March 04, 2003

 

 

Cowards die many times before their real deaths;

The valiant never taste death but once.

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard.

It seems to me most strange that men should fear,

Seeing that death, a necessary end,

Will come when it will come.

                             —Julius Caesar II. Ii. 32

 

Cowards pee too

 

Many times before their real death

 

Because of Somali cowardice

 

Because of the beer too

 

I peed that night many times

 

I just could not help it

 

I just could not sleep

 

I just could not sleep off

 

My Somali cowardice

 

Fuelled by liquor

 

I was up & about

 

I just could not believe it

 

That the Marehan dirty Darod dog of a despot

 

That the Darod hyena Marehan refugee from 

Garbaharay

 

Would really have the guts

 

To publicly execute

 

Gabere

 

Our Hawiye Hero

 

My Mudulod Wa’else Abgal agnate

 

In Mogadishu

 

In the heart of our Hutu Hawiye city

 

I could not wait for the morrow to dawn

 

That night

 

That is why I was drowning my Somali sorrow

 

That is why I was most definitely Mudulod

 

That is why I was most emphatically

 

A discombobulated Abgal

 

That night

 

I was supposed to teach the next day  

 

At Lafole College of Education

 

&

 

Where

 

Every time that I had managed to forget

 

That I am Abgal Wa’eysle

 

Where

 

Every time

 

That I had tried to be a noble Somali

 

And not a clannish cur

 

Like Dafle

 

A dirty Darod dullard of a Dhulbahante

 

From Las Anod

 

Like

 

Farah Hussein Ghedle

 

Alias

 

Farah Bedouin

 

Alias

 

Farah Badaw

 

Would remind me

 

That I am truly hopeless hapless Hutu Hawiye

 

By singing in my Hutu Hawiye ear

 

Samadeedow

 

Dabin ba ku dhigin

 

O lugu gu dili doanaa

 

Wa dal-dalaad aan da’wane-lahayn!

 

O you Hawiye

 

O you Mudulod

 

O you Abgal

 

O you all

 

Who are refuseniks of

 

This blessed Darod Confederacy con job

 

This Darod-Marehan-Ogaden-Dhulbahante-Revolution

 

Who are recalcitrant

 

Who are refractory

 

Who are reactionary

 

O you all Ka’aan deed!

 

O you all

 

Who refuse the goodness of our Darod Hero

 

Who refuse the Darod leader of MOD

 

Who refuse the greatness of Mahammad Siad Barre

 

Don’t worry

 

We have patiently prepared a snare especially waiting 

for you all

 

We have patiently prepared for you a noose waiting 

for you all

 

For you Hawiye

 

For you Mudulod

 

For you Abgal

 

For you Eedor

 

For you Majerten

 

For you Ainanshe

 

For you Dhayl

 

For you Gabere

 

For you all

 

It is simply going to be a public picnic!

 

I assure you all

 

Backward primitive donkey-drivers

 

That it is going to be a cinch!

 

Without a hitch!

 

Without a hindrance

 

Without regret

 

Without recrimination

 

Without a lazy long-drawn-out court case!

 

Without powwow

 

Without repercussions

 

During this dirty Darod disastrous donkeydom

 

Every time

 

I tried to remember

 

That I am a Somali

 

My colleague

 

Nuruddin Farah

 

The Darod Ogaden refugee

 

Whom I harbored in Hawiyeland

 

Would remind me

 

That Afwayne is

 

Dirty Darod

 

Like him

 

That Afwayne

Is

 

His kind

 

His kin

 

His affine

 

His maternal uncle

 

That I am

 

Shi-shaye!

 

An alien from Ali-yaale!

 

With funny accent to boot!

 

That I am

 

Alasow in Afwayneland!

 

But the worst offender of them all

 

Was another colleague

 

Whom I thought was Abgal

 

Mohamed Ali

 

The PE bugger

 

Who ran away to Dubai from Afwayne

 

Whom I knew from my green salad days

 

When he was my monitor in the Koran School

 

Of Ma’alim Musse

 

Who turned out to be a dumb Duduble donkey

 

Who battened on the leftovers of us Mudulod!

