- Even according to America's own intelligence, the al
Qaeda cells found in Somalia are far less active or cohesive than those
in Italy, Brussels and Britain
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- As a child growing up in the Muslim-dominated Somali
Peninsula, I was brought up to believe that for a good while before and
after the holy month of Ramadan, Satan is locked away in a place from
where he could spread no sedition amongst good folks.
I've lately been wondering if it is time that I revisit this myth with
a view to assessing or revising it, given the recent horrors with which
the world has been made familiar, a terror that has caused the death of
so many innocent persons.
But do kindly take note that when I use the concept 'Satan', I am employing
it in the pre-Islamic meaning of the Arabic root-word "Shatana,"
from which I derive a secular notion of the term. In my translation of
it, I render it as "the one who spreads sedition" or "the
one who opposes [the will of the community]!"
Defined thus, you can work out for yourself the Satan that will fit the
bill in the present context.
The spreaders of sedition have evidently been busy, proof enough that
Satan was not in chains a fortnight before the blessed month as I was
taught to expect.
But then again, it seems that he will not be under lock and key a fortnight
or a month after the Islamic or Christian festivities!
Meanwhile he has been very much on the loose, visiting havoc on the world's
innocent, and choosing to reveal his wicked intentions in different guises,
all of them unpalatable. No wonder everyone wants to know where Satan
is headed next.
The pundits predict that he will call at a Muslim country. However, no
one knows for certain where his first port of call will be. Is it to be
Somalia, a land of grief with no effective national authority; the Sudan
where one of the spreaders of attrition has once been based; Iraq, often
described as an Arab nation and a pariah at that; or Yemen, where he is
said to command a strong following?
Apart from speculations no one has the slightest idea what the spreaders
of sedition and those in hot pursuit of them will do "once Afghanistan
has rid herself of Bin Laden and his associates."
The supposition that the spreaders of sedition will "relocate"
to Somalia is based on the assumption that the country is faction-ridden
and that there is no central authority the international community can
rely on to flush them out, hunt them down, or bring them before the law
courts.
The United States and its allies, having remained impervious to and neglectful
of Somalia's destruction must think hard about the consequences of their
actions before firing a missile.
Because any such ill-advised overkill will no doubt cause more grief in
a land that has not enjoyed peace for over a decade.
Is Somalia to be invaded, because the United States is intent on the "eradication
of terror" as claimed by the primary sponsors of it?
Even according to America's own intelligence, the al Qaeda cells found
in Somalia are far less active or cohesive than those in Italy, Brussels
and Britain.
A United States intrusion into Somalia would destabilise the fragile peace
that has been achieved in the country, where a transitional authority with
the mandate to establish a permanent, all-inclusive government for the
whole nation has been finally created after years of strife.
Unless, as some Somalis believe, the United States' kite flying strategy
is a weak, primordial lust to take vengeance on the Aideed-led faction
that drove them out of Mogadiscio in October 1993. I hope not.
Anyone with sufficient knowledge about Somalia would agree with me when
I state that it would not be possible for Bin Laden and his associates
to find refuge among Somalis. We have enough problems of our own making,
and do not think it wise to court the problems of other folks from elsewhere.
As it happens, we are dealing with the fragmented nature of our society,
with its many warring factions, each with its own acronym, each letter
representing its leaders' self-delusion.
What is more, the men at the head of these murderous factions are untrustworthy,
what with their shifting alliances and the fact that each will point a
censorious finger at every rival, whom they describe as associates of al
Qaeda.
Do not be fooled by the misinformation the self-declared faction leaders
dole out; there is no truth in much of what the warlords say. In a significant
way Somalia is like Afghanistan in that no single political or religious
movement has been able to unite its quarrelling warlords for any length
of time.
A quarrelsome lot, we take delight in informing on or engaging one another
with venomous concern.
War-making being addictive, we live in times of pestilence and suffer
from the contagion of self-hate. Because of this, we consider it our primary
business to discover who our enemies' friends are, what they are up to,
with whom they are plotting, against whom and why.
I cannot for the life of me imagine a Bin Laden or one of his associates
finding a hiding-place for even a single weekend in a land where everything
is an open secret.
Nobody carrying on his shoulders a prize-head worth so many millions in
dollars would be foolish enough to seek refuge in a land where treachery
among the political elite has been unequalled anywhere else in the known
world. He had better find his peace elsewhere, in a land where loyalties
are more permanent and where he would be less likely to be sold for a tuppence.
Moreover I doubt very much if there are more than a handful of my countrymen
who are prepared to lay down their lives for Islam, well aware that the
Almighty has supplied the faith with many other volunteers from other
parts of the world eager to do a martyr's bidding.
I doubt too that al Qaeda would raise enough recruits among Somalia's
unemployed lumpen to fight under his banner.
Many a Somali might not hesitate to die for his clan family or for financial
gains, but not for an abstraction, which is what, in the final analysis,
religion is to the barely literate.
Nor is there sufficient evidence to support the claim made by an Ethiopian
diplomat based in Washington, D.C., that "there is a connection between
al Ithihaad and al Qaeda"!
But the question we need to ask ourselves is why, according to a US official,
are "the Ethiopians a little too enthusiastic" for Somalia to
be bombed, when the United States "intelligence review has concluded
that the al Qaeda presence in Somalia is at a very low level"?
On my way back from Europe a little more than a week ago, I picked up
an Arabic newspaper Al Hayat of the Dec. 11, in which an equally far-fetched
link is drawn between the militia of the Islamic Courts and Bin Laden's
network. This is what I call rabid sensationalism. Where is the proof?
Anyone familiar with the Islamic courts, created to bring about some semblance
of order among the unruly militiamen in Mogadiscio, knows the claim to
be false.
In that day's edition, al Hayat devotes half a page to a hand-drawn map,
marked as if to guide the United States missiles to where the al-Barakat
Banks and the Islamic courts training camps are.
Al Hayat is sadly wrong and the information given is highly dangerous
and misleading. It is my thinking that "the little, low level presence"
of al Qaeda, as United States intelligence sources put it, could quite
painlessly be rooted out without destabilising the fragile peace prevailing
in the land.
A large-scale invasion by the United States and its allies, or bringing
on board the "attritionists" with backing from clan-based armed
militia, will only make Somalia more unstable, a fertile ground where
the spreaders of strife will increase in number and grow in strength.
I hold this apocalyptic view, because in Afghanistan too the armed militias
enjoyed the backing of various clandestine external forces while the rest
of the world remained indifferent to its implosion.
I suggest that the international community support Somalia in her effort
to regain sovereignty over its entire territory, and that everything must
be done to make sure that peace reigns supreme.
The warlords will lead us nowhere but to a dead-end, where anarchy rules.
And I am sure this won't be to the benefit of our good neighbour, Ethiopia.
With peace reigning supreme, we can regain our strength and flush the
spreaders of sedition out of our country.
And when at long last Satan-in-the-guise-of-war calls, we will be able
to reply, "Wrong number!" and then hang up on him.
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- http://allafrica.com/stories/200201020381.html
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