Time dims not the achievements of the brave .
For worth shines steadfast even from the grave.
—Anonymous.
Mandhow Mahamud
My son Mahamud
My very own flesh & blood
My very own Telemachus Togane
My ace in the hole
For our Somali Homeland
Boss-teye!
Write down right now
Set down right now
My dardaran
My last famous words
Report me and my cause aright!
For posterity
For Patria
For Somalia
In this long life
“This long Disease, my Life”
In this long life
Of my delightful diddling days of yore I adored
Of my SYL yippee youth lore when I dwelt in the House of Mirth
Of this now weary dreary dark dreadful Dubya days of the House of Desolation
Of this Kenyan Kikuyu Kalenjin Kold exile I curse
With all my might
With all my main
Like Layton’s mother
Like Keine Lazarovitch
In this long life
Of this Damean Darod Dir Dayoos Doqon Dubya MOD days
Of this Hutu Hottentot Hawiye Horrors
Of this Habargidr Huns
Of this creeping crabbed age I abhor now
Of this “inescapable lousiness of growing old” I abhor now
Mandhow Mahamud
In this my long life
‘Much have I seen and known—’
Cities of Moslems & Galos
And manners
And climates
And councils
And governments—
And among them stand out now
These four Somali Generals.
1
First & foremost
General Da-ood was
Neither pro Darod
Nor pro Dir
Nor pro Dayoos
General Da-ood was
Pro Patria
Pro Somalia
General Da-ood was
The main Mandeq of our glorious Somali heydays
General Da-ood was
The main camel of our Somali Camelot
General Da-ood was
The noblest Somali General of them all
His life was gentle
And the elements so mixed in him
That Nature might stand up
And say to all the world
This was a Somali!
This was a man!
General Da-ood died a happy brave death
Ready to meet his Maker
Ready to meet his Allah
Ready to render his account to Allah
Who only has eyes that inspire fear & awe
Allah!
The best of reckoners
The most swift of reckoners
To whom we will all return.
Sooner than Somalis think
In a moment
In the twinkling of an eye
In the flash of the firefly
In this dark starless Somali Afwayne night
At the last trump
Mandhow Mahamud
Memento mori!
2
Then came General Abshir
General Abshir has been a faithful friend of Rer Togane
One afternoon
Unannounced
At our Bondhere home
Near the well of Qasim Adow
General Abshir showed up with his entourage to say
‘Siyad Togane
We are here
To honor you
To pay homage to your Somali Abgal genius
To celebrate your Somali Abgal epigrammatic wit
Born of such breath-taking beauty & brevity
We are here
To remember
To commemorate
The Night of Power
Your Night of Power
Your Night of Divine Afflatus
Your especial SYL Awada Jàw Abgal Night
When the Holy Spirit descended upon you
When your artful witty dodge demonstrated
How damean
How dumdum
How Dubya
How dimwitted the dagos of Mussolini were!
We are here
To pause
To ponder
To proclaim
The beau geste of your brave Somali heart
When you spat
Awada Jàw Abgal!
Only tonight am I Abgal!
Into the fugly fascist face
Of the Arkow
Of the Carabiniere
Of the wob
Of the Italian Mussolini imperialist
We are here
To honor you
To celebrate you
To remember
Your witty tricky truce of ruse
Worthy of wily Ulysses
That master of many masks
We are here
To honor you
To celebrate you
To remember
Your witticism
Awada Jàw Abgal!
That still tickles the cockles of the desert hearts of the Somali nation
That still drenches our often sad sick desert Somali hearts
With the rich rain of rippling roars of raucous loud laughter!
Mio amigo
Hombre!
Awada Jàw Abgal!
We are here
To recognize you
To laud your so vital contribution
To the valiant SYL noble struggle of our Somali race
To free ourselves from the fascist foreign Italian yoke
Siyad Togane!
Awada Jàw Abgal!
Please accept these ceremonial guns
As a token
Of the appreciation
Of the gratitude
Of the Somali nation-state
You had helped bring about
In that unforgettable Somali night
When you were impeccable
When you displayed uncommon courage
Under fire
Under pressure
Under fascist Italian torture
When you showed the whole world
What a Somali can do
When a Somali makes up his mind
That he belongs
To Allah
To his Prophet Muhammad
May peace be upon him!
AND NOT TO
The morally and mentally corrupt and bankrupt
Crazy clannish cabal coterie Cosa Nostra called Abgal!’
