Division
of economic pie between us.
BY:
Prof Abdi Ali Jama.
(Aan
maalno hasheena mandeeq)
Traditions
and customs played the major role in determining how the economic pie is
divided amongst our ancestors and forbearers when there was neither national
government nor big towns or rather black holes -if you like- that swallowed our
essence and identity; and what is worse is that we never know when the dawn
will come to end this long dark bumpy journey.
Dear reader,
Don’t get me wrong, I am not against modern life under national sovereign state
and metropolitan city life; however, I hate blind imitation as much as I hate plagiarism
and take pity on my generation and upcoming ones for the difficulty and the
wrong direction they have been forced to go through, paying a very high price
for minor pitfalls, but catastrophic in macro-level, that could have been
averted.
You may be
wondering and asking me as you read this article, who did the mistake, and what
were the causes. In succinct answer, I would say unequivocally: the biggest culprit
was lack of leadership; and as for the question who was responsible, I could
say they were the small elite who were not professionals in leadership and
management but just amateurs and non creative; and later on, after 1996
military revolution, the generals and colonels who used the national flag, army
and sovereignty to suppress people and
harnessed the state to enrich themselves and could not see the forest from the
trees.(trees being their narrow interest, forest stand here for common interest
).
Since
independence of 1960, when national state came into existence, governmental authority
that commenced to function accessed the national resources like any other
administration in the world by different means through ministry of treasury,
central bank, red tape and so on. But don’t forget that our society was not
exposed to national government ruling before. Nevertheless, the elite misused
the national resources by using printed money irresponsibly without resorting
to parliament for approval causing inflation and wreak havoc in the stability
and tranquility of the economy.
Besides
accessing the national resource through taxing, money printing and bribery,
they also embezzled the foreign aid and even put us under debt by borrowing
money from international counterparts. Rural people also started to migrate in
large numbers to the big cities where the she-camel(the economic pie) is being
milked(aan maallo hasheena mandeeq),in order to get their share after having
realized that they would never be remembered by government officials who were
extremely engrossed into the embezzlement of public money and retaining of
power at any cost.
We cannot
deny the role that market played in dividing the economic pie along with
customs and state. However, the same way customs or traditions dwindled in
dividing the pie when people migrated to urban cities, the market also lost
leverage to central government, especially after Siad Barre military coup, after he adopted a very radical socialism that
further weakened the private sector by nationalizing the key economic
resources..
In the end,
government increasingly became the ultimate hand that would divide the economic
pie amongst us. Unfortunately, those who were in power, both civilians and
military, never felt full legitimacy, so they started to use the national
resources along with political power to corrupt people by dividing them into tribal lines which ended up to the black hole that we are still struggling to escape one day, so that we would be able to get conscience back
and put the derailed train back to the right track.
As
Somalilanders, it looks we’ve overcome many challenges and failures for the
last two decades compared to our southern brethren, but in my view we are
probably ending up into the same black hole-- business as usual-- if we fail to
create full fledged, free from corruption state where rule of law is
prevailing. History punishes hard for those who repeat past mistakes!!!. History repeats itself, but we should
not let it repeat itself this time, simply because repentance will not be
accepted any more….red card awaits. Be careful you guys!!!
Prof: Abdi
Ali Jama
Hargeisa.
Abdirrahman99@hotmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment