by Gamal M Hassan
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG) has its job cut out for it. The TFG is constantly being blamed for all kinds of societal ills; be they real or perceived, by Diaspora supporters of the spiteful anti-TFG pseudo-religious, clan-driven extremist forces, and secessionists who surreptitiously allied themselves with the TFG when they saw the threat from the UIC and now want to destroy the TFG or any government that may appear on the horizon.
Meanwhile, the pseudo-religious brutes on the ground are employing terror tactics that have brought only death and destruction to other parts of the world. In apparent acts of desperation, the elements of the Diaspora wing (or as commonly known as cyber warlords) in collaboration with the secessionists who are hell-bent on dismembering Somalia are resorting to jujitsu-type writings, full of venomous agitation that are routinely sprinkled with unpardonable insults of the leaders of the TFG and those of friendly countries. What you never hear or read from this unholy alliance is respect for the rule of law, the need for stability, support for the on-going efforts at national reconciliation, national reconstruction, or any hint of interest in aiding or even encouraging the search for a lasting political solution.
They have decided to pursue a pipedream and they seem to be determined to stick to it. What is this fantasy of theirs? Perhaps they are wishing for the self-surrender of the TFG; an event that will not come to pass. Not now. Not ever. For their part the ‘rejectionists’ are probably readying the guns that they hope to fire into Somalia’s bale blue sky to celebrate a victory that exists only in their heads. Like other pipedreams theirs too is mirage built on self-delusion. A case in point is the rejectionist who wants the TFG to abandon Mogadishu and ‘retreat to Baidoa’! There is no other way to describe their mindset other than that of being enduringly blinded by their blinkered, false impression of the objective reality that is unfolding in the country before their very cynical eyes.
The gist of the adversary’s narrative is nothing more than to demonize the leaders of the TFG, as though such character assassination would absolve the fanatics they support of the real crimes they have committed against the nation over the past 17 years. But that is another wishful thinking on their part as the nation will hold those wrong doers accountable for the wanton criminal offenses that they have committed.
The supporters of Somalia’s radical fringe are putting up a brave face on what is clearly a losing cause. But they are not blind for they surely must see the proverbial writing on the wall. Indeed it is patently obvious that the era of anarchy and mayhem, when cruel desperados armed to the hilt practiced clan-cleansing, greed, corruption, environmental destruction, in plain sight of Somalis and an astounded world is coming to a close. And, a new day is dawning for Somalia and its long abused citizens. The days of mock-up religious edicts in which the end always justified the means are similarly over though its practitioners do not seem to be heeding the clarion call ringing in their ears.
That is why the pro-insurrection groups and individuals desperate acts of hurling insults at Somali national leaders will not in any way shape or form harm the TFG; it only reveals their pathetic characters and their utter disregard for the nation’s unity, stability and progress.
Today Somalia is under assault from an enemy from within. A group of self-righteous religious zealots based in the national capital, Mogadishu, have accelerated the campaign of terror that they have begun few years ago. At first, their mode of operation was assassination of those respectable Somalis with working knowledge of how the local and national institutions operated in the past, the most prominent among them include: Abdulkadir Yahya, Gen. Yousuf Sareenle, Gen. Yousuf Tallan, Abdalla Deerow Isaaq and many more. Then they graduated to the hideous technique of suicide car bombing; a satanic method that was perfected in the precincts of Baghdad and Kabul. It is a method that is devised to inflict maximum destruction of people and property without bothering to make a distinction between targets of purported military value and innocent by standers. A pregnant mother and her younger child were the victims of one of these hideous senseless acts.
The militants’ oft repeated mantra that they are standing up to Ethiopia does not hold water. The clano-religious bandits were in the business of spreading mayhem long before Ethiopia came to the scene to aid a sister state in thwarting attacks from heedless, well financed, and armed rebellion that may very well be directed from abroad—or, at the very least, operating under a vicious, alien ideology that is incompatible with Islam as it has been practiced in Somalia for a millennia.
The Somali people, having been deceived once before, by the so-called Union of Islamic Courts, will not stand for their madness to continue unabated. And so they are rejecting en masse the group’s frightful invitation to endure another, years-long campaign of indiscriminate death and destruction in order to have a Taliban-like regime established in the country. So the choice before the nation as a whole is starkly clear: to accept the tyrannical ways of the defiant radicals masquerading as holier than thou champions of virtue and suffer the consequences (of possibly extinguishing Somalia as a nation state) or support the TFG’s valiant efforts to set the country on the road to peace and progress. It is an easy choice to make. For in Somalia, as in other societies, peace and the rule of law will have to prevail over anarchy, secessionism, wild-eyed extremism or autocratic rule if the nation is going to have a future.
Gamal M Hassan
E-mail: [email protected]