Editorial: The macho reaction to piracy and the massacre in Somalia capital
30 Sep 30, 2008 - 6:56:27 AM
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SUNDAY EDITORIAL | In today's world of injustice and arrogance, it seems money is more valuable than human life.
It is two stories in one, intricately interwoven at the root and takes place on the world stage. The setting is a familiar name: Somalia…that impoverished East African country from the Hollywood hit "Black Hawk Down." Both stories are agonizingly thrilling and begin and end with lawlessness.
As insurgents began capturing major towns on ground, pirates doubled their attacks on merchant ships at sea. The international community was beset with loud voices calling for immediate anti-piracy action, at the UN-level. The French government took lead in introducing a UN resolution to combat Somalia’s pirates.
But even before the passing of any resolutions, French commandos attacked the pirates in April and September this year, killing at least two suspected pirates and while arresting a total of 12 other suspects. The suspects are facing charges in a French court. Certainly, the French government's actions have been welcomed in international circles as the correct move against pirate gangs who have profited from millions in ransom cash this year. But in other circles, silent questions linger as to France's legitimacy to grab Somali citizens from Somali soil.
Ah, the excruciating pains of lawlessness! After nearly 18 years of conflict, Somalia has literally disappeared from the international diplomatic scene as a functioning government that protects its own citizens – both at home and aboard. The numbers from Somalia are unbearably sorrowful: since December 2006, when the Ethiopian army invaded the country, at least 9,500 civilians have been killed in conflict, 860,000 civilians displaced by the war, while nearly 3 million people are in need of food assistance.
Where is the macho reaction to the suffering of the Somali masses? Who speaks for the faceless thousands stuck between Ethiopian tanks and insurgent mortars? Where are the UN resolutions demanding an international political and military effort to end one of Africa's longest-running conflicts ever?
When hungry gangs of young men storm foreign ships and demand ransom, the reaction is quick and effective, because millions of dollars are at stake. But the suffering civilians deserve lip-service and the occasional Canadian warship helping deliver food aid. In today's world of injustice and arrogance, it seems money is more valuable than human life.
Of the two stories – the tragedy of war and the pirate attacks – international attention and condemnation is focused on the wrong target. Piracy is a byproduct of lawlessness, not the other way around. And it is a lawlessness that many countries in the West and the Middle East are happy to watch continue in Somalia, by supporting rival factions who have no national vision or goals to save Somalis from the present quagmire. Finding a lasting political solution on the ground is an effective tool against piracy, but militarizing the pirate problem will be counterproductive and dangerous.
And for the Somalis themselves, the day's gruesome reality must be faced with self-observation and determined insight. We have literally reduced ourselves into nonexistence. Somali citizens are getting butchered in South Africa. Other Somalis fleeing war and poverty are dying of thirst in the Libyan Desert or drowning in the Gulf of Aden. And even those "lucky" Somalis who made it to the West are facing legal and cultural problems, and the challenge of raising Muslim children in an atheistic world fuelled by the capitalist drive to satisfy a boundless appetite.
There is nothing better than home, better than Somalia. The clan politicians we love to admire are no prophets – unless, of course, they are the prophets of self-destruction. These men are responsible for Somali boys joining armed gangs, by sea or on land. These men destroyed the young generation's rights to an education; these criminal leaders' worst fear is an educated public, so they keep Somalis in the dark by using foreign elements whose shadowy agendas remain in public view.
The blind search for "clan interests" have catapulted Somalia into the era of foreign occupation and brought our proud, resilient people to a level unimagined in history. As Somalis, we can no longer afford to wait for the world to react. We must react on our own – against warlords and terrorists, against Ethiopian troops and Arab financers. We must react to save Somalia. If not today, tomorrow is already too late.
Garowe Online Editorial, editorial@garoweonline.com
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