Category: Hardening of attitudes

Somalia, Foreign Aid and International Conspiracy – Official Ismail Warsame Blog

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Here is the article you have been searching for, in regards to what was happening to Somalia during the decades of Somali people’s slumber and sleep-walking. This story had also appeared in WardheerNews under the same author.

Take a read.

The story of Somalia’s tragedy is too complex to summarize in a few pages. What I learned though in the course of the past two decades is the fact that when a country breaks up in the way the Somali State failed, it is too hard, if not impossible, to reconstruct it and put it back together again. That is because such a failure creates thousands of well-paid jobs and other beneficial opportunities for a huge number of expatriates or international aid workers and foreign diplomats. It does not take rocket science to figure out that those international employees and their decision-makers would not be acting against their own self-interests in order to see Somalia back on its feet again with all their goodwill intentions and humanitarian intervention. There is no incentive for this to happen. This is the first and most serious obstacle Somalis have to deal with to get Somalia back on track. The second biggest problem is Somalis themselves in abysmally failing to put their acts together by understanding that they are in peril and fatal danger of losing not only their sovereignty, but also their country. This is the core of Somalia’s problem today.
Some, including these foreign expatriates and governments, would argue that the second problem is the crux of the issue as to why Somalis cannot have their country back. That is true too as long as our people do not take responsibilities for their own failure and always quick to blame others for their misfortune and misery they have created onto themselves. Listen with purpose to Somali group debates, the so-called Fadhi-Ku-Dirirka (lazy losers’ shouting clan/personal debates), in coffee and teashops and amateur Radio and TV panel discussions and ever multiplying clan fox-hole websites. You notice that nobody is talking about the big picture of “Somalia first” and putting any political differences or clannish self-interests aside at the moment to save the Nation as priority number one. After all what has been happening in Somalia for the last few decades, isn’t that a double tragedy? Some may conclude that Somalis are a punch of feuding clans that cannot agree to have a nation-state and therefore under such circumstances, two scenarios are plausible:
  1. Let neighbor states take over the country by dismembering it and dividing it among themselves.
  2. Allow foreign re-occupation of the country until Somalis are ready and fit to govern themselves.
We should never give a chance that to happen at any cost. At moment, fieriest diplomatic lobby, intrigues and direct military intervention under the disguise of flashing out Al-Shabbab, another menace resulting from our too long inaction in the vacuum, perhaps also as a punishment for our collective sins and betrayal of our country, are ongoing to opt for the first scenario. Painful as it is, this is the same country whose pilots were flying supersonic jet fighters and producing the best neuro-surgeons decades ago and famous for holding first free and fair democratic elections in Africa.
Following the Ogaden War of 1977-1978, and as fallout of the lost war with the proliferation of clan-based and violent armed opposition fronts, huge refugee camps had been created in various parts of Southern Somalia. In reality the Capital, Mogadishu, had been transformed to a big camp for refugees and internally displaced people, IDPs. With the influx of unlimited food aid from international donors at that time, residents ceased to buy food at markets all together as it is readily available to have anyway. Even households of Government officials had it delivered to their families. The result had been catastrophic with local produce wiped out and bringing farmers to refugee camps as well. The citizens of the whole country had been reduced to mere beggars of foreign handouts. What had happened next was that the law of jangle of the fittest was ushered in and whatever left of the Somali State was up for grabs and Somalia irreversibly became a country nobody owns, leave alone someone to defend it from the imminent collapse. As the regulatory bodies disappeared, unscrupulous traders broke all rules of decency and lost moral compass to sell anything and everything Somalis owned to the highest bidder. Somalia went nuts and out of control. To understand why the Somali Civil War could not be contained, particularly in Mogadishu, one should appreciate the nature of the conflict. First, it is a family feud which will last for centuries in many forms and levels. Secondly, it is economic conflict in which a few greedy business criminals do not want it stopped to prevent the establishment of regulatory bodies of a government at any cost to avoid paying taxes. Theirs is: Deny any administration, regional or central to setup the rules of the road for their trade. Chaos, killings and trade in expired food, medicine and export of everything Somalis owned and adored for centuries are the only acceptable norms for their businesses to thrive. Take note that it was not the warlords, Islamic Courts and even Al-Shabab that kept the conflict in Mogadishu running so long. It is the Mogadishu new business tycoons and merchants of death and destruction that made impossible to bring about law and order in Mogadishu.
