Do Not Impeach the President

On Wednesday, August 12, 2015, about 93 Somali legislators submitted a motion to impeach President Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud for a series of constitutional violations, corruption, impeding the formation of some regional states and later undermining them, and for not consulting with parliament. While all these accusations may be justified, the idea of impeaching the president now is not wise for the following reasons:

1.      The president has a year left of his term, which he should finish. Afterwards, he should never come back to the political scene because of his embarrassing record of authoritarianism and corruption. Removing the president now before his term is up is not going to solve any problems. In fact, impeaching him is likely to create more problems than solutions. The removal of Mohamed Morsi after the Egyptians had elected him president, was unconstitutional and counterproductive. It created havoc in Egypt and led to political turmoil that will take many years to unravel. General Abdifatah Al-Sisi, who toppled and replaced Morsi, turned out to be a dictator worse than Mubarak and Sadat. Even Morsi, who made egregious mistakes in his short tenure by acting in an imperial fashion, seems today to have been a better ruler than Al-Sisi. If Morsi had been left to finish his term, it is highly unlikely the Egyptians would have re-elected him. These precedents should set off warning bells for Somalia, which simply cannot afford to experience the havoc we have seen in Egypt, and which will likely ensue if the Somali president is impeached now. An interim administration would not be able to prepare the country for change in 2016.  

2.      The legislators who submitted the impeachment are equally to blame for the very transgressions they are accusing the president of perpetrating. In 2012, members of this body admitted publicly that they allowed themselves to be bribed to elect the current president, a man unknown to many Somalis, who, nevertheless miraculously trounced the incumbent president. Moreover, on several occasions, many of the parliamentarians were in cahoots with the president himself when he was violating the constitution and usurping power from his three prime ministers. Yes, President Mohamoud has had three prime ministers in the past three years, and this parliament sacked two of them. The third has only been in office for months. The MPs did not even give former Prime Minister Abdi Shirdon a chance to present his case before his dismissal. Now the legislators are crying foul. If the president has to go, so must the legislators.

3.      Two weeks ago, when President Mohamoud announced there would not be a one-man, one-vote election in 2016 for security reasons, the MPs did not ask him to come before them. There were no protests and no hearings. When was the last time this parliament held hearings to inquire about all of the president’s constitutional violations? There were no hearings. Did parliament discuss the status of reviewing the provincial constitution, the issue of graft in the executive branch, not paying the salaries of members of the armed forces for months, the assassination of some legislators, and the conflict with Kenya regarding sea boundaries? No.

The Somali parliament needs to do its job first before it shifts blame onto the president. How many laws has parliament passed since it convened after the elections in the fall of 2012? None. It will be in the country’s interest if both the president and the parliament simply own up for their failures. Thus far, no one has been honest with the Somali people. The president has yet to tell the nation he failed to prepare the country for a popular vote. There is a security problem in certain parts of the country, but the president does not mention what was in his power that he failed to accomplish. In a way, parliament enabled him to violate the constitution for three years.

Standing on the Ashes: The Somali South-West State

Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden, the President of the Interim South-West Administration (ISWA) in Somalia, is deliberately stemming the natural growth of the nascent federated state by employing “qaraabaysi” (nepotism), patronage, and misuse of public funds. After two decades of civil war, followed by years of Al-Shabaab domination, the region is still in financial and political ruins.

The administration of the South-West (SW) is in the hands of Sharif Hassan and his family. Through his imperial actions, the SW is a one-man show—he is the president, the vice president, the legislature, and the judiciary. Sharif Hassan is assisted by his brother, Madeer, who coordinates all international contacts from Nairobi, and Mohamed Abdullahi Mursal, his nephew, who does the day-to-day management of the region. With the blessing of his uncle, Mursal has named himself a prime minister and hence presides over the cabinet meetings. He has even set up fake email addresses in the name of his uncle and cabinet ministers soliciting aid from the international community. The appointed ministers, who lack education and government experience, have titles but no function.  A UN official recently wrote a scathing letter to his superiors complaining about the lack of a qualified cadre for capacity building in the SW and pleaded to be transferred elsewhere.

