A Rare Evening at Bar Saqajaan

Back in my boarding school days at Banadir Secondary School in Mogadishu, three of my closest friends and I often slipped away after study hours for a taste of freedom and laughter. The school compound also housed many Soviet teachers—disciplined, reserved, and methodical—sent on secondment to teach English and science. They lived in small, identical quarters that stood in sharp contrast to the chaotic life of Somali students.

Life in the boarding school was tough. The worst hardship, however, was the food. The dining hall was infamous for serving flavorless, nutritionless meals that could trigger both heartburn and homesickness. Our rice dinners were so sticky and solid that we nicknamed them “cement”—you could flip your plate upside down and nothing would fall off.

Given such conditions, a few Somali shillings could mean salvation—enough for a stolen evening in town, a cup of sweet shaah caano leh (tea with milk), and maybe a cigarette to share. But pocket money was scarce, so even small pleasures became shared adventures.

One evening, we managed to scrape together enough coins for four cups of tea and two Rothmans cigarettes. We made our way to a small teashop that our principal, Saleman Gaal—now the Chairman of the Somaliland Senate (Guurti)—mockingly called Bar Saqajaan, a term meaning “the den of rascals.”

Our tight-knit gang of four sat down, ready to savor every sip and puff. Among us, Anshur, the oldest, came from Buhodle in Togdheer, near the Ethiopian border (now in Puntland’s Ayn region). As we shared a cigarette, he took noticeably longer drags than his co-owner. The other complained, “Hey, you’re smoking more than your share!”

Without missing a beat, Anshur replied:

“Let me puff enough to reach all the way to Buhodle!”

The room exploded with laughter.

After the tea and the meager taste of nicotine, everyone was content—except Sharif, from the coastal town of Brava. Back home, he adored bursalid, a rich, oily Somali pastry. Spotting some behind the glass counter, he sighed dramatically—he couldn’t afford a single piece. Then, with mock sorrow, he began to sing:

“Bursalid, nin aan meeso qabin balad haduu joogo,
kama baahi beelee ishu balac ku siihaaye.”

Roughly translated: “A poor man in town can’t help but keep staring at the bursalid.”

The entire shop—customers and waiters alike—burst into laughter. The shop owner, perhaps out of pity or fearing the “evil eye” of Sharif’s longing, brought us four pieces of bursalid on the house.

Sharif’s hunger was satisfied, but his mind wasn’t done wandering. Just then, a hen darted around the corner of the shop. He turned to Anshur and asked, “Anshur, how soon does a hen deliver her babies after conception?”

Without hesitation, Anshur quipped:

“If you mate with it now, it’ll give you plenty of kittens right away!”

Another roar of laughter shook the teashop.

That night, we agreed it had been a rare and wonderful evening—a perfect mix of friendship, humor, and small joys amidst the roughness of boarding school life.

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[Republished]>

Do you know that without the pioneering work of Adam Jama Bihi with his war-torn society, the creation of Puntland State would have been difficult, if not impossible? Ask around—people who witnessed those early days will tell you.

As Project Manager of War-Torn Society—an international NGO financed and based in Switzerland—operating in the North-East Regions (today’s Puntland), Adam Jama Bihi played a decisive, though often overlooked, role in shaping the foundation of Puntland State. Under his leadership, the organization’s resources—its personnel, logistics, and outreach—were strategically redirected to support the successful organization of two landmark community congresses in Garowe. The outcome was historic: the birth of the Puntland State of Somalia in 1998.

Adam took an extraordinary step: he commissioned five Western European constitutional lawyers and one Egyptian jurist to assist in drafting the founding Puntland Charter. His actions embodied patriotism and foresight—but his superiors abroad saw them differently. He was reprimanded and sanctioned by his Swiss employers, including Matt Bryden, who is now a prominent figure at SAHAN Africa. These punitive measures continued for months after Puntland’s establishment. Yet, Adam’s justification was simple and irrefutable: he was helping a war-torn society rebuild itself—the very mission the organization claimed to serve.

Tragically, Adam’s life was cut short in a car accident at Xalimo Dheere Mountain, near Garowe, while traveling from Galkayo. His untimely death marked one of the saddest moments of my life. Adam was not only patriotic but also intellectually brilliant—perhaps a genius in his own right, comparable in creativity to Einstein, if not more gifted in practical intellect and leadership.

Following his death and the conclusion of War-Torn Society activities, the Puntland Presidency initiated the creation of the Puntland Development and Research Centre (PDRC)—a direct continuation of Adam’s vision and groundwork. I personally pushed for the idea, drafted the initial documents, and became a founding board member alongside Mohamed Abshir Waldo, Dr. Abdiqawi Yusuf (ICJ), Ali Isse Abdi (SSC), and others. We appointed Abdirahman Abdulle Shuke as Director-General. PDRC was conceived as a parastatal agency, but due to funding constraints, we allowed it to function as an NGO. In practice, Abdiqawi and Ali Isse made little to no contribution to PDRC’s foundation or subsequent activities.

Like many gifted and outspoken figures in Puntland, Adam eventually found himself at odds with President Abdullahi Yusuf. During those turbulent years, I often served as an intermediary between the President and those he perceived—rightly or wrongly—as members of the opposition, including General Adde Muse and Mohamed Abshir Waldo.

