By  Bashir Ahmed Gardaad

” We belong to God, and unto Him we shall Return”

Like so many other criminal acts committed by the greatest abusers of the noble Islamic faith, many innocent lives were lost in the most recent attack on one of Mogadishu’s popular hotels (the Naaso Hablood). Our hearts and prayers go to those families that lost loved ones. The death merchants again duped three hapless young men with promises of paradise after death thus contemptuously dismissing the fact that only Allah has the power to decide who is going to enter paradise or hell. They describe their innocent victims as apostates but they are, in fact, the real apostates by arrogating to themselves what is Allah’s prerogative.

Among their latest victims was Bur’i Mohamed Hamza, who was serving as Minister of State for the environment in the current Government of Somalia. I met Bur’i for the first time in 1963 when we were selected among other young men to undergo an intensive training course jointly organized by the Ministry of Education and UNESCO. The idea was to prepare us as pre-secondary English language instructors in the public schools. Not everyone in our group became a teacher. Bur’i, however, was one of those who sought a career in education. Eventually, virtually everyone in our group ended up in a foreign country for higher education since opportunities of that nature did not exist in our homeland at the time.

Coming back home from abroad after the absence of a number of years, we started comparing notes and reminisced about the old days. In later years when both of us travelled abroad for one reason or the other, our paths crossed a number of times. I remember the year 1974 when I visited Egypt for the first time and Bur’i was there along with Mohamed Elmi Bullaleh, another close friend of ours. The duo won bursaries to do post-graduate studies at the American University of Beirut. Their studies, however, were interrupted by the outbreak of the Libanese Civil War which forced them to relocate to Cairo to finish their study program. If Bur’i Hamza and Mohamed Bullaleh were not there I would have been lost in the Egyptian maze of crowds, traffic jams and incessant klaxons day and night. Then again I ran to Bur’i accompanied by his wife in Mombasa, Kenya, in 1986 while I was on leave from the African Development Bank. Recently, I found a postcard he sent me from Tunis where his employer the Arab League Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ALESCO) relocated to from Cairo following Egypt’s Peace Treaty with Israel.

 

Then we both ended up in Canada as retirees with our families. In Canada, I live in Montreal, and in the course of my periodic visits to the Greater Toronto Area over the years, there were times when I stayed in the Hamza’s family home and enjoyed their hospitality. I also recall the BBQs at home and group dinners in various Toronto restaurants which Bur’i used to organize.

Bur’i never lost his charisma and his sunny outlook to life. I never saw him sad or gloomy. He was the friend of all and enemy of none. He lost his life while trying to serve his country under truly difficult circumstances. May Allah help his immediate family (Suda, Mohamed and Rajaa) endure their pain and may Allah, Almighty, bestow His mercy on him.

Montreal, Quebec, Canada
E-mail: laamo55nabdood@gmail.com