Mona al-Sharmani: Facts or Fiction

Mona al-Sharmani is one of the attorneys who have represented Somalia’s legal case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague, Netherland. Kenya and Somalia are embroiled in a maritime dispute that is currently before the International Court of Justice. 

Mona’s name has gone viral on social media because many Somalis are proud of her and the way she has presented the Somali case. Unfortunately, I have seen many posts on social networks that are inaccurate and misleading. The goal here is to parse facts from fiction.

Who is Mona al-Sharmani?

Mona was born in Somalia in the late 1960s to Mohamed Ali al-Sharmani and Hawo “Sharmaan.” Her father, better known as “Sharmaan” is a product of a Somali Arab (Yemeni) father and Mirifle (Rahanweyn) mother. Hawo, Mona’s mom, is Shiikhaal (father) and Abgaal (mother). Sharmaan is a veteran Somali military officer and a diplomat. He was a classmate and close friend of Mohamed Ali Samatar (former Vice-President, Defense Minister, and Chief of Staff) and Abdalla Mohamed Fadil (a former Somali cabinet member). Sharmaan served as a member of the military tribunal established by Siad Barre’s Somali Revolutionary Council (SRC); he was posted to both Cairo and Moscow as a military attaché in the 1970s, and finally became Somalia’s ambassador to Iran and then Algeria. He is currently retired and living in Phoenix, Arizona.

Mona’s mother and her older brother, Abdulkadir, were also junior diplomats in the Somali embassies of Egypt and Sweden, respectively. Mona’s sister, Mulki, is a professor in Finland and was the main organizer of this summer’s conference of Somali Studies, which was held in Helsinki.

Mona has degrees from Egypt and advanced graduate degrees from Johns Hopkins University and Harvard. She has also worked for a law firm in New York.

Mona and her family care a great deal about Somalia. Although Mona left Somalia as a child and grew up in Egypt, she has always been committed to serving her country and offered her legal services to Somalia’s Permanent Mission at the United Nations. Her father was the main force encouraging her to help her native country, and he has always been proud of her. Mona excelled in her education and is fluent both in Arabic and English.

Several years ago, Mona’s family suffered a tragedy when one of her younger brothers joined the al-Shabaab recruiting ring in Seattle, Washington. He was later killed in Somalia. The loss was devastating to the family, which was caught off guard by the young man’s radicalism and ultimate demise.

In a nutshell, Mona represents what is good about patriotism, national service, and work ethic. She has made a name for herself through her education, extensive legal experience, and service. She is not from a “minority group” as some have said, but rather she is a symbol of an entire country and a nation. She is too big to be pigeonholed to a simple and iniquitous tribal classification.

Finally, Mona is a proud daughter, sister, and aunt. We have only seen the beginnings of what she can do for her native country. There is more to come. Stay tuned.

Umal and Faisal: Clash of the Titans

The Internet is buzzing with talk about a Somali cleric and an American-based highbrow who has riled him.

Two years ago, a public debate, better known in Somali as "Fagaaraha," was held in Minneapolis in which Faisal Roble, a renowned writer and political analyst based in Los Angeles, participated along with another speaker, Mohamed Abdi. This was number 14 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZdw57yBbrI) of that series of debates, which have recently degenerated into political chatter and a sideshow. The guest speakers were asked the following political question: "Do you agree with Somalia implementing Islam?" With unusual candor and utter seriousness, Faisal responded: "No, I do not agree with Somalia being governed by Islamic rule." Abdi followed and agreed with his "friend, Faisal," but added that the American founding fathers had astutely separated church and state and that these leaders "were smarter, more educated, and more experienced than us (Somalis)" when they chose that path. That was, in short, the major excerpt from that infamous debate.

There was no public reaction to the video in 2014 and it was soon forgotten, or so it seemed.

One group, with limited reach but a virulent radical ideology, noticed it immediately and had a quick response. Al-Shabaab's Andalus Radio devoted an entire hour in December 2014 to discussing the incident. The guest on that program was none other than Sheikh Abdulkhadir Mumin, then a religious scholar with the radical group and now the head of Somalia's ISIS branch. Mumin excoriated the two "secular" Somali speakers in the U.S. for their transgression in denying "God's rule" and for imbibing "Western and anti-Islamic ideology."