3
Then came
General Siyad
Better know to my generation
By his moniker
Afwayne
Or
Mighty Mouth
One afternoon
Unannounced
At our Bondhere home
Near the well of Qasim Adow
General Mighty Mouth showed up with his entourage to say:
‘Siyad
Sami
My namesake
My friend
I can’t forget that
For years
When I first wandered into Mogadishu from the Ogaden desert
When I was a penniless beggar with not even a pot to piss in
When I was a poor friendless Ogaden refugee
When I was a soldier-cum-flunky-cum-snitch
For fascist Mussolini Imperial Italy
When I depended on the kindness of strangers
Like you
You were hospitable to me
You were humane to me
You did not hold it against me that I was
What I was born to be
A Darod Marehan
And not an Abgal Osman like you
You treated me the way
A Somali who is Gob treats another Somali
You took me in
You fed me free
At your always welcome Abgal table
In your restaurant
At Tran School
In Mogadishu’s Hamar Jab-jab
I can’t forget that
I am mot an ingrate
Like most Somalis
That is why I always overrule Dafle
My Dhulbahante Son-in-law
Who is always itching
To snatch you
To stick you into one of his dreadful dungeons
Till kingdom come
To keep company with your bosom buddy
The Majerten General Abshir
And throw away the key
But now
Siyad Togane
I do not trust you!
For all your friends are now
Majerten!
My formidable foes
Who will never rest
As long as a Marehan
Like me
Is lording it over them
But now
Siyad Togane
I do not trust you!
All your cronies are now
Majerten!
You hold me personally in such utter contempt
That you are now refusing to call yourself
Siyad like me
That you now call yourself
Sa-eed instead of Siyad!
Because you refuse to be
My sami!
My namesake!
I also know that
Your sons have flown away from Somalia
To far fair havens
To cold cantankerous Canada
Where these wicked Somali woes I woo make them smile!
I also know that
You & your sons believe
Majerten Abshir-Rashid-Rizaq to be of the Royal Gob
The rest of us to be of the Rotten-Rotie-Rubbish Marehan-Midgan Gûn
Therefore
We are here to collect all the guns
That General Abshir & his Majerten minions bestowed upon you
Since I rule this Kat-crazy nation now
By fraud
By fatude
By force of arms
By the naked black gun
By violence
By the law of the jungle
By my might is always right
I want all the guns in this country
In the right Marehan-Midgan MOD hands!
Not
In the hands of Abgal Majerten-philes!
I cannot be safely thus with guns loose
In the hands of Majerten sympathizers like you
Majertens!
Who are now power-starved, mad, mealy-mouthed
Majertens!
Who are never at heart’s ease
While I
A Marehan
Does bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus
And petty Majerten men
Walk under my huge mighty mean mouth
And peep about
To find themselves dishonourable graves in Ethiopia
While I bestride Somalia like a Colossus
While they behold me
In my Pomp
In my Power
In my Marehan powerful Pride
While they behold a greater man than themselves
Who is not of their Majerten clan…
Majertens!
Who are now allied with our hated uncircumcised Ethiopian enemies
I cannot be safely thus
Though bloated
With Pelf
With Power
The ultimate aphrodisiac
Lolling on a lewd day-bed
Buffeted by the hot epigamic pretty bouncy buttocks
Of callipygian Majerten maidens
Whose fleshy waves I scale to surf their Seal!
I am now
A jolly thriving wooer
Whose bestial insatiable lustful appetite
Stretches even to servants daughters wives
I made widows to woeful beds
Whose bestial insatiable lustful appetite
Stretches even to the wives of those whom I
Banished
Imprisoned
Or
Slaughtered!
Siyad
Sami
Mano alto!
Hands up!
Up against the wall!
Stick’em up!
Surrender all the Majerten machineguns you got!
4
Then Afwayne’s MOD fancy fat fart exploded into Hawiye shit & shindig
For all the devils of hell broke loose
And descended upon Somalia
Mugdi Mudug seized Mogadishu
Trailing the twin evils
Of Jalaf & Khalaf
The Charybdis & Scylla of Somalia
Afwayne’s terrible Marehan-Midgan MOD Troika
(M)arehan
(O)gaden
(D)hulbahante
Gave a bloody bastard birth to
General Aideed
Alias General Wow
Alias General Bedlamite
Alias General Manocobio
Alias General Hawiye Habargidir Hamburger
Alias General Hawiye hound hog from hell
Who preached
Who practiced
Homo homini lupis—man is a wolf to man
Who turned Somalia
Into his very own Habargidir Hawiyah:
Into the seventh division of Hell
Set aside for Somali hypocrites
Mandhow Mahamud
My son Mahamud
Here am I now
In Nanyuki Kenya
Under glowering angry Mount Kenya
Upon my death bed
Uttering my last testament
Uttering my last famous dardaaran words
Hunted out of my home Somalia
Hounded out of my home Somalia
By the Jalaf General Hawiye Habargidir Hamburger Hog from hell
O Somalia!
