Mogadishu was now effectively divided into two principal military zones—one controlled by the Abgaal and the other by the Habar Gidir invaders.
—Ioan M. Lewis in Blood And Bone
What the hell is Habar Gidir doing in Mogadishu?
Do they think Mogadishu is their Hobyo now?
—Mahamed Ibrahim Egal
The news on the BBC was great that morning!
The news from home was great that morning!
The news from Somalia was sweet that morning!
My Abgal clan
My very own Hayow
Was kicking the crap
Out of the cockeyed enemy!
Out of the Ill-Jeh enemy!
Out of the Habar Gidir!
Out of General Wow
General Wow
Who was so cocksure
That he could
That he would
Kick the Abgal
Out of their own Mogadishu
Out of their own turf
Out of their own goaf
That is when I began to believe for sure
That Aideed was most definitely cockeyed like the rest of his Klan
That Aideed was most definitely
A goon
A goop
A goof
The news on the BBC was great that morning!
The news from home was great that morning!
The news from Somalia was sweet that morning!
All of Somalia was celebrating
In song
In dance
The defeat
The disaster
The disgrace
That we had inflicted
On Aideed
On the Ill-Jeh enemy
On the kooky cockeyed enemy
In Montreal
I was singing
I was relishing
These two curt calypsos
That capture the sweetness of the Abgal Hayow victory
On land
On sea
Over the haughty Habar Gidir hooligans!
Kor kaga haysku so kuday
Ha ku kaynay Kaysanay!
May violent seizures seize you!
As you dance your dance of death!
As you dance your dance macabre!
As you dance your dance of St Vitus!
And
Habar Gidir ma haybisayn
Hirka hostiisa wahay ka haybiyan!
Have you ever asked Habar Gidir
What the hell they were hunting for
What the hell they were hankering for
Under the overwhelming waves!
As they were drowning
Snatching at straws!
As they were drowning
Leaning upon the foam of the killer waves!
As I prepared breakfast here in Montreal that morning
I was singing these wonderful Hayow hosanna calypsos
Celebrating our Hayow victory
On land
On sea
Over Aideed
Over the Ill-Jeh enemy
Over the kooky cockeyed enemy
When the phone interposed
Shattering my Hayow shindig of shamateh!
Shattering my Hayow shindig of schadenfreude
It was my niece calling from her exile in Ottawa
It was Shamso Elmi
Keening
The defeat
The disaster
The disgrace
Of her own Habar Gidir clan
Keening
—Abtie!
Why are you killing us all Habar Gidir?
Why are you massacring us all Habar Gidir?
Why are you drowning us all Habar Gidir
In the deep blue cruel Somali Sea?
—Abtie!
What the hell do you care?
You are not Habar Gidir!
You are Abgal like me!
—Abtie!
You are wrong!
You have lived too long
In exile
In cold Canada
You are now more Canuck than Hayow!
You forget!
My father is Habar Gidir!
I am Habar Gidir!
Even though my mother, your sister, is Abgal Hayow like you!
Remember!
It is all about the bloody begats of patriarchy
That is making us all slaughter each other now!
—It was that morning
When I stopped hating Habar Gidir!
It was that morning
When I cursed both Haayow & Habar
It was that morning
When I said
A plague on both your KKK houses of Habar & Hayow!
It was that morning
When I began to realize
The folly
The fatude
The futility
The fatuity
The fractiousness
The factiousness
The factitiousness
Of the Somali Civil War
That set an uncle
That set an Abtie
Against his own niece
Who regarded him as her own mother without the dugs!
It was that morning
When the Holy Spirit began
To teach me
To lay to my charge
To first of all
To above all
Keep my very own Togane heart
Free of hatred!
Free of despair!
Notes
Abtie: (Somali) Maternal uncle: in Somali culture there is a special and close affinity between an Abtie and his niece or
nephew; that is why he is referred to as a mum without dugs!
Begats of patriarchy: Genealogy.
Fatude: A Somali word meaning an attitude struck and stuck in the high lazy latitudes of the doldrums of the doo-doos
of self-deception most prevalent in Aideed’s Mugdi Mudug!
Goaf: (Somali) Homestead; own turf.
Hayow: A synonym for Abgal.
Ill-Jeh: A contemptuous term for the Habar Gidir; cock-eyed.
Shamateh: (Arabic) Schadenfreude or the keen pleasure one derives from seeing one’s enemy come a cropper; from
seeing one’s enemy get his comeuppance! His just deserts! His Ma’a sokor!
St Vitus: Chorea; a nervous disorder of uncontrollable and spastic movements of the body.
