Dear Candidates: Lead, Don't Loot
By Bashir Goth
The Question: The U.S. starts to choose a president this week. If you could send the candidates one message, what would it be?


My message would be simple and clear: Use the great American values of liberty, equality, and human dignity for all that are enshrined in the American Constitution. This is what attracts the world to America. It is the illusion of realizing this dream that appeals to people all over the world and makes America the land of opportunity. America defeated the Communist world not by force but by propagating these ideals through its powerful media, through its corporate culture and its liberal trade.

In Africa, it was the Peace Corps teachers that left the greatest impression on the minds of the generation that grow up in the 1960s and 70s. They not only taught the youth, but they intermingled with them, they learned their culture, some of them even married local people and a number of them became scholars in the cultural areas in which they worked.

America is at its best when it crosses oceans through its corporate power and not through its military hardware; when it sends its fast food chains, its Starbucks, its Hollywood movies and its freedom culture, and not when it sends its cruise missiles, its bombers and its marine fleets. I would like to tell the coming president, take heed of history; all known powers of the world, from the ancient civilizations to 20th century dictatorships, have started to crumple when they relied on military muscle. Force is the choice of the desperate.

Let the civilized, cultured and sophisticated and humane face of America obliterate the brutal, savage and inhumane images that the world has seen in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. There is no doubt that the whole world will follow America if America chooses to be a leader and not a looter.

READ MORE Washington Post

Not Just Pakistan's Problem
By Bashir Goth
Benazir Bhutto was Pakistan’s strongest voice against terrorism and military dictatorship in Pakistan. After her assassination, the country’s fate has been thrown into the unknown.

A look at Benazir’s latest statements gave us a glimpse of just how much of a threat she was to the extremists. She didn’t mince words in stating loudly and clearly her intention of cleansing Pakistan of Islamic extremists and terrorists.

Ann Curry of The Today Show wondered aloud why Bhutto was risking her life by returning to Pakistan. She told the former Prime Minister, “You're a mother of three. You could be living in London fine. You don't have to do this.”

Benazir replied, “Look into the eyes of the people who came to receive me at the airport, the joy, the happiness, the singing, the dancing, before the terrorists struck. They were celebrating my return because they want hope. If I don't come back, the 160 million people of Pakistan won't have hope of a future free from terrorism, a future in which there will be democracy.”


She didn’t hide behind euphemism in her objection to Pakistan falling into the hands of Islamists:

“The militants want an Islamist takeover of Pakistan,” she said in the same interview. “They have to be stopped. I have a choice to keep silent and to allow the extremists to do what they're doing, or have a choice to stand up and say, ‘This is wrong. And I'm going to try to save my country.’ And I have taken the second choice.”

With the national election coming closer and Benazir’s supporters gaining momentum, it is obvious that the extremists and al-Qaeda decided to act. The assassination of Benazir is therefore only a hint of what is at stake for Pakistan and the whole region. The escalation of terrorist activities in other parties of the Muslim world such as Algeria, and the arrest of terrorists preparing to strike Saudi Arabia during the Hajj, are indicative of the audacity and coordinated efforts of Islamic extremist groups.

Read More in Washington Post.

Spare A Moment
By Bashir Goth
Dear Somalis
In the diaspora
Dear sisters
Dear brothers

When celebrating Eid
When sauntering in Christmas
Spare a moment

When showering gifts
On your lucky children
Spare a moment

When you heap them
In new clothes
In Nike shoes
Spare a moment

When admiring their smiles
In peaceful lands
In beautiful parks
Spare a moment

When you spoil them
With happiness
With electronic games
With garnished foods
Spare a moment

When you drive your families
In lush boulevards
Dinning with them
In glamorous eateries
Aimlessly strolling
Aimlessly buying
In designer stores
Spare a moment

For the hungry
For the homeless
For the hopeless mothers
Hugging dead children
Back in Mogadishu
Spare a moment

When your children
Splash ice cream
On the kitchen floor
Spare a moment

When they fret and frown
Over food at home
Crying for deliveries
From fast food outlets
Craving for French fries
For hamburgers
For hefty MacDonalds
When you relent
And render the order
Spare a moment

