secrets
From each other
For a friend in need is
A friend indeed.
After I have studied
And
Searched all the scriptures
I have found out that
It is only in paradise
Where there is
Neither suave Swede
Nor certain sobbing SOB
Nor Gethsemane
Nor lonesome Somali cross
Nor Judas
Nor Iagos from the UN
Nor crocodile tears
No double-dealing
Nor deceit
Nor dissembling
Nor duplicity
Nor UN evil devilomacy.
Where are the good and the decent
Habar Gidir?
-------------------------------------------------------------
[i]Arabic for an infidel.
[ii]A book by Graham Hancock: ‘If
books had hands, this one would be reaching out to
strangle the United Nations officials who will no doubt
be reading it at their desks in brown paper wrappers’,
commented New York Times Book Review
[iii]Somali word for fuck that Norman
Mailer was forced to use in his first novel, THE NAKED
AND THE DEAD in 1959 when Carl Wesselhoeft was teaching
my ABCs in the village of Mahadday Wayn, on the banks of
the Shabelle river.
[iv]The UN official who became the
overlord of all the lords of poverty Somalia.
[v]Elman Ali Mohamed: A Somali patriot
and peace activist and martyr to the Somali cause of
peace and reconciliation. The Somali answer and
challenge to the crazy clannishness of Aideed and the
shameful folly of Ali Mahdi.
The Americans and their UN naturally
aided and abetted Aideed who murdered Elman on March 9,
1996.
[vi]The marauding thugs with the guns
of the “Lords of the black Flies” in Somalia.
[vii]The Somali word for the infidels
and the lords of poverty of the UN and IMF and World
Bank
[viii]French for cry from the heart.
[ix]Latin for out of the depths (Psalm
130)
[x]this felicitous phrase belongs to
Wyndham Lewis.
[xi]This is the racist Canadian
regiment that murdered in cold blood Somali children.
Cretin’s response was to pretend nothing happened.
Consult with SOMALI COVER-UP: A
COMMISSIONER’S JOURNAL by Peter Desbarats (1997).
[xii]“Tear-falling pity dwells not
in this eye” from Shakespeare's RICHARD III.
xiii Qamaan Bulhan: A famous Somali
Ogaden Darod poet, most famous for these lines upon
which I based my poem, “Did You Really Believe?”
that have “acquired the status of a standard quotation
used in comparable life situations.”
Baddida nin baa Kula deydeyi, daal na
Kaa badan e
Aan doonihayn inaad hesho na, dayin
abidkiis e
Dadku na moodi duul wada so’daan, wach u daahsonayn e
Dello na ma laha Aakhiro haddii LooKitaab deyay e
See pp. 94. and 97, verses 54-57. “A
Somali Poetic Combat” by B. W. Andrzejewski &
Musse H. I. Galaal. Journal of African Languages, vol.
II, parts 1-3. East Lansing, Michigan, 1963.
Sometimes there is a man who gets more
weary than you
Searching
Searching
Looking
Looking
Most desperately for what you had lost
But he never ever wants you to find what you had lost
But you & everybody else watching
believe
You two to be two blood brothers.
According to the holy scriptures
It is only in paradise
Where there are no
Shameful shams.
[Rendered by Mahamud Siad Togane]
cf “A man tries hard to help you
find your lost camels.
He works more tirelessly than even
you,
But in truth he does not want you
to find them, ever.”
—From the Somali poem, “The
Fire,” [sic] by Ali Dhux
See p. 116 of Michael Maren’s The
Road to Hell: The Ravaging Effects of Foreign Aid and
International Charity. New York: The Free Press, 1997.
Wrong. The poem is by Qaman Bulhan
& not by Ali Dhux: for confirmation see “A Somali
Poetic Combat” by B. W. Andrzejewski & Musse H. I.
Galaal. Journal of African Languages, vol. II, parts
1-3. East Lansing, Michigan, 1963.
[xiv]“The Bottom-up approach to
peace” was the mad mantra and the snake oil of Sture,
the suave Swede with the millions from Life and Peace
Institute in Upsula, Sweden. As long as the millions
lasted, everybody, particularly Kapungo, pretended to
listen and made a hell lot of noise whilst doing nothing
for Somalia and Somalis.
After two billion American dollars,
there is no peace either from the bottom or from the top
in Somalia!
Where did the billions go? Who
cares?
For the record, the UN office in
Mogadishu reported with a straight face that one bright
sunny sultry morning in April, 1994, 3.9 million Yankee
dollars decided to take a walk off the UN compound and
the stroll proved so interesting that not even one red
cent ever bothered to come back!
“None of the money ever showed
up—despite detective assistance from Scotland
yard—and it is generally considered to have been an
inside job”
See page 241 of Michael Maren’s
The Road to Hell: The Ravaging Effects of Foreign Aid
and International Charity. New York: The Free Press,
1997.
