Pretoria, 16 December 2009 (Somalilandpress) – Knowledge production in any country costs a helluva lot. It’s an admitted fact by all men of civilized nations. University of Pretoria held a graduation ceremony recently for masters’ students (LLM). While sitting in the graduation hall at the university of Pretoria, a vague sense befell me given the recent heartbreaking news which occurred in Shamow Hotel in Mogadishu, in a similar gathering where twenty four Doctors, teachers, members from the civil society, graduating students and university staff wrapped in happiness, passed in a suicide bombing.
At the end of the day the fundamental question regarding the bombing continues to haunt us all. Perhaps the issue can be reduced to a simpler explanation: “the angry youth failed by life” whereas the larger question that confronts us as thinking people is to find out where the evil originates?.
In that crowd at University of Pretoria I sensed that with information, the degree and depth of our responsibilities grows further and deeper. The suicide and murder of others points sharply to the divided politics of our time and the dejection that haunts our youth and future leadership. It is clear that what was to be a significant step into the future progress of a nation was twice the reversal of that progress. The bombing continued to hold us hostage to our ideals and our national identity; it confirmed the rooted divisions that convince the young that politics is a place to misplace your soul and not to help your country men.
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As I left the hall at the University of Pretoria I became convinced that the suicidal bombing in Shamow Hotel on the 3rd of Dec 09 was not a forlorn act of an unhappy man but an organizational outcome of the enemies of our common humanity be either you in Japan, Africa, Europe, or Brazil. The attack was against our common humanity, civilasation and nothing else.
Indeed, murder at mass scale is what had happened in Shamow Hotel. We like to think of ourselves as civilized human beings whom understand the value of human life but these recent attacks have led me to examine my own beliefs about the quality of our lives as the people of the civilized world. We speak so profoundly of human rights and development but yet the enemy’s minds and thirst for blood has vanished in their brains. No doubt that many children as the result of these recent attacks will remain orphans and desperate but this are the realities of time.
The nerves touched were not only mine, Dr. Edna Adan who arrived at the graduation hall in University of Pretoria to receive a chancelor medal for her to contribution to humanity betterment, condemns this brutality “I strongly condemn to the deepest of my human heart and sense the atrocities that are not only inflicted to the families of the killed students, doctors and teachers but also to the people of Somalia and humanity at large, my heartfelt sympathy and Du’aas goes to the families of the killed ones, May Allah grant them Janatul Firdowza to those who died in Shamow, May the Almighty Allah cure all those wounded…amin” amin amin. Dr. Edna.
I trust and believe Somalia will rise from the difficulties of the day and become a great country with abundance of lawyers, scientist, and economists than the ones we have been robbed of, untimely.
Saeed Furaa
South Africa
somalilandjournalist@gmail.com
Despite the difference and political climate between us and our southern neighbour and distant cousins, we are united in this horrific attack of this scale and this mass killings of innocent, the "jewel" of the nation, as you said, Furaa.
Our hearts are bleeding with their families and a nation in mourning. Nobody deserves to die this way and nobody has the power to decide when somebody dies.! May Allaah give their families, friends Assabir Wa Salwaan, Yaa Rab!
Well written, well expressed and very moving. Good job Saeed!
Thanks Gobaad