Then, a few months ago, the video resurfaced, but this time it went viral. Suddenly, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Sheikh Mohamed A. Umal, a popular Somali religious scholar based in Kenya, saw it and immediately responded to what he termed a carefully calibrated attempt by these "two Westernized, American-educated professors to lead the Somali people astray." Umal denounced attempts to keep Muslims in Somalia from implementing Islam and Sharia. He was followed by another cleric based in Puntland who added more fuel to the fire. In short, the cleric in Puntland hectored and lashed out at Faisal and Abdi calling for all Somalis to fight and defend their religion from the duo’s "insidious, secular war against Islam."

Last month, one of the speakers in question, Abdi, released a short video in which he responded to Umal and his colleague in Puntland. The response, unfortunately, failed to impress. Abdi denied being "an enemy of Islam" and Sharia because he is, in his words, an avowed Muslim who "prays five times a day, fasts, and pays Zakat (alms-giving)." His friend, Faisal, a man never shy with his opinions, took the exceedingly rare step of not commenting on Umal's attacks.

Sheikh Umal enjoys immense popularity with many Somalis due to his knowledge of Islam, supple mind, and facility with words. He is considered the public face of Somalia's Salafis and their attempt to pursue a puritanical approach to Islam. He has also been a lightning rod for controversy. In 2015, the Kenyan government put him on a list of individuals allegedly tied to Al-Shabaab and hence banned him and froze his property. The ban was lifted shortly, but with no government explanation. Several years ago, Umal issued a fatwa (a religious edit) in which he said eating the meat of the hyena is permissible. The fatwa flew in the face of Somalis’ beliefs as they have always refrained from eating carnivorous animals. It also generated wide criticism from other Somali religious scholars. Even so, Umal stuck to his guns and never wavered. Interestingly, his fatwa concurred with another issued by Al-Shabaab. In fairness, if there is one thing Faisal Roble and Umal have in common, it is that both have been condemned by Al-Shabaab for being secular (Faisal) and heretic (Umal). Secularism, in the eyes of Al-Shabaab, is tantamount to being an unbeliever.

Faisal Roble is an influential political analyst and former editor-in- chief of Wardheernews. He is also an effective public speaker who is regularly invited to speak on the lecture circuit and at media events in North America. Like any prominent figure, depending on whom you ask, many people admire him and others revile him. Mentioning his name in certain circles can unleash a powerful response. Some of his supporters have lashed out at Umal for his "unfair “condemnation of Faisal. They believe Umal overreacted to the video, thereby creating a problem where none existed. Then, there were other friends who felt the lingering discomfort that comes from seeing their hero commit a major blunder. Faisal's rejection of Sharia implementation was too obvious and emphatic to defend. They bristled with indignation: "Does he really believe that?"

The clash between Faisal and Umal is a manifestation of the rise and emergence of the fatwa machine among clerics, the growing disengagement of some Somali educated class from the majority of Somalis, and the trivialization of debates that fail to address the issues gripping the country.

Umal and his colleagues live in their own cosmos. They have a penchant for issuing fatwas right and left like an assembly line, and that at times gives the impression of an easy way of out of addressing serious problems. He has condemned, among other things, the Somali provisional constitution, holding elections, forming the National Parliament, establishing political parties, credit cards, and most forms of hawala as un-Islamic.  Several years ago, about 22 Somali Salafi clerics met in Nairobi and issued a fatwa calling another Somali Salafi scholar a heretic; see  my article, "Somalia's Salafi Groups and the Fatwa Wars," (Wardheernews, November 21, 2012). Sometimes these fights verge on the bizarre and some clerics have ended up being ”excommunicated" from Islam.

Then there is the growing gap between Somalia’s educated elite in the West and their public calls prescribing "Western values" for Somalia, a conservative Muslim country. In other words, what is good for London or Paris, the argument goes, must be good for Mogadishu. It is noble to borrow what is good from other cultures, but blindly following other countries and imposing their values on Somalia would never work. For example, George W. Bush tried to export "democracy" to Iraq and we all know what happened. Muktar M. Omer has eloquently written about the dilemma faced by "some" (not all, mind you) Somali secularists in dealing with their brethren and their country. In his article, "Hating Abdalla, Loving Johnny: Idiosyncrasies of the Westernized Somalis" (Sahan Journal, June 14, 2015), Omer singled out what he called "a confrontational sect within the larger secular Somali communities—a vocal sect which adores Western values, ideas, and mannerisms and abhors Somali culture and values as practiced by the majority of Somalis." 

