If you must know, the very idea of dirtying one’s hands in the murky waters of Somali bickering leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Now if one were so naive as to become entangled with a bunch of foxy cliques, one would be pardoned for trying, but such charitable readings only happen in other environs, not in Somali hearts.

Tell you what, if there is anything that I had learned during the course of the past two decades (along side billions of the world’s population) it is that you would have more luck watzing in snow in the African desert than you would have finding loyalty in Somali politics. God forbid, were Somalia to fall today into total slavery (as the Kenyan scribe prophesied) I dare say there would be no love lost between Somalis and Somalia. Let’s face it, has there been such a thing as sincerity in Somali vocab. the world has yet to see it exhibited in Somali lives… political, religious, or otherwise.

Yes, there are those who are fond of lip-service and smart dialectics, and there are those who every now and then spurt high-flown words and misplaced bravado. May Allah have mercy on our people; dangers do abound in the neighborhoods, and beyond; the greatest hazard of all though is firmly lodged in the Somali way of seeing things.

No, folks, Somalis are not normal people. Our perspectives are about as wide as the eye of a needle. Our likes and dislikes don’t follow normal rules. In any given situation, there’s time and place for everything. Eight years was more than American tax-payers could take in terms of bad economy and bad reputation. With us, though, enough is never enough…

Yes, we are in total denial, but the way things are, there’s absolutely nothing that stands between Somalia’s bounties and the fancy of any straying wolf…And we already are blessed with two flags….And if I may add, millions of hearts, each wandering, eerily, in a different direction.

So, that’s why I am thinking out loud, two days after hundreds, if not thousands, of former Somali refugees (who have yet to answer the call of duty in the service of their own motherland) lined up across the United States of America, to cast their ballots for America’s 44th President; a brother whose climb to the highest seat of the known world should dare us (lesser humans) to hope.

But God-forbid, were I the last person standing and the Disabled Tribes of Somalia got down on their knees and begged me to become their next Scapegoat, I would say to them, Thanks, but no thanks…

By Safi Abdi
Email: barni12001@yahoo.com