By A. Duale Sii’arag
Editor’s note: Peaking into the rich WDN archives full of ten years of rare collection of historical pieces, news, commentary, opinion as well as cultural and poetry analysis and writing from across the globe, we come upon a jewel, a rarity, a genius piece of writings, honest and true and free of bias. Indeed, it could be called the past calling with glaring disappointment. As we approach our tenth anniversary, we reflect and share with our readers, esteemed and staunch a series of articles from the past. This article deals with the social issue of “Absentee Fathers” as countless Somali wives are deserted by their beloved husbands who gave up their familial responsibilities, for politics and self-enlargement.
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“Ninkii tiisaba daryeela tu kale ku dara”
“He who fulfils his own responsibility is best suited to take upon other more important duties”. An old Somali adage.
“I don’t know how it feels to be held by my father. He never sent a birthday card, attended a school play or any sporting event. He never took part in parent-teacher meetings or took me to a movie”, says ten years old Guled who is known by his schoolmates as Ina Dahabo – which literally means the son of Dahabo – his mother. None of his schoolmates had ever seen his invisible dad hence dubbing him his mother’s son.
Dahabo does not mince words when commenting on husbands who are adrift. “Making a husband out of today’s men requires commonsense, faith, perseverance, agility, adaptation and a prayer for good measure”, she says. “There are plenty of surprise husbands out there; some consolation prizes and very few prizes”, she asserts.
Dahabo, a buoyant and vivaciously lovely lady, begot two sons named Guled, 10 and Artan, 8. They both love their papa who went AWOL and disappeared from their daily lives in their tender, formative years in school – when they needed most the caresses and cuddles of their father. She single-handedly parented for the past eight turbulent years with difficulty, while her estranged husband fancied himself as a self-appointed politician, roaming around the world and relishing the media glare. But she is not alone in managing mothering in the total absence of her husband.
Hundreds of faithful and diligent Somali wives were deserted by their beloved husbands who gave up their moral and familial responsibilities and failed to lend a helping hand in bringing up their children and giving them a family atmosphere. Teetering on the edge of destitution and at the bottom of the earning scale, many of these deserted families cannot support themselves and are entirely dependent on welfare payments and dwell on government subsidized housing.
The family fabric of many Diaspora households was torn asunder by crisis of parenthood, marital break-ups, absentee fathers, prevalence of child delinquency and resultant child-soldier freelancing for terror. Much of these social pathologies obviously stem from homes with the father-turned-politicians abdicating their familial responsibilities.
Hundreds of Somali families who fled from the anarchy and the cataclysmic events that bedeviled their beloved country and took sanctuary in predominantly hospitable Western countries had experienced immense untold difficulties in adjusting to their new environment and with all the attendant cultural, social and economic pressures and emotional distresses. A specter of vulnerability and doom haunted many of the fleeing families as they set foot into their dreamlands. Hence many families who survived the traumatic experiences of savagery in their home turf had succumbed to the vagaries of their new milieu – a milieu they have been accidentally thrust into as their migration to the New World was not a planned migration but what is termed as “forced migration.
One of the underlying factors that continue to exacerbate the breakdown of many Somali families is the absent father. Completely derelict in his fatherly responsibilities, the absentee father has abandoned his family in Europe, North America and Australia, gyrating from one Somali peace conference to another like a whirling Dervish and hanging out with other like-minded deserters in Hargeisa, Garowe, Mogadishu, Djibouti, Nairobi and elsewhere and in trendy salons of pleasure where arm-chair pundits give flight to their imaginations. The absentee father who has children of his own often shirks the responsibilities that come with being a parent. He is characterized by multiple failed marriages, neglected children and the urge of consorting with young ladies here and there, like a drunken sailor who cavorts with any women he encounters at any port of call.
In old, time-honored Somali tradition, family has been upheld as an indispensable collective mark of a healthy household. Love and respect had been the cornerstone of family relations, kindness and compassion the bonds that cement family ties. Family has been one and united through thick and thin, and devices to prevent marriage break-ups were firmly rooted in the cultural mores. The father was regarded as a venerated head of the nuclear family, a responsibility bestowed to him by both religion and the natural phenomenon. The prime function and responsibilities of both parents were presumed to be rearing, upbringing and caring for their offspring.
Read more: The Inglorious Absentee Father
A. Duale Sii’arag
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