Happy Mother's Day!

Mothers are gifts and blessings from God. They are the reason why we are here. They are the backbone to our lives; the blood to our hearts; the desire to our needs. Mothers are EVERYTHING.

They go through nine difficult and tedious months just to introduce us to this world and let us be part of their beautiful lives. To me, Happy Mother's Day is not only ONE day, but instead EVERYDAY. To celebrate Happy Mother's Days orally, here is a poem I dedicated to my mother and all the other mothers around the world.

Oh, Mother

You've exposed me to this world

To its evilness and goodness

You've taught me how to deal with them.

Oh, Mother

I would swim through the Indian Ocean just to hug you

Love you and kiss you

I would spend my last breath praying for you.

Oh, Mother

You are the best mother that I could ever ask for

Raised me to be the best person I could possibly be

I'm proud to call you my Mother, my Queen.

Same Clan, yes? VOTE!

The elections in Somaliland weren't democratic. Every citizen didn't vote and the votes weren't fair at all. Almost every person voted more than once; that was not fair to the other voters and also to other campaigns. Furthermore, other candidates were bribing people to vote for their campaign instead of voting for other campaigns. It was very corrupted. Moreover, people were voting for whoever they were voting for because of their ethnicity, not because who is going to benefit their country more. Candidates didn't provide any information about themselves other than their ethnicity. Corruption and favoritism are the exact reasons why Somaliland is not making a significant progress.  

That being said, I didn't vote for a couple of reasons. The first reason is my lack of knowledge due to the fact that candidates don’t educate voters about themselves and don’t provide their ideologies and what they are going to do. A voter must know who he/she is voting for because one can determine the future of his country based on the leader he chooses. The second reason is that voting offices were just a handful. There were hundreds of thousands of people at every office and this caused some people to wait hours until it was their turn to vote. This was not fair to the citizens who didn't go to work because they had to vote. The most shocking event that I witnessed was that people who were wealthier gave the person who was in charge of the lines some change for his pocket to allow them to vote first! Also, limiting the number of voting offices is a way for certain types of governments to limit the number of people who vote and which class of people vote (I’m just saying…).

An incident that happened in our school is that a candidate (I won’t say any names) who had a relative in our school, Abaarso Tech, decided to have his relative bring a lot of friends to Berbera so that they could vote for him. He persuaded them by telling them that he will be providing them with “good” food and shelter and he will let them enjoy the beautiful beach of Berbera.

The aftermath of this system was a gun fight that happened in Hargeisa the day the results were being announced. A political party named Xaqsoor accused the government of unjust results. They said that the electoral committees deprived them from their rightful number of seats in the parliament. This, however, was not a surprise given and many people who noticed this system of favoritism and corruption predicted the fight.

Internet Censorship Should not be Allowed

The internet was made to make people’s lives much easier. Almost everybody in the universe use the internet. They all use it for different reasons. Some use it to work; some use it to do researches; some use it to study; some use it for simple entertainment. However, many people in various countries around the world are not capable of demanding their needs through the internet. This is because the country that they live in censored their Internet. In my opinion I do not think that they should control the freedom of people’s usage towards Internet. Others may debate that due to the ability to post any sort of content I can be considered that the Internet is littered with garbage therefore should be censored. On the other hand, I very much believe that the Internet should remain open and free and therefore never be censored regardless of what sort of content may appear on the net.

Nothing in the Internet is ‘garbage’. Others who are not pleased with that information just called it ‘garbage’.  I am certain that there are people out there who can take advantage of what others think as ‘garbage’. North Korea will help me to draw a better illustration of this. There are countless websites which North Korea banned its people from accessing. One of these websites is the most useful website in the world, Google. They banned it obviously because they think it is ‘garbage’. But how much limitless information does Google provide? It almost always gives us answers to our questions, solutions to our problems, and sometimes entertainments to our boredom.

I do not think that anyone should make laws regarding Internet censorship; in matter of fact, I do not think that there should be any laws telling people what to do and not to do on the Internet. Because of many websites, such as Facebook, bonded a tremendous amount of people together, any laws concerning Internet censorship should not exist.

Somaliand's Two Largest Dilemmas!

