A mortal danger hangs over our great homeland. The dangers we face are real. They are serious and they are many. The dangers are not hard to feel.
The inflation of ruling avenues, more horrible than ever, is tearing our state and our society apart. Every citizen feels a growing uncertainty about tomorrow and deep alarm for his children's future. The policy of reform conceived as a means to ensure the dynamic development of the country has, for a number of reasons, come to a dead end. The original enthusiasm and hopes have been replaced by lack of belief, apathy and despair. Authority at all levels has lost the confidence of the population. Malicious mockery of all the institutions of the state is being implanted. The basics on which Somaliland was founded - harmony over hate, hope over fear, unity of purpose over divide and discord, are waning.
The country is economically down and politically dull and socially divided. The reason is that there is no sense of national purpose, a determined spirit of resolve and invocation to lead the country in accordance with the aspirations of the people.
Why Somaliland economy is down?
The economy state of Somaliland is being badly weakened by a consequence of greed and get-quick-rich motives. The moral issue is that there is fraud, there is favoritism, there is nepotism, and there is corruption on unprecedented scale. The most remarkable thing, which I monitor, is the rate which the illusion to occupy positions and acquire opulent wealth without intelligence is accelerating. The efforts to make more money out of the country's meager resources and use public wealth as personal property are extremely intensive and excessively alarming. .
The existing administration headed by Siilaanyo seems to see Somaliland as smaller than the sum of their individual ambitions. Apparently this government has only one functioning mind, one that cannot comprehend that the progress of any nation depends on the solutions of certain grave problems which are basically ethical as well as economic and political. While an immense number of Somaliland people lack the absolute necessities of life, all politicians and public figures live in luxury or squander wealth. Extravagance and wretchedness exist side by side. This is a fact, and only the utterly blind or the utterly prejudiced will deny it.
The nation cannot prosper when the head of the state only favors the prosperous. The strength of the country's economy depends not just on enriching those who are already rich but on the ability to extend opportunity to every willing hear. The hope to give the ordinary citizen the right to have his share in any national enterprising project is often lacking and out of place. Imagine what men and women can achieve when theirs ideas and efforts are joined to common purpose. It would be interesting to see if the people of Somaliland can put this idea into their minds.
Doubts hanging on Somaliland political strategy
Siilaanyo's political strategy to seek Somaliland recognition is too ambiguous, too presumptuous, too obscure, too parochial, too seductive, too naive - in short too much like the things most people find worrisome about the fate of the country. The ideals, aspirations and ambitions of the 1990s and tribulations of the 1998 war, are all but forgotten. The concept of Somaliland secession - a taboo that no one dared to touch or talk about - has become a subject of discussion and debate among the public. The country that has gained much respect and reputation from the international community exists now in name only, and survives in the dreams of romantics - so much like a situation in which the events are quite unlike the real life.
Somaliland Judiciary system.
People obey the law for one of two reasons: they either fear their God or fear anarchy. When both of these break down, the result is an environment that breeds violence, anarchy and poverty. Disrespect of law is a vice that Mankind would like to get rid of but which Somaliland existing Government cannot do without. .
The loopholes around Somaliland Judiciary are plain for all to see. Nothing is being done without the payments of bribe. Legal and illegal is not beside the point. Laws are not regulated or observed in letter and spirit. Nor legal procedures are effective at the present time. The problem is that Somaliland legal institutions are not ready to execute the laws. No officer respects the law, and no judge considers it. The only way one can win a case is not through going legal procedure straight, but through going it crooked.
How Somaliland can survive under all above ills? It is obvious that free-thinking, hard-working, independently minded opinion-formers who are never afraid to cling to their conscience all believe all the time that Sillaanyo is not doing what a wise president must do. It is plain and practical hat he never takes his responsibility where he can find it and look for it as much as possible. There is a reason for this.
Siilaanyo is not a man of great courage and conviction. His main problem is that he does not look at things subjectively, but views all things from a small perspective, simply because he cannot conduct himself more than the way he is doing. He only uses and enforces his old doctrine that explains all that he did in the past and all that Somaliland people suffered.
His polices are a mix of opposites, a combination of biases and blunders. A disturbing factor, brushed under the carpet, is the communication bill that has been ratified by both houses. It is apparently a bill that, if enforced, will make one man better off and make millions worse off.
The art of leading is all that is expected of a leader. The first way to lose the right to lead is to misunderstand the art of leading; and the first way to win credits for leadership is to be skilled in the art of leading. The mark of leadership is its respect for reality and for truth and its concern for the values which it must foster and preserve.
It is not clear whether Siilaanyo himself knows what he stands for, excepting for a resurgence of rubric tradition and corruption within politics, a notion that immoral politicians cherished and held fast to for through past decades.
When Siilaanyo was elected, I argued that Somaliland could succeed when three things would happen: If Siilaanyo will become a different man, the parliament become a different people and elders grow wiser than they were before. None of that has happened. Siilaanyo is still the one he was, and even worse. The members of the parliament grew more useless than they were before, and the elders even changed and got infected with the national disease. Both institutions focus now on quick-and-dirty workarounds rather than refining the laws and redressing the problems that exist.
If the man who was elected to heal the wounds holds his scalpel with a wavering hand, how Somaliland future will look like? It is impossible to imagine a future for Somaliland with Siilaanyo in power. Any chance that leaves him in power would lead the nation into chaos. The day is not far off when conflicts and clashes will start if actions to remedy the troubles facing the nation will not be taken sooner than later.
When trouble is sensed well in advance it can easily be remedied; if you wait for it to show itself any medicine will be too late because the disease will have become incurable.
What Somaliland people need is a leadership responsibility - a recognition by the ruling party that one's rights end right where someone else's begin; a recognition that rule grows through its prudent use; that people's aspirations emanate from the justness of their cause, that justice is what can only keep a nation together and injustice is what can pull a society apart.
Finally, I have two points to make, one to the people of Somaliland, and the other to Siilaanyo.
In reaffirming the unity of Somaliland, Somaliland people must understand that unity is never a given. It must be earned. Somaliland journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the fighters, the makers of things, the heroes in their own history.
For Siilaanyo, wise are those who learn that the bottom line does not always have to be their top priority. Poets, I am told, have a conscience and politicians a pride. .
By: Jama Falaag
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
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