Baidoa, the capital of the SW, is a city riven with violence and targeted assassinations. In just the last few months, prominent imams, traditional leaders, and women have been killed. These acts of violence, though generally suspected to have been carried out by Al-Shabaab, cannot all be attributed to the terror group. Some killings are politically motivated. Clan elders, according to two community activists in the SW, live in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation because they are frequently harassed by Sharif Hassan and his cronies. “We dare not to challenge Sharif Hassan,” one elder, who wants to remain anonymous, lamented.  Sharif Hassan has not established security services to protect citizens. In fact, no budget has been drawn up for the security sector. It is unfortunate that Sharif Hassan himself spends most of his time either staying in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, or doing frivolous travel. Occasionally, he stays in a house in Afgooye, which is owned by the conglomerate Hormuud Telecom. Many of his ministers are also staying in hotels in Mogadishu like sitting ducks, idle, and without the faintest clue of what is going on.

Sharif Hassan has been dragging his feet on two major issues: appointing a vice president and spearheading the formation of a parliament.  By showing little interest in having a vice president, he is exhibiting Hosni Mubarak syndrome, (the former Egyptian dictator ruled his country over 30 years without a designated vice president). The region also has yet to have a functioning parliament. Per the provisional constitution, a parliament must be established between 45 and 60 days after a regional state is established. This lackadaisical approach to the rule of law is disturbing. There are some sputtering attempts to form a parliament in the region. Even Sharif Hassan himself has become involved and has asked clan elders to give him a minimum of three parliament spots from each of the three regions that make up the SW so he can nominate legislators of his own choice. Recently, he met some of the elders of the Digil and Mirifle clan in Baidoa and grilled them on why they have been resisting his request. “Am I not the same person you elected as president a few months ago?” Sharif Hassan sarcastically asked. “Where does this lack of trust come from?” There is a fear among the elders that Sharif Hassan will give his requested parliamentary seats to entities that have business partnerships with him or manned armed militias. If his current cabinet is any indication, he just wants legislators who will answer to no one but himself.

Another issue is Sharif Hassan’s plan to sell the land of the Lower Shebelle. Recently, a group of Indian experts from the United Arab Emirates visited Baraawe in the Lower Shebelle to check the port for future development and to explore whether there is oil in the region. Another privately owned company, Somali Fruits, is sponsoring a trip for Sharif Hassan to go to Germany in an attempt to export Somali bananas from the SW. While encouraging investment in the region is a noble idea and badly needed, there is no mechanism to investigate the validity and effectiveness of these projects. Numerous calls by concerned SW residents to Sharif Hassan to establish “Xafiiska Hanti Dhawrka” (Bureau of Safeguarding National Resources) have gone unanswered.

A major concern for some SW residents is the fear that Sharif Hassan is indirectly facilitating the introduction of Shiism in the region. Sharif Hassan has received 200 scholarships from Iran for Somali youths to study there. Most of these scholarships have already been granted to Sharif Hassan’s relatives and members of his clan, the Asharaf. While the Asharaf in Somalia are Sunnis, the group has historically claimed to be descendants of the family of Prophet Mohamed. One similarity between the Shiites and the Asharaf is their unbridled devotion to “Ah-lul Bayt” ([Mohamed]’s family).  Some Somali religious scholars have been vociferously lashing out at Iranian charities in Somalia because they fear the spread of Shiism in an overwhelming Sunni country. Recently, Somali clerics noticed the emergence of a small number of Somali Shiites in the nation.  

An issue that angered many residents of the SW is the presence of the abhorred checkpoints in the region. These checkpoints, still run by armed militias, collect exorbitant taxes from residents and extort bribes from motorists. Unfortunately, instead of getting rid of these roadblocks, Sharif Hassan’s administration has introduced an additional 40 checkpoints in the region. Two of these checkpoints are near Afgooye and are controlled by Mursal, Sharif Hassan’s nephew, through his representative, a man named Daahir Sharif. According to several ministers, two of these checkpoints are falsely run in the name of “Iskaashatada Gaadiidka” (The Transportation Co-op). There is no group in the SW by the name of “Iskaashatada Gaadiidka.” The net daily income from these two roadblocks is 35 million Somali shillings ($1590 USD) and is directly deposited in Mursal’s personal account.  

