When I look back
Back at the year of 1991
It is
Most Anno Mirabilis
Most amazing
Most miraculous
That I am still kicking among the living
Every morning
On a Mennonite Peace Mission
On a Somali Ergo
In 1991
In mad Mogadishu
I Ping-Ponged
Between Hope & Despair
I seesawed
Between Faith & Fear
As I would brave a hail of Hutu Hawiye bullets
With these words of Allah
Burbling
Upon my lips
I will not be afraid of this Hutu Hawiye Horror in the night
Nor the bullets that fly by day
Not the pestilence that walks in darkness
Nor the death and the destruction that waste Somalis by noonday
A thousand Russian bullets shall fall at my side
And ten thousand American bullets at my right hand
But it shall not come nigh me
Because I have made the Lord my refuge
And the most High my habitation
No evil shall befall me
For He has given His angels charge over me
To keep me in all my ways
The angels of heaven shall bear me up in their hands
Lest I dash my foot against a stone
I shall tread upon the lion and the adder
The young lion and the dragon
I shall trample under my feet
Because Allah has set His love upon me
Therefore will He deliver me from the this Hutu Hawiye Hell
With long life will He satisfy me
In Canada
In the land of Milk & Maple Syrup
And show me my salvation
In Montreal.
I believe now
It is most true now
That I shall only die
When the leave of my tree in Paradise falls down to earth
When it is Maktoob
When it is written down in the book of life
When Allah intended for me to die
And not because the Hutu heartless Hawiye Heathens
Make the Somali skies rain
Russian & American bullets
&
Dirty Darod Marehan Afwayne bullets
As it says
Most succinctly
In one of the Suras of the Holy Koran
There is nothing more punctual than death
When Allah wants me to die
I shall die on time
When it is my time
Not one hour earlier
Nor one hour later
I particularly remember now
That lonesome night of maximum danger
In 1991
In Mogadishu
In the Hotel Towfeeq
Owned & operated by my maternal uncle
Hajji Yusuf Hawiye.
Hotel Towfeeq
Was the only clean cool well lighted place
In terror-ridden clan-crazy Mog
Which was later destroyed
By Aideed’s killing Habar Kintir crazies
From Mugdi Mudug
Who later dubbed the ruins
With Cainish contempt
Hotel Tol-waaye!
The Hotel-With-No-Clan to defend it!
I could not sleep that night
In 1991
The ceaseless barking
The relentless coughing
Of the kalanishkovs
The constant shelling
The artless heartless artillery
The menacing lights of the tracer bullets
The mindless Moriyan
Kept me awake
I was most curious
Since the dreaded Darod devils were driven out of Mog
Donkey years ago
I kept wondering
I kept questioning myself
Why were the Hutu Hawiye Heathen still firing their guns
At what invisible enemy were they shooting at now
At three in the morning
It was most incomprehensible
I just couldn’t help but remember
Joseph Conrad’s HEART OF DARKNESS
For I was in absurd Africa
Where nigger death was as common as niggers
For I was on a continent gone bonkers
For I was in bad mad sad Somalia
For I was truly in one of the darkest corners of the human heart
Conrad wrote in his own heart of darkness:
Once I remember
We came upon a man-of-war
Anchored off the coast. …
She was shelling the bush. …
In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water
There she was
Incomprehensible
Firing into a continent.
Pop, would go one of the six-inch guns
A small flame would dart and vanish
A little white smoke would disappear
A tiny projectile would give a feeble screech—
And nothing happened.
Nothing could happen.
There was a touch of insanity in the proceedings
A sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight …
It was like a weary pilgrimage
Amongst hints for nightmares.
In the morning
The hints were gone
But the real nightmare was on
I asked one
Apparently
One inured to this Hawiye Hell
One quite acclimatized to this Somali noontime nightmare
To explain
This aimless
This ceaseless
This crazy cacophony of the guns
He crushed my cowardly query
With laughter
With a single shot:
You brushed your teeth this morning
Didn’t you?
