The secret Of Somaliland Government – Part 23
Mental ability is the most precious gift from Allah, that is given to mankind. The ability to think, control behavior, analyse and reflect even on abstract matters, solve problems, find rules and resolutions, learn and retain knowledge, describe and define events and encounters enables humans to turn any environment in their favor.
This God given mental ability enables humans to imagine that conditions in different areas and in different times are different. That is, humans can know through the means of contact with one another what is really going on in areas that are very far from one another. No other living creature can come up with the sense to regard for the condition of the other creatures living in the other side of the river.
In the context of thinking, mental ability allows humans to predict future events, reflect on opportunities and embed them into larger possibilities of unfolding events. This, in turn, enables humans to plan and prepare ahead for disasters before they happen.
With mental ability, humans have the sense to discuss and debate about problems displaced in time and learn from one another’s experience, in order to overcome the problems they face and build the future in more modern ways by pooling their actions and ideas in the pursuit of shared goals.
The more people look up answers rather
than strughle to rehash the old ideas, the more likely they become greater than their weakness and the more power they gain over their pain and suffering and the more mindful they become to discover and develop inventions and implement innovations from the sources.
Conversely, the less people think, act less, analyse things less, the more their mental ability gets distorted and becomes engaged in regurgitating the old habits rather than in discovering new ones and the less likely people can overcome the problems that make their lives miserable and turn their environment in their favor.
The reason why some countries are more developed than others lies mostly in how the people of every country collectively or individually use their thinking skills, which probably consist of four different factors that contribute to success: Intelligence, social skills, work ethics and integrity. Each of these factors plays an important role in determining which countries that can turn their environments in their favor and which can’t.
As animals do, Somaliland is among those countries whose people adapt to the condition of the existing environment and endure its pains until wooes of famine and drought wear them out. Explicitly Somaliland people always accept peerils in life as they come to them and never try to overcome environmental challenges and changes to shape their life as they want it to be.
On practical level, Somaliland people never see things in perspective; they don’t even try to elaborate on what the past generations had passed onto them; they learn nothing from histoty; they don’t learn from one another’s experience; and never listen to whatever other societies teach or tell them to do. Instead Somaliland people always repeat and revolve around the old habits and think they are new.
As the old goes to say, “‘What we see depends not only on what we look at but on where we look from.” In fact, looking at things from different agnles or different perspectives requires some level of assessment, analysis, observation, experiementation, comparison, etc.
The importance of doing things in different ways or seeing things in perspective helps humans understand things in a new light that can open up the opportunities for more undetstanding and innovations. We can’t figure out anything Somalis had ever seen in a new light or ever had done it more ways than one.
Instead, since time immemorial, Somalis had been dealing their debts with more debts – which means doing things and approaching difficulties in their life in the same way over and over again or even ways worse than the old ways. That’s just kicking the can down the road. What else one could explain how Somalis still see and look at their own affairs?
Moreover, humans always inherit tools from old generations to analyze and explain problems in the past. This explanation puts people in positions to see possibilities that might provide crucial perspectives for problem-solving skills. That is, what had happened in the past helps people understand how events in the past made things the way they are today. With experiences from the past, people not only learn about how they can kill one another, but also develop the ability to avoid clashes and create better chances for collaboration.
Collaboration is also what is missing from Somaliland culture. Collaboration is not only good for enhancing productivity, but it boosts morale throughout the the public. Collaboration leads to more achievements, innovation, efficient and effective processes, increased success and improved social and political insights and systemised communication. Through listening to and learning from each other, people can help each other reach their goals.
The question is where to find collaboration and mutual communication between Somaliland society, the initiation to pool ideas and opinions together, the attempt to improve things, in Somaliland.
As we are aware of, some people live and learn, while some only live. Wise people learn from their mistakes. Unwise people learn nothing from their mistakes and even never admit them.
Naturally Somaliland people don’t live and learn. They only live. The reason is that Somaliland societies have failed to turn both rural and urban environments in their favor.
In the rural environment, rearing animals, which is the backbone of Somaliland economy, is going to fade sooner or later, because the rural people have abandoned the practice of animal rearing as if they had developed new inventions and implemented innovations from other sources.
In urban environment, people living in cities are totally confused about the essence of modern government, and are yet unable to understand what a government is, particilarly its manners and means of decision making, accountability, separation of power, perception of politics (what is and is not perceived as politics) and ruling behavior. This confusion took over all urban politicians and public figures till they began to react grossly out of proportion to politics and its accompanying aspects.
What makes a sociologist a sociologist is his really uncanny ability to engage the audiences or interviewees, to evoke a mood, a sensation, a presence that somehow transcends time. Through recognition of where Somaliland societies stood in the world when considering in the level of social and political development, Hanad’s approach was mostly based on what could work for Somaliland people and help them understand that social and political order sysyem is always the interpretation of life; its instrutment is insight, a nice understanding of subtle, unformulated conditions, the meaning that will propel people to opportunities for progress.
