In the last two months, it was estimated that over 30,000 Somali babies died by hunger and diseases in the Dabaab refugee camp in Kenya. Through the News media from all over the world, we witnessed Somali mothers burying their dead babies with no visible tears on their faces. “Why are you not crying?” One [...]
To rewrite the personal scars of the past, we speak. For the act of fulfilling our dreams, we speak. For the sake of interpreting our pains into meaningful realities, we speak. To empower the courageous act of forgiveness, we speak. For turning our dreams into realities, we speak. To correct the wrong, we speak. For [...]
When the wrong is rewarded, when the weak is ignored and abused, when injustice spreads like deadly cancer in the land, when democracy favors the rich and the powerful, when the women become sexual objects, when the men competes for the Weapons of Mass Destruction, when the great religions are mixed with politics, when some [...]
On Saturday June 5, 2010, I attended Bunker Hill Community College’s (BHCC) graduation commencement. Dr. Benjamin S. Carson, Director of the Division of Pediatric Neurosurgery at John Hopkins Hospital, was the keynote speaker. On the stage, he appeared to be a very simple and disciplined man. He seemed to capture and sustain the attention of [...]
Somali women are the basis on which Somali society continues to thrive and exist. They take care of the household chores, they work, they raise children, they keep the family together, and they regularly send money to the extended families back home in Somalia. Despite Somali women being extremely busy, they are emerging as the [...]
Let me be authentic, and engage from my heart. Despite human beings’ competitive nature over scarce resources, they do care for one another. In 1991, Somalia had descended into a disastrous civil war, and people were running anywhere they could to seek safety. We made an attempt to escape the conflict once before, and ended [...]
Somalis are not belligerent, anti-government, pirates or terrorists, as they are often portrayed in the media. A number of you subconsciously or consciously believe this false depiction of a remarkable people. Somalis are simple people who desire to live in a peaceful environment with justice, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, just like the people [...]
Sheikh SHARIF Sheikh Ahmed, a former Commander in Chief of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), became the 7th President of Somalia on Saturday, January 31, 2009. During his presidential campaign, he promised to bring much-needed reconciliation to Somalia’s warring tribal factions. The Somali people held a degree of trust for him because he came from [...]
Rising from the ashes of Somalia’s devastating civil war is an image so powerful, it could help provide a solution to the never ending devastation: educated Somali women. Women with the power and knowledge to pass their education to their offspring have the chance to construct a healthy and successful society from the chaotic rubble [...]
If you have to explain in three simple words how Somalia could emerge from the ashes of war, these words would be “peace”, “diplomacy” and “education.” Somalia’s contemporary history is clouded with cycles of political violence, and economic deterioration coupled with periods of political and economic upheaval, foreign occupation, dictatorship and continued environmental decay. [...]