Somaliland faces many major issues as an unrecognized independent republic. Something that made Somaliland identifiable for the last decade is that it’s last two elections was done very peacefully and serenely. People weren’t expecting that to happen. But it did. It was all over the news.  Although that didn’t fully help Somaliland gain its recognition, it helped it move one step towards it. To matters, out of millions, that Somaliland is facing as an unrecognized independent republic is ethnicity and poor infrastructures.  

In Somaliland, everything is about clans. Everyone, especially in the government, is always on about clans. Having a clan system is very useful and beneficial. It brings different people but with the same clan together; it units them. However, it has its drawbacks. During last year’s elections, I witnessed that most of the people care more about having a president who is from their clan than having   a president who is actually skilled to be a president. Almost everyone I saw voted for the party of the same clan. Not because they thought that that president will change this and fix that, only because he is from the same clan as them, he gets many votes. The government is not functioning as well as it was supposed to because of many clan problems. That is not very helpful and useful to a developing country.

For a country to be and look developing, its infrastructure has to be great. Somaliland’s infrastructure is not that great, but not that bad either. The thing that bothers me the most is its roads. Some of them are ok but most of the roads are rough, broken, and fill with huge holes. This is not bad only for the cars to et sabotaged, but also for people. My mom had kidney stones and couldn’t drive her car until she was cured. She couldn’t drive because whenever she drove into a hole the car would jump up and down and that would hurt her kidneys.  The government tried to fix this problem by starting off with the road between Berbara and Hargeisa. Although it’s a very useful idea, they should not disregard the inner roads in Hargeisa and other cities in Somaliland. Roads were not built and nobody cared about for so long. “Since the liberation of Somaliland, our cities and territories have deteriorated and there is no evidence of a plan or vision to improve the infrastructure, which has been neglected for so long.”[i]

If the racial ethinicity is eradicated and the roads are fixed, I believe, with all my heart, that Somaliland will be recognized, and will be equal and have the same opportunities as other recognized countries, inshaAllah!

 

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[i]  Farah M. Abdirazaq. “Somaliland’s Neglected Infrastructure”.  The Somaliland Times. N.p, n.d. http://somalilandtimes.net. 11/25/12

Somewhere Between Somaliland and America- Ethipoia

                 It wasn’t my first trip to Ethiopia. I went to Addis three years ago. But this time, it was completely different. In this trip, I went with my roommates. Before leaving Abaarso, we were super excited. I had to share rooms with them. So it felt little bit like Abaarso. But, this time, I even had to share beds with them. I hate bus rides. During my last trip there, I flew there. But this time, I had to ride buses. They were extremely boring and tedious, well at least for most of them. I had to remain seated for 11 hours, NOT COOL! When we got to Dire Dawa that was when the actual fun began. We stayed in a beautiful hotel called RAAS. My three stooges and I were very tired and hungry. When we got to our room, where there were only two beds, we immediately fought over the bathroom. One wanted to shower, two wanted to brush their teeth, and I wanted to use the toilet! After three hours of bickering, we came into an agreement. We decided that Najib takes his shower, Abdilahi and Ryder brush their teeth, and I do my thing; at the same time! It didn’t work out so well, but we were all satisfied. With Ryder’s leg on my face and Abdilahi’s snoring, it was impossible for me to go to sleep that night.

               Next morning, we woke up at 4:45 in the morning and took another 11 hours bus ride to Addis. This bus ride was way more fun than the other one. It had a small TV which was entertaining and they provided FREE snacks. The road from Dire Dawa to Addis Ababa was very smooth and downy. Ethiopia has the most beautiful landscape views I’ve ever seen. The view of lakes adjacent to dimly green grass where horses were at rest was a spectacular observation for an eye. 

                Finally at Addis. “Addis looks more like a place between Somaliland and the US”, said Mike. The tall skyscrapers next to lofty giant trees were extraordinary.  Our first night there was amazing. We had to go to sleep early because we were taking the SAT next morning.

               The moment of truth; the SAT. Something that shocked me was that I wasn’t nervous, not even a bit. I mean why I would be nervous, I practiced for the SAT only million times. I treated it the same way I would treat it any other practice test. It went very well. I was glad that the effort that I’ve put in for the past three years paid off. Let’s hope the scores satisfy the hard work that I’ve put in.