A response to peace and Somali refugees in Yemen [Archives:2008/1205/Community]
By: Mohamed Ramsi
[email protected]
In The Yemen times issue 1197, Mr. Sadad Mohamed Yussuf Geesh's erroneous article on Somali refugees and Somalia is sham from the beginning to end and sternly puts the reader on his guard against Mr.Geesh's dangerous, unwarranted and malicious motives and by all means calls for a response.
In his malevolent and despotic article he hides nothing, neither weakness, nor discord, nor mystification in portraying his own people as covetous creatures.
Patriotism is like virginity and betraying it is like to rape yourself of any morally acceptable sentiments. Like a forlorn tin pot Mr.Geesh restored to hot air and balderdash that definitely questions his loyalty to his people and his mental argument let alone regarded as a leader.
What Mr.Gesesh fails to understand is that it is malfeasance for one claiming to be a leader to wash his dirty linen in public by insulting his own people in the pages of a newspaper.
Mr.Gesh happens not to be in the marrow of his bones by arguing that there is reputable system and Elected Leadership of community and Somali interest Conservation Committee here in Sana'a. There used to be a community center which has closed down due to financial hurdles and since then we, the Somali refugees, have never had a committee unlike Geesh's groundless claims. That being the case, unless Mr.Geesh is talking about a few Khaat grinding illusionist get-together there are no organized community service programs here in Sana'a.
I am convinced that Mr.Geesh wanted to pose himself as a Somali leader and the wise Somali elders turn down his callous zeal to take a begging bowl in the name of the Somali refugees. Then instead of flying the balloon from a different angle that could work better, he felt secure to insult his own identity and hence stirred a hive full of wasps with his off beat article by even calling our own elders as fascists. If vituperative Geesh observed our elders as fascists then our values and the true fact of our lives do not hang with his which must be devoid of demeanor
They are those elders who have all remained the icons to reckon with for the Somalis from the days of Ahmed Gurey, Sayid Abdulla Hassan to the present day president Abdullahi Yussuf. It was and is a panel of elders who settle issues under acacia tree among the Somalis in Somalia and we all see it as a moral obligation to look up to them.
Mr.Geesh missed the point that Somalis, contrary to his claims, are hard working business oriented people. Here in Yemen Somalis do not get business opportunities but elsewhere including Kenya where they have the biggest market in East Africa to South Africa where the locals envied there business boom, Somali refugees in the world over are a fine example of hope in the face of adversity.
Without structured economy, Somalia's gross national income per capita is US$600 challenging neighboring countries including Ethiopia and Kenya. Behind the cobwebs of the merciless warlords there are also courageous money-lords.
Three of our universities are in Africa's top hundred universities and Mogadishu University ranks Number 50 on the top hundred Arab universities.
Mr.Geesh referred to one Somali as a nomad perhaps primitive, who came to Yemen , but for his information all Somalis are nomad pastoralist and they are all proud of it -probably except him who may have believed to have been prepared in a different pan.
Many of our generous Yemeni brothers and sisters make sense of our plights and have all remained tolerant to our shortcomings and appreciate our positive side. Many of them understand it is only the tribulation and the convulsion of life that force us restore to demeaning jobs and street loitering. However, self-centered Geesh is either naive or fails to see things through the mirror of reality by simply hurling insults at his people instead of comprehending the challenges they encounter on daily basis.
Geesh's blind hatred for his people springs from the depth of his spirit, but less does he know that we the Somali refugees here in Yemen have no stomach for sterile ballyhoo and nauseating barbaric barbs.
We are fed up of charlatan elitists who after growing pot bellies on handouts in the name of the Somali refugees then dismiss them blatantly as illusive community of separate individuals that have not effective interaction.
Mr. Geesh surprisingly writes” In the other mid-noon