When Hargeisa was burning in the unquenchable heat of a brothers betrayal
And Burco was ablaze with the fires of baseless hate
Where were the shouts of fury and of unity?
When little boys were being murdered for the sin
that they would grow up to be Isaaq men
And women were raped for the crime of a clan
Where were the calls to banish gabiil for all its haraam?
When you sit and mourn the wars of the last twenty years
You refuse to acknowledge the murder and pillage
Of a once unclaimed sibling.
We were dying before.
It is not a matter of opinion or tribe disagreement
It's a fact as real as the holes left in my grandmothers body
As real as my uncle just never having returned home
His babies are still waiting.
As real as my father being tortured in a cold and filthy cell
Just for having been born.
The shouts for 'Somali Weyn' are now just hypocritical
Granted our differences are not of religion,
of language
or of the physical.
But it is evident in the history of an unarmed civillian population
Feeling the full force of a government
Of an army armed with all manner of arms.
It is most evident in the brothers and sisters who now claim
that they want unity and peace for Somalia
But have the sheer gall and audacity to say
That General Barre was anything but a murderer
And Morgan is anything but a war mongerer.
And countless others enshrined and made legend
In plenty buranbuurs and dua
are even worth the honour of memory.
You may now say Somaliland does not exist
But the simple fact is Hargeisa is now no longer burning
And Burco is now no longer ablaze
Maybe it all lay in the accepting
But you can't now claim who you left unclaimed for so long.
Just maybe we're now ok with being the unclaimed sibling.
Nimo Hussein
Copyright © 2011
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