The late Egyptian literary figure and former education minister, Dr. Taha Hussein, identified with such a vocal sect when he advocated in his book, The Future of Culture in Egypt, that his country could only progress if it followed not the "East" (a euphemism for Islam and Muslim culture) but the West. "We have to follow the Western civilization," argued Hussein, "in all its manifestations and experiences including its good, bad, and ugly."

Perhaps, one can question the way these public debates are held to discuss the issues ailing Somalia. The debates are sensational and entertaining. Whether to establish Islamic rule in Somalia is a matter worthy of discussion. However, this would require a serious debate that involves people who are knowledgeable of the subject at hand. Neither Faisal nor Abdi have shown any grasp of the vast, complicated topic of Sharia rule. It is a topic that affects Somalia as one militant group is bent on imposing its draconian brand of Sharia.  Does Somalia want the current crop of Islamic groups to rule the country and apply their narrow version of Sharia? The answer is an emphatic no. Applying Sharia, as has been advocated by knowledgeable Islamic thinkers, requires deep commitment and understanding of freedom, liberty, social justice, and the sanctity of human life and dignity. These are values, these scholars argue, that can be found in the Qur'an and hence are embedded in Sharia (broadly conceived). Unfortunately, many see Sharia as merely amputating limbs and stoning criminals.

Either public and exhaustive debates about these political and social issues are held or we adopt the Somali novelist Nuradin Farah's approach. Many years ago, the novelist was invited to speak by the University of San Diego and a local Somali community group. He was asked about Somali youth and an issue of morality. Farah pondered momentarily and then said: "That is an issue you have to ask your religious scholars."  I thought Farah was too smart to walk into a subject full of mines. Or, perhaps, the novelist simply wanted to defer the matter to people who are well versed in the subject. Either way, his response is worth noting.

Facebook and Relationships: Blessing or Curse?

Within recent memory, my then wife got mad at me for something I said. What was I thinking? In truth, I wasn’t thinking. However, what was an infraction in my eyes was a felony in hers. I talked to her, clarified my intention, and apologized profusely. I was still in the doghouse, but slowly I felt I was being forgiven. After a while, I thought the incident was behind us, but that was a premature assessment. In fact, it was wishful thinking.

One day, I found out I was no longer my wife’s friend on FB.  Ladies and gentlemen, I had been quietly and unceremoniously unfriended by none other than my wife.

I was livid and felt jilted, rejected. How could she do something egregious like that? I teetered between being angry and being disappointed.

No, this was not an infraction on her part, I rationalized, but a declaration of war.

Apparently, I found out, she had made her decision before we buried the hatchet. She was, of course, understandably irate when she decided to boot me from her friends list.

I talked to her about the matter, but she smiled and went about her business. One day, I jokingly brought up the issue with her and her female friends and told a story about an unidentified husband who was once unfriended by his own wife. Her friends were not amused: Some had to suppress a chuckle, others simply winced at me. Much to my chagrin, all her friends blamed the man. “What did he do,” they all asked, “for him to be unfriended?”  To them, this poor husband must have done something “bad” and “reprehensible.”

True to her nature, my wife showed magnanimity and offered to “befriend” me again. By then, I had come to the conclusion that it was not a bad idea for us not to be friends on FB. Although I only had less than 2 percent of female friends on FB, my wife had a penchant for gently prodding and quizzing me about them.   Not being the jealous type, she was merely curious about these women.

A bold man

“I love my wife to death,” proclaimed a New York therapist, Ian Kanter, “But I do not need to be her Facebook friend.”

Kanter thought it was better for his marriage not to be friends with his wife on social media. “I didn’t want all the extra information,” he told Public Radio International. “If anything, I wanted less information—I wanted more mystery and more unpredictability.” Any element of mystery is good for the relationship.