Keeping all that in his mind, Hanad said when he met Hinbir in another day, “Somaliland people must be too wise to understand that the problems of today are sufficently different and that the attempts to solve them require fresh thinking and remedies that even the detailed events of 1the past will not provide.”
Hinbir who was sipping a cup of coffee and looking at certain files which he was clearing from the local government, and calculating the proceeds he was expecting to make out of them, heard what Hanad had pointed out and immediately said, “what did you say, Mr. Hanad?”
“I said Somaliland people are not going
anywhere?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Somaliland people have failed to make progress in either rural or urban areas. They are yet unable to turn their environments in their favor.”
“How can the people in the rural areas turn their environment in their favor?,” Hinbin asked.
“Hard times stimulate growth in a way that good times don’t. The grandeur of life lies in living manifestations. Life becomes
elegant by looking and learning, through seeking and searching, by doing things in
more ways than one. Faint hearts are
unlikely to have much effect that can give
a hope to an elegant life. Life itself does
not give its fruits and shape to anyone
unless people shape it. This is perfectly
valid human behavior, consistency can
be, as it has been wisely argued, the
virtue of an ass,” replied Hansd.
“‘And what will that mean?,” asked Hinbir,
leaning his head upon his hand, and his arm resting on his knee.
‘”Man’s evolutionary progress was at the beginning tough and tight; he looked and learned much of his surroundings; he
fought with anxieties of nature; he kept
trying things in more ways than one; he
moved with the time, out sprang a spark
of truth, from the collision of his sword and shield. The fire first was for protection from cold and wild animals, and much later for cooking; tools chipped from stones, the
skill of hunting and archery, agriculture
began, industrialization followed, and
modern civilization took effect. All those achievements came through observation, articulation and experiementation. What is
it that prevents Somalis to think and act
or do from what other people like them did and still do, Mr. Hinbir?”
“How can people who do not live continually in the same place but move cyclically or seasonally, looking pastures for their animals, think like those who live in cities?”
“Life means all that it ever was and all man born with bare posteriors. Obvious, the way societies make use of their time most will constitute either the major safeguard or the major vulnerability of their life. The more structured society’s time is, the less difficult is its problem. The longer societies use their time to do something, the more possibilities for fulfillment exist. This means that it is the result of how societies have made use of their time that either indeed get them past the episode, or gives them a boiling mass of failures and frustrations.”
“The circumstances are now exactly what
they are required to be. Most of Somaliland people arei moving from rural-to-urban areas simply to seek new opportunities and improve their lives. Once these people get provisions of services, such as healthcare, education, resettlement and all other necessary amenities from Somaliland government, chances to turn both rural and urban environments in our favor will soon be seen.”
“Achieving or attaining a new status is juvenile; explaining and implementing an innovation is much harder and less glamorous. It requires an act of commitment, a hell of run-in. It requires self-actualization and objectivity in vision. Tell me, Mr. Hinbir, where are those mindful Somalis who can imagine, articulate, expect, analyse, and anticipate surprises and arrange their ideas for the future issues. Where are those people who should think much and act more in order to impose their pace and priorities when environmental stress or social and political burdens strike them and make their morale down and darker, less hopeful? Don’t forget that we all come from the nomad and have changed nothing in our life. You will be losing your sense if you think that the people who are now fleeing from the nomad will make changes that those who settled in cities before failed to make in Somaliland.”
“The urban life is always dynamic. The work of the urban community is clock regulated. Transportation movements are controlled by traffic lights and tall buildings in the cities by elevators and escalators. Add this to stability, regularity, law and order that are the characteristics of Somaliland government system. Don’t you see these achievements as a solid foundation for success, Mr. Hanad?”
“As they say, there is no stability without solidariry.”
“‘And what does that mean?”
“Stability with no determination to commit to the common good and to the good of each individual, doesn’t work, because the burden of responsibility lies on everyone’s shoulders.”
“That is what Somaliland government is committed to fulfill?”
“What is a government?”
“A government is a system by which a country is governed, administered and regulated.”
“What should citizens know about govetnment?”
“A citizen must not know but should know that
a government is a system of rules that keep individuals bound to conventional standards under which the right to make laws, and the right to enforce them, is vested in a particular group in society.”
“What did you learn from the government, I mean Somaliland government system?”
“Two things :To favor your clan members and disfavor all others who don’t hail from your herd, and to abuse power for personal gains.”
“A system of favors and frauds.”
“Exactly, and I call it The Secret of Somaliland Government,” Hinbir replied.
To be contunued……..
By: Jamafalaag
Hargeisa, Somaliland
jamafalaag@gmail.com
As per usual the opinions expressed in this articale are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions of qarannews.com