What a wounded name!
Bear, O my brave Somali heart!
Thou hast borne a yet harder thing!
Mandhow Mahamud
My son Mahamud
If thou didst ever hold me dear in thy heart
Absent thee from felicity awhile
And in this harsh Horrible Hutu Hottentot Hawiye world
Draw thy breath in pain
To tell my story of
How I conned the Italian colonialists
By my beau geste
By my Awada Jàw Abgal!
How I pissed in their beer!
How I watered down their fine Italian wine
How I made them bake their own bread of bitterness
How I led the Somali Sparticus revolt against them
And sacked
And looted all their villas by the Lido Shark Bay!
How I fought every obstacle course of the Italian alien enemy
How I fought the good SYL fight for Somalia
How I finished the course for Somalia
How I kept the faith for Somalia
How my generation & I freed our Somali homeland
From the enemy without
From the limey in London
From the wob in Rome
Now
Here
Take my Mandela mantle
Don my Mandela mantle
Now
It is up to you
Now
It is up to your generation
To free Somalia
Your homeland
Your second mother
From the more implacable enemy within
From the home-grown enemy
From the bastard Darod-Hawiye-Eedoar heirs of fascist Afwayne
From the rump-remnant Hawiye Habargidir Hogs of Aideed
From Osman Atto’s Abgal gûn goons
From this mean mischief of the mindless minion myrmidons of Afwayne
From this Afwaynissimo without Afwayne
From these clannish calamities of the wannabe Afwaynist cowards
Now colluding in Kenya
Mandhow Mahamud
My son Mahamud
Boss-teye!
My champion!
Good luck
God bless
God speed
Nabadgelyo!
May you & Somalia enter Peace!
The Peace that passeth all the understanding
Of Jinni
Of Insi!
-------MAHAMUD SIAD TOGANE
NOTES
Arkow: (Somali) A contemptuous Abgalese for an ofay.
Awada Jàw Abgal!: (Somali) Only tonight do I deign to call myself an Abgal! Siyad Togane’s celebrated and inspired salvific retort to the Italian imperialist’s impudent policy of divide and rule and to their crazy clannish question of “ Are you Dir Darod Dayoos Danyer or Doqon?” While under duress; while under torture; thus repudiating the crazy claims of his bovine Abgal clan on his integrity & dignity as a free Somali citizen, as an autonomous individual who does not belong to Aideed’s Hawiye herd. That was the practical beginning of the revolutionary time of the SYL consciousness of the Somali race. A time for every Somali to deny the crazy claims of the Somali KKK —Dir Darod Dayoos Danyer Doqon— upon him; a time to deny & eschew the evil of clanism (the most insidious sort of racism) & affirm friendship; a time to betray one’s clan rather than one’s friends who are the medicine of life. Needless to say that time is right now! Togane’s SYL past was only the prologue to the present of this Somali generation and many more generations to come.
Beau geste: (boh zhest’
[Fr.]: a fine or noble gesture.
Boss-teye: (Somali) The Champ who puts bastards & bitches in their proper place!
Camelot: In this Somali context I mean the best years (from 1960-1969) in the life of the Somali nation when we enjoyed what Lewis, ‘the biographer of the Somali culture’, captured in his felicitous title of his book: ‘A Pastoral Democracy’, before the advent of the tyranny of the fiend, Afwayne. Camelot comes from a favourite lyric of President Kennedy in the Lerner & Loewe musical Camelot:
Don’t let it be forgot
That once there was a spot
For one brief shining moment
That was known as Camelot!
It also means:
(1) The legendary location of King Arthur’s court. (2) The nickname for President Kennedy’s ‘court’. See pp 61 & 249 of Nigel Rees. Dictionary of Phrase & Fable. London: Paragon Books, 1993.
Carabiniere: (Italian) Military policeman.
