Wednesday, Feb 17, 2010
NAIROBI — When Virginio Bresolin passed away recently in Merka, a coastal Somali city run by Al Qaeda-inspired rebels, so did the last of a generation of Italians who emigrated under Mussolini.
He worked as a blacksmith, spoke fluent Somali and rusty Italian, and few people noticed when he died.
Fifty years after independence, [...]
by Xan Rice in Nairobi
Tuesday 5 January 2010
Somalia’s beleaguered population received a further blow today when the World Food Programme announced it was suspending operations in the south of the country owing to “unprecedented and inhumane attacks” and threats and demands by a hardline Islamist group.
The WFP said that 1 million people, nearly all [...]
by Abukar Arman
The stakes are much higher than ever before. And, despite the negative reports that dominate the news and thus perpetuate the sense of hopelessness, voices of reason are becoming more audible against the current senseless violence, chaos and extremism. More and more Somalis are coming to realize that the path ahead leads nowhere [...]
Shariah in Lawless Somalia
by Abukar Arman
(Tuesday, October 13, 2009)
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“As a country whose national institutions have been utterly destroyed and almost all threads that once wove its society together have been unraveled, Islam is the only thread that remains intact.”
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Nowhere in the world is Shariah more contested ( yet seldom debated) than in war-weary Somalia where [...]
by Abukar Arman
Whether in Somalia or elsewhere, any attempt to tame religious extremism with violence leads to costly tragedies and disenchantments. And any one who doubts this ought to simply reevaluate the miserable results of GWT- global war on terrorism.
So it goes without saying: a non-violent paradigm to solving problems is direly needed. [...]
