The Letters: How Al Qaeda Failed in Mali and Somalia

Recently, two separate letters written in Arabic by Al Qaeda leaders in Mali and Somalia have surfaced. The writings paint a grim picture of the jihadist experience in both countries. The first was found in Mali, and the second is an open letter from a Somali jihadist leader to Al Qaeda supreme leader, Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahiri.

The first was discovered when reporters from the Associated Press stumbled across a collection of documents that included a letter written by Abdelmailk Droukdel, the emir of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), after that radical group was defeated in Timbuktu, Mali, by French forces. Droukdel (also known as Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud) was appointed by the late Usama Bin Laden to oversee Al Qaeda’s operations in North Africa.

The second letter is presumed to have been written by Ibrahim Haji Jama Mee’aad (Al-Afghani), who until two years ago was the deputy emir of Somalia’s Al Qaeda affiliate, Al-Shabab. The letter has appeared on several websites sympathetic to Al-Shabab and carries Al-Afghani’s nom de guerre, “Shaikh Abu Bakr Al-Zaylici.” It is an indictment of the emir of Al-Shabab, Ahmed Abdi Godane, and his brutal, secretive, “un-Islamic” and ruinous style of leadership which has had tragic repercussions on the course of jihad in Somalia.

Droukdel’s letter is a frank assessment of Al Qaeda’s brief and brutal capture of the northern part of Mali and the draconian rule that the jihadist group imposed on the people. The militants applied what they called sharia (Islamic law) by stoning adulterers, amputating the hands of thieves, whipping petty criminals, curtailing women’s activities, banning entertainment, berating and intimidating people, and destroying tombs and certain archeological sites.

In his letter, Droukdel admonished his fighters, saying that sharia was, for all practical purposes, applied too fast and in haste:  “Our previous experience showed that applying sharia this way, without taking the environment into consideration, will lead to people rejecting the religion, and engender hatred toward the mujahedeen, and will consequently lead to the failure of our experiment.” He went on to lash out at his cohorts for preventing women from going out, whipping women for not covering up, preventing children from playing, and searching people’s houses. “Your [local Al Qaeda] officials,” Droukdel commanded his followers, “need to control themselves.”

Droukdel was aware of other failed Al Qaeda experiences in Somalia and Algeria and the lessons learned from those attempts of unilaterally imposing sharia. He implored his fighters to act cautiously and gently, more like a parent guiding a child too weak to stand on its own, and to be always mindful of the need for patience. “We should be sure to win allies,” he recommended, “be flexible in dealing with the realities, and compromise on some rights to achieve greater interest.”

Droukdel presciently predicted the foreign military intervention that stymied the jihadi tide in Mali in mid-2012 long before it actually occurred in January 2013. He warned his fighters that they lived on the margins of society and hence needed to form alliances with local jihadi and nationalist groups. His prescription, however, was to engage in an elaborate scheme of deception to conceal the grand design of Al Qaeda and its global jihad. Without mincing words, Droukdel asked his fighters to lower their profile. “Better for you to be silent and pretend to be a ‘domestic’ movement that has its own causes and concerns,” he stated. “There is no reason for you to show that we have an expansionary jihadi, Al Qaeda, or any other sort of project.”

A Somali leader of Al Shabab, Ibrahim Al-Afghani, in his open letter to Al Qaeda leader Al-Zawahiri, was more concerned with leadership issues in Somalia than the precise application of sharia. He wrote against the backdrop that Al Shabab had retreated and become the hunted. Al-Afghani, a man upon whose head the U.S. has placed a $5 million bounty, more or less engaged in the blame game. The logical question then is: What happened to Al Shabab which, not long ago, controlled large swaths of land in southern Somalia, including Mogadishu, the capital? For Al-Afghani, the deterioration of Al Shabab as a power to contend with was attributed to the personal conduct and dictatorial leadership of his longtime friend and colleague, Godane, the emir of Al Shabab. 

Speaking on behalf of what he called “the silent majority” of Al Shabab members, Al-Afghani accused Godane of expecting blind obedience, failing to consult with other leaders of the radical group, and placing personal desires above the requisites of sharia; neglecting Islamic teachings of fairness, kindness and gentleness; issuing arbitrary decisions; sowing conflict among the leaders by lavishing his supporters with largesse, and depriving his critics of the basics of survival and starving them; mistreating foreign jihadists; marginalizing Al Shabab scholars; inciting young jihadists against scholars and leaders by issuing threats of liquidation;  preventing certain scholars from publishing, teaching, or even giving sermons; not lending a hand in the jihadi campaigns in Ethiopia and Kenya; and operating secret jails not subject to the jurisdiction of the Al Shabab leadership. These detention centers are reserved, Al-Afghani contended, for jihadists who are not formally accused of any transgression or convicted of any crime.

Al-Afghani lamented the fact that Al Shabab had lost the sympathies and support of the local population because of the militant leadership’s haughtiness and draconian methods. He singled out the unjustified operations that the group regularly conducts which lead to the loss of limbs and lives. He warned that Somalia’s jihadi experience and its “fruits” were in danger of being lost just as in Algeria in the 1990s. Al-Afghani issued a plea to the Al Qaeda International leaders to intervene and take corrective action against the emir of the Somali branch. He reminded Al-Zawahiri that the Somali emir failed to heed his instructions to apply shura (consultation) to the local leaders. The Somali emir, Al-Afghani said, deliberately sabotaged the decisions of a special court specifically set up to address the conflict and discord among the Al Shabab leaders. Instead of going forward, Al-Afghani declared, Al Shabab was going backward. Furthermore, he mentioned the poor treatment of a foreign jihadist from neighboring Kenya, Shaikh Abboud Rogo, who returned to his hometown of Mombasa only to be killed there.

It is not clear whether Al-Afghani has a personal vendetta against Godane. Unconfirmed reports that the Al-Shabab leaders had once decided to replace Godane with Al-Afghani have circulated. However, that decision was conveniently torpedoed by none other than Godane. Moreover, Al-Afghani’s grievances represent the views of the Al Shabab leaders who favor the globalization of jihad by the Somali branch. Over the last few years, debate has simmered among Al Shabab leaders about the best way to ensure that the group survives Somalia’s ever shifting and volatile political landscape. One group favors building alliances with local groups and perhaps making temporary political accommodations that will guarantee the group’s relevance and lift its isolation. This wing sees the gradual expulsion of foreign jihadists as an absolute must in order to take these necessary and existential steps.

