''Unclaimed''

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