Bashir Goth

For as long as anyone can remember, it has been the western world dictating the norms of democracy to Africa and the rest of the world. No matter the efforts by these countries, the West’s imposing standards of democracy were nearly impossible to achieve.

Djibouti does not frequently feature in the headlines, but the leader of the tiny country in the Horn of Africa and his international partners recently touted this state of rocky mountains and extremely hot weather as the new Dubai, the Shekou of East Africa, and the rising African Singapore.

Recent global developments have proven that the media, polls, and conventional spin doctors have all lost touch with reality.

When disaster hits somewhere in the developing world, the conventional wisdom is to look to international humanitarian organisations for assistance. But not anymore. Not if one takes the recent drought that devastated Somalia as any indication.

We often hear the platitude “water is precious” while we carry around bottles of water we can drink anytime. We bathe with it several times a day, wash our cars with it, flood our lawns and gardens with gallons of it, and waste it in every conceivable way.

Mr. President,

“When you chew Khat, you are on the top of the planet, but after you spit it out, the planet is on the top of you” – A Somali saying.

Only one day after so-called ISIS overran Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, routing the Iraqi army and bringing their menace to world attention, our family cat died.

Due to the many and mostly unproductive gatherings that Diaspora Somalis hold in luxurious hotels in Western capitals, I rarely go beyond the headlines of such stories unless I see the name of Prof. Ahmed Samater in them.

It is almost a quarter of a century since Somalia lost its statehood and status as a relevant member of the international community. Since then Somalia’s name has become synonymous with a failed state, and the word ‘Somalization’ the 21st century’s new term for ‘Balkanization’.