 

I could not sleep that night

 

I was sure

 

That Afwaynye & his mad MOD

 

Would not dare murder

 

Ainanshe

 

Dhayl

 

Gabere

 

Throughout that long lonesome night

 

Cars

 

Dubbed

 

The camels of the Marehan

 

Would crawl

 

Slowly

 

Deliberately dripping with clannish crude insolence

 

Through War-dheegle

 

The neighborhood of Gabere’s clan

 

Through Hodan

 

The neighbourhood of Ainanshe’s clan

 

Through Iskuraran

 

The neighbourhood of Dhayl

 

Cars with ghetto blasters

 

At full blast

 

Provocatively

 

Banging out

 

Blaring out

 

Belting out

 

Blasting out

 

That provocative song

 

SAMADEEDOW!

 

O YOU WHO REFUSE GOD’S GOODNESS!

 

That dark long lonesome night

 

Mogadishu was silent

 

Mogadishu was eerily asleep

 

I was

 

The only one who could not sleep

 

The only one whose clannish blood was boiling

 

The only one whose clannish bones were aching

 

The only one who was on a vigil

 

The only one who stayed up to watch

 

The only who could not sleep

 

All the dives where I would drink were deserted

 

I drove in my small red convertible Fiat 500

 

To the Lido Night Club

 

Even the whores & their Johns deserted the place

 

It was eerily empty

 

It was queerly quiet

 

I went to the Lamamba Night Club

 

Where I kept drowning my sorrow

 

With one Heineken after another Heineken

 

Chasing down the J & B

 

That lonesome night

 

I must have drunk

 

All the booze

 

All the beer

 

That was meant for all my Mudulod clan

 

But I could not get drunk

 

I was as sober as a single-minded Mudulod Mujahid

 

Why do Somalis drink so much

 

Somalis drink so much

 

Because their mouths are whores!

 

Into which they stuff

 

Strange rich stuff like

 

QAMRO QABEEL QURUN QAAT QURUN!

 

Somalis drink because they are so dumb

 

Somalis drink because they like to deny

 

Somalis drink because they can’t stand being Somalis!

 

Somalis drink because they are at war with themselves!

 

Somalis drink because they prefer fatude to reality

 

Somalis dring because they are not Muslim

 

Somalis drink because they are Munafiqeen

 

I drank that night because I was angry

 

At Afwane

 

At Dafle

 

At all the dirty Darod

 

Who made me feel homeless at home

 

Who made me feel like a motherless child

 

Far away from home

 

Who made me feel sing the blues

 

Like an American coon

 

Who made me sing this balwo

 

Who made me feel like a nigger with no place to be

 somebody!

 

In that dark drunk dank lonesome night

 

I would drive to War-dheeglay

 

Wandering

 

Wondering

 

Why are the Hawiye

 

So cowardly

 

So quiet

 

So asleep

 

So seemingly uncaring

 

Why could they not keep the vigil with me

 

Don’t they know

 

What is going to happen tomorrow at dawn

 

That Ainanshe

 

That Dhayl

 

That Gabere

 

Were going to be shot dead

 

On the morrow at dawn!

 

Where were our bovine Abgal

 

That night

 

I understood

 

What my uncle Kulmiye taught me

 

That the clannish claims of the Abgal can put me in a fix

 

But that they can never get me out of a fix!

 

That night

 

I understood

 

What the poet Tima’ade taught

 

When he lamented

 

Dugsi ma leh Qabyaaladi

 

Wahay Dumiso moyane!