The second group sees Al Shabab as an integral part of an Al Qaeda that is more committed to global jihad and less to the country’s local issues and concerns. No one group ironically has been able to fully exert its will on the entire movement. Bin Laden’s instruction to Al Shabab, when the latter applied to join Al Qaeda, was one of caution. According to documents found in the terrorist’s compound in Pakistan when Bin Laden was killed by American forces, he advised the emir of Al Shabab to conceal the Somali group’s ties to Al Qaeda so as not to draw unfavorable attention from the West. Bin Laden’s successor, Al-Zawahiri, however, has taken just the opposite position and does not object to the African group’s flaunting its international affiliations. The fact that Al-Afghani is taking an active stand in advocating the cause and the plight of foreign jihadists in Somalia, a segment that has been increasingly marginalized, is an indication that he sees Somalia as a staging ground for global jihad. Al-Afghani’s views also mirror those of the American jihadist in Somalia, Omar Hammami, who has gone public by issuing videos that accuse his Al Shabab colleagues of attempting to personally liquidate him and emphasize what he terms the “local focus” instead of supporting a global jihad. Al Shabab’s Twitter response to the Alabama-born fighter was terse. It reprimanded Hammami for engaging in a “narcissistic pursuit of fame.”

These two letters are precise manifestations of the view that the jihadi experience in Mali and Somalia has been a failure because of poor and harsh policies implemented by the Al Qaeda militants that just alienated local populations. The militants have adhered to a convoluted understanding of basic Islamic teachings of moderation and natural evolution, possessing unrealistic expectations and exhibiting poor planning and leadership with but a limited vision. The fact is that Al Qaeda remains a pariah in a modern world that is well aware of its dangerous ideology and destructive operations.

Mali and Somalia share a commonality as they are certified failed states and, hence, there remains a power vacuum. They are also distressingly poor countries. Al Qaeda can conveniently find fertile ground in countries like Somalia, Mali, Yemen, and Afghanistan. It is not surprising then that Al Qaeda radicals in Mali and Somalia have shot themselves in the foot as they failed to capitalize on their brief control of many parts of these two countries. Here is the salient fact about the jihadi groups: It is a lot easier to grab power than to establish a viable government.

 

One Woman's Tale and the Myths of Happiness

“Every moment wasted looking back keeps one from moving forward.” —Hillary Clinton.

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In a San Francisco airport lounge, I was reading Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky’s new book, The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy but Doesn’t What Shouldn’t Make You Happy but Does (January 13, 2013), when a woman who seemed to be in her forties approached me. She was from one of the countries in the Horn of Africa.

“Oh, you are reading about that thing,” she muttered. I told her I was interested in the field of positive psychology.

Strangers, it is said, will at times share with you more about the story of their lives than a friend or relative. The repercussion for the narrator is minimal because the chance of the two parties ever meeting again is extremely rare.

The woman, whom I will call “Jasmine,” came to the U.S. in the late 1980s. After two years in Chicago, she met an American man two years her senior. He was relentless and methodical in his pursuit of her. Phone calls and flowers became her daily fare and started flowing like a stream of water. She was equally smitten and married the man at age 23. The two came from two different backgrounds: different races and different socio-economic backgrounds. His family was quite well-off and bought their only son and his new bride a house which was a shrine of ostentation: It had six bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a big swimming pool. Jasmine was a young woman of modest means and had lived a relatively sparse life. But the two were full of life, full of energy, and full of love. He was tall, handsome, and brilliant with a lot of charm and charisma. Their first year was memorable. They were best friends and each other’s confidants. They spent a great deal of time together and talked about everything, from the mundane (what colors each liked) to the serious (how many children they wanted). Their relationship was harmonious and romantic sparks flew right and left. After the first year, the couple had a daughter. A year later, another daughter was born. The children brought joy to her, she said, with a broad and beaming smile stamped on her face.

Two years later, the couple’s once romantic and cozy relationship had turned adversarial. The relationship became riddled with nasty arguments.  “We couldn’t stand each other,” she retorted. “For the first two years, my husband was number one in my own constellation,” she said, “but then, my children became my top priority.” Jasmine became busy with the children and their care, and her husband became resentful because he was not getting enough attention.

Then, one day, events took an alarming and dangerous turn. Jasmine was putting gas in her car when suddenly her husband parked behind her in the gas station. She was incredulous seeing her husband. She thought that he was following her. An hour before their encounter, her husband had grilled her about where she was going and why she was leaving. He had a possessive streak that annoyed her. He was, for all practical purposes, a control freak. What happened next was not in the playbook. Jasmine told me that she hurled a big cup of Coke she was drinking at her husband. Then, she approached him and started punching him and yelling, “Are you following me?” Her husband acted like a gentleman in front of the people at the gas station. He could have won an Academy Award for his superb performance. Jasmine was the one who was out of control. The police were called and came. Jasmine was arrested for assault and battery.

Normally, it is the husband who is charged with domestic violence in the U.S. and Jasmine’s case was an anomaly.   Her husband got an unusual opportunity to eviscerate her. He accused his wife of neglecting their children, child abuse, and even beating him up occasionally. His testimony, Jasmine argued, did not contain a grain of truth. Jasmine was found guilty of a misdemeanor for domestic violence and sentenced to three years’ probation. 

After the court case, Jasmine and her husband separated. She was, after all, under a restraining order not to come close to her husband. The couple, meanwhile, had joint custody of the children.

After Jasmine fulfilled her court requirements and three years had elapsed, she and her husband began to reassess their relationship. It was a highly combustible situation. She was twenty-eight years old, separated, and in an alien land with no relatives to support her. She felt lonely and fearful she might lose her children. After three years of separation, she went back to her husband. Her family back in Africa and her friends in Chicago were mystified. To them, it was like watching a scary movie:  a combination of horror and amazement. They started their opposition with a full-court press.  “Do everyone a favor,” her friends admonished her, “and end this child-like fantasy.” Why she returned to her husband, though a puzzling question, was not beyond all conjecture. Jasmine admitted that, while she professed so much abhorrence toward her husband, she still had feelings for him. Lowering her voice to nearly a whisper, she said, “I missed him and became nostalgic for the good times we had.”  The depth of betrayal and humiliation he had caused her became a thing of the past. However, a relationship built on tenuous pillars, like a house of cards, is destined to tumble.

Two years after the couple came back together; the marriage slowly became a life of grinding hardship. The good times faded and bad news came in batches. She thought she was caught in a volatile mix of manipulation, lies, and deception and felt she was in the belly of the beast. Jasmine herself confessed that she was verbally abusive and distant. She started avoiding her husband. In a way, the two were roommates more than a couple, more like fellow boarders than partners. “I made him unwanted, and he became more hostile,” she said. A husband deprived of loving would become frustrated.

 Then, there was the horrifying discovery. Her husband, it appeared, was leading a secret life under her nose. He was cheating on her and she caught him chatting with women online. Obviously, he was into internet dating, but she was amazed at how he had gone to increasingly elaborate lengths to hide his dark secret. His laptop, furthermore, was a den of pornography.  “How could a family man and an icon in the community engage in such morally repugnant practices,” she wondered. But the biggest lie—the granddaddy of all lies—was his concealing an infidelity. One day, her husband made an astounding confession: He had fathered a child. Jasmine was livid. She knew her marriage was hanging in the balance and had to listen and heed her own inner voices. She filed for divorce.

