July 23, 2008

Hargeisa Recent Brouhaha Spotlights Resentment!

Let me put one thing in to perspective: President Rayal is NOT Awdal or Selsel and neither Awdal nor Selsel is ONLY President Rayale. Any grudge or discontent, if any with President Rayal should not be associated with Awdal and Selsel. Both regions host a number of clans with Samaroun Clan in majority. Somaliland entity is a conglobation of clans including clans in these regions.

Recent Southern Hargeisa brouhaha against SL government giving an equal access for development programs to other regions is “really” puerile. Our government’s decision to relocate the water-well rig to Gabiley and not to Awdal as later proven, short-circuited Southern Hargeisa county residence to broach resentment to Awdal and Selsel, reflecting a stealth central communal corporate concept about Awdal and Selsel as the sole beneficiaries from Mr. Rayale’s presidency.

While victory in resentment is never certain, the odds are strongly with the resented – provided he does the right thing. That is to stand up for his rights through its members in the government facets, be it either MPs or ministries. It is time for these regions to recognize it’s a whole new ballgame this time. It is incumbent upon both regions to wake up from their trance and react within the confines of the treaty they signed with the other clans in Somaliland. If not it will be a measure of their weakness in a time that talks louder receives the attention.

The blunt fact is this. In SL, resources and power sharing is the target for competition. And Hargeisa, master of all, behaving much the same like Mogadishu in the hay days of Somalia, is becoming dreadful to all other SL regions. Now is the exact time for these regions and others to continue the pressure for equal access to our meager resources and developmental programs. It need not however require violence and uprising. But it will require considerable resolve for their renegotiations in the distribution.

Our Elders are the pillars for our unity, resources for wisdom, home of fair judgment to any resolution on issues while marching towards full democracy, and remedy to any political mishaps by our greedy politicians. We all have high regard of each and every one of them. In the same token we expect from our elder actions that conjure up our cultural and social ethics. We beg them to stop playing footsie with Rubble-rousers and clan chauvinists whenever the ball rolls to the other side. They must be more awake to the impact of what they say and whom they talk to. Most importantly avoid inducing clan sentiment in the growing minds of our society, our youth.

Unfortunately elders in Southern Hargeisa County, before they even ask our government for any explanation about the rig relocation, their offensive epithets and invectives directed to Awdal are narrated in the SL news media. Some of them even went into a length of threatening the peace and the existence of the country unless their desire is met while others aired via BBC waves their reason of staging such demonstration has to do more about the location the rig intended to (Awdal - later proven false) than it is about the rig movement itself in saying,” La nooma sheegin in Gabiley lageynayo riiga”.

I wonder though if our country’s peace and existence is accredited only to the fulfillment of ONE sub clan’s desire and I wonder if giving Awdal and Selsel access to government development projects is an alien concept. If so, then the predicament of Somalilanders desire for independence would be on shaky grounds and recognition aspirations as ephemeral fancy as Somaliland enemy “risibly” argued.

Though the government’s decision to relocate the Rig was as unseasonably as it might have been, the lack of cool heads of our elders to react against while applying in a nuanced and legal way was the impetus behind all the brouhaha. Hargeisa Southern County clan were said to be feeling left out of the recent government announcement of tribal enclaves that would have stoked, nerved and kindled resentment to Awdal and Selsel as though these regions are the culprits of it.

The throng of youth demonstrated in Hargeisa streets during the Rig saga was largely to blame for mistakes in judgment committed by our Hargeisa Southern elders and the lack of our government’s forthcoming with reason for its action in advance to shrug off any ambiguity and not to give leeway for exploitation by clan chauvinists and rubble rousers.

Some said it’s a tribute to our society that even amid our strive for independence and recognition we are not yet capable of seeing the dark forces working hard to dismantle our clan cohesion and unity for better Somaliland. Some of us are still entertaining even the same presumption of us against them of pre-Somaliland in now situation when cohesion, unity and mutuality avails to attain our better Somaliland.
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Needless to say, I want to remind our Southern Hargeisa elders that because of you (as our elders) you owe us our country’s peace and unity. We respect you. But your immediate drafting for conclusions without being prudent on details and judgment about issues could roil clan relations and propel our demise. It should not be hard to see resentment to Awdal and Selsel is not always the solution for any clans’ grievances with President Rayal’s government. Awdal and Selsel have no firm tentacles in president Rayal government’s inner workings as you do. Both regions should not be treated as pariah. They both are part and parcel of Somaliland with equal rights as any other SL region.

May Allah bless Somaliland