Hiiraan Online

by Abdishakur Jowhar
July 01, 2009

Hargaysa: June 26, 2009  was celebrated in Hargaysa Somaliland in a closed ceremony , under a cloud of morbid anxiety. The Celebration/Communal Worry  was supervised by a president who is increasingly isolated, deluded and  clearly lost. 

A president who  fell over the edge of sanity under the deadly symbiotic control of a dangerous aggregate of parasitic hangers on . A president who has therefore come to the firm, unshakable  and strange conviction that he has brought  prosperity to his people in spite of the grinding poverty, the persistent thirst and the malnutrition screaming from every roof top . A president who has come to the passionate belief  that he has successfully  instituted democracy in his nation in spite of creating a monster of a single radio station that perpetually whispers his name like a prayer.

June 26, 2009 was celebrated in a closed ceremony by a president whose major achievement so far has been killing the pride and independence of the once mighty Electoral Commission of Somaliland by infecting it with deadly bug of  corruption. A president who has succeeded in selling out the hope of a nation for personal greed and personal glory.

 June 26, 2009 was celebrated in Hargaysa with anticipatory gloom  as ugly as the dirt collecting in the streets of the unfortunate city.

Mogadishu: July 1st 2009  was celebrated in Mogadishu with the blood of the people running fresh in its streets.  On this July 1st  more than a dozen innocent civilians were massacred and multiples of that number fatally wounded in the 3 km territory surrounding Villa Somalia where the Celebration/Mourning of July 1st was held. The Celebrations were supervised under the delegated authority of an absentee president  away on yet another hat in hand trip, to Libya this time for “international” support that was never there before. An international support that will never be there in the future.

The Sharif, like those who had taken the presidential title before him,  was represented in the mourning/celebration  by fellow tribal warlords: In this July 1st  it was the unlikely duo of Warlord  Qaybdiid who fought in every war in Mogadishu  in the last 19 years in pursuit of the devil’s own glory. And by the religious overlord “White eyes” , one time follower of Osama Bin Laden,  a man with a streak of religious rebelliousness who runs his own fatwa factory, that manufactures death and mutilation in the name of God for purposes of the glory and the righteousness of “white eyes”.

Happy independence days brethren of misery.  Happy independence days people of the underworld. Play on merrily on the irrational grandiosity of tribal glory in the land of the dead and the dying. Happy independence days shark feed, gallant tribal warriors.

 Meanwhile  this independence day finds the Sharif still standing. And that is a victory enough for him.  He has stymied the offensive of his enemies. That is surely good enough for a neophyte politician appointed to the post by unruly bunch of “international”  pirate diplomats, to be blunt for the purposes of honesty and accuracy; a bunch of merry pirates with soothing words and venomous bites that have been holding the Somali people hostage for oh so many years. 

But surely the Sharif;  good, poor, kind Sharif, has bought more time for himself, more time for his primary presidential mission of seeking some other forces (Ethiopian, Kenyan, Arab, Moslem etc) that can fight his wars for him.  His hat remains empty so far despite the many  doors of power he knocked on. He is most likely to return home empty handed this time too.  It is just one of those  unfortunate things in life that happen to good people.  And unfortunately for  good kind gentle Sharif, the two men who have been crucial in keeping him in the game(Indhacade and Qaybdiid)  remind one more of the movie “Sleeping with the Enemy”.  And so The Sharif,  the bearer of the national banner,  finds himself squeezed in between the cruelly empty world of pirate diplomacy on the one side and a ruthless bloody marriage of convenience with  opportunistic merchants of death.  Good Sharif. Poor Sharif.

Meanwhile: After initial days of vigorous moves and ground shaking rumble the Sheikh Aweys   finds his destabilizing influence fading out.  The aging lion of a man, the former prison warden of Siyad Barre regime, the carrier of the title of “the Father of all Somali Mujahiduun”  is learning now how to be part of the history  of a movement. The young highly motivated firebrands of Shebaab  has succeed to push him to the whimpering sidelines, as they take over the movement  with the enthusiasm and fatal ignorance of the youth. Their manifested ruthlessness melts down even  the hardened heart of the aging lion of Jihad, as he turns away in disgust from the mangled amputated human body parts that is advertised as the “real Islam” by the progeny of his extremist ideology.  Go Shiekh Aweys, go. Drink from your own cup of poison.
Oh nation of sorrows, stumbling on from a nightmare to an unbelievable nightmare. Oh nation of sorrows that has become the synonymous with death and disorder.