Category: rehabilitation

COME TO RAIN

Qardho, May 30, 2019

Come to rain, for down beneath you, there is an earth-scorching drought, goes the Somali saying.

The news on rainfall is still sketchy, however, there was a heavy downpour over Garowe City, and Qardho town in Karkaar Region of Puntland last night. This is more than good news as life and livelihoods in this country depend on rain water. This happens only by the divine intervention, exclusivity and generosity of the Almighty.

Nevertheless, it has been said over and over again that Allah helps those who help themselves. There is a chronic and primitive way of life in the Somalia’s nomadic mode of production and thought. They keep living in ways of the first man on earth, never minding that their world is constant changing with soil and plants degradation, increasing shortages of underground water because of continual decline of rainfall, resulting in life-threatening droughts and fast-paced land desertification. The world is running out of fresh water and climate change is a scientific fact, despite the denial of President Trump of USA and his clowns of morons.

Somali Nomads had never been caused of evaluating the consequences of their own actions on nature: They foolishly cut trees, burn them for charcoal and never, never plant trees. Still they wait in earnest for Almighty to help them with rain, and on time. They are accustomed to having both ways: Destroying their habitat and begging mercy from Almighty. Perhaps, this is the root cause of certain Somali bad spirits. Let us study the phenomenon with the intention of trying to find lasting solutions to the current Somalia’s predicaments.

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(Image credit: Ms Sun)

N&N, FEDERAL CONSTITUTION AND COMMON SENSE

Garowe, May 28, 2019

A wiseman man once said that he had found out common sense was not so common.

That is a profound understatement, given the fact that one always encounters some people, who do not want to engage in normal mode of operation and common expectations of people. Some, for selfish ends and others out of personal echo that they don’t behave within the realism of normal human behavior in addressing issues of common interest that require collective approach to problem solving in regard to societal concerns. Very interesting topic, indeed, that needs expert help here.

Regarding Somali national issues, what do you think that presidents Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo have in common?

Have you noticed that they are all anti-federalism, anti-constitution, anti-regional developments, and they are all proponents of one City-state solution for Somalia’s state-building problems. Have you ever heard them talking about or promoting the provisions of the Federal Constitution from any of these presidents? Have you ever seen or heard them talking about regional development projects or promotion of decentralization of the powers of central state to the regions? But, why? Did you ask yourself why they all wanted to restore stronger Mogadishu and highly centralized authority, repeating the same grave mistake that brought Somalia down in the first place?

Multiple explanations for the malaise of these men abound. Let us count some of these narratives here:

1. They naively and innocently believe that having highly centralized state would solve all Somalia’s current predicaments.

2. They are all students of dictatorship and bent on being new authoritarians after Siyad Barre.

3. They are still lagging behind the people and didn’t get yet the notion that Somalia would never be the same again – that decentralization is irreversibly a defacto development than a dejure, a result of the Civil War. That leads to point (4):

4. They don’t have common sense to take all of the above into account as people expect of them.

Now you guessed it. That is why each of these presidents had problems working with federal member states, themselves imperfect. Why not, if they don’t want to respect the Federal Constitution with clearly enshrined provisions to work together as this is a federal republic with devolved powers.

That is why common sense is not so common. True statement.

ismailwarsame.blog

ROADMAP FOR PUNTLAND DENI PRESIDENCY

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By now the President should have in place a major reform package for the State’s suffocating and duplicating bureaucracy. By now the President must have shown his vision as to where he would take Puntland State. By now the President must have committed himself and his administration to a democratization process as the old clan POWER-SHARING arrangement had hit a dead-end and should be discontinued. By now the President should have inspired the people of Puntland for renewal of hope and revitalization of socio-economic life in this part of Somalia. By now the President should have cleared the confusion surrounding on how to move forward in terms of cooperation between Puntland and its international partners. By now the President should have studied the dubious P&O and DP WORLD Bosaso Port contract and clarified Puntland position on whether to revise the infamous contract or discard it all together.

Puntlanders had never seen or shown publicly this suspicious Bosaso Port Deal with the UAE ambitious and aggressive firm, the P&O. The President needs to hire a team of highly experienced business and civil contract lawyers to look into this contract with P&O. And by the way, has President Deni seen that contract? Nobody in Puntland did see that secret document, including the previous members of House of Representatives ( the Parliament), who corruptedly approved the deal.

We see only slow piecemeal steps and occasional visits to various departments in Garowe, but no meaningful announcements or significant undertakings on the part of Deni Administration until to-date. If there is something you know, please share it with us.
By tradition, Puntlanders are extremely patient to wait and give chance to any Puntland incoming administration, but they are anxious this time around to see bold steps and tangible results from President Deni.
Too much time spent on a learning curve indicates the President is not yet ready to govern and would waste the first year of his administration as the 100 days measured in sizing up the President without achieving any major item of his election platform.
Puntlanders’ eyes are on the President to deliver the goods and quickly.
And one final thing: leadership doesn’t operate in the dark. It is about openess or transparency and public guideness

RETURNEES DIASPORA KIDS AND SOMALI CULTURE

GAROWE, MAY 23, 2019

It is never easy for kids born overseas in exile with no Somali language skills, cultural experience or imagination of how operating in Somali setting look like as a result of parental failure in raising kids in a foreign environment or refuge camps in Western countries. Most diaspora parents, who themselves were not schooled before they found themselves there, and experiencing language barriers and deep cultural shock, suddenly became the students of their own kids, who pick up foreign languages quicker. Kids become interpreters and translators of the host foreign languages for their own parents. In other words, parental power, while in overseas, shifted to the kids. Parents, therefore, had lost parental influence over kids. Who is going to teach the kids about Somali culture and heritage in host countries then? Hence one often hears the Somali term “Dhaqan Celis” (cultural rehabilitation) in the country.