The absence of police force and security services, coupled with the presence of a sizable fighters of Al-Shabaab, has exacerbated the lack of safety in the state. There are still territories in the region that are controlled by Al-Shabaab. The terror group has historically flourished in areas such as the SW where injustice, marginalization, and bad governing are prevalent.

 

Now that the Somali president has cancelled the one-man, one-vote election in 2016, Sharif Hassan is likely to amass more wealth as a war chest to be a contender for the federal presidency or to act as a power broker. Next year, instead of people electing candidates directly, the regional state representatives will probably do the selection, a process conducive to bribery and corruption. Sharif Hassan is presiding over a region which has a lot of potential but he is not interested in providing an effective and productive leadership. In a way, he is standing on the ashes, however, the saga of the SW and its leader will continue.

 

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Professor Scorned

In a famous true story, a young Italian musician did the unthinkable: He challenged his mentor, the great maestro Arturo Toscanini, with an unexpected fusillade. "With regard to Toscanini, the maestro," said the young man, "I bow my head in respect. However,” he continued, "with regard to Toscanini, the man…" The young man then proceeded to take off his shoe and started assaulting the maestro.
 
Recently, there was a public debate about the case of Somaliland. Professor Ahmed Ismael Samatar, of Macalester College, was one of four speakers participating in the debate. Each invited speaker was allotted 15 minutes to speak. Samatar went over his time, and when the organizer politely told him his time was up, the good professor was furious and mumbled that he had yet to present the gist of his speech. What happened next was beyond comprehension. Samatar sat down in disgust and refused to participate. A gentleman implored the professor to participate in the discussion, but Samatar was indignant about the way he had been treated. "They [the organizers] invited us," the professor protested, "and they do not know how to run the debate." The audience was still reeling from shock when the question-and-answer session commenced. Some of the audience took clear shots at Samatar for his support of Somaliland after many years of lambasting the secessionist region. Not long ago, Samatar, who hails from the north, was a prominent unionist who had worked hard for the unity of Somalia.
 
Samatar’s career has been consistent and strongly nationalistic.  As a young broadcaster for the BBC’s Somali Services in the 1960s, Samatar would conclude the half-hour broadcast with the proclamation, "Soomaaliya ha noolato," (Long live Somalia), thereby breaking the journalistic code of neutrality and objectivity. However, Samatar today is singing a new tune, one of secession and the disintegration of Somalia’s territorial integrity. The professor’s firm belief in the unity of Somalia, a belief that spanned five decades, has gone with the wind. Now, many Somalis are asking themselves how someone who stood so strongly for Somali unity has suddenly converted to secessionism.
 
What many people forget is there are two sides of Samatar: Samatar the intellectual and Samatar the politician. Unfortunately, these two sides have been unable to reconcile, and hence have led to his undoing. Political scientists do not make good politicians, just as medical doctors do not make good patients. Samatar has been teaching politics for more than three decades, yet this extensive teaching experience did not necessarily mean the learned professor possesses effective political skills. He made a faux pas of misreading the intention of Somali legislators who were selecting the president in 2012. Before Samatar’s candidacy for office, he and his colleagues formed a political party, “Hiil Qaran." He then ran for the Somali presidency but failed miserably to even make it to the second round of the election. Samatar once again misread the political situation, which he knew was based on an unfair political power arrangement that favored the two biggest clans in Somalia. Moreover, the eventual winner of the presidency, Hassan S. Mohamoud, had made a secret deal with Samatar: whoever wins the presidency would make the other his prime minister. Mohamoud, it turned out, had made similar promises to other candidates and instead chose an inexperienced premier like him.
 
I was one of the first commentators to ask President Mohamoud to appoint Samatar as his premier or appoint him the foreign minister. Samatar did not get either position. He left Mogadishu sullen and bitter. To him, the political system had betrayed him. His position as an intellectual and an avowed northern nationalist became a liability in a political environment that favored one's clan affiliation, rather than what one could do for the country. Samatar struck a defiant note, condemning informal power sharing, and used his position as a parliamentarian to rail against injustice and corruption.
 
