A Word Of Encouragement And ‎Inspiration To My Beloved Somaliland

By Nasir Omar Hirsi, London, UK

As a nation where can we look for inspiration and encouragement? I would suggest within our own selves, within our nations borders and far beyond our nation. Before looking for inspiration and encouragement far and beyond our national borders let us start to look for inspiration within ourselves and our nation. Somaliland is an epitome and embodiment of inspiration and encouragement, its recent history testifies this fact. It was the people of Somaliland who first had a dream and aspiration to have all the Somali speaking people to be united into a single nation. That dream and aspiration was betrayed by our brothers in the south. Then the people of Somaliland aspire to have their lost independence back, of which a bitter and acrimonious liberation war had to be fought against a strong and formidable foe of which they were victorious. Then the people of Somaliland embarked on rebuilding their shattered and devastated nation, whereby the rule of law was established, freedom fighters demobilized, and various state institution was established. Then Somaliland embarked on the road of democratization of she had achieved as we all know with grace and dignity. All these achievement are inspirational and encouraging not only for ourselves but for the rest of Africa and beyond. Our achievements are monumental, but do we have to stop there? And be content with what we have achieved so far, the answer is no. We should aspire and dream for more and more success, we should always be hungry of success and we should aspire to reach unimaginable heights. We awe this to ourselves and to the coming generation. This is a challenge to all of us who love our beloved Somaliland.

As a nation we have to look for hope and inspiration anywhere worthy looking for, beyond our national borders we can find countless nations who share same predicament with us or they might have been where we are now some years back. Somaliland is a de factor state, it is a functioning polity, and we Somali Landers want to see our nation changing its status to a de jure state by lobbying to be internationally recognized but still we can aspire and dream for more than recognition. We can set our goals to lift our nation to unfathomable heights, and that height, that goal should be to make our nation into an economical powerhouse, a tiger economy like South East Asian countries. This is possible if we work hard and we set our collective minds on this dream. If we aspire to be a force to be reckon with economically and military, I don’t see anything to stop us achieving our dream.

I remember vividly an article I once read about Singapore which is highly inspirational. Before 1960 Singapore was a city within Malaysia which was at that time under British colonial rule. Singapore city was heavily populated by ethnic Chinese who out numbered ethnic Malays only in Singapore but the Chinese were out numbered in the rest of the country. At the time Malaysia was to be granted its independence a group of Chinese activist led by a chap called Lee approached the British government requesting to be accorded a separate state since they ethnic Chinese were minority and they feared they may not be accorded equal rights as their Malay compatriots. The British government official asked where you hope to establish that nation. The answer that came out of Mr. Lee mouth perplexed the British officer to which the officer responded by asking Mr. Lee how are you going to run a city state without natural resources like land to facilitate the economy of the state. Mr. Lee answered by saying I have got my people as the only resource that will facilitate the economy of the state, my people will be the wealth Singapore, they and they only are going to create material well being and wealth for the city state. Look now Singapore is an economical powerhouse. This city state is economically and technologically highly advanced, it is a democratic and viable state too.

How about Taiwan? It is a highly industrialized, technologically advance and economically rich. It is the eighth biggest economy in the world and doesn’t have a representative in the United Nations. This remarkable nation is not recognized internationally but it is a force to be reckoned with economically. We the people of Somaliland can lift our nation to height reached by Singapore and Taiwan. I will tell you how.

What we Somali Landers ought to realize is the importance of education. Education is the only way that can take our nation to the level of achievement mentioned above. We ought to invest heavily in education; the next thing that should be given priority is the healthcare system. We Somali Landers who live in the Diaspora should and ought to alleviate and assist our government by supplementing the meager budget allocated for education and healthcare system. As we all know our government is constrained by paucity of resources, and the government is being run in shoestring budget which is not adequate.

Let me point out that if all Somali Landers who live in the United Kingdom decide to collect from each one of us donates ten pounds (£10) every month and these monies are deposited in a bank account. Let us assume that a hundred thousand (100 000) Somali Landers in the United Kingdom decided to participate in this activity, every month we would have collected one million pounds(£1000 000), at the end of the year we would have collected in this account twelve million pounds(£12 000 000). This amount of money will be collected in the UK only, how about Somali Landers in the U.S.A, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Canada, and the Gulf countries also decide to establish similar scheme. I am sure we might be able to collect more than fifty million dollars ($50000000). With this amount of money could build more school, more hospitals, more colleges, and more universities. We could employ doctors and university professor from abroad. And mind you £10 or $10 is a very small and negligible amount that every Somali Lander will be able to donate; there are many Somali Landers in UK who spend more than this amount of £10 everyday just only to chew qat.

I will try to bring my essay to an end by saying that we people of Somaliland are faced by a formidable challenge of taking our country to greater heights of prosperity and material well being of our people. We should always be in a competition, competing with others and competing with ourselves, we should never be content with any success, we should always strive to break the record of achievement and success hitherto reached by us or by other people, and last but not least we should stop comparing what we have achieved so far with our neighbors or any other country in Africa. We should emulate the Asian tiger economies because I am certain we can be an African tiger economy. My fellow compatriots and comrades this is a challenge we ought to take seriously, we put strong emphasis and energy in trying to find or lobbying for recognition which will come sooner or later, because our quest for nationhood is unassailable one. So while we are waiting for recognition we should collectively try to lift our nation economically to height hitherto to unheard in Africa. Brothers and sisters this is a noble dream, a worthy cause and a formidable challenge to all people of Somaliland. History will never forgive us if we shy away from this challenge. The pages of history are open in our favor and they are blank waiting for us to write whatever success mankind has ever achieved and beyond that. We should strive to take our nation greater to heights because we love our Somaliland.

Long live Somaliland

hirsinasir@hotmail.com

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