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A Letter to Somali MPs | Abdiqani Farah

A Letter to Somali MPs

      This is a letter to our Members of Parliament. Greetings and peace! Today I am writing this letter to you based on two things. The first one is about the unmet promises that you made when you took oath in 2004 and early 2009. In these promises, you told us that you could set our war-torn country in a new direction, the True North. But you failed to meet this commitment, and as a result, you became the second toughest problem, after piracy, to our survival as a nation. And the second one has to do with your incompetence and luck of vision.

      All that you display to the public, and to the world, is political nonsense. You became “Idle House” occupants. Put simply, you cost the country more than you contributed. In fact, the worst thing we could hear from you these days is your cry for bodyguards. Indeed, we can put this scenario differently and say that you begged the donors to provide you with salaries and allowances. You did so in the name of Somalia; and without our permission, you successfully received your request. But then, you are demanding one full battalion of NATO forces to come and tether around the Idle House to prevent suicide bombers? In reality, this is unlikely. And by the time you did so you sold out your underwear, let alone dignity. The country is ashamed of you. And on these two accounts, I am going to submit that you will take us into further trouble.

      And as U.S President Barack Obama put it in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Norway, “…and failed states; have increasingly trapped civilians in unending chaos”, the country is trapped by your failures. And the sooner we realize this, the better off the country is. Let me explain this using a hypothesis forged by business people in most industrialized countries. This is the picture in reverse situation.

      They said if you are planning to commence a start-up company, your first source of aid is likely to be venture capitalists, unless you are one of the giant belly-ups (billionaires). But how would you want to seduce these capitalists? No matter how eloquent and seducer you are, these guys would base their assumptions of you and, of course, their decisions to lend you money, on only one principle: your sacrifices. If you put your security savings upfront as capital assets, it is a sure thing that you would fight for penny. The probability is that you showed enduring sacrifices. In other words, these capitalists assume that you are serious if commit a financial suicide. And their sympathetic ear would be under you toe only if you are ready to do so. But at the other extreme, if you seem to enriching yourself in the form of a fat salary and extravagant commission, you are watering down your goal. In this regard, this is your first ticket to failure. In our case, therefore, you took advantage of the volatile situation. You followed deceitful money-decorated signals blindly, and as a result, you lost your direction. And this is my first reason behind this letter.

        By taking your oaths, although it is a slippery phrase, your primary job as parliamentarians was, to your best ability, take guardian of the common good. This was to construct, and of course deconstruct if necessary, the country through the good will during the transition period to pave a way for better Somalia. But you have done the contrary. This is why the venture capitalists (donors) should not be blamed for not taking the risk of supporting a weak government with greedy and money-mongering politicians. You failed to show your seriousness in running this business. And there is no surprise that they might laugh at you when you shed tears for military assistance should emergency assault decreed on you by your opponents.

      Ladies and gentlemen, the danger ahead is so looming and obvious. And the country won’t pass through the collapsing roof unless you do something about it collectively and individually. But what worries me most is that you are ill-prepared to face the uncertainty. And we, as a country, must be cautious, every cautious indeed.

      This is not because our prayers are not answered. But because your political careers look like a chance-oriented game. And since we all know that this kind of game is not based on skills and tactics, the dead end of your journey is real. However, the question that we should ask is this: Would you realize that you are dead ending the road? I doubt it. You are all tossing a coin. And in so doing, ladies and gentlemen, you accepted what we call the “Machiavellian Moment.”  More precisely, your political calculators can hardly tell you the next move lest the government is overthrown by the 21st century pirates. Perhaps you are ready to book your Delta flight back to Diaspora.

      Ladies and gentlemen, we respect your careers, but at the same time, we have to tell you that you are pretty wrong. You are passively following unknown directions. And to do so is to be foolish and to exchange the incompatibility. The sum? A stranded nation in chaos. And if this is true, the French philosopher, Voltaire, may have been right when he said, “I would rather be led by a lion than by thousand rats.” Can we get a lion from within? I guarantee him the followership!

      Yet, you need to face the future boldly. And while at it, you must also understand that the Somali political spectrum has been, and will continue to be, dependent upon tribal consensus and should only be tackled purposefully. And history proves that such a consensus could not be carried out without an accompanying sword to protect the covenant. This is the route Americans took during the struggle of their civil war. The secessionists of the 1860s would not accept the common ground, and they were fought finally under the leadership of twenty-some committed professionals. And by the same token, therefore, it would be hard enough to convince pirates and their brother to leave their self-interest for the common good. They will be an obstacle to any national reforms. Without your awareness the seeds of a fresh civil war were planted. And like it or not, it looks bloody.

      And now on another note, as we are mobilized by chancy politics, Somalis can day-dread about an imminent change. This change, let’s take it for granted, would come true. In fact we can take it for granted because they said that everything else changes; but change never do. The only thing that remains unchanged in face of the world is the change itself. And when it happens, it does so in one of two forms: reforms or revolution. If we assume that reform is unlikely because of your chancy politics, the likelihood is avoidable revolution. This is when the most uncertainty happens. In short, with revolution every single sort of action turns into bloody. And who knows what will happen to your prosperous and recession proof seats in parliament. But one thing that history tells us is that the proletariat will take revenge, should change emerges. For the love of Somalia, therefore, I am having a prayer rally early next month. And I am also asking Ahlusunna-Waljama to join me. 
 

Abdiqani Farah

abdiqanif@hotmail.com

Faafin: SomaliTalk.com //

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