Then, Samatar shocked many Somalis when he resigned from parliament and started endorsing Somaliland’s quest for statehood. The secessionists glowed with pride and welcomed Samatar like a prodigal son, who had finally come home. Other Somalis were incessantly critical of his betrayal and self-serving political position. Some wondered if Samatar, who couldn't get elected as president in Mogadishu, naively thought he would have better luck in Hargeisa. Samatar's lame excuse for changing his stance was what he called “the prevalence of political corruption” and unfair power sharing in Mogadishu. Not surprisingly, Samatar drew exceptional mockery from many unionists. The man whom Somalis always welcomed in political debates and on the lecture circuit, suddenly found himself unwanted and without luster.
 
Against this backdrop, the political debate held in Minneapolis two weeks ago coincided with Samatar’s growing irrelevance and the expression of public indignation at his support for secessionist Somaliland. Samatar's treatment in the debate was a not-so-subtle repudiation of him and his politics. The organizers of the debate and the audience seemed elated when the good professor further embarrassed himself, pouted, and acted like little Oliver Twist asking for more food; in this instance, more time. His petulant actions at the event accelerated his slide from political stature to political ignominy.  Samatar had a hard time understanding why nobody cared what he had to say. The once- exceptional public speaker sat silently at the podium with the other speakers, refusing to answer questions directed at him until finally he couldn't take it anymore and left. It was like watching a train wreck. Surprisingly, his departure was greeted with indifference. A young man from the Awdal region lamented how Samatar "his uncle" had a penchant for leaving debates once he had lost an argument. The young man was wrong: Samatar had lost long before the debate had even started. The audience had already tuned out what he had to say. They had heard his explanations for leaving Somalia’s cause in favor of Somaliland. And they had heard enough.
 
Samatar is an intellectual among Somalis, and no one -- unionist or secessionist -- can take that away from him. But Samatar, the politician, now stands on his own without a pedestal, unseen, unheard, and increasingly irrelevant.

The Lobby: A Fathia Absie Film

Title: The Lobby

Running Time: 56.59 minutes
Status: Limited Release
Country: United States
Directed, written and produced by Fathia Absie
Cast: Doug Sydney and Fathia Absie
***

Several years ago, Fathia Absie made a compelling documentary, Broken Dreams, about the Somali youths missing in Minnesota. It was a bold film project that stirred debate within the Somali community about the reasons why two dozen young Somalis in the Twin Cities left the U.S. and joined Al-Shabaab. In her new film, The Lobby, Fathia departs from the well-documented, hard-hitting issue of terrorism and focuses instead on a close encounter of two people from different cultures, an American man from northern Minnesota and a Somali immigrant woman.

John (Doug Sydney) and Yasmin (Fathia Absie) live as neighbors in the same apartment complex in Minneapolis. They exchange glances occasionally but never talk to each other. John sees Yasmin mostly sitting in the lobby, pondering and taking some notes. He is curious about this strange-looking woman with Islamic attire and wonders why she always hangs out at the lobby. Yasmin, on her part, is curious about John. Then, one day John musters the courage to approach Yasmin and introduces himself. What follows is a minefield of small talk, laced with curiosity, apprehension, nervousness, and cultural sensitivity. John is aware of who he is: a white man who has a simple background and, in his words, “has lived a life of ease and privilege.”  Yasmin, on the other hand, is the product of a tough upbringing, having been raised in Somalia, a country that has witnessed civil war, displacement, and poverty. Most of all, she has lost loved ones back home to undue violence. In spite of her past ordeals, Yasmin comes across as a strong woman who has weathered extraordinary hardships but still possesses amazing self-confidence and a sense of humor. She is as smart as she is pretty and does not hesitate to take the lead in her conversations with John. She seeks neither sympathy nor acceptance from John. She welcomes any personal questions and tells John, “I am not fragile.” As the pair come to know each other better, they develop a certain comfort level and mutual attraction to each other. They start longing for these meetings in the lobby but discover that life is full of twists and turns.