International Conspiracy and Regional Power Play
As the Somali State finally collapsed with the disappearance of all public institutions without an exception in the height of the Civil War, Western donor countries under the framework of the international community devised economic and political plans for Somalia to fill in the power vacuum in the country. These plans are elaborate and act as a case study on neo-colonialism after the end of the Cold War. It would require volumes of books and extensive research to write on this particular subject.
In 1993 representatives of all countries interested in Somalia under the umbrella of OAU/IGAD/Partners with international Western humanitarian organizations gathered to discuss on how to handle Somalia. Ironically, the venue of this gathering was Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. To make a long story short, the participants resolved to set up the infamous “Somali Aid Coordinating Body, SACB (search for how limited this name is in the Google entries), The SACB, an Exclusive Club of Western humanitarian organizations, UN agencies, European Union agencies (EC) and international NGOs. The SACB devised the following two serious documents:
  1. WORKING WITH RESPONSIBLE SOMALI AUTHORITIES (implying here there is no authority in the country, amounting to merely working with clan leaders and local NGOs, possibly with Somaliland, Puntland State did not exist at that time).
  2. SACB CODE OF CONDUCT (their internal regulations dealing with Somalis).
By the creation of this unresponsive, unapproachable and invisible governing body for Somalia, The SACB, and Somalia’s sovereignty on land, air and sea had been effectively taken over. All humanitarian aid assistance, monetary or material from donor countries must be channeled through the agencies of the UN, European Union and INGOs, who have the sole discretion and authority to allocate aid distribution as they wish without any input by or accountability to Somalis. To this day no member country is allowed to unilaterally extend assistance to Somalia. An exception is Turkey which does not fit into this framework and whose recent unilateral assistance to Somalia sparked off competition to do something about Somalia to preempt China’s growing and expanding influence in Africa. The old SACB approach on Somalia continues to this day with different names like recent CMC (Coordination and Monitoring Committee setup to camouflage SACB as TFG appeared on the Somali political scene in 2004) with the same modus operandi. To call a spade a spade, SACB became the real Somali Government operating from luxury homes and executive suites in Nairobi while the report cards of the hundreds of its privileged expatriate employees show they are working inside war-torn Somalia on the most expensive life insurance coverage on earth for them and families. That is why we see signals and hear voices nowadays from individual Western countries that aid to Somalia would be channeled to “international agencies” and spelling that out once again after the election of the new Somali leaders in August this year. Perhaps the New Somali President knows better how to deal with them having worked with these agencies for a long time. An extensive network of local NGOs mostly ran and operated by one man/one woman with a bag and laptops have been established in every corner of the country. Most of these local agencies do not follow the rules of associations and societies to be accountable to Board of Directors, have secretaries of treasuries, constitution and mission to avoid duplication of same activities by others. Without their knowledge, many of these local NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) are the sources of information gathering for the “International Somali Government” based in Nairobi. These NGOs sometimes come under different fancy names as Non-State Actors (NSAs), Civil Societies, Non-For-Profit Organizations, Stake-holders and so on with the intention to avoid helping the establishment of effective Somali Government and in that way perpetuate the power vacuum in the country to justify the role of SACAB to the donor community and their tax-payers.
Welcome to the era of neo-colonialism where Somalia is a rather blatant example of the “New World Order”. Or rather, the Somali case is a direct rule by foreign powers. This unmasked way of running Somalia exposes the extent of the depth of the problem in Third World countries today and shed light on Western political expectations from “Arab Spring” uprisings.
Every year, these international agencies compile what they call “Consolidated Humanitarian Aid Appeal For Somalia” amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of Somalia. From various sources of their addressees, I had the unique privilege to see first hand and disturbed by the stunning Cover Letters enclosed with these “Humanitarian and Development Appeals. Cover letters addressed to foreign Western donors read and I quote:

“ON BEHALF OF THE SOMALI PEOPLE” and continue to this day ignoring any Somali political leadership, institution (even “Responsible Authorities”).

Equally important to note here that the European Union has been transformed to a collective body politic in the course of its existence in regards to its foreign aid to 3rd World countries (Developing Countries). To prevent unilateral aid by individual member countries to emerging markets and countries and avoid duplication of such assistance on shopping list by the leaders of developing countries, a document or an agreement called The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness had been produced in February, 2005, effectively controlling who gets what and on what European terms are applicable to a specific country or block of countries. Since Somalia is not signatory to any accord after Lome’ (Togo) Convention of 1975-1989 on Trade and Aid between ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) and European Community countries, including Cotonou (Benin) Accord, its role and interests have been mandated and taken over by a small unit of individuals within European Commission Delegation to Kenya, called The Somali Unit, acting practically and effectively as the National Authorizing Officer (NAO) for Somalia, the very function a Somali Officer would have played if there were a government in Somalia.
Has anyone heard Italy, a longtime colonial power of Southern Somalia, producing a single initiative to help find solutions to Somalia’s predicament? Italy always claims in world forums on Somalia to have the exclusive rights of the Somali issues on the basis of being a former colonial power and legitimate authority to listen to and be respected with regards to Somalia while at the same has nothing to show for in deeds. Italy understood well that once her initiative on Somali peace and reconciliation fails, she will lose all credibility in the eyes of other powers and will be immediately out of the picture in Somalia. Italy’s strategy was reduced to sabotaging other powers’ help in resolving the Somali problem. Her political position has been quite detrimental to Somalia’s national interests and prolonged the agony of the Somali people.
How Other States Rate in the Somali Saga
On the Arab front, Somalia is predominantly suuni liberal religious society. Over many years, however, the Saudis have been engaged in extending religious scholarships to thousands of Somali youths to indoctrinate them in their Wabi version, undeniably responsible for the current religious uphill in the country. This has created religious crisis and conflicts within the community unrecorded before in the history of Somalia. People in Somalia now suffer crisis of identity with regards to their religion (even crisis of attire and clothing as strange foreign fashion of Afghani, Pakistani and Arab tribal origin are imposed on them).
Sheikhdoms in the Gulf were pouring fuel into the fire in Somalia by paying Zakka to the extremist groups on individual basis and through religious charities. Egypt, a country that has been boasting to have strong historical ties with Somalia, could not even provide safe passage within its territory to Somali refugees fleeing civil war. Yemen with its meager resources and its own severe tribal problems has been overwhelmed by Somali refugees, many whom had perished in the high seas of the Red Sea trying to reach its borders. In short the Arabs have been disappointing to Somalis in their time of need. Ironically, it is only them that can extend meaningful assistance without strings attached to any decent administration in Somalia, but that is only if the country has a government, which became difficult to achieve for decades.
Djibouti played more than its capacity with regards to the spoils of the Somali Sate by putting herself in the shoes of her Mother Somalia at League of Arab States. Since the fall of the Somali Central Government, it has been hosting a number of improvised Somali reconciliation meetings to enhance its role among other power players in the region.
Kenya is a country that got the most benefit out of the Somalia’s misery as the HQ of the “International Somali Government” (foreign diplomats and expatriate aid workers of the donor community with hundreds of millions of dollars ear-marked for Somalia spent in Nairobi alone). Speak about the huge capital flight from Somalia, remittances from Somali Diaspora and investment and entrepreneurial talents shaping up Kenya as the East African business hub, not to mention about a broken and desperate people trying to calm their nerves with plane loads of stimulant drug mira (khat), another curse in the Somali tragedy, from Nairobi in exchange for cold cash dollars.
With regards to Ethiopia, a major issue of Somali foreign policy, everybody seems have an opinion and knows better. Here I would limit myself by saying that Somalis are forgiving, but Ethiopia has to choose only one of these two options:
  1. Be a peaceful, friendly neighbor and regional ally by trying to help heal past wounds and reverse the historical burden between the two brotherly peoples. Ethiopia has to stop running Somali affairs from Addis Ababa and instruct its diplomats in foreign capitals to immediately cease their traditional diplomatic lobby to undermine Somali unity. It has to stop infiltrating into Somali society and bullying Somali leaders with its power plays.
  2. Be an enemy in the region the Somalis have to deal with and risk losing all chances of being trusted ever again.
Eritrea seems to be more sincere and sympathetic to Somali cause than Ethiopia, but its rivalry with Ethiopia via proxy war has been causing havoc to ordinary Somalis in Southern Somalia.
Nevertheless, it would be rather mean not to recognize that the above mentioned states and organizations have been doing something good as well that had saved lives, lessened pain and suffering among the general population.
In conclusion, Somalia will rise up again, hopefully in my lifetime and, when it does, we will be stronger than ever before to be a force of good to reckon with.