In this day and age of digital explosion, married couples have little time for each other. A 2014 Pew Research Center survey found that 25 percent of those polled who are in a long-term relationship complained that their loved ones were “distracted by their mobile phone while they were together.” About 8 percent consistently quarreled over time spent on the Internet.

“Put your devices down,” roared Kanter.

Facebook as a medium can cause rifts in a relationship. Too much use, according to studies, can have adverse effects on a relationship. A recent study published in the Journal of Cyperpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking found a correlation between relationship stability and FB usage. Those who check this medium more than once an hour “experience Facebook-related conflict with their romantic partners.” The problem, according to the study, is that FB use might lead to misunderstanding and jealousy often created by connections with ex-lovers and possible emotional and physical cheating.

A new legal phrase “Facebook divorce” refers to the increasing marital dissolutions that have happened due to information uncovered through the medium. These include, but are not limited to, flirty messages with old flames and exchanging photos which in turn become evidence in court. One British study found that 66 percent of divorce lawyers had cited FB “as the primary source of evidence in a divorce case.”

One American clergy, Reverend Cedric Miller, in New Jersey was so mad at FB that he asked members of his congregation to close their accounts because the social network is “a portal of infidelity.” The cleric was concerned because 20 couples in his congregation had been led astray by the use of FB.   The medium alleged the cleric, facilitated spouses to re-connect with ex-lovers, which in turn led to bitterness and undue strain in their marriage.

“Readily available communication on Facebook,” says John Grohol—the CEO and founder of Psych Central—“leads people to pursue temptation or engage in risky behavior.” He added, in an interview with The Huffington Post, “Facebook makes it easy to engage in less inhabited communication—which can lead to taking risks we wouldn’t ordinarily take in our everyday life.”

A word of caution

A few guidelines will help you protect yourself when using Facebook:

1.      Be careful of what you post for your friends. Not every friend on FB, it is said, is a true friend. The word ‘friend” has unfortunately lost its meaning in today’s social media. Your ‘friends’ may post damaging information about you and there is little you can do about it.

2.      In case you have forgotten, whatever you post—and its contents— belongs to FB.

3.      Your postings can be used against you in a court of law. I have seen a California prosecutor   present, as evidence, 45,000 pages of FB postings allegedly used by gang members.

4.      Employers have been mining FB for information to weed out job applicants or keep tabs on their employees. One woman called in sick one day and took her children to the zoo. Her husband inadvertently posted pictures of the family standing in front of the elephant house to her FB account. To say the woman was miffed is an understatement.

5.      Facebook can be helpful in connecting with family and friends. It is also a source of valuable information. It is, however, how you use it that can adversely affect your relationship. You do not want to keep checking your FB account more than you check on your life partner.  As one wise person once said, “Couples that fail to make one another the centerpiece of their life are straddling the red zone.”

 (Courtesy: Sahan Journal, August 22, 2016). 

Buri Hamza: An Obituary

Honorable Buri Mohamed Hamza, a Somali parliamentarian and junior minister, was killed in the recent hotel bombing in Mogadishu by Al-Shabaab ten days ago.

Buri, who hailed from the coastal town of Baraawe, was an intellectual, a political activist, and an avowed environmentalist. He always saw politics as a way of serving his people.

I was 18 when I first met Buri in Cairo, Egypt. He was then a graduate student on break from Tunisia with full scholarship from the Arab League. What amazed me was his great mental capacity, razor-sharp humor, and fervent passion for politics. He and his colleague, Yusuf, a northerner, were fun to be with. Yusuf especially had a knack for constantly joking about the cultural clashes between southerners and northerners. It was interesting that Buri, who was studying science—probably Chemistry—had such penchant for politics.

Buri left his adopted country—Canada—during the first Somali Transitional Government as a major advisor for then Prime Minister Ali Khalif Galeyr. As a protégé of the premier, he became exposed to the day-to-day political intrigue of running the first Somali transitional government after the collapse of Siad Barre’s regime in 1991. It was dysfunctional and rife with constant jostling for power and backstabbing between President Abdiqassim Salad and PM Galeyr until it finally led to a tangible constrain between the two officials. Galeyr was dismissed and Buri returned to Toronto.

