Mogadishu
was now effectively divided into two principal military zones—one controlled
by the Abgaal and the other by the Habar Gidir invaders.
—Ioan
M. Lewis in Blood And Bone
What
the hell is Habar Gidir doing in Mogadishu?
Do
they think Mogadishu is their Hobyo now?
—Mahamed Ibrahim Egal
The
news on the BBC was great that morning!
The
news from home was great that morning!
The
news from Somalia was sweet that morning!
My
Abgal clan
My
very own Hayow
Was kicking the crap
Out of the cockeyed enemy!
Out of the Ill-Jeh enemy!
Out of the Habar Gidir!
Out of General Wow
General Wow
Who was so cocksure
That he could
That he would
Kick the Abgal
Out of their own Mogadishu
Out of their own turf
Out of their own goaf
That is when I
began to believe for sure
That Aideed was most definitely cockeyed like
the rest of his Klan
That Aideed was most definitely
A goon
A goop
A goof
The news on the
BBC was great that morning!
The news from home
was great that morning!
The news from
Somalia was sweet that morning!
All of Somalia was
celebrating
In song
In dance
The defeat
The disaster
The disgrace
That we had inflicted
On Aideed
On the Ill-Jeh enemy
On the kooky cockeyed enemy
In Montreal
I was singing
I was relishing
These two curt calypsos
That capture the sweetness of the Abgal Hayow
victory
On land
On sea
Over
the haughty Habar Gidir hooligans!
Kor
kaga haysku so kuday
Ha
ku kaynay Kaysanay!
May
violent seizures seize you!
As
you dance your dance of death!
As
you dance your dance macabre!
As
you dance your dance of St Vitus!
And
Habar
Gidir ma haybisayn
Hirka
hostiisa wahay ka haybiyan!
Have you ever asked Habar Gidir
What
the hell they were hunting for
What
the hell they were hankering for
Under
the overwhelming waves!
As
they were drowning
Snatching
at straws!
As
they were drowning
Leaning
upon the foam of the killer waves!
As
I prepared breakfast here in Montreal that morning
I
was singing these wonderful Hayow hosanna calypsos
Celebrating
our Hayow victory
On
land
On
sea
Over
Aideed
Over
the Ill-Jeh enemy
Over
the kooky cockeyed enemy
When
the phone interposed
Shattering
my Hayow shindig of shamateh!
Shattering
my Hayow shindig of schadenfreude
It
was my niece calling from her exile in Ottawa
It
was Shamso Elmi
Keening
The
defeat
The
disaster
The
disgrace
Of
her own Habar Gidir clan
Keening
—Abtie!
Why
are you killing us all Habar Gidir?
Why
are you massacring us all Habar Gidir?
Why
are you drowning us all Habar Gidir
In
the deep blue cruel Somali Sea?
—Abtie!
What
the hell do you care?
You
are not Habar Gidir!
You
are Abgal like me!
—Abtie!
You
are wrong!
You
have lived too long
In
exile
In
cold Canada
You
are now more Canuck than Hayow!
You
forget!
My
father is Habar Gidir!
I
am Habar Gidir!
Even
though my mother, your sister, is Abgal Hayow like you!
Remember!
It
is all about the bloody begats of patriarchy
That
is making us all slaughter each other now!
—It
was that morning
When
I stopped hating Habar Gidir!
It
was that morning
When
I cursed both Haayow & Habar
It
was that morning
When
I said
A
plague on both your KKK houses of Habar & Hayow!
It
was that morning
When
I began to realize
The
folly
The
fatude
The
futility
The
fatuity
The
fractiousness
The
factiousness
The
factitiousness
Of
the Somali Civil War
That
set an uncle
That
set an Abtie
Against
his own niece
Who
regarded him as her own mother without the dugs!
It
was that morning
When
the Holy Spirit began
To
teach me
To
lay to my charge
To
first of all
To
above all
Keep
my very own Togane heart
Free
of hatred!
Free
of despair!
Notes
Abtie:
(Somali) Maternal uncle: in Somali culture there is a special and close
affinity between an Abtie and his niece or
nephew;
that is why he is referred to as a mum without dugs!
Begats
of patriarchy: Genealogy.
Fatude:
A Somali word meaning an attitude struck and stuck in the high lazy latitudes
of the doldrums of the doo-doos
of
self-deception most prevalent in Aideed’s Mugdi Mudug!
Goaf:
(Somali) Homestead; own turf.
Hayow:
A synonym for Abgal.
Ill-Jeh:
A contemptuous term for the Habar Gidir; cock-eyed.
Shamateh:
(Arabic) Schadenfreude or the keen pleasure
one derives from seeing one’s enemy come a cropper; from
seeing
one’s enemy get his comeuppance! His just deserts! His Ma’a sokor!
St
Vitus:
Chorea; a nervous disorder of uncontrollable and spastic movements of the
body.