By Ismail Haji Warsame

E-Mail: ismailwarsame@gmail.com

https://ismailwarsame.blog/2013/01/06/somalia-foreign-aid-and-international-conspiracy/

WILL SOMALIA RISE UP AGAIN?

Garowe, May 26, 2019

I receive multiple long distance phone calls, text messages and emails almost on daily basis from friends and colleagues living overseas within the Somali diaspora around the world. To sum up the contents of these messages, their overall inquiries boil down to the above question: “Will Somalia rise up again?” How would you answer that question? Think a bit about it.

Personally, I have found out a genuine way to answer it. How? Well, ask them critical questions. What are they?

In your own opinion, is Somalia better off today than what she was ten years ago?

Does Somalia have a recognized government engaged with the world community today?

Is Somalia an active member state again in all major international and regional bodies as a sovereign nation?

Does Somalia talk about elections and building public institutions these days?

Is Somalia fighting back against extremism and wanton violence?

Is federal system agreed upon already, at least, half done?

Now, you guessed my method and approach to ask close-ended questions.

What about if you ask them open-ended questions. How?

What is your own take on Somalia’s situation today?

How would you, yourself, describe the performance of the Farmaajo-Khayre Government?

What would you like to know about Somalia?

How would you evaluate the general public opinion of Somalis living in your part of the world?

Now, I think, you can figure out the big difference between the two methods of questioning.

The first method is a critical approach to an organized fact-finding and quicker way to cause the inquirer to think critically and ask you intelligent questions too.

The 2nd method is to solicit for information and personal opinion of your interlocutor.

So, decide upfront which method of informing your colleagues you will use for a mutually satisfactory exchange of information.

Both methods are useful, depending on what you want out of these communications.

What I don’t want you to do is to lecture your friends and colleagues about your own take or opinion on things in Somalia. Be open-minded and listen to any concerns and misperceptions people have on many things. You will not be able to correct misinformation and biases if you don’t listen, acknowledge concerns first, paraphrase their opinions to let know them that you understood them, and try to answer to a reciprocally listening and attentive person on the other side of the world or infront of you across the table- a pleasure session to conclude.

ismailwarsame.blog

PUNTLAND’S ACHEELS HEELS

Yes, an imperative reform in Puntland Administration is obvious to all and urgently needed. But, where do we start?

The sectors that had become the Achilles Heels of the State of Puntland are:
  1. Finance sector
  2. Security sector
Fix the two sectors, and Puntland would leap foward fast. These two sectors constitute half of Puntland’s entire problems.
Take first, Puntland Ministry of Finance where the management and personnel are on the same jobs for twenty years with 19th century rudimentary knowledge of financial management and that compoundedly streghtened by their chronic resistance to change, upgrading and reform. It is not an exaggeration – I worked with them as Puntland Chief of Staff at State Presidency during the first three years of Puntland foundation. How did they stay that long each one on the same job? That is their most guarded secret. What is it? The Ministry’s Top Management Team had developed and fine-tuned special skills to make sure that every incoming Puntland President and the new Minister of Finance are happy by providing them with unchecked and unaccounted for access to personal funds. But, if that is an open secret, why didn’t Puntland successive regimes do something about it? Good question! Have you heard the Somali word “Madax-ka-nool referring to Puntland governance?” Yes, you guessed – the President is everything in Puntland. He is the country’s minister of finance and cashier-general at same time. He can buy everybody, including the members of the House of Representatives (the Parliament). Then who would check the powers of the President? You tell me. With the financial muscle of the Ministry of Finance he owns the country and its people. You would say that is an exaggeration. You are free to carry out your own enquiries and independent investigations. But, don’t forget to share your findings with me.
But, that is not all. The top management of Puntland Ministry of Finance is the main obstacle and reason why international agencies and world financial institutions are unable to assist Puntland due to Ministry’s lack of transparency and financial accountability. The Ministry keeps secret even Puntland real revenue and expenses. This has created a situation where world community doesn’t know not only how to help Puntland in development projects, budget supplements and personnel capacity-building, but also how to work with the authorities. Puntland books are closed and they are Ministry’s Top Secrets.
Reform immediately that Ministry, and people of Puntland are half free.
Take Security Sector second, and you would discover the hard facts that nobody knows, even approximately, the number of men and women working in or attached to that sector, forget about their training, quality, incapacitation, mortality or even whether the names in ghost lists exist, or ever existed. How do you allocate resources, wages, pay etc? How do organizations in the security sector could assist Puntland improve its security needs? Yes, it is easy to blame others for your failures? But abive all, how do you defend your country when your lists of forces are ghost soldiers? That is why you hear calls for clan militia support whenever Puntland security is threatened.

