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I would not be able to forgive myself if I don’t scribble a few lines about Dr. Abdirahman Beileh’s Dialogue with the Somali Flag (WardheerNews.com, December 08, 2007). I have known Dr. Beileh as a colleague and a friend for the past twenty years. There were many times during those two decades when we exchanged views on the plight of our people and wondered what we could possibly do to contribute to the salvation of our country. We were both development agents at the service of an international institution (the African Development Bank) primarily established for the economic and social development of the African Continent. We used to wonder the irony of it all. On the one hand, we lacked neither the will nor the desire to serve our country within the regulatory limitations imposed by our status as international civil servants. On the other, the rampant corruption and the worsening governance situation back home widened the credibility gap between ourselves and the institutions there that we decided not to give any advice or guidance to their management staff whenever they visited the Bank’s Headquarters in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. Dr. Beileh’s poem does justice to his preoccupation with his country’s destiny but also reflects his undying hobby of composing poems and collecting the works of well known Somali poets and writers. To me it brings closer to home a long lost day; the day when the blue flag was hoisted for the first time on Somali soil on October 12, 1954. I was just a kid then, but although I did not have the necessary maturity to understand what the flag really was about, I was equipped with the kids view of the world as black or white, and of people and things as good or bad and I therefore decided that the flag was a good thing to have. The young of those days had role models in their elders who inspired them. We lived for an ideal. We were told time and again that we are the leaders of tomorrow, that we are all Somalis, that we are equal and that we should acquire as much knowledge as we can to prepare ourselves for the task of nation building. From that October day fifty plus years ago, the blue flag is a rallying ground for millions of Somalis in their moments of patriotic fervor and joy. If, however, some see the flag not dancing to the wind as it used to, it is because its needs have not been taken care of properly. Just as human beings and animals are kept alive and active by food, so is the flag in need of nutrients of its own: institutions which sustain it and people who respect it. We must admit that these ingredients have been in short supply in the Somali society in recent years. There are those who would perhaps describe the Somali flag as a “blue Rag” in the style of Bernard Landry, the former separatist Premier of the Canadian Province of Quebec who called the Canadian flag a “Chiffon Rouge” (1) and there are those who would commit the ultimate sacrilege of burning it as did some irresponsible elements in Burao and Hargeisa some time ago. We Somalis have differences that seem intractable, but burning the flag is not an option, for it negates our past history, belittles the sacrifices of tens of thousands of our sons and daughters who paid the ultimate price in its defense and offends millions of Somalis who are still alive.The unenviable status of the blue flag which Dr. Beileh so eloquently described reflects the unflattering general comments that we expatriate Somalis have been hearing ever since the early1990s. I remember one particular comment which left a bitter taste in my mouth. Some ten years ago, a group of African Development Bank staff members, including myself, were having a casual conversation on development challenges facing Africa. The issue number one that absorbed most of our attention was governance. We reached a consensus that the prerequisites for a minimum degree of economic and social development were: (a) the existence of a government; and (b) such a government should derive its mandate to govern from the people through a free and fair electoral process. At that point, one of the participants in the casual conversation said “but the Somalis have challenged the classical definition of governance by proving that people can survive without a government and even undertake some development activities. “In fact”, he continued, “I consider that an original contribution of the Somalis to the concept of governance”. I detected a sarcastic undertone in his remark. To conceal my wounded pride, I sought solace in bravado by saying that our people have always shown resilience and initiative at times of adversity. I uttered those words unconvincingly as a defensive reaction to my colleague’s remarks at the time. Events have proven since, however, that I wasn’t totally wrong. Incidentally, the gentleman I referred to above was from Nigeria, a country of 130 million people with a multitude of ethnic groups speaking over 200 different languages and many indigenous religions in addition to Islam and Christianity. If such a country can hold together and be proud to do so, there must be something fundamentally wrong with a country of 10 million people essentially speaking the same language, adhering to the same faith, pursuing the same way of life and sharing similar cultural characteristics, who cannot agree on anything. Just to take one example, the fundamental difference between us and the Nigerians is that they see unity in their diversity whereas we see diversity in our unity. A flag is light in physical weight and the least costly of all institutional symbols. It requires no maintenance with the exception of periodic replacements for normal wear and tear. It is, however, weighty in terms of significance as a symbol of a country and its people. Today that symbol is abused in so many ways. It is abused when it is left unrepresented in international gatherings; it is abused when someone without proper credentials sits in these same gatherings and claims that he/she represents the Somali state; and it is abused when rival groups squabble over who represents what government; but the quintessential insult is to burn it altogether in the name of, God knows, what cause. If we Somalis are incapable of having a serious dialogue aimed at reconciling and burying our differences, why take our frustration on the flag which is the only symbol left of our nation? Remember Cassius’s words to Brutus: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves” (2).No words can express more the plight of the Somali flag than Dr. Beileh’s lines: Qudhu ha iga Socotoo Translation: I am not a poet, but given the importance of the subject under discussion, I cannot resist the temptation of dropping a few words in support of Dr. Beileh’s intervention: O blue flag It is us who are Forgive us O blue flag Forgive us O blue flag Forgive us O blue flag O blue flag Bashir Ahmed Gardaad
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