Here in mad Mog
We also brush the teeth of the guns
Clean
By firing them every which way
The better to bite
The better to pierce
Deep into the Somali Flesh
Killing the Somali Spirit!
At the market
Where I used to hang out
After playing hooky from the Koran School
In Wardheeglay
In the pool of Clannish Blood
I paused at the stand of an elderly woman
Minding two huge piles
A pile of ripe rich red inviting tomatoes
Crying cherry-ripe themselves
&
A pile of bullets
I wondered which one was cheaper
She replied:
To grow these now red rich ripe inviting tomatoes
That are crying now cherry-ripe themselves
I labored
Inspired
Perspiring
With the sweet sweat of life
With the love of life
The tomatoes are Somali life
The bullets are baksheesh
From Russia with hate!
From America with malice aforethought!
They are foreign Aids from no good foreign devils
They are the death of all of us slow-witted Somalis
Nothing in the world
Is cheaper than the senseless death of niggers
Niggers like us Somalis
That night in 1991
When I could not sleep
In Hotel Towfeeq
To beguile the time
I opened
With weariness of the Spirit
With little faith
The book I had brought with me
From North America
The autobiography of Arthur Miller
TIMEBENDS
What relevance
What anodyne
What relief
What release
What balm
What manna
What succor could Miller offer
To my suffering Somali Soul
No sooner had these dispiriting sighs assailed my soul
Than Miller rose to the occasion
&
Delivered
Big time
Than Miller spoke out
Loud & Bold
Than these very words seized me
Burning into my memory
What is still ailing us Somalis:
The ultimate human mystery
May not be anything
More than the claims on us
Of clan & race
Which may yet turn out
To have the power
Because they defy the rational mind
To kill the world.
There it was
In black & white
Staring me in the face
At three o’clock in the morning
In the dark night of the Somali Soul
The reason why we Somalis are still killing each other
The reason why we Somalis
As a nation
Are committing right now collective suicide:
Because of the crazy clannish claims of
Darod
Dir
Dayoos
In the morning
I happily ran into a familiar face from my happy childhood
Avocatto Abdirahman Hajji Ga’al
When I was Sheikh of the Somali Indian Ocean Shore
Before Somalia became the Sharmooto of Shaytaan
The Sharmooto of Yankee Doodle
The Sharmooto of Ivan Sovietski
When I did not know the pain
Of the woes
Of the blows
Of the NOs
Of this sad bitter exile
Of this wandering on a forlorn foreign strand
With a sad heart
Sick for home like Ruth
Standing in tears
Deep
Amid this alien Canadian cold snow
I told my friend
Avocatto Abdirahman Hajji Ga’al
What had lured me back to murderous Mog
I told him
That I was on a Mennonite Peace Mission
That I had brought a message from the Mennonites in North America
A message for the Hawiye
That I had brought a Message of Hope to Somalia from the Mennonite Church
That the Mennonites were willing to come back again to Somalia
To reopen the hospitals they once ran
To reopen the schools they once ran
To revive our hope
To minister again to the dire sore needs of the Somali people
Once the guns fall silent
Provided
The Hawiye ceased their senseless shooting
Since the Hawiye have freed themselves now
From the yoke of the detested Darod MOD Dictatorship
Since Mogadishu is now
Darodfrei
Free of Darod
As Darodfrei
As Hitler’s Berlin was once
Judenfrei
Why can’t the hapless Hawiye stop shooting
&
Live together now in peace
Now that the dreaded Darod Dictator was driven into exile?
Ga’al answered:
Once upon a time
A starving frog
As starving as we Somalis are now
Went to a Rahanwayn man in Baidabo
The Switzerland of Somalia
The frog sang the blues
Like Brother Ray Charles
Like we are singing the blues now
The frog sang
The bills are all due
&
The baby needs shoes
And I am busted
I got a Somali hen that won’t lay
And I am busted
The county is going to haul my belongings away
Because I am busted
The food we canned last Summer is gone
And I am busted
I am broke
No bread
I mean
Like nothing
Forget it!
