By Bashir Goth
It was a day like any other. A hot and bright summer day in
the Washington D.C metropolitan area as we sat, a group of middle aged Somali
men, in a good Afghani restaurant in Virginia at the invitation of a prominent Somalilander. We chatted like all Somalis do while we were waiting for
the lunch to be served. We were five
from Somaliland, and two from Southern Somalia.
We exchanged hilarious anecdotes and humorous jokes on all issues. There
was no sacrosanct topic in our jokes that covered culture, clans, economy and
society.
But like all Somali conversations, we soon embarked on our
most favorable topic; politics. Politics is the Somalis best past time
conversation. Everything else acts as an appetizer for the hot plate of
politics. No sooner do a group of Somalis sit together; they end up having
animated discussions about politics no matter how and where their conversation
begins.
So after the starter jokes, we turned to real politics,
beginning with the recent talks of Somalia-Somaliland; figuring out the objectives, goals, timings
and predictions about the long term outcome of the dialogue. We discussed
Somalia and its place in the regional and international geopolitics; the
regional and foreign countries scramble for Somali waters and Somalia’s not so
hidden resources as part of the overall rivalry on the Indian Ocean between the
conventional and emerging powers. We
discussed the issues with maturity and pragmatism. We analyzed the internal
challenges exiting in Somaliland and those facing Somalia; we argued about the
prospects of Somaliland remaining as a separate entity and the practical need
to revive the Somali unity in the face of an unabashed foreign greed that is
bent on dismembering Somalia in order to make it easier for them to swallow it
in pieces.
We revisited the recent history of Somalia and wisely
diagnosed the root causes of the Somali tragedy. We didn’t condemn or condone
any party, indeed none of us showed any intransigent positions on any of the
issues we discussed. This is one of the rare times I experienced a group of
diversified Somalis discussing the Somali issue in all its weird trajectories
and complexities with such maturity, flexibility and pragmatism. In fact
anybody who listened to us would have had the impression that we were a group
of like-minded members having a working lunch on a common project.
If this cordial meeting can show anything, it shows that
after being inebriated for more than 20 years in mayhem, chaos, unnecessary
hostility and suspicion, Somalis have sobered up and have realized that
clannism and ghetto mentality will only prolong the suffering of the Somali
people and kept us an easy prey for the hounds waiting to gnash the flesh of
our nation.
We, the small group of professionals, have agreed at our
lunch that our real concern should not be whether to keep the cake intact or
divided but to ensure that we have a cake first. And with this solemn
agreement, the waiter severed us a warm and deliciously looking Afghani cake.
It is noteworthy to mention, however, that the day was 1st
July, the 52nd anniversary of the Independence of Italian Somaliland and its
unification with British Somaliland. I
am not sure whether we had conveniently forgotten it as a topic of contention
that might have spoiled the harmony that prevailed in our meeting or that it
just has slipped our minds as we have been carried away by the hot plate of
politics.
2nd July 2012.