May 18- is a Remembrance Day as it should be however, it means different things to different people:
It is supposed to be the day of reflection and remembrance and commemoration of those who made this day different than the other days by their blood and treasure.
It is supposed to recognize and respect and pay tribute to the brave men and women, the young and the old who martyred to save the people of Somaliland from the ethnic cleansing/genocide executed by the Mogadishu regime of Siyad Barre.
It is supposed to remember the Mujahedeen who are not with us in this world as well as those who are with us but live in the margins of the society.
It is supposed to remember those who were maimed and those who suffer PTWS-Post Traumatic war Syndrome. But we are not doing any of these!
We are remembering a day! Our martyrs and Mujahedeen don’t even get the recognition and the respect they deserve. They are nowhere in this artificial Hoopla we do year after the other. We are just misusing and misappropriating the meager public funds by flying with first class or business class and book in five star hotels around the world, and who are these people who are remembering this May day in that way?! They are the so-called Ministers and others who don’t have the historical, psychological and emotional connections with that great history! None of them sweat half a day for the liberation and none of them donated one month salary to the struggle for Somaliland independence!
For example Sulieman Gaal and Abdirahman Ero of the Guurti and the Parliament and others fit this group. They undeservedly reaped the fruits of the liberation and by their actions or inactions or ignorance coupled with arrogance undermined the dignity, sustainability, integrity of the Republic. Others are unknowns who happened to be Ministers who failed Somaliland as they failed in their own duties. What an ungrateful people Somaliland is!
Remembrance or commemoration of this historic day will not be in place unless and until we recognize, respect and support the maimed, the marginalized, the widows, orphans and the surviving vets whom Most of them have no basic necessities of life. All of them are in the margins. It happened that some widows of the Martyrs travelled from Burao to Hargeisa to present their blight to the highest office of the land, in the end they found them selves in a police station prison! What a way to remember and recognize those sacrificed their lives and treasure to establish this Republic.
1-For some it means remembering and commemorating a day of independence.
It is remembering the Martyrs and the Mujahedeen who sacrificed their lives and treasure, unfortunately those are in the minority! Somaliland does not honor them for what they have done for her! They even ridicule the liberators who survived by using their urine as water in certain situations in certain places when they were in a bitter war with dictator Barre’s army!
2-for others it means a new found opportunity which they use it as a cash-cow. those did not sweat half a day for it. Some of this group was even against the struggle for the survival and the existence of Somaliland. Some were working for the tyrannical regime of Siyad Barre up to the last day. Those people lack both the psychological and emotional bond with the country and with the people they rule. Ironically those are the very ones who are running our institutions in the wrong way until they made those institutions defunct and non-operational. For those and the ministers of Siilanyo administration, it means fun and fanfare business. It means an occasion for entertainment and dancing in the night away! And for others it means just a day every body is talking about
May 18th is a Remembrance Day commemorating the Independence of Somaliland.
It must not mean just remembering a day as some people do, but it should be remembering what that day signifies and the people who made that day different from the other days.
What does that day, May 18th really mean?
a) It means resistance and refusal to perish as the genocidal regime of Siyad Barre set for the people of Somaliland.
b) It means liberation, it means finding the lost Republic and it means claiming it at last.
e) It means bringing back the spirit of brotherhood and the cohesion of Somaliland communities
d) It means a day remembered for Forgiveness, Conflict Resolution, consensus, common ground and Rebuilding the country devastated by the genocidal regime of Siyad Barre of Mogadishu.
e) It means remembering the people who made that day what it is, the martyrs and the Mujahedeen who sacrificed for Somaliland. It means the Rebirth of Somaliland. It means a day Somaliland decided its destiny and reasserted her independence in her internationally recognized territory, after they have defeated the genocidal regime of Siad Barre.
May 18 was the establishment of the 2nd Republic of Somaliland
May 18 was not like any other day. It was a day people power overwhelmed and defeated the tyrannical power of Dictator Siad Barre of Mogadishu. It was a day of reckoning.
It was a day of reconfirmation of a people’s determination to reject dictatorship and ethnic cleansing. It was a day people insisted to live and not perish and not cease to exist.
It was a day a determined people repelled the wrong and embraced the right.