You know
Well I am no thief
But a frog can go wrong
When he is busted!
Man
I hate to beg like a dingbat fool
But I am busted
I ain’t asking for a handout
All I am asking is a hand-up
All I am asking for is a loan
Can’t you see
How skinny I am
Skinnier than a Somali
Can’t you see
How starving I am
How busted I am
I am in need
Man
I am gonna be your friend indeed.
—Ok frog
I hear you
You sure is busted
Here is your loan
So stop your croaking
Which you call singing
Now
When you gonna pay me back?
—I swear upon all that is wet & wild
I swear upon bashbash & barwaqo
I shall pay you back when it rains again
When the rainy season rolls around
Shortly after that
Allah remembered His creatures
For His gentle rain began to fall from the heavens
Upon the Just & the Unjust Somalis
The earth & the heaven merged into each other
Hugging & melting into each other
Seamless as one
The Rahanwayn man remembered the frog
Who never bothered to answer his dunning letters
As Somali frogs say
As Af-kombo taught me in Montreal
Your wealth begs you
Don’t give me away
And if you are foolish enough to give me away
Especially
To Somalis
&
To other forgetful frogs
Please
Don’t get yourself killed trying to get me back!
When it really began to rain
Frogs & toads
Rats & reptiles
Cats & dogs
The Rahanwayn man started looking for the frog
He came to a pond
That had swollen with the rains
That had busted all her banks
That had grown
As big as the Juba River
With frogs of every tribe
With frogs of every stripe
With frogs of every size
With frogs of every kind
With frogs of every clan
With frogs of every color
With frogs of every creed
I am telling you
The joint was jumping with frigging frogs
All croaking
All making whoopee
All high on being wet & wild
All bonkers on bashbash & barwaqo
All fat now & forgetful
All loud & proud like Somalis
After a long exhausting soaking search
The Rahanwayn man identified the right frigging frog
And demanded to be paid back
Pronto
On the spot
Right this minute
But the frigging frog remonstrated with the Rahanwayn man
Saying
Rahanwayn man
You gotta be kidding
You just can’t be serious
This here is the wrong season
This here is the wrong reason
This is not the season to reason
This is not the season to talk
Neither sense
Nor nonsense
Nor incense
Nor business
All the banks are covered with water
All our green backs
Have gone swimming
Have gone AWOL
Have taken French leave
Can’t you see
What is happening
I am crazy now
My clan is crazy now
My whole race of frogs done gone crazy
As crazy as Somali Habar Kintir coons with kalashnikovs
Please
Rahanwayn man
Go away
Come back
Some other time
Come back
When Sense & Sanity & Sobriety return
To me
&
To my race!
Togane
Go away
Go back to Canada
Where it is safe
Go back to your Mennonite friends
Come back
When Sense & Sanity & Sobriety return
To our Somali race
When that will be is anybody’s guess
Now it is some 12 years later
Yesterday
I called my friend
Avocatto Abdirahman Hajji Ga’al
Who is in exile now
In the Netherlands
And when I asked him
That inevitable Somali question
Have Sense & Sanity & Sobriety returned
To our Somali race yet?
He laughed to keep from weeping
No
Not yet
Still
Believer it or not
The best of us Somalis still lack all
Faith in Allah
Faith in each other
While the worst of us Somalis
Are still full of passionate
Clannish intensity
Clannish Hatred
Holding the whole Somali race
Hostages
To their Greed
To their lust for power
To their blind will to power
Glorifying their god Greed
Glorifying
Their Self-interest
The Meme of
Me
I
Myself
&
Solo Mio
More murderous
Than Monsieur Daniel Arap Moi
Than Danyer Arab Is Moathay
Than the Kenyan monkey who thought hisself an Arab.