He became bored with the mundane life in Canada and found himself in Mogadishu. He became a parliamentarian and successfully held ministerial positions in the Foreign Ministry, Environment, and the Office of the Prime Minister.

Buri is best remembered for being committed to preserving the environment. He wrote extensively about the danger of foreign countries dumping chemicals in the country’s shorelines and the baneful effect of cutting trees for charcoal and exporting them. He had officially represented his country important international conferences on the environment.

I last saw Buri in Europe in 2012 in an international conference on Somalia. It was a chance encounter at the cafeteria during lunch. He was accompanied by Ambassador Mohamed Sharif, a veteran diplomat who, like Buri, also hailed from Barawe. Buri was then working as an advisor to Sharif Hassan, then the Speaker of Parliament. Always jovial, enthusiastic, and full of energy, Buri sensed that I was a bit bewildered with his employment with the Speaker, a man full of indiscretions. “Did Buri know that his job came with a collateral damage? Was it a tragic lapse of judgment on Buri’s part? Was the Speaker dragging him to the wrong path,” I wondered. Buri was perfectly aware of my critical position of the Speaker.

Buri, a smirk flickering across his face, asked me if I knew whom he was working for.  

“Oh, yes,” I responded, smiling.

Despite his subtle jab at his boss, Buri was not the one to be dissuaded from his objective of seeing Somalia end transitional governments. Paradoxically, that job, which many of his friends gasp, came into an inauspicious end. A new government was formed in 2012 to end transition, the Speaker lost his job, and Buri retained his parliamentary seat.

Buri cared about his country and its political welfare. One things that stands out about Buri is: He led a life devoid of tribalism. He got along with many people; educated, politicians, activists, and laypersons. May God Bless him.

Grandma: Talk to Me

My almost 90-year-old “Ayeeyo” (Grandma) passed away in the early 1980s.

I last saw her during a visit to Mogadishu from the U.S. while on a break from college. She was then living in Mogadishu with my mother after spending seven decades in Qardho in the northeast region. It was a golden opportunity for me to spend time with her and talk to her as I had never been in that part of the country. Most of my questions were short, brisk, and pointed. After two dozen intermittent questions, she finally implored me to stop “bugging her.” Unfortunately, she was feeble and unable to stand and spent all her time sitting in her room.

I was curious how grandma—who hailed from Las Anod (a province in Sool)—ended up in Qardho and Bossasso. It is where she had married and bore three children.

Ayeeyo had separated from her family when she was 15 during the violent battles between the British colonial forces in the north and Sayyid Mohamed’s Dervish fighters. She got lost after the Dervishes routed civilians in her area, resulting in innocent people being killed, robbed, or uprooted.  It is not clear what had happened to Ayeeyo’s parents and siblings.

When I asked my grandmother if she had tried to return to her birthplace and looked for the family, she curtly responded, “No,” and then deftly changed the topic. She mentioned the names of her brothers whom she had not seen since that fateful incident. I know in wars families get separated, but I had a sense that she was never reunited with her family. Carefully, I broached the subject of her relationship with her family before the separation. Was she forced into a marriage? Did she have any conflict with them? Were there other mitigating factors in play that can shed some light on her flight? What kind of work did she do? How was life then for a single working mother in the northeast in the 1920s and 1930s? What was it like living during the time of Sayyid Mohamed’s independence war against the British? I also wanted to know more about my mom, her childhood and teen years, and about my aunt, Hadiyo, and my uncle, Abdi Gurey. Most of the time, I got a withering stare from grandma. She was selective in the questions she answered. One thing was clear: My grandma’s marriage to my grandpa was her first marriage, a possibility she may not have been forced into marriage.

After speaking with grandma, my regret was that I did not have an opportunity to meet her earlier in her life when she was a bit younger and healthier. I was curious of her life from childhood until her retirement. Grandma was a woman of ceaseless energy, a hard worker who had engaged in small business of buying and selling food and clothes. She maintained a steely calm, spoke in a soft, rather delicate voice, and rarely ventured an opinion of her. She had both grace and beauty and everything about her seemed impressive.

My mother, unfortunately, was more reticent talking about her childhood than my grandmother. It was simply something people then needed not to talk about. Interestingly, their silence did not indicate any disturbing secrets buried in their past. Simply, to them, there were more important things in life other than talking about mundane issues such as childhood.

