by Mohamud Ali
Friday, April 23, 2010
Dear Somalia,
It’s now full nineteen years, since your premature death by civil war wounds. Although I was a young boy, I vividly remember your sudden collapse, and the subsequent torment that engulfed your orphaned people. Knowing fully well that I would never be able again to enjoy the benefits only you were able to offer me, and to millions of my fellow countrymen, I decided to write you this letter.
Let me first begin by narrating to you how the world changed by your death. Your death, Somalia, has changed the world in ways that few could’ve ever predicted. Initially your suffering, the weeping of your women, the humiliation of your men, the ransacking of your great cities, and the trampling of your tall statues offered great news for millions of viewers around the world. Your pain and open wounds created employment for hundreds of analyst and pseudo experts. Artists and screenwriters composed action movies depicting the undignified fight your children engaged over the properties you left behind. Although many, and mainly your family, missed you, and still miss you, many others viewed your departure and the subsequent tussle between your children as a great entertainment. Some of your friends saw your death as a lucrative trade; your enemies found your demise an opportunity to thrive. Both are in cahoots to support ad hoc agencies to take your place.
But nothing would sadden you more than the varying reaction your children showed toward your premature death. I cannot say for sure if it’s a failing of yours or a fate-exacted blight, but your children, Somalia, did not express grief in an equal fashion. It would dismay you that some of you children did not even show a sign of grief at all. While some predictably wept, and continue to cry for you, others, including your second son, sought to derive personal advantage from your death. Instead of working toward the unity of the family you left behind, he insisted on dividing it. Instead of showing solidarity with his brothers and sisters in their hour of need, he declared that he has no shared aims with them, and swore on going his own separate way. I remember how much you invested in him, giving him facilities that would prepare him to take the helm one day. It must had been the tough love you often showed all of us that alienated him from the rest of the family. Your other children although still insisting they love you and miss you, engaged in sheer self-destruction, destroying your fifty-year efforts to improve and renovate your properties. Because of them, your great palaces are reduced to rubbles; your signature projects such as airports and harbors are ruined to an unrecognizable state. They rendered your civilization and your legacy to sheer savagery. The world mock you and what you left behind because of what your children did.
Perhaps it would give you mixed feelings to know that some of your children had become fraternity of pirates, harming marital trade and your reputation. But in your absence, these organized children of yours serve the purpose your once strong navy served, protecting the wealth of your oceans. They robbed the innocent with a one hand, while repelling invaders with the other. Perhaps it would surprise you that your difficult, rebellious children in the north and east are the meekest and peace-loving today, whilst those about whom you always said are mannered are the most unruly, mutinous.
I am also sure you would find a bit amusing that some of your children came up with peculiar mixture of religious dedication and commitment to serve Allah( cwj) with pure, savage brutalities that is only conceivable in the minds of criminals such as thugs, cutpurses and burglars. They changed your flag in the name of religion, shrunk your borders in the name of expanding them, and shelled and killed their own brothers and sisters in the name of defending your dignity and faith.
Although some of your weeping widows and suffering children are herded in vast refugee camps, and new generation of global agencies is created to sustain them, others crossed vast oceans and started new life. They’ve become the symbols of new addition in the society they settled in, bringing your heritage and language in places you would never imagine it would reach. Your birthday is celebrated in the centers of powers today, and has become familiar event that draws prominent local and national politicians. Your vagabond scholars are wandering the globe, sharing and spreading your history. They still recite your poems, and songs. They still share the famous battles you fought, the heroes you raised, and the great legends you produced. Your true men of religion still congregate in the houses of Allah, praying for the cessation of violence, counseling for dialogue and reconciliation amongst warring brothers. Your own children have destroyed your capital, but your other children have built a dozen more mini Mogadishus and settled in many places, and across continents. Many mocked your name, and equated it to death and destruction, but some of your children raised your name and flag atop of centers of world power and prestige. You are indeed dead, but some of your children refused your death to eclipse what you stood for.
Somalia, I have grown old, and have children of my own today, and it would please you that those whom you never saw also miss you
Thanks,
Mohamud I Ali
e-mail: [email protected]