It was a day of triumph and rejoicing but hay, we don’t pay tribute to the people who realized this and made it what it is now! Despite all that Somaliland does not honor them for what they have done for her! They even ridicule the liberators who survived as well as those who martyred!!
It was a day all Somaliland people of all kinds of opinions came together from all corners of the land determined and decided their fate, celebrated and debated the next step.
It was a day all the traditional community leaders, Religious leaders, intellectuals and the victorious but humble SNM came together, to forgive- and- forget, then established the 2nd Somaliland Republic by way of a democratic process, by participation and by consensus. It was the day the independent Somaliland Republic was declared in Buroa
It was a day everybody embraced everybody else. It was indeed a thanks giving day for Somaliland.
It means a day Somaliland has declared its independence as the Republic of Somaliland in her soil. It was a day under the principle of self-determination which is prominently embodied in Article I of the Charter of the United Nations Somaliland people recalled and reasserted their independence in their home land. It was a day in which under the rights of self-determination, and with the accordance of the international law Somaliland people had unwaveringly determined their fate and their rights to determine their own destiny and stood up for their rights and just did that.
It was a day Somaliland people recalled their government of 1960.
In this Remembrance Day we have to remember and recognize those of us who martyred, who were maimed and those who endured great suffering on behalf of Somaliland. In that spirit we have to stand up for Somaliland and stop the bleeding the parasites, betrayers, the-after- liberation- comers who already damaged the integrity and the cause of our country.
f) It is also a day Somaliland was supposed to honor the givers who gave out much of what they had in blood and treasure for the liberation and restoration of the independence of Somaliland but Somaliland of to day, did not do that! They instead made mockery of those who liberated them and founded this Republic!!
Somaliland people are ungrateful people indeed and Allah is the witness.
What the Mujahedeen gave Somaliland was the favour and mercy of Allah.The return we expect from Somaliland is gratitude and recognition of that mercy bestowed to them by Allah by way of the sacrifices of their sons and daughters.Somaliland failed to do that!
Ingratitude for God’s blessings:
If you ask the ungrateful Somaliland people if they are ungrateful, they will probably say to you no of course not. They cannot admit and they cannot realize that they are indeed ungrateful to what Allah gave them through the sacrifices of the martyrs and the Mujahedeen, their sons and daughters. Somaliland is ungrateful therefore she has to bear the consequences of that sin for ungrateful people will never be blessed.
The words “ungratefulness” appears 4 times in 4 verses in the Quran.
(1) Have you not seen those who have changed Allah’s favor for ungratefulness and made their people to alight into the dwelling of perdition- the state of everlasting punishment in hell that sinners endure after death
Ibrahim, Chapter #14, Verse #28)(2)
Or, do you feel secure that He will (not) take you back into it another time, then send on you a ferocious windstorm and thus drown you on account of your ungratefulness? Then you shall not find any aider against us in the matter. Al-Isra, Chapter #17, Verse #69)
3) If you are ungrateful, then surely Allah is Self-sufficient above all need of you; and He does not like ungratefulnessin His servants; and if you are grateful, He likes it in you; and no bearer of burden shall bear the burden of another; then to your Lord is your return, then will He inform you of what you did; surely He is Cognizant of what is in the breasts., Az-Zumar, Chapter #39, Verse #7)
(4) And when distress afflicts a man he calls upon his Lord turning to Him frequently; then when He makes him possess a favor from Him, he forgets that for which he called upon Him before, and sets up rivals to Allah that he may cause (men) to stray off from His path. Say: Enjoy yourself in your ungratefulness a little; surely you are of the inmates of the fire. (Az-Zumar, Chapter #39,Verse #8)” (Reference: Muhammad Habib Shakir translation.)
Harm is caused, sometimes unwittingly by people who think that they have a mission of peace and they are on the right track when they have not even a true perception of right and wrong by their blind arrogance. They depress the good and encourage the evil. Unfortunately Somaliland is in this zone. Allah said, “When it is said to them Make not harm and mischief on the earth, they say “we are only ones that put things right of surety they are the ones who make mischief, but they realize (it) not” (Al Baqra)
However peace and prayers
Ibrahim Mead
political analyst
Ottawa, Canada