Diaspora parents seek help for their kids, and their only resort is to send kids back home. The problem back home is that there are no meaningful formal services to provide help in the rehabilitation of these youth to re-orient themselves into the Somali culture and ways of life.

What happens next is that, in the absence of specialized cultural help, kid are re-introduced to their extended family members to help cultivate these diaspora kids along their parents’ cultural heritage. The diaspora kids have no life connections with these people, and the names and extended families have no meaning at all to them. But, where to start to rehabilitate them? Of course, family trees (ancestry) comes first in mind, which means teaching these innocent youth about tribalism and clannism. What is making things even worse is that there are no social amenities or youth programs to get them engaged and make them busy. Double cultural shock and boredom set in in the lives of these young men and girls back home.

Once beaten, twice shy. Diaspora youth wouldn’t opt for another chance to re-visit Somalia, at least, in their early years.

Funny stories about the experience of these young returnees are abundant in Puntland. One such story tells about young female intern in one of the local NGOs, who was informed one morning that they were pleased let her know that she would receive “Mushaar” (salary). To that intern, the the local term Mushaar meant “Mooshaali” (Porridge or oatmeal). After a while, later in that morning, the young woman became impatient waiting for the porridge offerred and asked what had happened to the delivery of the food, to everybody’s laughter.

This story also vainly sheds light on the socio-economic frictions between the “Qorax Joog” (locals) and “Qurba Joog” (diaspora returnees). The locals believe that, with their super job skills, experience and education, the Qurba Joog have better job, political and business opportunities in the country than the Qorax Joog. Hence, a cold war is now slowly brewing, but still at its early stages of debating the issue in the social media and in public/private meetings. If the concerns are not carefully managed in advance, I am affraid of open public confrontations in the foreseeable future as it had happened between Liberian indigenous and diaspora returnees from USA in mid 19th Century.

RECOMMENDATION

ismailwarsame.blog proposes to Puntland/Somalia for setting up formal local NGO services in partnership with international organizations, under State supervision, to provide badly needed help to the Somali Diaspora youth returnees for “dhaqan celis” purposes. Those young men and girls mostly return from Norh America, Western Europe and Arab countries, who may extend help to any sound projects for such kids.

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(image credit: pewresearch.org)

PRESIDENT DENI AND PEOPLE OF MUDUGH TODAY

Galkayo, May 20, 2019

Mudugh & Security Council. Take a listen.

UNKIND STORIES ON RAPE IN SOMALIA

“A justice delayed is a justice denied”

Garowe, May 17, 2019 – Strange, ugly and inhumane stories on rape, and recently, gang rape, by young men are in abundance in the country nowadays. This includes stories of miscarriage of justice involving rape cases in provable, and in fact, undeniable incidents. Bringing perpetrators of rape to justice is increasingly becoming difficult for the following main reasons:

1. Traditional clan conflict resolution ironically stands in the way both in prevention and execution of justice for victims of rape.

2. The administration of justice is unacceptably poor with no institutional capacity to perform a modicum of administration of judiciary responsibilities. It was sad and uncomfortable to listen to a man recently, who told me that the judge on his case in the City of Garowe couldn’t come to his court session on time because he had ran out of gas in his service vehicle. The lawyer of that man had to pay for the fuel of the judge’s car to enable him attend that particular court session.

One sadly hilarious story about the disregard of rendering justice for a young raped woman by the adjudication of clan elders involves a famous incident in which the victim was asked to retell what had actually happened to her during her alleged rape. When she was uncomfortably done narrating her suffering, the lead elder told her that it wasn’t good on her part in failing to satisfy her perpetrator.

Gang rape and mudering the target of sexual abuse like the tragic murder case of little Asha last month in the city of Galkayo and several other reported rape crimes elsewhere in Puntland and in other parts in Somalia is unheard of historically in the country until quite recently. It is new crime wave as a result of substance abuse by young, unemployed and hopeless men, who had been transformed into “human hyenas” to quote someone deeply dismayed by the situation. It is a new societal problem that requires holistic approach of prevention, rehabilitation, better administration of judiciary and training of special task force to tackle with the problem. It requires also to remove the resistance of clan elders who are preventing justice to be served and take its course.

Finally, it is an understament to call for public action and pressure to bring about the end of this women and human rights abuse. Men and women of Somalia should rise up against this indignation.

ismailwarsame.blog