Her survival instinct kicked in.  Jasmine, accompanied by her children, got up, dusted herself off, and embarked on a life of singlehood. The news of her filing for divorce spread like wildfire. Before the divorce even became final, men were calling her and trying their luck. Americans, Asians, Arabs, her fellow countrymen and “even Somalis,” she said, laughing. The wheels were in motion for a change. Contrary to what her former husband had told her (that no man would marry her with two young children) Jasmine was hotly pursued, and she enjoyed the attention. Less than six months after her divorce became final, she fell in love with a man from her native country. Unlike her former husband, he was not uptight but funny, expressive, and he enjoyed listening to her. He also had a fashionable disdain for materialism. The new man did not spurn her children and, in fact, doted on them. This was, though, a risky enterprise for the couple; at least one of them was on the rebound. It was, of course, Jasmine. However, she categorically denied that she was. In fact, she would tell anyone who listened to her that she had grown to despise her ex and couldn’t wait to start a new life with someone about whom she cared.

Jasmine and her new man decided to get married. She said that she could not be happy without a partner in her life. What happened in the four months after the wedding is anyone’s guess. Boredom, she affirmed, seeped into the couple’s relationship. Jasmine had thought that she would ride into the sunset and live happily ever after. Her enthusiasm and wishful thinking were obviously misplaced. The couple’s serene world started spinning out of control. If history were any guide, Jasmine’s new marriage had some shades of her first marriage. Her husband witnessed a completely sinister side of her. He constantly complained of being marginalized, she said. She was dismissive and indifferent. “Occasionally, I growled at him,” she admitted. “I am known for my quick-draw temper.” She avoided him as much as she could and treated him like a roommate.  “I was, in a sense, reliving my first marriage,” she said.  

A three-month separation ensued and then the inevitable happened.  After six months of marriage, her new husband filed for divorce. The word “divorce,” she said, pierced her like a blade. She was expecting a long, drawn-out conflict and reconciliation and not the dissolution of her marriage. Her family and friends, this time, were not surprised and, in fact, did not even whimper. They all knew that she was easy to love and admire but difficult to live with.

 Instead of the two actively seeking to rescue their tattered union, they went on the offensive to discredit each other. “I guess we were emotionally immature, too sensitive, and not level-headed,” she said, smiling. “I disrespected him and talked to him in a way I would not address my friends,” she said. “Honestly, I regret that.” Then she added a zinger, “But someone had to be the adult in that marriage,” a not-too-subtle shot at her second husband.

“I a m now single,” she told this writer. “My two former husbands are ‘happily’ married, I assume.” Her children are adults and preparing to move out of her house and start their own families.

Jasmine asked rhetorically, “Am I that bad of a person not to be happy?”

This is the end of Jasmine’s absorbing account of her marriages.

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Sonja Lyubomirsky’s book, The Myths of Happiness, interestingly answers some of the questions about happiness. The writer teaches psychology at the University of California, Riverside.  A new marriage, argues Lyubomirsky, brings a great deal of joy and intense happiness, but only for a short period. In a survey of 1761  European and American couples who have been married for longer than 15 years, respondents said that newlyweds enjoyed a period of heightened joy and happiness in the first two years but that joy started wearing off afterwards. Married couples, after that initial period, can recover that marital happiness 10 to 20 years later when the children leave home. The empty nest provides new opportunities for couples to rediscover each other and rekindle their love.

Why does the joy and intense happiness vaporize after a short period? Lyubomirsky introduces a concept that she calls “hedonic adaptation”; could it be the culprit? Hedonic adaptation means “human beings have the remarkable capacity to grow habituated or inured to most of life’s changes.” When things are familiar and constant, Lyubomirsky points out, humans, psychologically and physiologically, are notorious for taking positive experiences for granted. Every marriage is susceptible to hedonic adaptation. A new marriage that started with intense joy suddenly may turn into a life of routine existence and predictability. In fact, the author writes, that “we are prone to take for granted pretty much everything positive that happens to us.” The author writes that the thrill mostly goes away as quickly as it does when buying a new car or house because we begin to take the “new improved circumstance” for granted. Familiarity, Lyubomirsky says, may or may not breed contempt but research has proved that it breeds indifference. People’s expectations of the marriage might evolve, change, or expand. Indeed, Woody Allen once said that a relationship is like a shark; “If it does not move forward, it dies.”

When people fall in love, they experience an array of euphoric, amorous and passionate feelings. But over the years, the passionate love turns into compassionate love. Interestingly, what normally kills passionate love is predictability. On the other hand, the hallmarks of compassionate love are “deep affection, connection, and liking.” Lyubomirsky does not dismiss the viability of passionate love and argues that humans need both passionate love and compassionate love because the two complement each other: The first galvanizes us and lays the foundation for the new relationship, and the second is crucial for the nourishment of “a committed, stable partnership.”

 Lyubomirsky’s book shatters basic assumptions of happiness. Some of the myths of happiness are divided into two categories. The first is the notion that says, “I will be happy when— (fill in the blank).” I will be happy when I get married, or have children, or get the long-awaited promotion, or become wealthy. When we get what we want though and these things do not make us happy, we become frustrated and depressed. Then, the blame game kicks in. We question ourselves about whether something is wrong with us.

 

The second category of happiness myths is the following: “I can’t be happy when— (fill in the blank).” For instance, I can’t be happy when I am single, poor, or ill. Negative experiences, such as divorce, loss of employment, and death, freak us out and invite self-doubt and downturns. We contemplate that we will never be happy again.  Paradoxically, what we call “crisis” can be veiled opportunities for “renewal, growth, or meaningful change.” Many times, adversity “toughens us up” and people who have weathered negative experiences tend to be happier than the ones who have not. In essence, positive and negative events are intricately linked. As the English poet William Blake said in Auguries of Innocence, “Joe and woe are woven fine.” Lyubomirsky raises the question that if we were asked the best thing and the worst thing that happened to us last year, the answer might surprise us because “it is often one and the same.” We may have lost a loved one last year but, in that same year, we also may have met a soul mate. Or, we may have lost a job and then regrouped and found a more interesting field of employment. 

To Lyubomirsky, popular culture has been feeding us myths that happiness means marriage, wealth, and fame. In fact, the author argues that happiness is “neither a destination nor an acquisition.” People are happier when:

a)      They invest in their relationships and pay attention to each other.

b)      They redirect things that matter instead of what does not.

c)      They are not desirous compared to others.

d)      They are thrifty.

e)      They express gratitude regularly about their relationships, life and health.

f)       They bring variety and surprise to their marriage and do not settle on a routine and dull existence.

g)      They have reliable friends to talk to and lean on.

h)      Couples have an open line of communication,

i)       They have the right attitude in dealing with life’s challenges, and know what they can’t control.

j)       They focus on the positives.

