THE BLEAK SITUATION OF READERSHIP IN SOMALIA

To quote Nurudin Farah, the famous Somali novelist, in an answer to a question put to him by a BBC reporter, said recently, “Somalis don’t read in any language, including their own”. There are, of course, a few individual exceptions. But that is even less than one percent among those who consider themselves literate. That is as alarming as it gets. Think about a nation that has no trained minds. What would happen to their culture, history, literary and technological advances? Here, we aren’t even talking about producing writers as there is no readership among the population. Education has lost its merited position and value in today’s Somalia as everything is possible through corruption, fraud, nepotism and cronyism in both public and private sectors.

Still, people debate on potential bright future for Somalia, the accident rise of good government, effective public institutions and Somalia becoming a petro-dollar country one day.

In my experience as editor of Warsame Digital Media WDM, I have noticed that the attention span of actual Somali reader is amazingly short. Forget about reading books. In conveying my message, I have to be brief and precise. Another impediment to attention span is the information overload: Non-readers and readers alike constantly watch and listen to anything that animates in the social media. Trained minds are usually selective in their intake of public information. It is the ordinary people who are now true victims of garbage-in-garbage-out in the internet. We are living in a difficult epoch of human civilization.

Go to Kenya and you would notice that a shoe-shinner boy would stare at newspaper in your hand to catch the latest headlines. How many decades would pass by until Somalis develop the habit and curiosity of readership?

WHEN RELIGION AND CULTURE KILL

When Religion and Culture Kill: COVID-19 in the Somali Diaspora Communities in Sweden

[Courtesy]

THE ALMIGHTY KNOWS SOMALIS BETTER

Rain, more rain and enormous rain is all that Somalis and their precious historical belongings (camels, goats, sheep, cows and wildlife of multiple kinds) need to prosper. Not billions of dollars of donated cash, not WFP food, not even national debt relief from IMF and World Bank can alleviate their continual sufferings in the absence of rain and environmental deterioration. In other words, only the creator knows how to help the Somalis when they show him a little respect and salute the Almighty in owe.

Occasionally, He punishes them with droughts, violence, bad leaders, incompetent and corrupt bureaucracy. Urbanely unsophisticated, they are condemned for not choosing their leaders wisely by merit. However, they keep whinning about the mistakes of their own making, never correcting them because of their clan sub-divisions. They keeping repeating the chronic clan antagonism because they fear lack of rain tomorrow and fight for survival and fierce competition for the limited resources.

Give them billions of hard currency and that would increase only their sufferings because of mismanagement and poor leadership engaged in more corruption and looting of public purse. Clans fight among themselves to install their respective most corrupted leaders in positions of power and privilege because they fear that it won’t rain tomorrow and the fight is always on to prepare for that eventuality. So, here they go again and again.

But, how to tackle with the issue of pleasing the Almighty to maintain releasing rain and on time to resolve this perennial Somali problems of fear of hunger, disease and ignorance?

There are a few steps mankind can do to help Somalis change their negative attitudes in life and cultural barriers. Among them:

1. To stop environmental destruction in the sea and on the land. Improve and cultivate animal farm and fish habitats.

2. To change the concept of foreign aid and turn it to technical know-how and expertise for Somalis to support themselves. Stop donating food and money. That is the source of corruption and bad government. Let Somalis produce their livelihoods.

3. To live in harmony with nature and ecosystems while keep pleasing the Almighty to release more rain.

4. To stop murdering innocent lives because life had been created by Almighty and you annoy Him every time life is lost intentionally.

https://ismailwarsame.blog

(Photo: Courtesy to Dabaraani media)