Rule of law is to every nation, what an anchor is to a ship. The more a nation neglects the rule of law, the more injustice, free-riding, weak strategies, bad rules, poor policies, ill-planing and corruption practices will reign that nation.
Rule of law provides a structure for societies. Rule of law tells societies what is lawful and unlawful and provides consequences for breaking the laws. Without laws, society would be chaotic and people would be able to do whatever they want. This could lead to violence, theft, and other crimes.
Rule of law also protects human rights. It gives people the right to a fair trial, the right to vote, the right to own property, the right to liberty, and the right to express themselves. Without
laws, these rights and political systems would not exist.
Politics is all about the way nations are governed, which involves order, power, and justice. Out of these concepts come the laws that tell people what they should and should not do (do’s and donts), with praise or blame.
As it was and as it is always argued, SNM was an instrument of change, an armed opposition intending to promote equality, an assemblage of military officers, politicians, intellectuals, students, educators, composers, poets, businessmen and ordinary young boys and girls regarded as an organization
seeking to overthrow and destroy a dictatorship regime, as well as its accompanying laws.
Beginning from the day when Siyad Barre was defeated and deposed from office, Somaliland political system has never been praisable but blamable. If praisable, why the Somaliland we observe today does not even resemble the picture that SNM envisioned during the struggle?
The reality on the ground is that
Somaliland politics does not deserve praiseworthy. But the question is who are to be blamed for what went wrong, socially, economically and politically in Somaliland?
The real actors in politics are the
people who are in power. Somaliland people don’t play any role in the politics of their country. Their role is just to cast votes during election times. They don’t even know what the
government they elect is doing.
This reality has created a culture in which Somaliland politicians always engage themselves in public life not as a vocation, but just as a business enterprise. And this is the reason that Somaliland people have not ever seen politicians who speak the truth – even when it benefits them, let alone when it harms them to do so. Somaliland people have not seen politicians who cared about them as citizens. They have only seen politicians who usually see them as tools to use in election times.
This does not mean that the majority of Somaliland people are completely apolitical if they are uninvolved in politics. In contrast, most Somalis are political-oriented and take biased positions with regard to election times. The problem with them is that they don’t keep
politicians in check in order to know what they do for the people who voted for them in election days.
Quite rightly, Somaliland politicians are to be blamed for bad governance and poor leadership. It is the so-called politicians, particurly SNM veterans who made Somaliland political system bad, poor, bleak, and blank in every way we see it. How can we prove this is for all to see.
Those who abuse power for personal gains are the mujahids. Those who put their hands in the public purse are the mujahids; those who arbitrarily arrest innocent citizens are the
mujahids; those who divided and still continue to divide Somaliland people are the mujahids; those who always sow the seeds of hatred among sister clans are the mujahids; those who favor some people against other people are the mujahids; those who claim that they fought for the liberation of Somaliland from Faqash forces and, therefore, argue that Somaliland belongs to them are the mujahids; those who always refer to which clan people hail from when job vacancies appear are the mujahids; those who raise serious allegations against the opposition parties are the mujahids; those who create irreconcilable arguments are the mujahids; those who always promise the sky during election times and become unable to deliver it after the election are the mujahids; those who use to lay down false stones for the foundations of projects that never come true are the mujahids; those who don’t want to reform the system are the mujahids; those who want to revolve around what does not work for the nation are the mujahids; those who were opponents to all Somaliland former presidents are the two mujahids; those who don’nt want to see now any political oppositions are the mujahids; thosewho like yhat Somaliland is led with lies are the mujahids; those who say one thing today and another thing tomorrow are the mujahids – statements that lie against one another; those what they say the day, never do, are the mujahids; those who want to keep this country and its people in suspense and confusion are the mujahids.
If that was really true and if the vision of SNM was to remake society, reform culture,
and revolutionize the system of governance, why the mujahids in power sre now practicing policies and plans that are totally contrary to the main purpose for which SNM was fighting for many years in the first place? When the mujahids are right and when they are wrong? The past or the present?
If the vision of SNM was to put a
phenomenal functioning government in place of the deposed depressive regime, why it is all bad and it is all wrong, but above all it is desperately sad and everyone is at the centre of his/her own universe, and every action and its result or reaction is just a merry-go-round guilt, from which the only proceeding is just the deliberate cultivation of ignorance and indignation, with no indication anywhere
of anybody to do anything about it?
History provides a guide in what areas of social and political reorder SNM, as a rebel movement that destroyed and deposed Siyad Barre’s administration, one of the most repressive, depressive and suppressive regime in East Africa, failed to fulfill.
The most prerequisite for any rebellious movement is control of its forces when the governing authority of the established
system has been deposed. SNM couldn’t be able to control its forces when it deposed Siyad Barre’s regime and conquered Somaliland for reasons of an incessant revolt by a group of irreconcilable Colonels whose main motif was to topple Abdirahman Ahmed Ali’s interim administration.
These irreconcilable Colonels left no rock unturned to undermine the success of Abdirahman’s administration. They worked hard and used all the means that made Abdirahman Ahmed Ali’s interim government less powerful, less effective, less likely to succeed and more likely to fail.
The culture of the Colonels is unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about politics, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions.
From the outset, the Colonels waged political warfare against Abdirahman Ahmed Ali’s interim administation to compel him to do not even on their will, but to bring him down on hostile intent. They took initiatives that never allowed Abdirahman Ahmed Tuur to have the
chance to make the voilent society peaceful.
Surprisingly, to weaken and make Abdirahman’s government performances paralysed, the outlawed Colonels took measures that were humanly detestable, religiously sinful, islamically obhorent, culturally disgraceful, intellectually immoral, socially hateful, and politically detrimental to Somaliland democratization process.
Without regard to what SNM fighters were to one another in terms of ancestry, the Colonels sowed the seeds of enemity and discord among SNM fighters, particularly the forces of Koodbuur, SNM’s strongest and most powerful and well equipped unit. The Colonels saw Koodbuur as formidable forces which they could never be able to put them under their control unless the unit was to be divided, disbanded and their equipment destroyed.
To emulate how people have become who they are is always a wise man’s mindset, but to envy what people have and what they did to be who they have become is usually a fool man’s decision.
Basically any new social and political order system which begins with envy and enmity ends in wickedness. Of course, wickedness is the character of Somaliland social and political system because every Somaliland administration is not totally accountable, from head to tail, for how it rules and runs
the affairs of this country.
To be conntinued …..
By : Jamafalaag
jamafalaag@gmail.com
Hargeisa, Somaliland
As per usual the opinions expressed in this articale are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions of qarannews.com