On the issue of attention, another author, Gretchen Rubin, who wrote Happier at Home (2012), adds an interesting caveat about what makes a couple’s relationship thrive: warm greetings and farewells. If a spouse gives a heartfelt greeting when his or her significant other comes home instead of a perfunctory greeting and the same when the spouse is leaving home, the act shows engagement and attentiveness.

 Happiness, if only Jasmine knew, is something that “resides inside us, not outside.” It is never achieving a mythical goal. Certainly, as Lyubomirsky remarks, “nothing in life is as joy-producing or as misery-inducing as we think.” When all is said and done, nothing makes us happy all the time.

For example, researchers at the University of British Columbia found that people who spend money “pro-socially,” which means spending it on gifts for others and charitable donations, are happier.

Finally, the American actress Goldie Hawn once wrote a memoir, The Lotus Grows in the Mud (2005), about her years in Hollywood where fame and wealth are intertwined. She said that she believed she would be happy once she made it in the film industry. On the contrary, she discovered that it was not the case. But she had learned a valuable lesson. “I think I had to become successful to understand that success enhances who you are,” she wrote. “People who are nasty become nastier. People who are happy become happier. People who are mean hoard their money and live in fear for the rest of their lives that they will lose it. People who are generous use their gifts to help people and try to make the world a better place.”

 

  

Clan Cleansing in Somalia: A Book Review

Lidwien Kapteijns, Clan Cleansing in Somalia: The Ruinous Legacy of 1991. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013. 336 pages.

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“We’re going to get it on because we don’t get along.” —Mohamed Ali, Rumble in the Jungle.

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”—William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust.

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When the current Somali president, Hassan Sh. Mohamoud, has recently visited Minnesota, he gave what seemed to be an inspiring and upbeat speech to that state’s Somali community. Then, he committed a faux pas when he admonished the audience to forget about the past, what happened in 1991 and afterward, and not to dwell on it. The reaction of those who heard the speech ranged from those who wanted to move forward and build on the positives to those who had hard time swallowing the fact that what happened in 1991 could be readily dismissed after so many lives were lost, properties confiscated, and thousands expelled from their homes. The president was depicted as an insensitive leader bent on concealing the truth rather than seeking a judicious way of redressing the wrong. Such is the legacy of 1991 and its deleterious effect on the minds of many Somalis, even after 22 years.

Professor Lidwien Kapteijns’ book, Clan Cleansing in Somalia, exactly cautions Somali politicians not to engage in empty rhetoric about concealing and brushing off the “ruinous legacy” of 1991. Kapteijns, who teaches history at Wellesley College in the United States, is no stranger to Somali studies. She has extensively written about Somalia and speaks fluent Somali. As long as the memories, wrongdoings, and injustice of that period are not fully acknowledged and publicly addressed, she argues, Somalia will remain in a state of conflict and unable to engage in meaningful reconciliation and nation-building.

Something drastic and major happened in 1991 in Mogadishu and other parts of the south that was tragic: an unprecedented violence. Whereas Somalis had history of killing each other—a clan against clan—what took place in 1991 after the collapse of Siad Barre’s brutal regime, writes Kapteijns, was “analytically, politically, and discursively something new, a transformative turning point and key shift that has remained largely unaddressed (and has been purposefully denied and concealed) both in the scholarship about the Somali civil war and in the political efforts at social and moral repair.” Various mechanisms were used to conceal, deny or downplay the 1991 tragedies. The Western media, for instance, failed to uncover the killings and raping of innocent people in Mogadishu, and when foreign reporters visited Mogadishu at the apex of the civil war, they were chaperoned by the operatives of the United Somali Congress (USC). Kapteijns adroitly cites a case of several Western reporters reporting from Mogadishu on one fateful day whose narratives almost resembled each other. It was obvious that these journalists were in the same convoy when they were reporting the carnage in Mogadishu. The problem was compounded by poor academic and political memoir writings that failed to grasp the gravity of the situation in Mogadishu. Moreover, moderate leaders of the USC engaged in covering up the killings. It was only a decade and half later when warlord Ali Mahdi publicly admitted the atrocities committed in 1991.

This was a campaign based on collective punishment of one clan, and, hence, it was “namely that of clan cleansing, in a new political context and with a new dominant discourse.” In fact, argues Kapteijns, it was a communal violence in a way because it involved ordinary people such as friends, acquaintances, and neighbors targeting others based on being members of the wrong clan. The violence was not done randomly but instead it was carried out in a well-thought-out manner that pitted, not a government force against an organized armed group but, a common people against common people. Kapteijns, though, makes it clear that it was not clans that did the killings in Somalia but rather people who used the name of clans to kill, maim and rape.

The 1991 violence was not created out of vacuum. It was Barre who started using political violence to punish entire clans. The government’s policy was “using clan sentiment to exacerbate competition, conflict and grudge among Somalis.” Two incidents stand out. First, it happened in 1978-1982 in the Mudug, northeast, and Nugaal regions.  Barre’s forces killed innocent people in those regions, poisoned wells, and starved thousands of people. There is also the incident that involved the killings of 82 high- ranking military officers in Jigjiga during the Ethiopian War, an act overseen by Barre’s minions; General Mohamed Ali Samantar and General Mohamed Nur Galaal. This happened after a failed military coup, aptly called “the Majertein coup,” which led to the execution of 17 officers. Oddly, 16 of the 17 killed were Majertein. The other non-Majertein conspirators, interestingly, had their sentences commuted to prison terms.  

Second, it was the well-written and widely-covered violence of 1988-1989 in the northwest and Togdheer regions when the regime bombed cities, killing and dislocating thousands of Isaac people.

When Barre was overthrown, the USC, according to Kapteijns, adopted a policy that “defined as mortal enemy of all Somalis encompassed by the genealogical construct of Daarood, which also included the president.” Many of those targeted by the USC and its allies (the SNM and the Rahanwein-based SDM), argues Kapteijns, had nothing to do with the Barre regime, but their crime was they shared the president the same clan. On the other side of the coin, the 1991 violence also had another dimension: some high-ranking officials in Barre’s regime were spared after the defeat of the dictator. Kapteijns mentions individuals such as Hussein Kulmiye Afrah (vice president), Abdiqassim Salad Hassan (interior minister), General Jilicow (head of security in the Benadir region) Mohamed Shaikh (finance minister), Abdullahi Adow (minister of presidency and former Somali Ambassador to the United States) who had largely benefited from their long association with Barre, found themselves unharmed and, in fact, were embraced by the leaders of the USC, whereas persons who belonged to Barre’s clan but never benefited from his regime got killed, robbed, or expelled because they were from the wrong clan.

