By Abdirahman Gutale &
Daud Ed Osman

“The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking.” (Martin Heidegger)

Hope is fascinating thing and it brings solace to those who expect it, but lately we come to notice that not all hopes are equal. Some materialize, but others stay mere hope and are disappointing for the fact that it may not occur in a lifetime, even though those who expect it keep the faith and are not conscious of its nuisance.

There are two kinds of hope: empty hope and realistic hope. We can say societies or individuals have empty hope, if they for too long continue to rely on supernatural forces or mere luck, despite inexorable challenges that defy the existing methods or conventional approaches and threaten its very existence.

In contrast, credible or realistic hope is a hope you develop after ascertaining and confronting the problem at hand and come up with some sort of enhanced solution that is capable to alleviate the threat. Regrettably the kind of hope we cultivated in our Somali culture and deeply impeded in our psyche is the former.

However, the reliance of this kind of hope is one of the reasons we have tough time finding workable solutions despite many attempts. And I think it is incumbent on us to have national conversation on how we can replace this dubious hope with a credible one, by creating the condition for this hope to have increased chance.

To have credible hope for a better future and social progress, we must have the courage to have a genuine conversation and to call into question our obsolete conventional methodologies or traditional ways of remedying our common problems. We shouldn’t end the conversation with familiar self-defeating conclusion that goes, “we are simply unable to come together without the assistance of external entity or to say that something like, Somali Federal Government cannot do much without badly needed financial assistance from donor countries”. These common cliché allude to the existence of single magic solution to all our misfortunes, unfortunately this magic solution is beyond our grasp. Moreover, this self-fulfilling prophecy is the worst kind of defeatism and so far the biggest obstacle for starting national debate, because it implies that there is really nothing we can talk.

When we have inclusive and continues engagement we would be able address our most adaptive challenges. We will have a chance to listen and grieve with the helpless parents who can’t stop their children from becoming suicide bombers. These parents will be able share with their personal stories, compelling narratives and discuss the circumstances that draw their children to AlShabab’s world view and misconception of Islam. They will inform the public which network, mosque or sheikh that influenced them and so forth. This critical information is crucial for making smart policies that address the root causes and the contributing factors and create effective rehabilitation program that reorient their energies towards rebuilding their communities. To that end we can create coherent process that is fit to conclude our protracted national nightmare.

The goal of deepening this conversation is to replace this empty hope with credible hope, by going beyond our impotent 4.5 political framework and ask the public what they think about the way things are progressing (or regressing), what concern them most, in what sort of ways can the government partner with them to create safer communities, what they think about the way government is run, overall what needs to be done. This is how you improve government legitimacy and win the hearts and minds of the public and finally build its capacity to tackle the most difficult issues, such as security, economy and education. It was Aristotle who said ““Youth is easily deceived, because it is quick to hope.” I think it is time get our acts together and behave like an adults.

Abdirahman Gutale
Email:gutalemnm@hotmail.com

Daud Ed Osman
Email:daciid@gmail.com