GAROWE INTERNET CAFÉ: THE BIRTHPLACE OF “SOMALI SOLUTIONS”

In a bustling internet café in Garowe, where the hum of modems competes with the aroma of overpriced coffee, a grand debate unfolded. University students furrowed brows at screens, teachers of intermediate and high schools gestured wildly, and one man, fingers dancing on a laptop, solemnly declared: “It all began with Aden Adde!” Why, you ask? Because the late president apparently snubbed the Western nations’ delicate offer to exploit Somalia’s untapped resources. The audacity!

Before the echo of that bombshell faded, another voice chimed in, armed with a memory stick of “facts”: “No, no, it was the Arta Somali Conference of 2000 in Djibouti. Clearly.” The debate swirled like a cyclone, each participant more confident than the last, one hour… two hours… a mere 90 minutes of intellectual gladiatorial combat, punctuated by the occasional sip of lukewarm cappuccino.

And there I sat, observing this scholarly wrestling match, silently wondering if anyone noticed the elephant in the room: Somalia’s problem didn’t start with Aden Adde’s foreign policy snub, nor with a fancy conference in Djibouti. No, dear patriots of Garowe café! The real culprit was much less glamorous: the day we tossed aside civic education and let societal values wander off like lost camels in the desert.

Ah yes, who needs history, geography, or ethics when we can blame past presidents and international conferences? Let the debates rage, my friends, for the real problem is simpler than any of your laptops can compute: an entire society that forgot how to be civilized.