Kapteijns chronicles the atrocities committed against minority groups such as, for instance, the Bravanese, that had suffered tremendously in the hands of both the USC and the Daarood-based SNF. A resident of Brava, a coastal town in the south, complained about how the rule in his hometown had changed hands on numerous occasions. “One group leaves then the next group comes,” he lamented. “They loot and take away your possessions. I can’t tell one from the other; they are like ants of the same color.”  

Lidwien Kapteijns’ book is an important addition to Somali studies. She uses popular poems, radio broadcasts, and extensive oral interviews to analyze the genesis, fomenting, and perpetuation of hate speech, and the employment of code words. The book is at its strongest when Kapteijns delves into the use of poetry and oral recordings to explain the violence that had engulfed Somalia in early 1990s. This is a-must-read book for every Somali who wants to know what happened in 1991. It is especially important for Somali leaders who want to bring a lasting change to Somalia because the process of uncovering the truth and dealing with it is only the beginning of the healing process.

 

Shaikh Abdulkadir Nur Farah: An Obituary

Several years ago, the prominent Somali scholar Shaikh Abdulkadir Nur Farah gave a speech at a conference in Puntland. He derided what he called “Ghuluwi” (extremism) as a new phenomenon that was gripping that country. Teens between ages fourteen and seventeen, he lamented, were being brainwashed and had become killer-machines targeting religious scholars when the latter entered or left mosques.  

Last Friday, February 15, 2013, Shaikh Abdulkadir, who was in his seventies himself, was killed in broad daylight while he was praying in a mosque in Garowe. The killer was sadly a teenager. The young assassin was immediately apprehended by unarmed citizens who risked their lives to capture him.

Shaikh Abdulkadir went to Saudi Arabia in 1970 to study at the Islamic University in Madinah. He graduated in 1974 and was sent by Dar-ul-Iftaa, a Saudi religious organization, to Niger in West Africa as a religious teacher. He and his longtime friend, Shaikh Yusuf Adan, were unable to work there because they arrived after the academic year had started. The two were stuck in Niger unemployed until Siad Barre, who was the Chairman of the Organization of African Union (OAU) that year, came to Niger on an official visit. Barre encouraged the two to return to their country where they were badly needed and, in fact, took them in his plane to Mogadishu. Abdulkadir was appointed as a judge in the Hodon District. A year later, Barre would put Abdulkadir and Shaikh Yusuf in jail without any charges ever being brought against them. The two languished in prison until 1978.

Shaikh Abdulkadir went through four stages in his life after his return to Mogadishu: Ostracism, rehabilitation, cautionary tale and acceptance.
Ostracism

Shaikh Abdulkadir was one of only a few Somali scholars who graduated from Saudi universities prior to 1974. Somalia, at that time, was primarily a Sufi-oriented society. The nascient Islamic resurgence in Mogadishu was spearheaded by Shaikh Mohamed Moalim Hassan, a graduate of the prestigious Al-Azhar University in Egypt, and an admirer of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). Many of the young Islamists of that period were influenced by MB thinkers like Hassan El-Banna, Sayid Qutb, Mohamed Qutb, Fathi Yakan, Sa’eed Hawwaa and Pakistan’s own Abu A’laa Al-Mawdudi. Shaikh Abdulkadir, in essence, was an oddity and entered a hostile environment that was against Salafism, or as the Somalis derisively called the ideology “Wahhabism.” In many ways, Abdulkadir was treated like a pariah.

In 1975, I was a 15-year-old student when I first saw Abdulkadir. He was a rail thin man with impeccable manners. He was polite, courteous, and shy. He was given, like any Somali with a distinctive physical attribute, a nickname. His was Abdulkadir “Gacameey” (the one-handed). The nickname exposed his physical condition, and he hated it. Many years later, he implored his friends and acquaintances not to call him such a name.  

Student activists were told, in so many words, to steer clear of Abdulkadir because he carried an alien ideology that was ‘radical’. I remember one evening in 1975 when Abdulkadir was talking to two young activists and suddenly the student leader at the time, Abdulkadir Shaikh Mohamoud, came upon them and reprimanded the scholar. “What are you telling these youngsters?’ the student leader screamed. Then, in a clear indictment of the Saudi-trained scholar, the leader recited the Quranic verses; “And when it is said to them, “Do not cause corruption on the earth,” they say, “We are but reformers. Unquestionably, it is they who are the corruptors, but they perceive [it] not.”  Abdulkadir was stunned by the leader’s uncouth behavior but he simply ignored him. It was indeed ironic that this same student leader fled Somalia in 1976 and found home in Saudi Arabia where he spent for almost two decades and even graduated from one of that country’s finest universities.

There was also the case of a young man called Abdirahman who was influenced by Shaikh Abdulkadir. Initially, student leaders tried to reason with the young man but to no avail. Then, the leaders did something odd: Abdirahman was perceived as a mentally-ill person because it was unfathomable, in the eyes of student leaders that a “good person” would fall under the spell of Salafism. A group of twenty to thirty student activists went to the young man’s house in Pilaggio Arab to read Quranic verses to him, like someone who was possessed. When that attempt failed, the young man was ostracized like his mentor, Abdulkadir. Such was the ignorance prevalent at the time among young activists and the environment where there was zero tolerance for Salafism.  Today, the Salafi movement, in spite of its imperfects, has a strong presence in the country

Rehabilitation

In 1978, something dramatic happened. The student movement split into two groups. The first group, labeled “At-Takfir”, declared that Somalis, who are 100% Muslims, as “Kuffar” (infidels) because Islamic rule was not being implemented in the country. Members of this group stopped praying in mosques. The second group, however, had opposed to the first group and maintained that Somalis were Muslims but needed to be taught their religion. The strength of Salafism is its strong focus on issues about faith. Shaikh Abdulkadir, who was just released from prison in that tumultuous period, found a home in the second group and became active in eradicating the new alien and radical thought. In a short period, Shaikh Abdulkadir’s group adopted Salafism as its ideology. The group later became known as Al-Ittihad Al-Islami (AIAI), and the largest Islamic movement in Somalia.  Abdulkadir suddenly became someone whose counsel and guidance was actively sought.  

Cautionary Tale

When the Barre government collapsed in 1991, Somalia was beset with a civil war. Many armed groups emerged including militias run by the AIAI. Shaikh Abdulkadir was against the idea of establishing these militias. He believed that Islamists had no business carrying arms because such a tactic frightened ordinary people, distracted them from worshipping God, destabilized the country, and actively invited more enemies to go against the Islamists. Unfortunately, he was not listened to then. He settled in his hometown, Garowe, and continued teaching people their religion. The AIAI briefly took control of Puntland and Shaikh Abdulkadir was not pleased with the actions of his colleagues. He told whoever would listen to him that the group’s action would soon backfire. The solution was for the Islamists, according to Abdulkadir, to work with the local people, tribal elders, and politicians without brandishing AK-47 and delivering violence. No one heeded to his admonition.