 

There is

 

Neither shelter

 

Nor shade

 

Nor refuge

 

Nor haven

 

Nor heaven

 

Nor harbor

 

Nor balm

 

In the Somali KKK

 

In Darod

 

In Dir

 

In Dayoos

 

Save

 

The Apocalypse

 

The Four Horsemen

 

Riding

 

Trailing

 

Death

 

Destruction

 

Pestilence

 

Famine

 

War

 

That night

 

I learned

 

When you laugh

 

Your clan merely pretends to laugh with you

 

When you weep

 

Your clan does not even merely pretend to weep 

with you

 

For you weep alone

 

Like Ainanashe

 

Like Dhayl

 

Like Gabere

 

I could hear them all that night

 

Weeping alone

 

In their lonesome cells

 

Lonesome like Jesus

 

In their garden of Gethsemane

 

With no one to weep with them

 

With no one to watch over them

 

With no clan to comfort them

 

That night

 

In Bar Lamamba

 

I wept alone

 

In my beer

 

In my Heineken

 

I wept

 

For Ainanshe

 

For Dhayl

 

For Gabayre

 

For Somalia

 

For the cold comfortless fact

 

That when you die

 

Your clan doesn’t even pretend to give a damn

 

I knew on the morrow

 

They were going to be murdered

 

By Afwayne

 

By the Darod Pharaoh

 

That is why I could not sleep

 

That sleepless night

 

That white night

 

At four in the morning

 

In Bar Lamamba

 

As I was about

 

To go out

 

To drive

 

To sally forth

 

One more time

 

Once more

 

On my silly Sisyphean rounds of

 

War-dheeglay

 

Hodon

 

Iskuraran

 

When one of the most prominent big bed-bugs of 

Afwayne

 

Jili-‘ow

 

Bit me!

 

Put the bite on me!

 

By grabbing me

 

By the scruff of my drunk neck

 

Shaking me sober!

 

Frog-marching me across the street

 

To my home

 

&

 

Throwing me

 

Into bed

 

Into the startled but grateful warm arms of my wife

 

Rachel Garber

 

—Madam

 

Pardon me!

 

For this rude & rough invasion of your privacy

 

Keep this

 

This your Abgal drunk donkey with you!

 

Put him to sleep!

 

Lull him to sleep!

 

Love him to sleep!

 

Teach him that

 

Your love is stronger than Death

 

He is to stay with you for the next 48 hours!

 

He is under house arrest for the next 48 hours!

 

I swear upon Allah

 

If he ventures out

 

One more time

 

If I spy him

 

Once more

 

In War-dheeglay

 

In Hodon

 

In Iskuraru

 

I shall have to turn him in

 

So Afwayne can shoot him too

 

Along with Ainanshe

 

Along with Dhayl

 

Along with Gabere

 

Togane

 

Is that clear?

 

Answer me!

 

—Jili-ow

 

Tonight

 

Of all the Mudulod

 

Of all the Abgal

 

Of all the Somalis

 

It is only

 

You & I

 

Who are awake

 

You are Afwayne’s watchdog!

 

&

 

I am a drunk dog!

 

So

 

Who is going to save now

 

Our Clansman

 

Our agnate

 

Gabere?

 

—Togane

 

Go to sleep

 

Neither you

 

Nor I

 

Can do anything for Gabere now

 

It is his kismet

 

It is maktoob

 

It is written

 

It is fate

 

Afwayne is his Nemesis

 

Afwayne is his Nabsi

 

Our agnate

 

Gabere

 

Gambled

 

Big time

 

Like Ché

 

He shook the revolutionary Somali Tree

 

Gorgeous glorious golden great fruits fell

 

Galore!

 

But alas

 

It is Afwayne who is now gathering them all!

 

It is Afwayne who is now enjoying them all!

 

Good night

 

&

 

Don’t let

 

His bed-bugs

 

Like me

 

Like Dafle

 

Like Farah Hussein Ghedle

 

Really put the bite on you!

 

Really bite you in the butt!

 

Watch out

 

Big brother is now watching you!

 

&

 

Somalia is now under the Darod Marehan boot of

Afwayne!

 

Mahamud Siad Togane