Charybdis & Scylla: Charybdis is a black hole of a whirlpool into which ships disappear forever. Scylla is a monster that has six long necks and each head has three rows of teeth. Odysseus or Ulysses sailed closer to Scylla and sacrificed six of his men but saved his ship. The expression “to be caught between Charybdis & Scylla” is like to be caught between Jalaf & Khalaf: a conundrum out of which you just can’t con your way out of; the conundrum in which Somalia is caught right now.
Dagos: (Pejorative) Wobs or Italians.
Damean: (Somali) Intellectually challenged like Dubya: George W Bush whose doctrine is, according to my friend, Terry Mosher, “Keep it stupid, simple…” See page 42 of his book: OH,OH!…and other recent cartoons by Aislin Toronto: McArthur & Company, 2004.
Dayoos: (Somali) Meaning scalawag, dirty scoundrel.
Dubya: The current dumdum damean in the White House.
Fatude: (Somali) “…sincere delusions—that is, lies which the liar believes.”
See page 235of John Berryman. Recovery. New York: Farar, Straus and Giroux, 1973.
A chip-on-the-shoulder delusional attitude informed by ignorance & arrogance. A Somali word meaning an attitude struck & stuck in the high lazy latitudes of the doldrums of the doo-doos of self-deception. Fatude is a child “of an idle brain, / Begot of nothing but vain fantasy...” See Romeo & Juliet (1. iv. 97-98). It is a typical Somali Mugdi Mudug attitude of bullshit & bluster. The English tongue has borrowed many a word from the Somali tongue, such as yahoo, nag, ninny, seal, was, goose, fug, etc. I predict the English language will soon appropriate fatude. It is just a matter of time before it too begins to roll off the English tongue just like yahoo. See “A Short lesson In Comparative Languages”, p. 5 of M. S. Togane. The Bottle & The Bushman: Poems of The Prodigal Son. Ste-Anne de Bellevue (Québec): The Muses’Company, 1986. Fatude aptly describes the common Somali affliction of disconnection from reality. It also means a rude, crude attitude based on farce and according to Alfred Kazin, “Farce is catastrophe without a context and without a solution.” A perfect description & definition of the Somali syndrome & the malady of Mog. See page 95 of Alfred Kazin. God & the American Writer. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1997.
If thou didst ever hold me dear in thy heart: See Shakespeare’s Hamlet (V. ii. 355).
Inescapable lousiness of growing old: From the poem ("Keine Lazarovitch: 1870-1959") by Irving Layton.
Gal: (Somali singular; Galo plural) Honky Kaffir enemy alien infidel.
In the flash of the firefly in the night: This is how Chief Crowfoot defined life:
It is the flash of the firefly
in the night.
It is the breath of the buffalo
in wintertime.
It is as the little shadow
that runs across the grass
and loses itself in the sunset.
Gob: (Somali) High born; high caste; blue blood; of the aristocracy; opposite of Gûn. “But Gob has a larger connotation since it is applied as a term of praise to honor the accomplishment of an admirable action…And since strength is one of the supreme Somali virtues the members of the ‘short branch’ lineages are sometimes taunted as gûn by their ‘long branch’ kinsmen who count themselves aristocrats (gob). This indeed is the sense of the proverb which blatantly announces that ‘he who is weak in numbers is the son of lowliness[ gûn](Ninkii yari waa inan gumeed).” See pages 29 & 192 of Lewis. A Pastoral Democracy: A Study of Pastoralism & Politics Among the Northern Somali of the Horn of Africa. London: Oxford University Press, 1961. That is why so far it has been impossible to take a census in Somalia: no clan wants to be designated as gûn; as a minority. When the Majerten had power in the good old Camelot days of Abshir-Rasheed-Rizaaq, they designated themselves by fiat as the strongest clan of the Somali Republic by simply declaring officially that the Majerten are equal in number to the rest of the nation (Majerten iyo inta madaha madoa aa is siman!) That is why the Hawiye & the Issaaq & all other Somali clans will never forgive Sa-eed Sheikh Samatar for committing to writing his blatant learned erudite Darod Laylkassse lie backed up by bullshit Piled high & Deep (his Darod PhD) that simply asserts without offering any documentary evidence or proof: ‘…the Daarood (who number over a million)…’ See page 12 of Somalia: A Nation in Turmoil: a Minority Rights Group Report. London: 1991/4). What we have here is the triumph of Darod Laylkasse racist clannish bushwa over objective scholarship & that is why many a Somali says to me now, “Ask your Darod lackadaisical Laylkasse friend, the so-called professor Sa-eed, how come, if his Darod were as numerous as the sands of the Somali seashore & the stars of the Somali blue sky as he claims; ask him, how come they came a cropper; how come they were swept away like the dirt they are; how come they were ethnically & ethically cleansed out of Mogadishu in a nanosecond, in a moment, in a Darod Jaaji’s jiffy, in the twinkling of Aideed’s iIl-jex eye! Tell your Laylkasse Professor of lies, Dad kaa badan iyo biyo daad way ku hanfiyaan: Folks who outnumber you & flood waters overwhelm you & knock you down on your Darod duff, knock out of the way anything that gets in their way! That is why Aideed’s Hawiye hordes overwhelmed & overcame the Darod who were proved to be nothing but self-glorified gûn; no more than a dirty dozen—ok, a baker’s dozen at the most.”