One evening, at the President’s residence in Garowe, the four of us—Abdullahi Yusuf, Waldo, Bihi, and I—were engaged in a heated discussion. The argument between Abdullahi Yusuf and Adam escalated dramatically, with both exchanging fierce words, restrained only by decorum from coming to blows. After they left, I advised the President to let me investigate the allegations that Adam was mobilizing opposition forces. He agreed.

In the following days, I attended several War-Torn Society workshops. What I discovered was revealing: civil war erupts when members of a society stop talking to each other, and Adam’s mission was precisely to restore dialogue and understanding among the people of North-East Somalia. His was a noble, patriotic, and peace-building effort—grossly misunderstood by the President. I reported my findings back, warning Abdullahi Yusuf that he was misjudging a national asset. Sadly, my words fell on deaf ears; he continued to distrust and criticize anyone he deemed an opponent.

Adam Jama Bihi’s legacy remains largely unacknowledged, but his fingerprints are visible in every institutional and civic foundation laid in Puntland’s formative years. He was a visionary who turned post-war despair into hope and dialogue, a true son of Puntland whose contribution deserves enduring recognition.

Ismail H. Warsame

[Published earlier in WDM]

WARSAME DIGITAL MEDIA (WDM)
Critical Analysis | Political Satire | Truth-Telling Without Apology

By Ismail H. Warsame

A specter is haunting Somali social media—the specter of the Kacaan. With predictable regularity, a chorus of digital nostalgics emerges, peddling a rose-tinted fantasy of the late General Mohamed Siad Barre’s regime. They flood our feeds with curated black-and-white images: pristine Mogadishu streets, orderly school parades, and polished military boots. It is a carefully constructed gallery, designed to suggest that discipline and progress once defined our nation. But a photograph cannot scream; it cannot capture the sound of firing squads or the silence of mass graves.

This is not mere nostalgia. It is a calculated act of historical erasure, weaponized for the digital age.

The Dictator’s Digital Resurrection

These online tabliiq sheikhs of the Kacaan preach with a zealot’s fervor, eulogizing a “golden age” they never knew. In their sermons, there is no room for the dark underbelly of that so-called revolution: a state that institutionalized terror, criminalized free thought, and orchestrated the persecution of targeted clans under the hollow banner of “unity.”

Their memory is impeccably selective. They glorify the concrete of new buildings but ignore the blood soaked into the soil of Labaatan Jirow’s torture chambers. They celebrate a unified Somalia while forgetting the poets it silenced and the intellectuals it forced into endless exile.

It brings to mind a grim irony: looking at the dystopian control of North Korea and seeing not a warning, but an aspiration.

From Kacaan to Kleptocracy: A False and Dangerous Dichotomy

Let us be honest: this nostalgia flourishes in the fetid swamp of our present despair. It is a direct reaction to the breathtaking corruption, staggering incompetence, and theatrical absurdity of Somalia’s current political elite.

A generation scrolls through TikTok and sees a government that cannot deliver electricity, jobs, or basic dignity. They watch ministers charter private jets while soldiers—their fathers and brothers—die on unpaid frontlines. They are subjected to a democracy of deception.

Is it any wonder that a whisper gains volume: “At least under Siad Barre, there was order”?

This is the modern rebranding of tyranny. It no longer needs to march in with tanks; it can simply trend with a hashtag.

The Cruelty of Selective Memory

To romanticize the Kacaan is to perform a profound act of betrayal against its victims. It is to dance on the unmarked graves of the disappeared, to mock the families for whom the pain is not a historical footnote but a living, breathing inheritance of loss.

We have reached a tragic nadir: the chasm between the brutal order of the past and the humiliating chaos of the present has narrowed so much that we are left debating which form of suffering was more dignified—the sharp crack of the whip, or the slow, grinding humiliation of failure.

The Digital Vanguard of a Dead Regime

They are the new commissars, these digital comrades. Their weapons are not Kalashnikovs but keyboards; their battlefields are Twitter threads and Facebook posts, adorned with hashtags like #KacaanForever and #SomaliUnity. They speak the language of restoration, promising a return to a past that never existed.

The ultimate irony is lost on them: the very platform they use to deify a dictator would have been their death warrant during the regime they so ardently admire.

WDM Verdict: Reject the Seduction of the Strongman

Let us be unequivocal: the kleptocrats in tailored suits offer no salvation from the ghosts in military uniforms. Both are parasites on the nation’s soul, differing only in their methods of extraction.

But the cure for corruption is not the cudgel of authoritarianism; it is the relentless light of accountability. The antidote to chaos is not a single strongman, but a strong, civically engaged citizenry.

Somalia does not need another Siad Barre. It needs a generation that has learned the lessons of history—one that rejects both the prison of tyranny and the swamp of thievery.

WDM Conclusion:
When a people begin to look fondly upon their former jailers,it is a damning indictment of their current leaders. Yet, we must remember: the road to hell is paved with sanitized memories and the seductive, dangerous lie that a single pair of boots can clean a nation’s wounds.

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