The Lobby is a metaphor for something bigger and deeper than the simple meeting of two people. It is a portrait of how two members of different cultures, who had coexisted and cohabited in the same place without knowing anything about each other, can tear down the barrier between them and start relating to each other. Physical proximity to one another means nothing if there is no communication or understanding of each other. It has always been one of the main themes of Fathia Absie’s work: Communication is the way for people of all cultures to relate to each other. Fathia is a die-hard humanist and an idealist to the marrow. She envisions a world in which all kinds of people can live happily together, regardless of the artificial barriers they have erected between each other.  Fathia believes all people share one noble attribute: their common humanity. Some skeptics see Fathia’s enthusiastic idealism as naïve and impractical, a clear reflection that some sectors of the society can be unkind and unforgiving. Others will shudder at the exchange of banter between a Muslim woman and a man not related to her. 

This film, produced on an extremely low budget, is artfully crafted—a testimony to Fathia’s artistic maturation. The acting is great and the dialogue uniquely enriching and entertaining. Fathia is as good at acting as she is at directing. No other actress can better portray Yasmin than Fathia. She can say a lot without uttering a word. She is polite, sensitive, and has an upbeat personality. Her colleague, Doug, is equally impressive and does a good job playing the role of a privileged man who comes around to be appreciative and understanding of other people’s cultures. Like Fathia’s first documentary, this film will generate lively discussions among many Somalis and Minnesotans, something Fathia thrives on.

Have You Hugged Your 'Ayeeyo' Lately?

Amina Mohamed is 77, the mother of seven, the “Ayeeyo” (grandmother) of 42, and the great grandmother of seven.

“In reality, I had 10 children but three died,” she said. “My youngest daughter was killed in Hargeisa during the civil war,” she said. She was standing in front of the family house when she was struck on the heart by a wayward bullet. “No one knows the perpetrator,” Amina said, a hint of sadness in her voice.

Amina was born in Hargeisa and her mother came from Jigjiga, a city in the Somali region in Ethiopia. Her father came from the Awdal region in northern Somalia. Amina and her husband spent most of their lives in eastern Ethiopia, where all her children were born. However, she speaks only a smattering of Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia.

Amina has fond memories of the Somali region in Ethiopia and talks about it nostalgically. “Somalis there are cohesive because they live in a multicultural environment,” she explained. “What defines you there is your ethnicity, not your clan.”

Amina witnessed firsthand what Somali clans did to each other during the civil war, in the north and south. She saw innocent people killed and even elderly woman molested. “I saw a woman in her sixties raped,” she said, with tears in her eyes, “just because she belonged to the wrong clan.”

Amina was fortunate to have escaped harm in Mogadishu because she told the armed militias that she was from Hargeisa.

During the 1977-1978 Somali-Ethiopian War, Amina and her family fled Harar to Somalia. In the ensuing panic and chaos, her children scattered and for a while, their whereabouts were unknown. She, one of her sons, and two grandchildren escaped to the bush and trekked for 18 days toward Somalia to avoid the Ethiopian army.

“It was the most dangerous and emotionally draining trip I have ever taken,” she explained. “I was worried about the well-being of my two grandchildren than my own.” She experienced starvation, constant fear of wild animals, and — after a snake bite — a week-long sickness. The group saw hyenas near Harar eating corpses. After 18 days of walking, Amina came upon an encampment of the Somali army inside Ethiopia. The family was placed in an open truck and taken to Hargeisa. “I was told my husband and children had perished,” she recounted. Fortunately, and to her great joy, she later discovered all her children had resurfaced in Somalia and her husband was safe in Harar.

Starting from scratch, Amina began working to support her big family in Hargeisa. “I traveled throughout Somalia as a businesswoman,” she said. She was relentless in ensuring her children received an education. Four have graduated from university and two have even earned advanced degrees.

Amina appears cheerful and affable. “I sacrificed a lot for my children and some of my grandchildren,” she said. Unfortunately, she rarely sees most of her grandchildren even though many, like her, live on the West Coast of America. “Today, many of the younger people are focused on their daily lives and have no interest in connecting with their elders,” she said. “Who has time for a grandmother?” she added, laughing heartily.