Gûn: (Somali: lit. bottom) A subject base born race of niggers & kaffirs. Gûn “is a term of abuse and only used openly when the speaker wishes to antagonize those whom he derides in this way. The opposition between gûn and gob, which might be translated loosely as aristocrats, refers specifically to the distinction between the puny and weak and the numerous and strong. But gob has a larger connotation since it is applied as a term of praise to honour the accomplishment of an admirable action. It is the word of praise given to a man whose deeds notably sustain the ideal values of the pastoralists.”
“Ninki faralaha frenji baa loo helay.” As this Somali proverb bluntly puts it, “he who is weak has found whitey as his protector.” Now I understand why everywhere in Africa the message is the same: “Tell the white man, tell Tarzan to come back to Africa to restore law & order. The natives are murderously rude & restless; tell whitey everything is forgiven! Tell the Queen to come back!” See pages 29 and 192 of I. M. Lewis. A Pastoral Democracy: A Study of Pastoralism & Politics Among the Northern Somali of the Horn of Africa. London: Oxford University Press, 1961
Insi: (Somali) Humans.
Limey: A derogatory word for an Englishman.
Hawiyah: (Arabic: the Abyss). The seventh division of Hell set aside for hypocrites. According to The Glorious Koran (Sura 15: 40), Hell “hath seven gates; unto every gate a distinct company of them shall be assigned.” See under Hell in See Rev. E. Cobham Brewer. A Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. London: Cassell and Company, Ltd; no date of publication given.
Mandeq: A Somali camel: metaphorically Somali independence from foreign powers; an apt metaphor since in the world of Somalis, the camel, which they revere as “the mother of men”, is a very independent animal that roams where it wills; that just like the wind bloweth where it listeth.
Mandhow: (Somali) Meaning my son.
Much have I seen and known—cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments…: From the poem Ulysses by Lord Alfred Tennyson.
Memento mori: (Latin) Remember that you must die.
Manocobio: Mispronunciation of the Italian word, manicomio, meaning bedlam; the funny farm; the nuthouse; the side of Mogadishu controlled by General Wow AKA Mohamed Farah Aideed & his hysterical Habarkintir Huns & their running dogs.
The Night of power (al Qadr): Sura 97 of the Koran; one of the last ten nights of Ramadan when Prophet Mohammed (SAW) received his first revelations of the Glorious Koran; The Night of Gnosis; The Night of Afflatus. In the context of this poem, it means The Night of Honour & Dignity when the idea of being a Somali who belongs to God and not to a crazy clan was revealed to Siyad Togane..
And what shall make thee understand
How excellent the Night of Al Qadr is?
The night of Power is better
Than a thousand months…
Pro Patria: (Latin) For one’s country.
Sami: (Somali) Namesake.
Spartacus: Rebellious slave Spartacus (played by Kirk Douglas) led a freedom revolt against the decadent Roman Empire.
SYL: Somali Youth League: the party that ushered in the liberation of Somalia from the foreign yoke.
Telemachus: Son of Ulysses & Penelope. See The Odyssey by Homer.
This long Disease, my Life: Alexander pope’s apt phrase describing his difficult life.
Tran School: Somali for the Mogadishu Hamar Jab-Jab training school the British established for Somali soldiers in the mid-forties.
Ulysses, or Odysseus: (The hater) A wise, eloquent Chieftain of the Greeks; the hero of The Odyssey by Homer whose artifices are legendary.
Wob: (American slang) A derogatory word for an Italian.