These are the two critical sectors that require an urgent and radical reform, but the problems described above extend to other sectors and state departments as well.

ismailwarsame.blog

(Image credit: Dabaraani Media)

EDITORIAL: SOMALI-KENYAN RELATIONSHIPS

Garowe, May 21, 2019

Diplomatic relations between states are reciprocal. Those relationships could be passive and cold. They could be warm and cordial. They could be friendly and brotherly. They could be strained, contraversial and frictious as they are happening now between Somalia and Kenya.

These relationships are based on mutual interests for the good of respective citizens. Sometimes, the leaders of one party may happen to be short-sighted and take unilateral hostile actions as Kenyans are doing now on the basis of emotions, leaders’ echo and wrong perceptions on the work and motives of other party. The other is compelled to retaliate promptly and make things even worse.

We would therefore advise the leaders of the Federal Government of Somalia to exercise restraints and weigh reciprocal retaliation in the interests of Somali people, refugees in Kenya, large Somali expatriates and business community in Kenya, Kenya’s AMISOM participation, employees of Kenyan origin in Somalia.

In our opinion, breaking diplomatic relations with Kenya is not advisable at this stage yet. There would be reciprocal retaliation, though, equal to the actions Kenyan Authorities have taken against Somalia’s interests, “nothing more and nothing less”

In the meantime, the Somali Government, Somali international partners and diplomatic community accredited to Somalia must plan alternative business and diplomatic hubs now. Uganda, Ethiopia and Djibouti are possible venues to do business with the IC, whenever it is necessary to do so out of Somalia, but preferably conduct nation’s business inside Somalia.

