It is with a sense of sadness and rage that I write this
piece. It is sad and outrageous that we have lost Mowlid
Macaane, MP, Faysal Haji Elmi, Said Mugambe, Mohamed
I.Yabarow(Wiish), dedicated men of service and peace to the
actions of members of a murderous homegrown, foreign
inspired and foreign imposed Al-qaida outfit, that now must
be understood clearly seeks a macabre thrill in the snuffing
out of innocent lives. It is also tragic that the Alshabab,
an out and out national and international outlaw group is
still coating its rhetoric in Islamic theological
justifications when all its actions are anti-life,
anti-peace and hence anti-Islam. The latter could only
happen because we failed to brand it as an international
criminal anarchist organization, no different if not worse
than the Mafia, international drug cartels or pirates who
are all enemies of humanity.
I had met MP Mowliid Macaane as soon as I joined the TFG
last July. Abukar Osman Balle, former chief of staff to PM
Farmajo informed me that like him and I, Mowlid was also
from Jowhar, a fact that piqued my interest. We met a few
times and on those rare occasions we met in Mogadishu, he
had one topic that he wanted to register in my mind: that
the 4.5 formula is inherently unfair and also racist. Mowlid
belonged to the Jareer (Bantu) clan that straddle along the
banks of the two rivers, Shabelle and Juba; yet the MP
always referred to his clan as Jareer Weyne (Greater Jareer
clan) to emphasize the fact that his clan was not actually a
minority, numerically speaking, and the fact that the status
quo with respect to the place of his community in Somali
society was no longer tenable and some change needed to be
made for the better. He did have a point. The Jareer
community has had its full share of civil strife and
violence within the calumny that befell the Somali public in
the last 20 years; but it also bore the brunt of the civil
war, more than any other group, as unarmed group that has
historically been discriminated and denigrated as less than
second class citizens. Yet on the 4.5 power sharing formula,
the Jareer Weyne and all the other constituent communities
within the so-called point-five clan or "other", the numbers
game does not add up. In the absence of any census clearly
mapping out clan demography, a good guestimate would be that
the cumulative population of the constituent communities
within the point-five clan may well be bigger than the main
charter clans, individually or separately taken. He also had
a knack for cleverly delivering his political messages with
a nod to dramaturgy. I was told that he once stood up in
parliament and asked the rhetorical question as to whether
people see in him standing as a full man or a half a man or
point five man!. True to his human rights defender form: RIP
Faysal Haji Elmi, may Allah bless his soul, despite our age
difference, was a close friend of mine. I had met him in
June 2011 at the home of MP, Khadija Mohamed Dirie, another
Jowhar hometown buddy and a fierce gender equity activist.
Almost instantly we connected and it turned out I already
knew many of his siblings, such as Asha, Amina and Faahim.
After I joined the TFG, Faysal began work at the office of
the PM Abdiwali as a community outreach director but he also
closely worked with me and my Ministry because he cared
about reconciliation and communal understanding. He spoke,
breathed and dreamt about peace and he had such exuberance
for life and unlimited capacity for accommodating people and
building bridges. Moreover, Faysal had friends all over and
made new friends by the day and if you knew him you would,
as I have, become part of a vast network of great people
from all clans and communities. When I heard the news last
night, I literally cried and then reflected on why we are
killing off our best, our most dedicated people to the cause
of life and peace; why Faysal who preached peace.RIP
Of the remaining martyrs Said Mungambe and Wiish, I had only
known Said Mungambe. Yet both of them were sports icons who
also contributed to sports development in the service of
peace during the civil war. If you were connected and had
your ears close to the ground, you would realize that the
deceased pair organized one sports event or tournament,
training etc after another and together they were fixtures
in a field that has become an orphan as a result of the
statelessness and lack of governance structures during the
civil war. The two of them fit the bill of the Somali sports
community where you will find the greatest pool of peace
mongers, more than any other segment in our community.
I have come to know Said Mungambe through his brother Ali
Biit, a friend since my teen years. I last ran into him at a
restaurant in Mogadishu about three weeks ago and after we
exchanged pleasantries and greetings, Mungambe and I began
to talk about an issue we discussed before: peace themed
sports tournaments throughout Somalia, and then we parted
and promised to reconnect. I hope others within the sports
community would take up on that promise and hope. RIP
As I attended the funeral of Mowlid and Faysal today, I made
a mental note of a surge of hope because I could tell among
the people attending the funeral a sense of outrage and
disgust with the perpetrators of these heinous crimes. I
also could not help but remember Redemption Songs: "How long
Shall they Kill Our Prophets................."
I conclude by extending my heartfelt condolences to the
families and friends of the deceased martyrs and pray that
Allah bestow them with patience and forbearance. Amen!
_________________
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contained in this article are solely those of the writer, and it does not represent the
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