Beyond Anger: A Look at Farmaajo’s obsession with self-advancement
The 14th October 2017 was not supposed to be remarkable in any way. To me it felt the same way the year had felt: optimistic and full of possibility. The atmosphere and the nature of conversation around Mogadishu had shifted significantly. It was no longer just a place where people got killed and people starved et cetera; it was now a place with a future, you could invest your money there, plan for a future and that is exactly what my friends and I did.
And, so it happens that on the day I was having an amiable conversation with my friend (who was in Mogadishu), trying to strategize on what we could for our business then suddenly the phone disconnected. I tried calling back, but it would not go through but oh well, this is Mogadishu, nothing exceptional about a patchy cell network. Naturally, with some unexpected free time in between, I did what any sane person does and went on twitter. It did not take long to realise what had really happened because my feed swelled with news that a truck bomb had exploded on the busy Zobe junction. My mind immediately goes into melt down with a series of seemingly disjointed but related thoughts;
“oh god, I was just there a month ago”
“Are my friends ok? “
Normally with these things there are 20 -60 dead we mourn for a day then we go back to business. This is not normal, we all know that, but it helps people get out of bed. So, I thought this too shall pass except it didn’t. The numbers kept going up. Eighty dead, in a warzone, was perversely tolerable, more unfortunate than anything. Two hundred and fifty dead made me exceptionally angry, this was truly a tragedy and more than that, an escalation in the violence. Five hundred fatalities was mind obliterating. A mixture of anger tinged with despair all forming a shroud over my mind making logic impervious so that, in that moment I, and I think most Somalis, were ready to fight whoever did this and obviously it was al Shabab.
Potential Ignored
For the Somali diaspora this was a galvanising event: it didn’t matter whether they were in Sweden or the UK or anywhere else in Europe or the US, there was something in the air, a sense that this time it was different that manifested itself in an impetus to raise money to help emergency and relief efforts. The British- Somali writer Nadifa Mohammed and Abdi Addow – a social media personality- set up a fundraising page online that got donations from Coldplay, Iman, K’naan among many others. Beyond the diaspora, Istanbul lit up the Bosporus bridge in solidarity following from that example, Paris lit up the Eiffel tower with the Somali flag.
These actions are laudable but for truly heroic efforts look at Gurmad Qaran (Emergency coordination team). On this day the government absolutely panicked, they knew they do not have the capacity to deal with 500 fatalities so generally as so often happens in Somalia people had to organise themselves. Within the confusion and fear of not knowing whats next a few people kept their heads and could clearly see that a system was necessary to help track the injured, count and perhaps identify the dead.
Under normal circumstances, in a normal country, an event this bad suspends politics momentarily. Emphasis is on civil society and recovery. Farmajo and his government rather than try run a government response they first dragged their feet until Gurmad Qaran set up and then they tried to claim the credit for it by conducting intrusive visits accompanied by their security details disrupting emergency work. And, instead of helping with volunteers all they did was take pictures to help with their propaganda and insultingly tried to get pressure Gurmad Qaran to minimise the number of fatalities. This created friction in the cabinet since most of the them wanted to be seen being active in front of the international media for possible self-advancement and ultimately meant that the disaster management minister felt she had to resign.
Farmajo goes lower
Different people react various ways to crisis. Perhaps, some might say, he panicked, we couldn’t fathom what it is like to be in that position. Indeed, they would be right, I do not have that experience and it might excusable if it wasn’t a symptom of something deeper and nastier.
Farmajo’s entire motivation and the sum of all his political efforts amounts to accumulating prestige associated with winning the presidency twice (he would like more) then he can go back to the New York and act accordingly: making speeches and lecturing. Look at him in this way and you realise the man does not have a political programme he is trumpesque in his uncanny ability to find a wedge issue that divides and reinforces his power.in the three weeks after the attack he spoke of happy vs angry politicians where of course he is the happy one, keen on prosperity and all his opponents are angry only interested in opposing him.
Back to the aftermath of the bombing, the mood as I have noted earlier, was confrontational. I felt from my position coordinating diaspora efforts for Gurmad Qaran that we Somalis were up for a fight with al Shabab. I believe Farmajo felt it too. Few days afterwards his rhetoric changed completely. He was militaristic promising war against the militants even raising a 15-million-dollar war chest and promising to lead it himself from a headquarters in Afgooye. Finally, this was it. We needed a reckoning and we were there.
Political responsibility
I was wrong. Farmajo had no plans of confronting al Shabab. What, political responsibility? He’d sooner slit his wrists. He couldn’t wait to run away from Mogadishu to go on a tour of Amisom troop contributing countries. Anything to avoid the politics. He did not really want a war as much as he craved the benefits of mobilisation for war without the fighting. Then he can keep people psychologically off-balance, just that little bit insane and just dependent enough on his image that they wouldn’t think to blame him for his mistakes. But ultimately since he is unwilling to fight the real war he must invent one. Conveniently, political opponents become the enemies to fight.
He used all his capital to centralise authority and destroy his opponents in parliament. Unsatisfied, he used the counter terror forces (NISA) as a personal instrument, where outmaneuvered in one instance, he set them on the opposition party headquarters killing 6 guards. He could have jeopardised a delicately balanced political situation, achieved through blood. But sacrifice counts for nothing to him since every slight real or imagined is cause for retaliation. In fact, I suspect he cannot comprehend the concept. Meanwhile al Shabab still exists.
It is always tempting to invest too much in politicians after all they are people just like us. But are they really human? After that attack, I felt no compassion and no self-reflection from politicians. Instead I felt a relentless opportunism that squalidly disregards every ordinary Somali in the name of self-advancement. Maybe they aren’t like everyone else at least they don’t act like it. I doubt they think they are like us nevertheless we cannot rely on them. Farmajo’s election was a signal for Somalis that perhaps things were things were changing for better but in his depraved self-involvement he cannot imagine anything beyond himself and re-election.
Now this week is the first-year anniversary of the attack. He and his prime minister in their inflated piety will try to hijack the memories of the dead but remember they have ignored all year. They have not mentioned 14th of October in their speeches. This time we are better informed, we know you! These politicians are the problem; our solutions are political: we will have to do this ourselves.
Abdi Amey is currently an independent analyst.Formerly host of #AmeyFiles. He can be reached via @Abdiamey or [email protected]