ismailwarsame.blog

HARDENING OF ATTITUDE

I read about “the hardening of attitude” somewhere (don’t ask me about the book, the author, when and in what context, for I can’t recall or recollect either of that). I simply acknowledge that the expression has been sticking in my mind for many years. I think the issue is worth discussing and debating. Similarly, I do recall a story that once upon a time a guru in sales trained a number of salesmen, and after a while, one of them came back to the sales expert to report that he could not do his job as he hates constant rejections by customers. The guru asked the newly recruited salesman how he knew that the customers hated his sales pitch. The salesman answered that he could feel this hatred in both customers’ responses and attitude. The guru told the junior salesman that he would be one of the best salesmen of his time. Surprised, the salesman asked his trainer how he could be that when all he received were terrifying rejections. The trainer told him that understanding what people like to hear (their needs addressed) is one of the critical skills in sales. That is an excellent sign that he was experiencing this feeling of his customers’ rejections. Not understanding that one’s sales pitch does not sell is a tremendous liability in human interactions. “Hardening of Attitude” is the assumption that there is only one way of doing things. It means “my way or the highway”. It means no room for debate and improvement. It means never re-inventing the wheel. It means the other person’s opinion does not count. It means take it or leave it approach. It means no room for compromise. It means breakdown of communication between family members leading to failure of marriages and family bond between parents and their offspring. Anyone who lived through the unlucky experience of having eccentric partner in marriage or business knows what I am talking about. It means communication barriers between bosses, their staff or employees. As an example, at one time in my working life I have had a boss, who had no idea of how a computer worked, never typed a letter and only knew that there were computers in existence and saw me using one. Suddenly, my boss decided to become computer literate and asked me if I could train him on the machine. When I began the first lesson, he started lecturing me about computers. That was an extreme display of personal echo and hardened attitude towards reluctance to change. It means no learning, renovation, modernization or invention. It means no growth or development in any particular field of human endeavor. Life becomes mundane, routine and boring. We call bosses or persons with hardened attitude as “egocentric” We see people, who describe the world through their favorite word “I” everyday. We often meet with person or group of persons, who continually use the words “we” and “they” to “otherise” other people outside their circles, culture, or even their social or professional class with no room for change of attitudes or any possibilities to re-think about their deeply held and entrenched positions on personal relationships, political and social issues of the day. We say these people are extremely “sociocentric”. Still, there are many of them; there are even entire nations, who think that their ways of acting, their cultures are better, considering others’ as either “eccentric” or below “standard”. Some of these nations consider themselves as highly advanced and “civilized”. Such hardened attitudes had been even major sources of world conflicts, wars and break-down of diplomatic relations. My reading is that such attitudes rank 2nd to pursuit of national interests. Call it a “prejudiced national echo”. How do the Somalis stack up in this “hardening of attitudes”? People described as uniquely “poetic” by well-known historians, anthropologists, explorers and writers ( Richard Burton, I. M. Lewis, , Lidwien Kapteijns, Bogumil W. Andrzejewski, Enrico Cerulli, Said Sheikh Samatar, Abdi-Sheikh Abdi, Ahmed Ismail Samatar, Nuruddin Farah, just to name a few), must have, certainly, a fair share of prejudices and attitudes among themselves and towards others. Some of these writers depict these people as extremely “proud people” for the Somali nomad recognizes no authority other than his own Creator. Such hardened attitude or belief in his human superiority is, perhaps, the main cause of his eventual downfall and collapse of his social and political organizations – and first and foremost, the Somali State. There was no measured and balanced view of his reality. With the appearance of a dictatorial regime in the realm of a “born free” nomad, the world went upside down for the proud men and women of Somalia. Citizens were reduced to robots conforming to the prevailing regimentation that could be only designed, devised and operated by an unheard of police state. I know some would argue that I ignore the role of the leaders who instigated and spearheaded the community violence in the most vicious civil war following the fall of the repressive Military Junta. The critics, however, dismiss the fact that this was the result and historical legacy of the Barre Regime. As thousands were victimized and hundreds of thousands fled the country, they instantly became refugees in foreign lands unprepared for such sub-human treatment they could never have dreamt of. As the most vulnerable members of the society like women, seniors and children were exposed to all the dangers and suffering caused by lack of protection in an abysmal environment of statelessness, the famous Somali “pride” and dignity were irreversibly damaged. Time-tested traditional values and human self-worth are becoming the stories of the past, and those, who are old enough to remember, a nostalgia and déjà vu. As a result, people today suffer in mass from post-civil war trauma with little awareness of the epidemic due to the lack of interest or adequate studies on the immigrant population, and limited access to qualified medical services in refugee camps. One could only sit with Somali Diaspora communities across the world to listen to the non-ceasing debates along political/clannish lines in coffee-shops to gauge into the sad state of these endangered human species in display, where no one speaks of the needs of the local communities and the future of children and next generations. In these shouting sessions, one would immediately notice that there are no meaningful discourses as no one would attentively listen to any one in a normal debate. By listening to them to try to make sense of what they are saying or what the issues are, one would feel that these sessions are the best examples of the fallacy of “red herring”. Another would say that participants are kids suffering from the condition of ADS (attention deficient syndrome). I leave this issue alone to the much qualified experts to explore. In general terms though, it is high time for Somali communities to learn from this bitter experience, and rise up again from this self-inflicted comma to restore their dignified existence by revising and reviewing their attitudes for change. And please listen to the concerns of each other and stop pitching on the wrong messages in order to have productive, constructive and interesting debates on issue of vital importance. By Ismail H. Warsame e-mail: ismailwarsame@gmail.com Twitter: @ismailwarsame

PS: Some sections of Somali society hold extreme hatred towards their fellow countrymen, simply because they had developed hardened attitudes of self-denial of their situation and blame their misfortunes on others. I guess one psychologically sick patient needs an appropriate doctor for care, but how do you address the issue when it affects whole portions of the population? Many of these people have been endoctrinated by a few sadistic individuals on fallacies to develop hatred for non-members or other clan members. Western civilization is rooted in Socrates, whose philosophy states that “an unexamined life is not worth living”.