By Ahmed Nagashe

I was in search of the truth for a long time. Unfortunately I have recently realized that, at least to me, the truth is that after all I don’t want to know the truth.

You might find this strange but to be honest, truth – if it exists- has revealed to me nothing other than this. I was born in a family that believed in what they always termed as the ultimate truth; knowing whom you are. I know I would challenge them but had not given the chance to ask why truth has to always be the only thing my family knew.

They merely taught me how to identify members of the clan I belong, and always believe whatever those people told me was the only thing that was right. At home, the only children I was urged to play with were from the few houses adjacent to ours. I was told that I must not go out with others, for they did not fall under the category I belonged. They were not “Inaadeero” a word I learnt by heart virtually before I knew a lot of my Somali language.

As I grew up, I was taken to school where many pupils attended. I found this environment far much different from our home; to my delight all the children were friendly and accommodative rather than telling me that I was not one of them. They called me “Saaxiibo” a completely new word to me, which didn’t exist in where I lived. The students at my school, as I would know many years later, were not “Inaadeeros” no one knew who the other was. None of them told me that they belonged to the same clan, something that I was continuously reminded at home and the fact that I had few of my clan in the school. But my schoolmates were far much better than the “Inaadeeros” at home. I felt free for playing or going with the friend I liked when I am at school, a choice I didn’t have when at home. My friends at school gave me my nickname, they often called me “ Saaxiibo Nagashe” a virtue that made me lose my binoculars which always showed me my clan kid.

Many years later, may Inaadeeros forced me to believe that all my childhood friends are typically the enemies our elders talk about therefore I have to hate them. They’ve convinced me that since my friends’ clans make the majority of our society; my friends regard their clans and selves superior to ours, something that I have never noticed. For this reason I have not soberly examined, I now hate all my friends because they belong to other clans, however, they don’t know and still call me Nagashe, Saxiibo. I don’t feel guilty at all, for I understood their intentions were that I accept they are superior to me and my clan, an idea I embraced just to please my Inaadeeros and find my place in what they call the Elite of Reerka.

The only thing I resisted but finally succumbed to the pressure from my clansmen is my lack of respect to the Imam of our mosque. He is one of our clan but because the majority of the Sheikhs in the area ordained him, we consider his prayers as biased no matter how good they are for the benefit of our society since it is the majority of the congregation that chants amen after him. In this situation I don’t know why I do not know what I really need to know, being faithful to my friends as they are to me.

ahmednagashi@yahoo.com