The Twenth first Genocide

By Ahmed Noor Musa

The more you read and study the history of people, the more analogies you discover and at the same time the wearier you become of analogies. History doesn't repeat itself exactly but it is full of analogies and echoes. Some of these analogies are routinely abused, while some others are bitterly resisted. Today, a prime example of the later must be the angry clamour that arises whenever we compare what is happening in Mogadisho, the massacre and intimidation that are subjected by the invaded and fascist and anti-Somali government of Ethiopia to the genocide that erupted in Rwanda in 1994.

I won't feel guilty when I referred what is happening in Mogadisho to be genocide, and Hussein Aidid's, the second senior of the ministerial council of the Transitional Government, confession that his government has committed massacre to its people in the capital would be a first hand evidence to my reference.

Obviously, what is going on in Mogadisho at the current time has its close analogy with Rwanda's genocide in 1994. The invasion of the Ethiopians was accompanied with trauma of killing the civilians, the bloodshed, the violence against women and children and the displacement of the masses that it generated, constitutes the most shameful and tragic chapter in the history of Somalia, in particular, and in the world history in general.

As in any war crimes constitutes, women and children are especially victimized in the process. Apart from being homeless and deported, many were widowed and lost their beloved children, while others are raped and abducted. The physical and psychological scars left by this genocide would remain almost ignored as many of the victims are illiterate and for those who could write the memories would be much harrowing to recall and record it. What one sees on the streets of this city, Mogadisho, the Ethiopian troops in the roads, the dead bodies of innocent people, the state of confinement in the camps and villages, the rape of the young girls in front of their parents and brothers, and the violation of Human Rights, the mass killing and many inhuman actions reminds us the graphically of the system that Rwanda's people once suffered.

Amazingly and ironically, the international community seems to turn deaf ears to address the trauma caused by this genocide and to pressurise the invaded government to withdraw and stop massacring the innocent people. To be optimistic, whatever time t takes, the genocide would be explored and the perpetrators would be brought to the law.

History may not repeat itself exactly but the painful physical and psychological scars would narrate their story in some where in the near future and would raise certain complex questions. These questions would deeply etch on the minds of those who lost their parents and beloved ones and would catalyse a long lasting hostility between Ethiopian and Somalian societies in general and among Somali Tribes in particular.

Again, let me draw another analogy; the "stormtroopers", ( the German SA or Stumabteilung in Nazi time.) The stormtroopers in Mogadisho are paramilitary street-fighting wing of the local dwellers They claim that they are the guardian of the "National Pride". They mounted aggressive public actions whose aim is to drive the Ethiopians away from the country (Somalia). They are playing a key role in the destruction of the social structure and institutions by targeting and attacking the Ethiopians and burning down the dead bodies, leaving the streets covered in corps and debris.

Given similarities with what is happening in Mogadisho, it takes an effort to avoid the analogy and effect of that effort is to downplay the horror of the Mogadisho Pogrom.
Of course, Rwanda's genocide and Nazi's represent an acme of inhumanity and evil so enormous, that any comparison seems dubious. Yet if we remove them from history and forget them, we debar ourselves from learning and applying the broader lessons of history. When the World discovered the extent of Rwanda's genocide and the Nazi's barbarism in the wake of the World War Two, the CRY WAS " NEVER AGAIN". So we can't turn that "CRY" into reality; we can't ensure that nothing, even remotely like this happens again unless we are permitted to draw appropriate analogies from experience.

The holocaust, the enslavement of Africans, the genocide of Native Somalis, the centuries of untouchibility in South Asia, the Belgian Congo are all distinct historical phenomena but share in common an institutionalised inhumanity on a mass scale. All are unspeakably irredeemable horrific. They exemplify that which every human being has an absolute obligation to resist and not to aid in any way even by omission.


Ahmed Noor Musa
student of social work in Osmania University
Hyderabad, India
myescort1@gmail.com

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