Both the Jawhar and
Mogadishu wings of the TFG have been
ignoring calls of reknitting of
fragmented and overtribilized Somalia.
These self-styled leaders are doing
everything in their ill-gotten power
to keep the status quo, come what may.
One doesn't have to
be a prophet to predict the
consequences.
Instead of sitting
down at a roundtable conference in
order to iron out their petty
differences, key figures from both
wings are traveling from one Arab
country to another-Yemen, Egypt and
the Emirates announcing that they had
found the tonic of their troubles in
those countries. Surely many people at
home and in the Diaspora won't
swallow? Only few did, mainly their
flunkeys and patsies.
A friend and
colleague-a journalist of the old
school-wrote; "The Somali leaders
from both sides of the spectrum
exploit their own people every time
they open their mouths and say
something, which they believe would
enhance their tarnished images, when
in reality they are unwilling to open
peace dialogue with their
adversaries."
I concur with him.
All the
non-cooperation gesticulations in
Jowhar and Mogadishu are purely to
impose their power and dreadful
doctrines on anyone, no matter how
humiliating. The only difference
between the two factions being what
they want to achieve in case they hit
the political jackpot-uncontested
power and material gains as their
ultimate aspiration and objective.
Historically, there
has been friction between the
governments of the day and the
opposition parties after independence
in 1960. Adan Abdulla Osman, the
President at independence, and a man
who was well versed in politics and
knows what he is talking about, coolly
told the then opposition leaders to do
their homework properly before they
open their mouths!
Now most of us know
that Adan Abdulle Oosman, who is very
much alive and kicking in his own
farm, refused to have anything to do
with repugnant political intrigues in
today's Somalia. Still he was at pains
to advice the faction leaders/warlords
to ditch their weapons and resign en
mass and let alone the people elect
their own leaders in a fair and free
election. The old man's advice fell on
deaf ears.
This friction,
though more intense in nature, never
seems to vanish; we still see it
today, this time with the use of
lethal weapons of all calibers,
resulting unending blood path. Many
well-meaning people foresaw it in
1991/92 after the insurgents toppled
the military dictator. The vacuum was
then filled by blood thirsty warlords
who reduced the same people who
welcomed them, to victims without free
will, more like dolls tossed around in
the power hungry flurries of the
warlords, followed by genocide,
Hutu-style.
"Silence is a
sign of a true consent," one of
the Mogadishu main warlords said in an
interview with Reuter's news agency in
1992. Months later he died during an
offensive against his archenemy at
Madina District of Mogadishu.
"The silence of true
consent" did not save his life.
This was always a
homogenous country, and its cohesion,
whatever cohesion it has, can only be
based on mutual respect. Everyone
looked the same, spoke the same
language, worshiping the same God and
believed the same things.
These things, I
know, have been said before, but their
obvious truth is why these people,
unique in Africa, do not abide by
their traditional Shir under a tree
and negotiate how to return the
country to the community of nations
and pull the people together inside
the country instead of jostling to
settle old scores.
The dismembered
corpse of Somalia have been set free
by the departure of the former
dictator, who died in exile in Lagos
after more than two decades of
iron-fist rule, and pronto the
warlords evoked the splitting of the
people into archaic clan, sub,
sub-clan lunacy-a Hobbesian world: the
war of all on all locked in blood
feud, hatred and mistrust.
(The word
"Hobbesian" is sometimes
used in modern English to refer to a
situation in which there is
unrestrained, selfish and uncivilized
competition, Miriam Webster
Dictionary).
These ignorant and
semi-educated villains knew very well
what demons they were frivolously
invoking. If they did not, they would
have fall silent in shame.
If they are fraying
now, it is because their petty
politics has for the last fifteen
years or so broken the traditional
Somali tolerance for consensus
revamped by the Somali Youth League (SYL)
during the early days of struggle for
independence and unity-one people and
one nation, devoid of the virus of
tribalism.
The thorny issues
that have been dragging for months
still remain unresolved. This include,
among other things, whether to base
the government in the capital, in
conformity with the federal
constitution and whether foreign
troops, mainly from the neighbouring
countries would be deployed in the
country as peacekeepers with Ethiopia
playing the flag-bearer.
Whatever they
proposed was no more than their
washed-out strategy of
"us-against-them," keeping
the people in the dark. It is no
wonder major donor countries, except
Italy and some shadowy stakeholders,
are gradually retreating from the
Somalia heartbreak. In the political
jargon it is called donor fatigue.
Now the question
that bugs many of us is: What next?
Commentary by:
M. M. Afrahİ
Email: afrah95@hotmail.com
TALKING
POINT By M. M. Afrahİ