The people of Puntland, who initially welcomed the Islamists, became disenchanted with their new rulers and their style of governing. A militia led by Colonel Abdullahi Yusuf expelled the religious group from Puntland. Many innocent people died in those military clashes. Afterwards, the AIAI did the unthinkable when it decided to completely disarm. Some of its members though were not happy with the group laying down its arms and founded their own group, Al-Shabab. This is the same militant group now believed to be behind Abdulkadir’s assassination and, in December 5, 2011, that of his long-time friend and a colleague, Dr. Ahmed Haji Abdirahman.

Acceptance

For the last decade and half, Shaikh Abdulkadir has been a highly respected scholar in Somalia and a leader of Al-Ictisaam, a Salafi nonviolent movement.  He was a voice of moderation in a sea of radicalism. He believed in education rather than engaging in an armed struggle. He criticized the Islamic movement in the country for not having a strategic plan to save the country. He called for a well-thought out plan to deal with the ordinary people, tribal chieftains, and politicians instead of Islamists simply reacting to events. He wanted a peaceful transformation of Somalia where people’s lives, properties, and institutions were protected. The young misguided radicals, he would say, should be educated. “They only know the benefits of jihad and not ‘fiqhul- jihad’ (jurisprudence of jihad).”  The youths do not know when to fight, who authorizes jihad, and who can fight, he stated.  He condemned suicide bombers as a bunch of fools who do not care about the irrational loss they inflict on themselves and innocent people. “These ignorant young men do not know that when they blow up themselves in a bomb that they will end up in hellfire,” he would quip.

Shaikh Abdulkadir refused to have security protection even when numerous threats were issued against him by the Al-Shabab. “I am in my seventies and I have nothing left in me,” he used to say. “Whoever kills an old man like me is a loser.”

 Indeed, his assassins are the real losers. May God bless him.

 

 

Omar Arteh: A Dissenting View

In 1977, I saw something odd in the Hamarweyne District of Mogadishu. I saw a tall man riding a horse. For one thing, the rider was not a policeman. Then, after I looked at him closely, I realized it was none other than Omar Arteh Ghalib, the deposed foreign minister of Somalia. One pedestrian made a casual comment that Omar Arteh must have been depressed to be riding a horse in the center of the capital. Later, I found out that the horse was a gift from the people of the Nugaal region. Incidentally, Omar was the headmaster of an elementary school there in the 1950s.

From 1969 to 1976, Omar Arteh was the foreign minister. It was not strange when President Siad Barre decided to remove him from that position. The dictatorial system of Somalia did not make room for a foreign minister, or any other capable official for that matter, to be effective or powerful. Omar knew that he was merely a performer, perhaps, a facilitator, an implementer of Barre’s policies. All the hoopla that Omar Arteh was the man behind Somalia’s opening to the Arab world and to the country becoming a member of the Arab League is preposterous. Omar may have flattered and cajoled some Arab kings here and there, but he knew perfectly well that he was Siad Barre’s messenger. Moreover, the Arab governments were eager to have Somalia as a member of the league.

A case in point, when King Faisal of Saudi Arabia sent a special envoy, Shaikh Mohamed Mohamoud Al-Sawaf, to Barre in the early 1970s to lure the latter away from the Soviet orbit, Omar Arteh, according to a BBC interview with Mohamed Nur “Garyare” (then the director of religion in the ministry of religion and justice), was too timid to articulate the Arab king’s message before Siad Barre, and he instead pleaded with “Garyare” to deliver the bold message. Omar Arteh did not want to rock the boat or appear to be an official favoring special relations with Saudi Arabia. Barre, in that meeting with the Saudi Arabian envoy, was blunt and rejected King Faisal’s overtures. Only a few years later, Barre would grovel under the feet of Arab sheikhs, but that was not the time.

Many Somalis have questioned why Omar Arteh lost his job as foreign minister. There is no doubt that Omar spoke several languages, was charming and articulate. Omar, during the civilian government, had a cordial relationship with Siad Barre. In fact, Omar was mentioned as a natural replacement for Ibrahim Egal as prime minister. Prime Minister Egal and Siad Barre had a rocky relationship and there was even talk of removing Barre as commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Until 1976, Omar was probably the longest serving cabinet minister in one ministry. By 1977, Siad Barre had a grand design to invade Ethiopia and even capture Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, as was later unveiled by Somali military commanders during the 1977-1978 Somali-Ethiopian War. Barre’s goal was not only to capture and liberate “Western Somalia,” but also to carve up Ethiopia. Colonel Abdullahi Yusuf was ordered to attack Ethiopia from the south and proceed all the way to Addis Ababa. Barre wanted to make sure that he had someone whom he trusted at the foreign ministry during that critical juncture and hence appointed his brother, Abdurahman Jama Barre, to the post. Jama Barre was the director general (DG) of that ministry. Somalis will always debate whether Jama Barre was the best qualified person to be Somalia’s longest serving foreign minister—about 14 years in total. (Full disclosure: Jama Barre and I are related through marriage.)

Even though Jama Barre was the foreign minister, Siad Barre used to send Hussein Abdulkadir Kassim, minister of mineral and water resources, to international conferences to represent Somalia. Barre also used Kassim for certain important meetings like the one on 10/8/1976 with Dr. Henry Kissinger, at the time secretary of state of the United States in the Ford administration, and the other on 12/8/1977 with Zbigniew Brzezinski, the American national security advisor under President Carter. Kassim was well-educated, confident, articulate, well-versed with the history of the region, and adept at diplomacy.

Interestingly, Omar Arteh, the foreign minister in the early 1970s, now a glorified figure to the point of veneration, proposed in a meeting of the council of ministers, that Jama Barre be appointed as the DG. Omar Arteh, of course, was currying favor with Siad Barre. The president, the ever-consummate politician, considered the proposal a bad idea. But, oddly, Jama Barre did become the DG. This story is mentioned by Hussein Abdillahi Bulhan, a die-hard Somalilander, in his book, Politics of Cain: One Hundred Years of Crises in Somali Politics and Society (2008). In fact, Siad Barre was grooming his brother for the top job in the ministry. When, in 1976, Omar Arteh became involved in a petty bureaucratic fight with one of his subordinates, Dahir Yusuf Mareexaan, Siad Barre used that as a pretext to remove Omar Arteh from the foreign ministry and instead appointed him as the minister of higher education and culture. Dahir Yusuf, on the other hand, was appointed some time later as an ambassador to India and later to Libya.

Why did Omar Arteh propose Jama Barre to be the DG of the foreign ministry? For one thing, Jama Barre was either the second or the third employee ever hired by the new foreign ministry in 1960. Jama Barre was sent to Italy where he studied political economy and returned to Somalia. He was one of only a member of a small pool of university graduates in the entire country. Unlike Omar who had served abroad as a diplomat—he was an ambassador to Ethiopia from 1965 to 1968—Jama Barre toiled in the administrative aspect of diplomacy.