For young Somalis, it is an important lesson for you to engage with your parents and grandparents. Talk to them and ask them about their lives. They might surprise you on how much interesting their early lives had been. It is also a way of connecting generations. I have been talking to an elderly Somali woman, 79, who has seven children, 42 grandchildren, and nine great grandchildren. “None of my grandchildren call me to chat with me,” she lamented. Born in Hargeisa, this woman has seen a lot; from the time of the British in the north, the pursuit of independence, the civilian government in the 1960s, Siad Barre’s coup, the Somali-Ethiopian war in 1977, the killings and upheaval in the north, the collapse of the Barre regime, the civil war, life in Kenya as a refugee, and finally settling in California. I have found her stories intriguing and captivating. Unfortunately, many of her relatives, especially the young ones, are unlikely to hear these fascinating narratives.  

An Interview with MP Mariam Arif Ghassim

Background: Mariam Arif Ghassim is the Chair of the Constitutional Oversight and Review Committee in the Federal Parliament of Somalia. An attorney by training, she spent close to two decades in Mogadishu after the collapse of Siad Barre’s regime. She has a keen eye for all things “Mogadishu”: from the daily life and struggles of Mogadishu to the thorny to the intricate details of the constitution and the political landscape. She weighs her words carefully, but is not afraid to express her views even if they are not popular. In this conversation, MP Ghassim answers some of the political questions gripping the country.

1.      What is the status of the constitutional review? Any progresses and challenges?

§  We are almost done. The constitutional review process is at its end. The working team is composed of two sister constitutional committees which have different mandates although toward the same result. We are the Constitutional Oversight and Review Committee of the Federal Parliament and this body consists of ten legislative members. The Independent Commission for Review and Implementation of the Constitution is composed of five respected intellectuals. We have already completed the review of ten chapters of the constitution and the remaining five chapters will be finalized within the next month before the constitutional conference of Garowe. We are not replacing old chapters with new ones, but offering different options so that the national leaders, the legislators, and the people of Somalia have the chance to choose the best alternatives for Somalia’s future.

2.      As a country, are we better off today than we were four years ago?

§  In 2012, Somalia was just recovering from a devastating war. Signs of destruction and chaos were evident in every place, especially in Mogadishu, the capital.  People were exhausted, scared and extremely traumatized.  The 2012 election happened miraculously and without any major incidents. Nobody believed that everything would work so perfectly, thanks first to Allah and next to President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and Prime Minister Abdiweli Gass’ leadership.  Naturally, the country is now more organized than before with functioning regional states. The general environment is more peaceful and better than four years ago.  This year, the election of the MPs will not be concentrated in Mogadishu. A good part of the electoral process load will be moved to the regional states of Somalia.

3.      How do you foresee the political climate this coming summer?

§  I think the political climate will definitely be more difficult, but certainly more democratic. In the past, the parliamentary member was selected by one, or at best, two traditional elders.  This summer, the elders will only have the power to endorse the name of the elected legislator. Fifty electors from every sub-clan are expected to vote for their preferred candidate and choose the best; instead of the old system of the iron grip and dominance of a limited number of clan leaders.

4.      What has the parliament accomplished so far and has it failed?

§  The parliament of Somalia accomplished a lot during the current mandate.  First of all, after almost twenty five years of lack of documentation and record keeping, an institutional memory with organized parliamentary records have been implemented thanks to Chairman Mohamed Sheikh Osman Jawaari. We passed more than thirty laws and international agreements. We finalized the constitutional review process. We conceded confidence vote to three governments.  We solved the political impasse between two prime ministers and the president.  The most important achievement of the current parliament is the fact we kept the three main institutions of the state together honorably.  The last and most significant task of the current parliament is to legalize the agreed upon election formula which, of course, contradicts with Article 64 of the Transitional Constitution of Somalia.

5.      As a parliamentarian leader, are you optimistic about the future or cautious?

§   I am, by nature, optimistic. The worst part of Somali history is at its end. Enough is enough and a quarter of a century is a long time.  We need to unite all our forces and intellect toward a better Somalia. A president or a prime minister is unable to change the country alone. Let us all work to create a better national state, regional state, region, district and village for the benefit of our people.  I am sure that united, we can change Somalia and divided, we will gradually lose our identity as well as our country.

