by Abdi-Noor Hagi Mohamed
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Behind the smoke billowing in the air I see a school standing empty with a bare soul. Like a ghost in its former soul it just stares in the open with no hope of seeing a child entering its gates. Only dead bodies are littered around. That is the situation of today’s Mogadishu educational sector which once boomed with various schools and learning institutions.
The dismantled infrastructure could be rehabilitated but the damaged souls that had been struck with a cord of cruelty could hardly be repaired, reformed or molded to a better shape. It appears that the future of a nation is dumped in the depths of misery and despondency without showing any remorse to the suffering of the innocent people. From the cup of despair Somalia, a nation wreaked by war and havoc is sipping a mouthful of sorrow.
It has fought a war with itself over the past 16 years but now it seems that the war is degenerating into a full scale regional conflict in the Horn of Africa. The prolonged stay of warlords in the Somali political stage has led the country to be a breeding ground of all sorts of crimes ranging from daylight robbery to killing and kidnapping of citizens and international aid staff.
Instead of punishing them for committing all these atrocities they were organized to fight Islamic clerics who made themselves visible as a political threat to any future secular rule in Somalia. Upon their defeat of the warlords, the clerics established some semblance of order but were later chased away by the TFG and Ethiopian forces. One sad scenario is that a new round of war has begun right after the clerics have been overrun and it seems that peace is still far from reachable at least within the current approach of seeking political solutions. In speaking with war itself, I have to say a few words. Please share this poem with me:
War
You made the land barren
The ponds are awfully dry
There is no fish in the river
The skies don't give hope
Rains are scarce and erratic
Butterflies are not dancing
Even birds are not singing
From lack of love, Love is dying
War
When will you come to an end?
When will you just go away?
When will you leave us in peace?
In waiting you kept peace too long
Peace can't come in unless you go
War
You are as dark as a desert night
Peace is as bright as a lovely day
No matter how tactfully you change colors
War in a peace dress can never fool us
Move over please undear war
If you are an immovable object
Please is a an irresistible force
Abdi-noor Haji Mohamed
Mogadishu, Somalia
[email protected]