Some would argue that Omar Arteh proposed the appointment of Jama Barre as DG because it was an inevitable appointment waiting to happen. In fairness, Omar Arteh was loyal to Siad Barre, but he tended to flatter the dictator, a habit Omar had perfected and used profusely whenever it suited him.

When I came to the U.S, I saw three young Somali ladies in my university who told me that they all had scholarships from the United Arab Emirates. I had no scholarship and went into a painful financial crisis; once I even missed an entire semester because I was broke. I asked the young ladies, who were sisters, how they had gotten their scholarships. “Omar Arteh got them for us,” they told me. They also told me that they belonged to the same sub-clan as Omar. I was happy for them and thought it revolutionary to see Somali women getting a good education. However, I tried desperately to secure a scholarship for myself. Although I finally got one two years later, it was a long process that involved arduous work—too many applications and numerous letters of pleas. Many people were instrumental in helping me; including Somalis and others friends from the Gulf who attended the same university as I did, so I did not know which application of plea did the final work. I would say that Omar Arteh was the one who started securing scholarships for Somali students from foreign countries long before it was known to other Somali officials. I commend Omar for performing such a valuable service. Many of these scholarships unfortunately did not go through proper channels, such as the ministry of higher education. They were doled out at the backdoor, and, on some occasions, the beneficiaries were Omar’s relatives.

After all is said and done, I would still rather have someone like Omar Arteh as my leader than the crop of leaders we have today in Somalia. Among today’s leaders, Omar would be a man among boys. I know Omar Arteh was a nationalist and not someone known for selling the country to the highest bidder. Omar was a man with talent, but he was not perfect. He was neither a teetotaler, as one writer said in this website, nor a heart-throbbing Casanova whom ladies drooled over. Given his cozy relationship with Saudi potentates and princes, Omar was a secular man. He had a personal charisma, but lacked the type of political charisma someone like Mohamed Ibrahim Egal had to produce change. Omar was ambitious to a fault and, at times, lacked any guiding principles. Omar was the prime minister in the so-called government of warlord Ali Mahdi (from 1991 to 1993) and during the apex of the civil war. That was undoubtedly a black mark in his record. But, alas, at least Omar was ours and the son of Somalia.



Mr. Ambassador, Meet Nuruddin Farah

“No poet or novelist wishes he was the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number believe their wish has been granted.”− W.H. Auden.
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In the spring of 1980, I arrived in New York City seeking an education. I was fresh from Cairo, Egypt, where I had spent one and a half years. In my four months in the city, I was fortunate to stay in Astoria, Queens, with two diplomats at Somalia’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations: Abdi Artan, First Secretary, and Adan Farah Shirdon, Consular. Shirdon is the older brother of Somalia’s current prime minister, Abdi Farah Shirdon. Both Shirdon and Artan later became ambassadors to Djibouti and Canada, respectively.

After that summer, I headed to Ohio, where I knew no one, to commence my university studies.

The Somali ambassador at the time was Ahmed Mohamed Adan “Qaybe.” Ambassador Qaybe was a career foreign service officer who had served as an envoy to Washington and Moscow. He was tall, strong, intimidating, and brusque. He seemed blunt where others prevaricated. He had worked in senior posts in both the civilian and military governments and, not long ago, was the speaker of the House of Elders in Somaliland.

Qaybe, who hails from the Sol and Sanaag region, has become a fervent defender of the self-declared state of Somaliland. He has attacked some of his fellow countrymen for forming the Khatumo State. For example, Dr. Ali Khalif Galeyr, Somalia’s former prime minister− a hero to some and a polarizing figure to others− has become Qaybe’s favorite piñata. Several months ago, Qaybe lashed out at Galeyr for the latter’s unbridled ambition and shameless pursuit of political position.

Moreover, Qaybe, who holds no doctorate, questioned Galeyr’s PhD and characterized it as an achievement from a third-rate American university. However, Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs from which Galeyr graduated is ranked by U.S News and World Report as one of the top graduate schools in public affairs. Syracuse University, after all, is the institution from which Joe Biden, the U.S vice-president, graduated.

A young Somali diplomat in our apartment complex told me about an incident in the Somali mission to the UN. The story was confirmed by two other diplomats.

One day, the Somali writer Nuruddin Farah came to the mission. By 1980, Farah had achieved middling success and had three novels, all in English, under his belt. I have no idea why Farah appeared in the diplomatic compound. Was he renewing his passport? Was he in Manhattan, in the neighborhood, and decided to stop at the mission? I do not know. At any rate, the said young Somali diplomat was gracious enough to have welcomed Farah. He was talking to the writer when Ambassador Qaybe walked into the office. The young man introduced Farah with the kind of reverence typically reserved for dignitaries.

“This is the Somali writer Mr. Nuruddin Farah, Mr. Ambassador,” announced the young diplomat.

Qaybe, the career bureaucrat, was caught off guard. He knew who Nuruddin Farah was. No one though had expected Nuruddin Farah, who had imposed on himself self-exile in the mid-1970s, to appear in a Somali government office.

After a few seconds of embarrassing silence, Qaybe exploded, “Are you the one who writes about cockroaches and lizards?”

The statement was like being smacked with a tsunami.

Nuruddin Farah was stunned and dumb-founded by the ambassador’s undignified and vituperative language. The remarks indeed rendered him speechless. Farah believed, albeit erroneously, that he would be bathed in celestial glow. But here was this uncouth and abrasive envoy treating him like a giant fly that kept orbiting in the diplomatic compound.

The young diplomat, who like Qaybe hailed from Sol and Sanaag, was utterly embarrassed. In fact, the ambassador’s words sent shudders up the spine of those present. There was a genuine feeling that Ambassador Qaybe had trampled on a national treasure: Somalia’s renowned writer. Yes, Farah was an avowed critic of the Siad Barre regime, but he nonetheless deserved respect and common courtesy.

The incident offered a telling tableau of two different personalities: one, a government official upholding its policies that stifled dissent and the other, a novelist who had built a reputation of challenging the legitimacy of such government. It was obvious that Qaybe did not want to be perceived as a high-ranking official cavorting with a dissident.

One thing became clear in that brief confrontation: There is no uglier scene than one involving a bruised ego.

True to his reputation, Farah came across as intelligent, detached, pretentious, and a bit haughty. He was the same man who was once interviewed by the BBC Somali Service and treated the audience dismissively. When asked which writers had influenced him, Farah told the interviewer to skip that question as the answer would not make sense to the audience. The audience, in Farah’s eyes, represented a monolithic group that knew nothing about literature. The novelist did not want to waste his time discussing an issue that he unilaterally deemed too sophisticated for his audience to comprehend. Why bother!