6.      Some legislators have lost their lives in the hands of Al-Shabaab. How safe is Mogadishu in general and for parliamentarians in particular?

§  Yes, it was sad that we lost a good number of valuable and esteemed colleagues, may Allah shower on them his mercy. We all mourned for their premature loss and no member of the parliament feels safe enough to enjoy life. Al Shabaab is one of the civil war phenomena, but after all, they are also our children. They are the typical children of war who were misled and confused by the adult behavior of violence and hostility. Time will help them heal from the deep scars of war. Many of them faced scary, unbearable childhood experiences. The war trauma negatively changed their natural childhood innocence and good behavior. At the political level, it is important to understand their deepest emotions as well as their internal plea for help in an environment of indifference and insensitivity. A special program, at the federal level, should be organized in order to save the minors and teenage groups.

7.      How has the role of the international community evolved in the last few years?

§  I was in Somalia for more than two thirds of the last twenty five years of anarchy and stateless. My impression is that the international community has not had a positive common agenda about the Somalia crisis. They are mostly in disagreement about how to behave and solve Somalia’s endless political and economic problems. It seems to me that instead of helping Somalia, they are individually protecting their conflicting interests and national agendas, not by bringing the Somali people together, but by dividing them further.  Despite its continuous economic assistance, the international community is rather searching the solution of Somalia’s problem—not from inside but instead—outside the country. 

(This interview was conducted for Wardheernews on May 7, 2016).

Relationships in Flux (Part 6): Somali Stories

This is the last part of a series of true stories of Somalis living in the U.S. and their relationships. The series is part of the author’s forthcoming book, “Courtship and Marriage: The Somali Experience in America.” I have interviewed three dozen people, whose names and locations have been changed for privacy reasons. I will let each tell his or her own story.

Honey: I am done

My dear husband,

Our eight-year marriage has been what Somalis call, “macaan iyo qaraar” (sweet and sour). We have had love, memorable friendship and companionship. We joked a lot, teased each other, and participated in fun gatherings with relatives. Our love for each other was mostly on display for many to see.  

Unfortunately, we have also had our moments of sadness and discord. We fought many times constantly, even in front of the children. We slept in separate rooms, and intentionally undermined each other. At times, we ignored each other through emails, phone calls, and text messages. Out of arrogance — and perhaps stupidity, too — we failed to seek counseling because you viewed it as a futile exercise.  Recently, we reached a point at which we stopped spending time together. You spend more time with your friends at Starbucks wasting time on political chatter. Oddly, it has been a long time since we went out for coffee or dinner together. When I ask you to come with me, your usual response is, “No, I do not want to go, but bring me some food.”   

The crux of this letter is that I am leaving you effective immediately. I have had enough of you and your antics and I believe you feel the same. Simply put, I do not want to spend the rest of my life in a relationship where I have to constantly beg for love, attention, and friendship. I do not even consider you as my best friend anymore. I want a husband who is willing to work with me to improve our relationship and make it stronger and better. I want someone who is not opposed to seeking professional help when there is a need, and who is committed to making his spouse a top priority. I want a man who is motivated (alas, you don’t even have a job) and takes care of his weight, health, and well-being. I expect from him what he expects from me: Being a loving, engaging, supportive, and loyal spouse. In essence, marriage should be a two-way street. Frankly, I am not going to miss your “low energy”, lack of family involvement, and your tendency to always act as the wronged one. You expect me to respect you when you do not even respect yourself. Look at yourself: you’ve become “wax ma tare” (a loser). Act like a man and be a provider. The government is supporting your family!

I have realized, after much deliberation that you and I are not a match for each other. In fact, I have married a man in turmoil, who has abdicated his family responsibilities and constantly talks about becoming a politician in Mogadishu. I have become a mother and a father for our children. Please go to Somalia and build your political career there while I raise our children here. In other words, you’re no use to us. Let us gracefully go our separate ways. I am sure I do not want to see you again. As Taylor Swift once sang, “We are never, ever, ever, ever getting back together.” I would rather be single than sorrowful.

(Reprinted with permission from Sahan Journal, 02-14-2016).