Amina is a walking encyclopedia of Somali culture and experiences. She has personally known several former high-ranking Somali government officials and a handful of famous singers and poets. Her conversation is littered with anecdotes and proverbs. “I do not have an education,” she admitted, “but I have a vast reservoir of personal experience.”

Amina is well versed in the current political situation in Somalia. She listens to the BBC World News Service every day and has little patience with today’s leaders, whom she says are more interested in personal enrichment than serving the nation. Referring to the Barre regime, she lamented, “Once upon a time, we had a functioning government, but we intentionally and deliberately destroyed it.” Amina said she would rather have a bad government than anarchy and what she calls “Dullinimo” (humiliation).

Although Amina cannot speak English, she has many friends, including neighborhood children. One five-year-old Asian girl calls her “my friend.” Another child, whom she met at the Social Security Administration, connected with her instantly and asked her mother if she could go with Amina. “I pay close attention to children,” Amina said, smiling.  

For the younger generation, Amina has a few words of advice: “Invest in family relations today before your loved ones are gone tomorrow.” She added, “After God, your family is the most important thing you have.”

(Reprinted with permission from Sahan Journal, June 7, 2015).

Disgrace as a Commodity: Gabre and Yusuf

At an international conference in Europe three years ago, I met General Gabre Heard, former supreme leader of the Ethiopian military forces in Somalia. A friend, then a cabinet minister, introduced me to the general, and I was caught off guard. We stood in a big halI for a few minutes where dignitaries from many countries had convened to discuss the situation in Somalia.

The first thing that came to my mind was not the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia “to fight terror” but an incident in 2007 that involved Gabre and Abdullahi Yusuf, Somalia’s president at the time. Yusuf had invited Ethiopia to enter Somalia and root out the regime of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). Gabre had become angry when Yusuf repeatedly complained about his indiscriminate pounding of civilians in Mogadishu.

Gabre slapped Yusuf four times until the president fell to the ground. Then, Gabre placed his pistol against Yusuf’s head and threatened to kill him. Yusuf’s bodyguards were left disarmed and Yusuf had to seek protection from the African troops in Mogadishu (AMISOM). The next day, Yusuf’s spokesman denied the whole incident.

Gabre told a Somali delegate at the European conference how Somali politicians and intellectuals continued to beg him for government jobs.

“They ask me if I can help them get appointed as ministers or ambassadors,” said Gabre. “I do not have such power.”

When I first heard of that infamous slap, I was neither disgusted nor surprised. I simply saw it as another manifestation of how Somalia had degenerated.

In 1978, Abdullahi Yusuf became the first Somali politician to seek refuge in Ethiopia, when he aligned himself and his opposition group, the Somali Salvation Front, with Addis Ababa. The tradition of seeking support from there has continued for 20 years among the Somali leadership.  

President Abdullahi Yusuf’s road to public and political humiliation began when he was selected head of the transitional government. He was unable to go to Mogadishu, the center of administration and governance, because it was in the hands of Mogadishu warlords. Yusuf was hosted in Jowhar, a town 100 kilometers north of Mogadishu, by a warlord named Mohamed Omar Habeb, better known as “Mohamed Dheere.”  Surprisingly, the warlord held Yusuf hostage in a government house with no windows until the president’s advisors were able to raise tens of thousands of dollars to whisk him out of town.

“When I saw President Yusuf in Jowhar,” a former advisor of the president said, “his body was all bitten by mosquitos.”

Mohamed Dheere was furious when he found out about Yusuf’s departure.

Yusuf remained ambitious and desperately wanted to rule Somalia, but he made a poor move when he invited Ethiopia to invade his country.

Gabre shelled the presidential compound because he wanted Yusuf to defer to him to the point of fawning.   

“It was frightening,” said the advisor. “I thought Gabre [would] kill us all.”   

Gabre was eventually recalled—not because he had humiliated the Somali president but because of his failure to maintain order in Mogadishu and for being involved in a slew of financial scandals.

Yusuf’s humiliation represents a larger trend among Somali politicians, whose paths to political power are often strewn with indignities and a predominance of self-interest over concern for their nation.  

