By Mohammed Dahir Ahmed

History which is what happened in the past is very important because it helps us to understand the present. If we listen to what history has to say, we can come to a sound understanding of the past that will tell us much about the problems we face now. The history we teach our children plays an important role in shaping their values and beliefs.

It is very regrettable to hear that the incumbent government has removed the SNM history from the grade eight-history curriculum, which is the most important part of Somaliland history. To understand modern Somaliland you should first understand the history of SNM which founded Somaliland.

SNM veterans were professionals such as Chartered accountants, Economists, lawyers, Engineers, Doctors, University lecturers, Journalists, Military Colonels and Generals who felt the pain, injustices, mass killings, property confiscations, rape, and nepotism which the regime of Siyad Bare and its allies perpetrated against the Somaliland people. SNM leaders left highly paid jobs in the Middle East, North America, Europe into the deserts and forests in Ethiopia in order to mobilize their people to liberate themselves from the hardships they suffered under the brutal dictator of Siyad Barre. After a long struggle they succeeded to liberate Somaliland and became the first movement in Africa to voluntarily handover power to a civilian council (The Guurti).

The incumbent rulers of the land were working for that regime which all the Somaliland nation was fighting against. They were forgiven and told to live peacefully among the society in order to avoid revenge and most importantly as a result of the norms and traditions practiced by SNM ancestors which were based on forgiveness and lack of revenge. This sheds light on the importance of history, if SNM leaders were oblivious of their ancestry’s norms and traditions who knows they might have slaughtered many of the incumbent rulers. If they were forgiven that does not mean they should participate in the leadership of the country but this only happened due to loopholes and misunderstanding of the constitution of the land. As any one else should have done they were expected to clean their personal profiles by doing good things for the country but for the surprise of every one they removed an important chapter of this nation’s history from the intermediate school curriculum.

This action is equivalent by saying that as a nation the lives you lost, the once injured, the property you lost (gold, livestock, houses, businesses, infrastructure, time) were a waste and not worth the trouble and way you scarified.

In response to this wild act:

It is very naïve and ludicrous to remove that lion share of the nation’s history for the mere fact that the current ruling group were not part of the making of that history.

Mohammed Dahir Ahmed, Birmingham, U.K

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