For mothers in Mogadishu
Hugging and holding
Hungry children
Hollow-eyed babies
Hanging to life
Spare a moment

When you stroll to hotels
To Sunday evening parties
Prim and piffy
Spare a moment

When you toast a drink
And toss down a draft
When you mumble
In mesmerizing music
Spare a moment

For children in Mogadishu
In feeding zones
Spare a moment

For mothers shivering in cold
For elders cursing their age
For the ruins of Mogadishu
Spare a moment

When you ensconce
In comfy sofas
In heated homes
Spare a moment

When you turn on
Your television sets
And swap channels
On sleek screens
Admiring your children
Excited and starry-eyed
Over latest gadgets
Escaping the luxury
The comfort at home
To virtual violence
To horror movies
Spare a moment

For children in Mogadishu
Roasting in real hell
With limbs maimed
Wading through the blood
Of dead parents
Stumbling on decomposing bodies
Of dead siblings
Seeking shelter in squalid cellars
In bullet-riddled, pockmarked caves
In the lap of agonized mothers
Spare a moment

For an orphan nation
Spare a moment
For a country scorched
Spare a moment
Spare a moment
Spare a moment.

December 19,2007
Copyright© 2007 Bashir Goth


READ MORE in Awdalnews, Wardheernews

My Choice: None of the Above
By Bashir Goth
In the face of the resounding chorus for action against global warming, it may be tantamount to self-immolation to say anything negative against the campaign to fight climage change. One may not even dare to raise his voice for fear of becoming a victim to inquisiton by the brigades of climate change cheerleaders.

Despite that, I must risk refusing to follow the herd on the motives and long-term objectives of the global warming campaign. I am not a scientist to disprove the findings of eminent scholars in the field, and indeed that is not my point at all. Instead, my concern is the timing and fervor with which developed nations, particularly European countries, push the agenda of climate change. (Please refer to my previous piece)


Drawing lessons from history and the nuances of international politics, one cannot but question the honesty of the whole issue. Questions that need answers include: Why has fighting climate change and global warming gained momentum while conventional players in the energy sector find themselves in fierce competition with powerful competitors from Russia, China and India? Why was the science community silent when Europe was spewing the greatest amount of CO2 over decades? Why did the conscience of the academia, politicians and drum-beating lobby groups suddenly awaken when oil gushed from every hitherto unsuspected region in Africa, Central Asia and elsewhere? How can one allay the fears and suspicions of oil-producing countries that the motive behind the climate change issue and the robust search for alternative energy is really about a tacit strategy to liberate the developed economies from the stranglehold of the oil-producing countries? Isn’t it reasonable for oil producing countries such OPEC, Russia and others and even emerging commercial powerhouses like China and India to suspect that all that the giant industrial countries want is to regain their traditional lead in technology and world trade?

READ MORE in Washington Post. or Opiniononline

Immigration Reform Means Rethinking Africa
By Bashir Goth
Earlier this week, news reports carried the tragic story of 64 Somali-Ethiopian would-be immigrants who drowned off the coast of Yemen. A UAE paper also reported the story of two teenage Ethiopian boys who were found near starvation in a shipping container in Dubai. The 14- and 15-year-old boys had each paid US$1000, which they saved over five years, to make the trip to Germany; some of their friends had made the journey earlier in a similar condition and are now making a good living there. The boys ran out of food and water in the first day of the trip and had to resort to drinking each other’s urine to survive.

Under normal circumstances, this could be seen as a human tragedy of immense proportions. But since such stories and other even gloomier ones have become daily occurrences, they fail to make headlines – let alone invoke shock and invite empathy.

As one report put it, the seas separating Europe from Africa are being turned into a mass grave of the “unidentified immigrant”: hundreds and thousands of men, women and children perish in an attempt to find a better life abroad.

But instead of looking into the roots of the problem and forging out a common strategy to find a solution, European leaders are panicking and inclining more and more to turning Europe into a fortress. One might remind the Europeans of their scramble for Africa and their 1884 Berlin Conference, during which they divided Africa among various European powers. When Europe today complains about illegal African immigration, they should remember that they robbed a whole continent of everything of value for more than eighty years before they handed over the empty bowl to Africa’s native citizens.