After Qaybe’s unfortunate remarks, the novelist tried valiantly to preserve a modicum of civility. He wanted to stay above the fray but there was no denying that he had a vacuous expression on his face. Of course, he was hurt. Farah must have felt unappreciated at best, and slighted, at the least.

Farah left the office without receiving a groveling apology.

One of these coming years, Nuruddin Farah might win the Nobel Prize for literature. He has been nominated for the award numerous times. He has published 11 novels, some with critical acclaim. Some of his recent novels though have been depicted as “less poetic and polished than his earlier novels,” (The Economist) because they rely heavily on “research and recent political events.” In his latest novel, Crossbones, Pico Iyer detected what other critics have been saying about Farah’s penchant for “textbook commentary.” In the November 8, 2012, issue of the New York Review of Books, Iyer pointed out that Nuruddin Farah’s “characters sound as heavy-handed as people declaiming from an Associated Press report.”

If Farah wins the Nobel Prize, I wonder what Qaybe would say about the Swedish Foundation. An astute Canadian writer named Margaret Atwood once said, “If you are not annoying somebody, you are not alive.”



Shangole and I

I knew Fuad Mohamed Khalaf “Shangole” when he was a lad.

Yes, the notorious Fuad Shangole, one of the top leaders of Al Shabab and a man on whose head the U.S government has placed a $5 million bounty.

Simply put, we crossed paths as children.

Shangole always hummed with energy, and he used to dawdle in the streets of Mogadishu acting tough and thuggish. Fortunately, that was in the 1970s and Al Qaeda and Al Shabab did not yet exist.

The truth is I had a personal grudge against Shangole, the lad. In a way, he was something I was not: tough and street-smart.  We both grew up in a rough-and-tumble neighborhood, but, at the risk of immodesty, I was the mild-mannered youngster who steered clear of street fights or hanging with rough kids.   

Shangole was acquainted with me but he never knew my name. The age difference, perhaps, was the reason why we never associated; he was five years my junior. I used to see him come and go at his grandfather’s compound where my uncle, Abdi Gurey, had his car rental business, “Auto Noleggio Wajir.” From time to time, I assisted my uncle with his paperwork. His place was the hub of the northeasterners living in Mogadishu because many used his postal box “702” for their mail. All kinds of people would come to his agency checking their mail, and there were always people there sipping tea or cappuccino, talking, and playing dominos.

I loved hanging with these adults as they conversed and joked around. But the biggest reasons I used to help my uncle were the sense of feeling responsible in the running of the business and, frankly, the occasional cash windfall.

In my small juvenile world, young Shangole was a minor nuisance. He minded his own business and never talked to the adults in the agency as he trudged past them on his way to his grandfather’s home upstairs.

My puerile grudge against him, though, was purely accidental.

One day, Shangole was passing by when one of my uncles made a perfunctory remark about him. “I love this boy because he is brave and exceptional,” my distant uncle said. He used the word “fariid” which in Arabic and Somali means unique and exceptional. Being the only youngster in the agency, my uncle’s statement was like a punch in the stomach. But I managed to maintain a veneer of politeness. I knew things about Shongole, the naughty boy, that my poor uncle did not.

My uncle never spent time with Shangole, nor did he know the lad well enough to issue such a proclamation. In a way, his little exuberance about Shangole was understandable. He was indeed sending a message to me: Go and spend time with children your age instead of hanging with adults. Furthermore, my uncle knew my aversion to fighting and hustling.

I concurred with my uncle that Shangole was aggressive, pugnacious, and street smart. The lad was the type who would exhibit traits of juvenile delinquency, although I had no proof that he was ever sent to a juvenile hall in Mogadishu.

I have not seen Shangole since the mid- 1970s. His life has had no shortage of drama. I heard that he settled in Sweden, as a refugee, sometime in 1992 and later became a citizen of that country. While in Sweden, Shangole, perhaps, went through a personal transformation. He became religious and even served as an imam before finally moving to Mogadishu in 2004. His years in Sweden, as an imam, supposedly revealed little trace of dogma.

Shangole’s meteoric rise in the Al Shabab movement was breathtakingly swift. During the brief reign of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), Shangole was the head of the department of education. After the expulsion of UIC from Mogadishu in 2007, Shangole became one of the top leaders of Al Shabab and the man in charge of issuing fatwas, religious edicts. According to the Associated Press, on December 7, 2010, Shangole threatened to attack the United States. “We tell the American President Barack Obama to embrace Islam before we come to his country,” he bellowed. Reports have claimed that he was involved in sadistic brutality like personally killing Al Shabab enemies and even cutting off the hands of people who violated the group’s decrees. He has developed a binary view of the world: You are either with Al Shabab or you are against it. Four years ago, there was an attempt on his life when a bomb exploded in a mosque in Mogadishu where he offered religious lessons.

What intrigued me was that Shangole, the adolescent street thug, became a full-blown terrorist in his adult life.

For me, I haven’t changed that much in terms of disposition. When I became a father, however, my oldest son, Mohamed, somewhat reminded me of my limitations as an action hero. He, like any 6-year- old, was enamored with action films. One day, I stumbled on a note he had scribbled about the men he admired the most. There were the names of Clint Eastwood, Bruce Lee, Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Norris, and Uncle Zaki. The latter was a friend of the family with a commanding physical presence. Zaki was a burly man, 6’4 tall, adventurous, and very adept at life in the outdoors. He was born in Washington, D.C to an Egyptian diplomat. I shared with him height—6’3—but not other notable attributes. This man,interestingly, used to go to a Chinese all-you-can eat cafe and consume large quantities of food. One day, the owner called his friend and invited the friend to come anytime to eat for free as long as he did not bring Zaki. The latter would laugh every time he told that story in an effort to demonstrate his prowess and a penchant for ravenous eating. To his credit, Zaki had no fat, only muscle. He passed away in 1995.

Mohamed’s list of the admired was telling. My name was nowhere to be seen. Yes, I was never into hiking, karate, or hunting, nor did I display any knowledge of military matters. My son, I suppose, merely saw me as a man who would ramble on about books.  When it came to physical activities, I was, for all practical purposes, boring to him. On one hand, I was disappointed that I did not make it to that ‘prestigious’ list. Any father would like to see his son list him among people he admires.  However, I could not contain my glee when I saw my son at least list the name of a family friend, a real man, among the action film stars. 

A decade later, of course, my son would rehabilitate me and upgrade my status as his hero, by parsing real life from fiction.

These days, Shangole’s career is at a crossroads. He is on the run and in hiding. He has made an impressive array of enemies−the Somali government, Puntland, the U.S, and bounty hunters, not to mention ordinary Somalis who do not want the terrorist in their backyard.

I wonder what my uncle, who has since passed away, would have thought about today’s Fuad Shangole, a fugitive from justice, and the fact that I have been writing about Shangole’s militant group. It is a situation rich with irony: Two former youngsters, one carrying an AK-47 and the other a pen.

Such is the misfortune of our current circumstances.