Mogadishu Express

The Miseducation of Edna Adan

By Heikal Kenneded

June 22, 2012

For the first time in over two decades highest level of political envoys from Somalia and its breakaway republic of Somaliland have met in London, UK to discuss some of the most substantive and politically nettlesome issues facing the two states, in the hope of forging a new vision of coexistence and peace. Though this latest round of talks failed to produce any tangible results that could be hailed as groundbreaking, but the return to the table of both parties apparently marks a sharp change of events on both sides. Progressive meetings like this one in the future, however, could be hijacked by hardcore secessionist advocates, such as the firebrand speeches of Edna Adan who at last month’s Somaliland Conference in Brussels, Belgium reiterated some of the most divisive discourse that could drive a further wedge between the southern and northern Somalis.

Ms. Edna Adan who’s lionized by many human rights advocates around the world could have pointed out several of her personal achievements in the north of Somalia, such as her various profit charities, including her celebrated
Maternity and Teaching Hospital in Hargeisa that provides quality medical services for women in the north. Instead, in her self-serving speech in Brussels, she portrayed Somaliland as the only “true” nation-state of Somalia worthy of a self-rule, while the Somalia proper is no more than a dangerous pond full of “pirates, warlords and terrorists.” Parading Somaliland as a beacon of democracy and intolerance, Edna further resorted to using a mix of victimization and scary tactics catered to bamboozle and miseducate her uninformed young audience and the few Western diplomats present in the conference.

In her fiery speech, Ms. Edna Adan indulged in the melodrama about a whole generation of young Somali Northerners is on the edge of being recruited as pirates and as suicide bombers by Al-Shabab, unless the International community recognized Somaliland’s independence from the rest of Somalia proper. Courting the International community this way, however, would be a grave mistake due to the different reality on the ground. In addition, to resolve terrorism and piracy problems in the Horn of Africa do not lie in the recognition of secessionist states like the so called Somaliland but rather empowering and supporting all civic societies in different regions and clans who are working towards good governance and democracy.

Contrary to the way Ms. Edna Adan portrayed Somalia in her recent invective speech to demonize her brethren in the South; Somalia is not a nation that can be solely defined by pirates, terrorism and warlords. Somalia, like many other African nations in the continent has gone through a severe postcolonial identification crisis that went deep in the heart of its very existence. Indeed, Somali’s current rigorous reconciliation process speaks volumes about its incremental evolution towards peace, especially to some of these complexities -- particularly the parallel challenge of adopting a new constitution and electing a new government.  In contrast, the key to understanding Ms. Edna Adan’s illusions about Somalia’s fledgling status quo lies with her colonial mentality of being stuck in a political and territorial demarcations concocted by the Western colonizers in Africa. No wonder she still prefers to call the north and south of Somalia respectively – British Somaliland and Somalia-Italiana. In fact, the so called “Somaliland” was nothing but the unfortunate product of Europe's imperial expansion into Africa during the nineteenth century, also known as the “Scramble for Africa.”

In her tirade, Edna complained, “who in their right mind would want to unite with Al-Shabab, pirates or terrorists?!’ In other words, it’s easier to gloat and deride your brothers when they are downtroden and misfortune has collapsed on them, instead of working to find a common ground of understanding. But we shouldn’t be surprised to hear such cheap shots from the likes of Edna Adan who made a career out of playing the victimization card to her international sympathizers while tirelessly working to hoist flame between the peoples of the north and south of Somalia. The irony in all of this is that northern Somalia’s relative peace could be argued was achieved at the cost of neglecting and destroying southern Somalia.

Sadly, the merits of Edna’s argument are not even worth disentangling them here since they’re preposterously obvious to the elementary grade level. Thanks to the information age, it’s impossible to lie about history and fabricate baseless allegations against those people that you do not like. On all accounts, Ms. Edna Adan assumes by discrediting the unstable status quo in Somalia and by denigrating the rest of the Somali people as a bunch of uncivilized terrorists scrambling in a failed state will win her the hearts and minds of the West. Yet taking a compassionate stance towards southern Somalia’s current destabilized state due to the logical consequence of toppling the dictatorship regime might bring the required affect.

Finally, there’s no question that the Isaq clans in the north of Somalia, as well as most other clans in the south suffered terribly under the Siyad Barre dictatorship regime. But strangely, Ms. Edna Adan would have preferred to be recolonized by the “Old” British Empire than to remain united with the rest of Somalia proper. This sort of outdated colonial thinking is what exactly perplexes most Somalis who are more or less warmed up to the reality or fantasy of Northern Somalia seceding from the rest of Somalia.  Most question whether it’s so debasing to be Somali that one would wish to be rather “enslaved” by White colonists who look down on all Africans as uncivilized savages. In fact, Edna Adan and those who think alike must still live in another era and another century that none of us would wish to visit for one day.

Heikal I. Kenneded

heikalk@yahoo.com

Washington D.C.