At a social gathering in Nairobi attended by former Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Ali Ghedi, among others, Gabre was reported to have criticized an IGAD meeting in Djibouti. He said only Ethiopia cared about Somalia and wanted to help. A former Somali defense minister immediately seconded that statement.  

“Unfortunately,” Gabre added, “many Somalis do not see it that way.”

How Boredom Kills Marriages

A friend recently told me how a group of about two dozen Somali women, recently gathered over food and drink at a funeral in southern California, began discussing marriage in their local community.

The conversation started when one woman asked why so many Somali men return home to Africa and marry younger women when they already have a wife and family in the United States.

One woman, married to a Somali businessman, explained how she had been a loving and devoted wife. When her husband announced he was traveling to Kenya to visit his older sister, she ignored her instincts and believed him. Even though he had not seen his sister for eight years.

When he returned home, he told his wife he had married an old friend. The new wife would never set foot in the United States, where it is illegal to have more than one spouse, he said.

“What good does his assurance do for me? I still have to share my husband with another woman in Africa,” said the woman, according to my friend.

Divorce was not an option for the woman, who did not speak English, because she relied on her husband for financial support.

“As wives,” another woman asked, “are we doing our jobs?”

Subsequent conversation ranged from condemning Somali men for being disloyal and unreliable — “nin abaal ma leh” or “men are ungrateful” — to defending the men and exploring other causes for their departure. Either way, the diagnosis was not good: Marriages are faltering, spouses are neglecting each other, and boredom is setting in.

Somalis are not alone. Some psychologists say boredom is more corrosive to a relationship than tension and conflict.

In a 2009 study, Irene Tsapelas, a social psychology researcher at the State University of New York at Stony brook, and her colleagues followed more than 120 couples who had applied for a marriage license in Wayne County, Michigan. The couples were interviewed about their relationships after seven years and again after 16 years. According to a university press release, couples were asked, “During the past months, how often did you feel that your marriage was in a rut (or getting into a rut), that you do the same thing all the time and rarely get to do exciting things together as a couple?”

The key finding, researchers reported, was boredom with marriage at Year 7 predicted a greater decrease in satisfaction in Year 16. Lack of boredom at Year 7 led to a small decrease in satisfaction later, but it did not lead to increased boredom over the next nine years.

My friend said several of the Somali women attending the funeral admitted that they do not spend enough quality time with their spouses.

“Frankly, we spend so much time taking care of the children and household chores that we rarely pay attention to our men,” said one woman.

Others agreed.

“I watch the TV at night until midnight, long after my husband has gone to bed,” said one woman. “The poor guy has to get up early to go to work while I sleep until late in the morning.”

But another accused Somali men of being unromantic and selfish.

“Intimacy, according to many of our men, is a one-way street,” she said. “As women, we are mostly observers. It is like watching the same bad movie over and over again.”

What is clear is that it takes two. To curb boredom, noted anthropology expert and author Helen Fisher of Rutgers University, suggests three things: Marry the right person, be intimate on a regular basis, and share an activity or hobby together. And do it sooner rather than later.

According to Time magazine study in 2011, it is actually in the third year that couples begin to complain about their partner’s quirks and annoying habits and the compliments flow less often. If newlyweds complement each other an average of three times a week, that number falls to once a week after three years of marriage, the study showed. Thirty percent of those married for five years or more reported receiving no compliments at all.

Loss of intimacy, too, begins to erode a relationship. Couples married fewer than three years have sex an average of three times a week, according to 52% of the Time survey respondents, and only 16% said the same after being married longer than three years.

Daily routine and boredom kill marriages because relationships need constant nourishment. The important thing to remember, however, is that decline or divorce is not inevitable.  

Stony Brook researchers recommended in their conclusions that married couples have a date night, every week, in which they do something together that they have never (or rarely) done before. It should be enjoyable and exciting, according to their report.

“It is not enough for couples to be free of problems and conflicts,” noted one researcher from the Stony Brook study.

The take-home message of this research is that to maintain high level of marital quality over time, couples also need to make their lives together exciting.