August 9, 2008

AACNA meeting in Toronto was a success story. By Omar Ibrahim Hussein

The Annual Meeting of AACNA was held in Toronto on 26th July 2008. The organization is now one year old and was established to morally and materially support the people of Awdal. It was intended to be a humanitarian and a non political body. But one sided politics was not completely absent in the deliberations.

According to the committee’s report, the committee has done wonders in a year as they succeeded to collect around $ 94 thousand dollars…three cheers for the committee. For that reason we begged them to stay one more year but they adamantly refused. Although they flatly refused to serve another term, they emphasized the importance of the incoming committee. That rang a bell in my memory lane. A long time ago now, in an Orientation in Mogadishu, a man addressed another man a ’comrade or chale as everybody was supposed to be addressed. But nobody liked the word at heart. The man got angry and said “your mother is a comrade”, in a harsh tone.

Under the prevailing socialist system that was a crime. The man was swiftly taken to a police station accused of refusing to be a comrade. When he was asked why he refused to be a comrade, he said, “If comrade is good why is he denying that to his mother? I am a comrade, he is a comrade, you are a comrade, his mother is a comrade, we are all comrades; so where is the beef”. If the committee is that good why did they deny that to themselves?

To come back to the Meeting, all were not roses and the way it was conducted was much to be desired. The meeting was meticulously and flawlessly planned ahead of time to achieve desired goals. Nothing was left for a chance. They planned to pass the mantle to a deserving committee that can shoulder the heavy responsibility of collecting funds from the Awdal community. They targeted like minded individuals. Some people cried wolf but to no avail.

It is a fact of life that most of the retiring committee hail from the USA and they certainly carried a little Bushism in their psychic…the pre-emptive strike. We were caught unaware; although both of us wanted a happy ending. The whole episode reminded me of another old story…it was the year 1976 when I worked in the Somali Commercial Bank. A labour committee for the Bank employee was scheduled to be elected on a Tuesday morning at seven o’clock. The labour committee was an important body in the socialist system under which we worked. The motto was ‘let us choose our own labour committee’… a good committee that can effectively and fairly represent the employees of the Bank.

The day of reckoning finally arrived and we collected at the Basket Ball Stadium in Shangani. A higher committee from the labour office came to oversee our elections. But to our great dismay, the National Labour Committee read the names of a committee we have not elected. One had the courage to ask them if the chosen individuals could stand one by one so that we know them from others. We went back to our offices disappointed. We were four in my Department…three men and a lady secretary. The secretary was the only one included in the chosen committee. I asked her if we had elected her that morning and she said, ‘they chose us for you, but we are all comrades and it doesn’t make a difference whether it is me or you”.

Well said, but what about democracy and the right to choose. Does the selection of a good committee supersede the right to choose? I never thought a repeat of that incident will come at this time and in this place. But as our Secretary at the time said, it makes no difference how a committee is chosen as long as we are guided by a common bond… a sincere desire to help our people collectively.