IS IT DEMOCRACY OR HYPOCRISY? By Mohamed Ahmed Abdi Ba’alul (waddi 12@gmail.com)

IS IT DEMOCRACY OR HYPOCRISY?

                             By Mohamed Ahmed Abdi Ba’alul (waddi 12@gmail.com)

Mohamed Ahmed Abdi Ba'alul. 

In the arena of democratic politics, parties are intended to be the key for those who desire its participation. Unlike, the implications of recent political context, one should at least, contend that political participation  is not a gift from Silanyo nor Ali warabe’s one or any other party owner whom you wish his name.

We agree to walk in to political maze, or to the confusions we had experienced the days that Udub party had dissolved in to nothing, or Fragments of Ucid Party sought to get another name for their political aspirations. Because,  it appears that we are happy with the political context regardless its continuing contradiction to our constitutional content. The right to political participation is nothing more than an empty word scratched in the legal pages, when the reality shows that it is in Silanyo’s kitchen or in Faysal Ali Warabe’s briefcase.

A country, where it is not a surprise,  for a political party to reflect the desire of a given clan, or where it is found the coalition of certain clans seeking the benefits of the political power at the expense of other citizens. It is my country, where you are holding the camera the wrong way up to get your image straight. If it is Greek to you, it happens here, where selfish individuals and blood-sucking corporations strife to dominate the destiny of the Majority under the misleading status of their clans and the state. Somaliland is where politics are games in towns, where people have vote but not the choice and the system exists only to favour the elite. 

I am living in a country, where citizenship is the definition of the primitive clanship, and individuals, whether they are rational or not are not fully responsible for their acts, but are under the guarantee of their traditional guardianship. What a fool's paradise ! you didn't asked to be born like that, to be a shadow presence that is afraid to face himself. The dark shape of ignorance is looming up ahead of everyone. The whole society is in the ocean of tribal illusion - and its individuals are struggling in middle of swelling waves and currents that could drift them into unknown destination.  

Those who argue that clan institutions are the nuts and bolts of Somaliland Politics are really hijacking the political discourse for their own pursuits. It must be acknowledged that Clan-based politics are used as the key to reorganize the society, when all State institutions collapsed. Because clans were the only remained social institutions that represented the people in the post-war period. But they were means, not the ends of our statehood. 

Clans are easy ride for politically hotheads who could not take the risks of the political dialogues. the. As a result of that,  Somaliland's Political race is conceded to accommodate clan-activists who only know how to speak to their folk. Hence, these blood-related affiliations were opted as strategic engagements by those who neither have the guts nor talents to come up with personalities and persuasive political rhetoric that could attract the full spectrum of Somaliland's citizenship.

Recently, experiences suggest that our traditional, consensus-based approach of conflict management appears to be unproductive, while the Constitutional Court is used as an alternative forum for the solutions of non-legal, political conflicts. We have seen the parliamentary quarrels mounting up to the extent that the Speaker and his deputy scuffled before the cameras.  What a pointless experience!

People are too tired of towing the sea-drifted democracy that guarantees nothing more than fruitless and outdated elections. A democracy whose agenda proves to be excluded from the social matters that affects the lives of every citizen is not democracy but a disguised hypocrisy.

Mohamed Ahmed Abdi Ba’alul

Waddi12@gmail.com