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she told me a story and when i heard it my mood swiftly changed from sadness to rage.
she told me of a woman who crossed the mountains that seperate syria from turkey, the border between hope and despair. the woman, along with her two sons, fell off a cliff and died. if not instantly, then probably attacked and consumed by wild animals. no one, not a single soul in the group of refugees that traveled with her, looked back to see whether they could help her. all afraid of the borderguards they hunched their backs, did their prayers, to whatever God or gods they believed in, and continued with their journey to the West.
i cried when she told me. not only because three innocent human beings fell prey to the cruelty and inhumanity of our world, but also because this was not a unique tragedy, it is awefully common among people who seek the fruits of the western hemisphere.
they die crossing mountains.
they die of dehydration while crossing deserts.
they die while crossing oceans in fragile boats.
they die by the bullets from guards guarding their lands from these hords of starving and hopeless, barely, human beings.
then i got angry. very angry. i got angry at the people the young man traveled with, how could they have not reacted?
and her husband, who sent her away to danger in the pursuit of happiness, how thoughtless of him, did he not know the dangers, of course he did, how many BBCsomali reports are there on these incidents, plenty!
but in reality, the single soul that i got most angry with was myself.
i sat comfortably in my polstered leather chair, sipping some somali chai and heard, but refused to understand, the story.
i simply did not understand the audacity of hope.
Behold the dilemma:
Al-Shabab is a super-über-islamo-military-movement that believe that Somalia will not, cannot, be ruled by anything other than the Shari’ah.
The government, the transitional government (apparently transitional is a word that must be incorporated in all post-war governments. As to predestine the current government’s inevitable failure and raise expectations for the next transitional government) is currently led by a sheikhy-looking guy who shaved his beard to look symphatetic towards his Western sponsors.
Now, the super-über-islamo-military-movement want Shari’ah, although they refuse to explain what sort of Shari’ah they want, and will wage war until that mission is accomplished. The sheikhy-looking guy gained support because he was sheikhy-looking, and if he does an un-sheikhy thing, like say, claim that he will not enforce Shar’iah in Somalia, then he will appear spineless and lose his support amongst his kind, the sheikhy people. If he says he will enforce Shari’ah, his western sponsors will back out, and probably wage war against Somalia for harbouring terrorist thoughts and activities.
In conclusion, wake me up when September ends.
they told her a war had broken out.
they told her to flee.
the first thing she did was to dig a hole and hide her precious tea set.
I do not do a fraction of what the Sahabas used to do,
still, they were more afraid of the grave than I.
What does that say about me?
Omar Rodriguez (the Mars Volta):
“When you lead a life of bullshit, the only left to do is look to others and start writing and talking about what they do. To use a very archaic and sexist term, it’s something one would call a sewing circle, like old ladies get together and have sewing circles.
That’s because the way the structures of the society where man goes to work and women stays there and doesn’t have a life, so what can they do…”
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I was shocked. I was perplexed. I was bewildered to say the least!
There are, I mean there is such thing as a somali pirate?
For those of you who are more à jour than me, please don’t laugh of my naiveness, as for those who are just as stunned, these pirates apparently hijacked a french luxury yacht (luckily there were no passengers, apart from the staff) and this is not the first time! They hijacked a cruiseship with passengers back in ‘05. What the heck. It’s not enough to cause havoc on shore, you got to kill and plunder at sea aswell?
Anyway, the infamous pirates have been dealt with. The cartoonist Amin Amir has made a killercartoon over the incident, and many alike, check them out.
Where is the fine line between patriotism and racism. Is it even a line, perhaps it’s a gray swamp inbetween, a diffuse land owned by none? Sometimes the -isms surprise me. It is incredibly easy to cross one -ism and move into another. Normally, a shift of -ism also leads to a change in lifestyle. From conservatism to liberalism, moderatism to radicalism, patriotism to racism.
I see, in the Somali communities around me, Somalis leaving the patriotist-wagon and slowly, almost soundlessly, moving into the racist-cave.
“Free Somalia from oppressers!”- Immediately changes to – “Fuck Ethiopia, may the tigray burn in hell!”
Infact, around here, things have taken a horrible turn. A couple of weeks ago a group of women went to the local masjid. They brought with them a young, ill, girl. Coincidentally, the women were of the same tribe as the current president of Somalia. The women asked the people, especially the shuyukh, whether they could recite Qur’aan on the sick girl.
“We do not recite Qur’aan on Tigray”
Just because a fellow tribesman cooperates with the Ethiopian army. What if the woman had been a tigray, would they have turned down, first and foremost, a muslim in need?
It is the end of the world, especially when the masjid turns racist.
O mankind! If you are in doubt about the Resurrection, then verily! We have created you (i.e. Adam) from dust
then from a Nutfah (mixed drops of male and female sexual discharge i.e. offspring of Adam)
…then from a clot (a piece of thick coagulated blood)
……then from a little lump of flesh,— some formed and some unformed (as in the case of miscarriage)
(…) And We cause whom We will to remain in the wombs for an appointed term
then We bring you out as infants
…then (give you growth) that you may reach your age of full strength
…And among you there is he who dies (young)
….and among you there is he who is brought back to the miserable old age, so that he knows nothing after having known
And you see the earth barren
….but when We send down water (rain) on it, it is stirred (to life)
….it swells and puts forth every lovely kind (of growth)
