By Sarmaan Ramses, PhD

Do you know what bed bugs do to your blood? They suck it until they drive you mad and force you to run for your life, or you acquiesce to their blood sucking and adapt to life as usual and pretend all is good. I fall in the first category.

OK. I know we’ve lost our minds long time ago – about a quarter century ago to be precise, a lost quarter century of humiliation not to utter the word that you’re a Somali. But, now it’s the second coming of losing our minds ragingly mad all over again over regions called Kismaayo and the Shabeeles that we want to repeat the same insanity one more time.

However, the comical thing is, that I by no means thought that bug would also taint the sanest amongst us, my fellow so- called educated, professional, and highly privileged class of our Somali Diaspora. Let me put it this way, this privileged Somali Diaspora clan has all the rights of living in other people’s lands i.e. Europe, North America, Australia etc., got great education albeit with hard work, have great jobs, run businesses of their own, have even great mansions, heck, even some of them own acres of lands that for instance, black Americans never dreamt of owning few decades back.

But then to the utter consternation of it all, all they talk about when it comes to Somali affairs is, which clan owns Kismaayo or the fertile lands of the Shabeele Somalia? That’s a folly! Have they not paid attention to their current whereabouts and its history? To describe the Kismayo bug, let’s put it this way. The bug is the microcosm of the whole senseless Somali civil war put into a clear perspective. How else would you have most Somali tribes large and small rightly or wrongly all vying for the ownership of a city some of them even cannot tolerate to live in. Do they know about Kismayo at all to even claim its ownership? I highly doubt it.

More surprisingly, if the claimants were some sort of farmers or fishermen who would benefit from the farming and fishery rich Kismayo that would’ve been a true solace but that’s not the case. They’re not thinking of farming or even venturing into the sea to earn a day’s living, but just for spite and maniacal selfishness. Me, my tribe against the world attitude – good luck, no sanity in that!

Let me put things in perspective, after many decades of unspeakable atrocities, the international community finally took mercy on us and did everything it could do to stabilize the country. Providing African troops financed by the International Community to keep the peace, helping create a new constitution, establishing a somewhat deficient democratic electoral system whereby elders were engaged as electors to select clan parliamentarians and a parliament speaker, and the parliament selecting a president to steer the country into a stable territory. Matter of fact, not everything is hunky dory at this time but the future outlook portends good news.

Well, let’s get back to the Kismaayo bug insanity. I live in the land of Thomas Jefferson (Virginia) where slavery and women subjugation were the norm in his days despite contributing to this nation’s (US) highest ideals of creating a new nation with limited but inspiring democratic values regardless of the many slaves he kept in his plantation and even fathered children with his cherished slave Sally. But let’s remember, today that Virginia is not the same Virginia of back of his days. I know many of my fellow Somalis who own lands in this state, also mansions, businesses, have as well great professional jobs that I cannot count here and that’s just the span of two centuries of that immense change. Even as late as the 19th century, Richmond, the capital of Virginia was the army headquarters and the capital of the Confederacy that was the epicenter of this country’s civil war that fought over slavery — or states’ rights as they later claimed to preserve their privileges of slavery in more fancy words.

The short term clamoring and losing our minds over these fertile lands is not worth losing the potential of the whole country as a stable nation, prosperous for all, peaceful and gainful for the whole community. The longer game is the right perspective, for instance, Somaliland and Puntland the two so called clan states that have achieved their semi-independent status and self-governance and somewhat admirable but still nascent democratic processes have accommodated all other Somalis who trade, run businesses, attend their great universities, and even live comfortably well off in their midst, even though one can claim that those two are not in the same disposition of statehood claims. That’s not the point.

The longer game is not, that one clan owns a provincial clan state in the exclusion of all other clans and bars them from the opportunities of fertile lands or access to seaports of international trade access. But the longer game is more integrated economies of diverse clan populations in each province whereby the most able and astute business developers and achievers have equal opportunity and protection (under the law) to pursue their dreams of achievement and create employment opportunities for the rest and thus create more wealth and prosperity for the whole nation, a prosperous nation and a proud nation for that. What a dream for the nomads who always functioned as such and are the envy in their creativity and business acumen in many African countries where they’re the called the Jews of Africa!

The longer strategic game is actually geared towards more union with regional states such as Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, etc., peoples whom we even distrust more than the clan distrust. Where regional economies lift the barriers of free trade and integrate their economies, adopt common currencies and ease border restrictions, allow the free movement of capital and knowledge and are liberally, economically, socially, and culturally competitive are the future directions.

Look no further, the same European countries that waged war against each other to unspeakable atrocities are today the European Union, or the NAFTA trade agreement between the US, Canada, and México that’s still mired in suspicions but reaping huge economic benefits for all.

Lastly, just remember – you mighty enlightened one, fertile lands and bountiful rivers alone would’ve made DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) the richest nation in Africa or many other African or Latin Americans countries endowed with natural bounties, but exactly the same platitudes that I hear from my so called enlightened Somali Diaspora clamoring for the clan ownership of Kismaayo and Shabeeles is what made those naturally rich nations very destitute.

Sarmaan Ramses, PhD
Email:sarmmani@yahoo.com