David Shenk is a cherished American Mennonite friend of the Somali people whom he faithfully served in Somalia for a decade, from 1963 to 1973. I first met him in 1963 when he came to teach at the Johar Shabelle Mennonite Mission Intermediate Boarding School for boys where I was a student then.

He is now my friend and a fellow believer in Allah who is still teaching me about faith and commitment not only with his lips but also with his very life. He is an authority on Islam—particularly Somali Islam. He is now actively engaged in furthering friendship and understanding and encouraging conversation and comity between Christians & Moslems in these troubled times of trials & tribulations. 

The Somali cognoscente and all those who were once lucky enough to have been Mennonite Mission boys know Shenk and cherish him. He is also a formidable writer and an astute observer of all things Somali.

On pages 47-48 of his magnificent and magisterial book (Global Gods: Exploring The Role of Religions In Modern Societies. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1995) Shenk limns a vignette of what we Somalis cultivate and cathect and worship; what we Somalis live by: Ab-tirsi, or Gus-tirsi, or what I usually like to refer to as the begats of our Somali respective patriarchal pricks.

Shenk writes: “I once asked a [Somali] youth of nomadic background to describe his family for me. With a proud smile he began to recount the genealogy for twenty generations. For a patriarchal polygynous society, that may extend between eight hundred to one thousand years into the past! [The youth began to recite with reverence as if he were reciting the 99 names of Allah:]

‘Mohammed,

the son of Omar.

the son of Ahmed,

the son of Fidow,

the son of Robleh,

the son of Abubakar,

the son of Odowa,

the son of Guled,

the son of Halane,

the son of Samatar,

the son of Yusuf,

the son of Gu’ug-Addeh,

the son of Gurey,

the son of Baso-Gab,

the son of Hussein,

the son of Mohammed,

the son of Abdallah,

the son of Samo-Talis,

the son of Hawadleh,

the son of Mohammed,

who is my clan father!’

He then continued from the clan father, concluding with a triumphant victory emphasis, ‘…the son of Fatima, the daughter of the prophet Muhammad, peace upon him!

Was this proud prince from the deserts of Africa really a descendant of the prophet of Islam? Yet the conviction that his genealogy linked him to the Muslim prophet was exceedingly significant. The oral traditions which communicate the ancient spirituality of a people are as significant as scripture in defining the archetypical vision which nurtures the faith and the life of a people.’”

From our Somalis ethos, from our Somali mores and morals and manners, it is now very clear to us all that this Hawadleh youth’s Faith in Allah and in Islam will always be trumped by the greater and stronger Faith he has in the “Blood & Bone” of his Somali KKK called Hawadle. It is not only this Hawadleh youth alone, it is all of us Somalis who always put Darod, Hawiye and Issaaq above Allah and above Islam; who always idolize and venerate the begats of our Somali respective patriarchal pricks more than we venerate Allah and Islam; who live for and die for the Somali savage clans called Dir, Darod, Dayoos, Danyer, Doqon.

My assertion that all of us Somali savages worship, cultivate & indeed cathect our respective KKK: Dir, Darod, Dayuus, Danyer, Doqon is borne out by these two telling Somali proverbs (after all, as we say, we Somalis lie; but our proverbs never do): Fiqi tolkii kama janna tago: A learned divine won’t go to paradise without his clan; and Tol iyo fardo, toll baan doortay: “Of agnates & wealth, I chose (to support) my kin.”

Let us not fail to note that Sheikh Shenk describes the Somali Hawadle youth as “nomadic.” Let us also hasten to add that, like that Hawadleh youth, all of us Somalis are nomadic too.

What are Somalis

Who are we

We are nomads

 

In moods

______________In modes

______________In morals

______________In mores

__________________________In manners

__________________________In matters

__________________________In machinations

______________In principles

______________In politics

______________In religions

Faith is after all sedentary

Gobat, the missionary, had it right

We are constant in nothing

But inconstancy

Consistent in nothing

But inconsistency

Persistent only in perversity

Rich in strange peculiar perversions

We adore talking out of both sides of our mealy mouths

You see

The Sayyid had it right

He had our number

Musuqmaasuq Soomaali waa meheradeediye

Hadba midab horlay kula iman maalim iyo layle

Malahmalahda iyo baanahaa mowdku ka adeegay

Flimflamming is the forte of the Somali

Dissembling is

Our national dress

Our natural disguise

Our daily design for living

Shilly-shallying

Is our shroud

Is our sham

Is our shame

We dillydally day & night

We don a new disguise night & day

Why we have even been known

To teach the chameleon how

To add colors

To the chameleon’s coat of colors

Only death defeats

Our faanfaan

Our fanfaronade

Our fatude

Our flatulent fraud

It is my conviction that we Somalis are just like the tribe of the heathen, head-hunting, savage, stone-age Jivaros of the Jungles of Ecuador who live for and die for their clans.

We are not Moslems at all; we are all Munaafaqiin; we are just hypocrites; we are indeed shegato: we are just impostors, foolish fakers who just say that we are Moslems when all we want is just to get our camel to get up!

How else can we explain away this farcical fact, staring us in the face so stubbornly, that right now all of us are allowing and watching and expecting that motley crew of ignorant washenzy criminals (the very jinnies of our Somali jungle Jahiliyya, the very robbers of our Somali patrimony, the very killers of our Somali dream) to represent us all in Kenya and create for our people, a national Somali government of peace & reconciliation.

On second thought, I must admit that they do indeed represent us, after all, well they are the Grand Dukes and Dragons and the Imperial Wizards of our Somali Mystic Knights of the Ku Klux Klan called Dir, Darod, Dayoos, Danyer, Doqon.

If shame could kill, every Somali, every one of us clowns, would have been dead by now.

                                   Mahamud Siad Togane