READ MORE In Washington Post/Newsweek

The Internet is proving to be mightier than dictators and terrorists in Somalia
By Bashir Goth
The old adage of the pen being mightier than sword is haunting the regime of Somalia’s Ethiopian-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG). With more than eight radio journalists killed in 2007 and President Abdillahi Yusuf’s regime resorting to draconian rules to silence the free press, it seems that Yusuf and his mentor Meles Zenawi are forgetting that in the 21st century it is the Internet that is mightier than dictators.

Yusuf must know that all his swords, all his guns and all his dictatorial rules will not be able to blunt let alone silence the pen. It is simply against the grain of true journalists to submit to power. With every pressure, with every draconian rule aimed at silencing them, their sense of smell for news will sharpen, and with every drop of blood of a journalist split, their antennas will heighten for seeking the truth.

It is the responsibility of journalists to report the truth on the ground, to tell the world about the innocent Somali women, children and elderly killed by Ethiopian soldiers or by the insurgency. To them a dead person is a life lost. Their duty is not to judge or explain but to show and expose the ugly aftermath of a battle. They count the dead, they seek the human story behind each one; the orphaned children, the bereaving mothers, the plight of the feeble elderly rummaging through the rubble of their destroyed houses to rescue a family picture or a thing of value that could remind them that they once had a family, a property, a life and a dream of a better future for their children.

On the contrary, Yusuf’s regime wants to hide the truth, to bury the dead under the darkness of the night, to portray the destruction and the mayhem in Mogadishu as stories of fiction created by terrorist-friendly media. Yusuf deceives himself by having the power to shut down radio stations and newspapers and descending heavy-handedly on all freedom of speech.

Fortunately, however, Yusuf and his toady advisors forget that we live in the 21st century – the age of the Internet. The era of this level playing and liberating media channel that is mightier than all tyrants. Whenever Yusuf and his lackeys try to silence one newspaper or one radio station in Mogadishu, they have to deal with dozens of their clones surfacing the second day on the Internet, carrying the truth to an even larger audience.

Yusuf has to remember that Somali journalists will continue exposing the truth; they will continue focusing searchlights on what he hides in dark corners. There is no place to hide for you Mr. President. If you close the papers and radio stations in Mogadishu, we have a more powerful tool in the Internet that can convey the truth about your dirty war to the whole world. You can hide from the insurgents behind Ethiopian tanks, but there is no world that can shield you from the long reach of the journalist’s pen. Neither can the so-called insurgents, hide their murderous and barbaric actions behind patriotic names and Islamic cloaks. The Pen will not dodge to expose the atrocities committed by all the perpetrators of heinous crimes against the Somali people, be it Yusuf’s regime, the Ethiopian army or the insurgency militias. Awdalnews Network

Pakistan to America: Keep Out
Bashir Goth
I agree with David Ignatius’ conclusion in his latest column that “…changing Pakistan is a job for Pakistanis, and history suggests that the more we meddle, the more likely we are to get things wrong.” In the Muslim world, it is history that shapes people’s perceptions of political situations. Unlike people in the West, who view emerging political scenarios through prisms of economics and of self-interest, Muslims and Arabs turn to history for explanations of western conspiracy in every situation they face.

The West thinks many of these events lie in the dust of history: the crusades, the loss of Andalusia, European colonial rule, the destruction of the Ottoman Caliphate, the debacle of Palestine, and the willy-nilly interference and changing of Muslim leaders. But these wounds are very much open and hurting in the Muslim world.

This is why when America goes east, Muslims go west. Recent U.S. military ventures into Afghanistan, Iraq, and indirectly into Somalia, and the larger war against terror, are all seen by the majority of the Muslim populace as the continuation of a war to dominate and subjugate the Muslim world.

It is therefore not incidental that President Musharraf of Pakistan, Hamid Karazi of Afghanistan, Al Maliki of Iraq and Abdillahi Yusuf of Somalia all remind their people of the disasters of Western-supported regimes of the past: Iraqi King Faisal and Nuri Said, American-groomed Baathist regimes, and the Shah of Iran.

READ MORE in Washington Post/Newsweek