Can Faisal Ali Waraabe Save Somaliland From Sinking Into Civil Strife?

Every nation needs an aristocracy of ideas. This is why Faisal Ali Waraabe held two press releases this week. The press releases were short but sharp in content.
Faisal’s attention was concentrated on three splendid issues:our democracy that is losing its attendant fundamental basics; our leadership that is not visionary; and our stability that is deteriorating day after day. .
Before starting the topic that took Faisal’s emotions and attention, let me begin by posing the question “Who Faisal is?”
Faisal Ali Waraabe is a man of many things. At times he takes the role of a relic of an old generation, spending much of his time in defending Somaliland’s seccesion as an independent state. At times he plays the role of a roving diplomat for Somaliland, attending at all international conferences held by the international community for raising financial  assistance to Somalia. At other times he acts as the only politician who has the hand that makes the final decision when all else fails.
At other times Faisal acts as a philantropist, offering attractive donations to those who deserve help.
All that is said about Faisal Ali cannot be true, but roughly rhetorical and wrong expressions of what Faisal Ali really is as a person.
Faisal Ali is not a man of his words. He breaks his promise. He fires all his cylinders to all directions when it comes to Somaliland political shopping centre, always taking the side at which he sees his interest, especially when the temptation to take stands is overwhelming.
Having said that there is an air of greatness in Faisal Ali that no other politician or public figure has. Faisal speaks his mind and tells the sad truth that Somaliland is still far off from becoming a government. Faisal bases his point of argument on the undeniable reality that neither Somaliland leadership nor the people are ready to become a government of its own reality. If the opposite is true, the picture we see now in Somaliland would have been much more beautiful than the one we observe today.
To begin with what drew Faisal’s attention this week, nations understand what democracy means. They understand that  democracy is a template of an attractive modernity. But what precisely are its constituents? I would place transparency, accountability, freedom of opinion and individual liberty at the top of its priorities.
Transparency is a required moral value. It is where trust comes from. It is the culture to command both the trust and the confidence between individuals and/or between government and its people.
Accountability is where the right answer is. A world with no accountability looks like one whose people are aware of the glass ceiling, but less aware of the glass basement. Do we know that accountability is an instrument for selfcorrecting system?
Freedom of opinion is a behavioural right; it is an individual’s birth right. It is the right to express ideas without fear of suppression by the state or oppression by vested interests. Who cares about what the people say?
Quite rightly, individual liberty is the right to live freely without fear of oppression or suppression by any force; it is the right to move freely, the right to own property and the right to have a choice. Does individual liberty mean that one can do what is not acceptable to  ethics?
Stability is where tranquility is found – the human way of living an ordered and organized life,  a decent environment that makes life predictable and sustainable to the extent that is prosperous, peaceful and beautiful. Peace-loving people always refrain from making the causes that can create rebellions.
Leadership requires noble ideas. The nobility of leadership starts with a vision. The vision needs a developing plan to achieve the desired goals. Nations cannot survive without national plans. Nor can they be led with lies or evasion of moral responsibility to face the real challenges.
An equally important principle of leadership is the acquisition of knowledge; the importance of having critical problem-solving skills and the capacity to listen and learn nation’s talking points. It is not that nations get the leader they deserve, but It is that nations produce the leader they deserve.
Nations that have compromised with any of these basic rights, and particularly those who embrace the supremacy of a tribal politics and regularity of public treasury piracy as a constitutional article, are visibly tottering, if not sinking into irreversible civil strife.
“In Somaliland the evil desires never remain dormant for the time when the immense power becomes available to every Kulmiye president  and privileges begin to marshal to the surface. Abuse of power for personal gain is not that bad if power is in our hands” is the song the two Colonels, Muse Biixi and. Mohamed Kahin, are singing in chorus,” a young journalist wrote in one of his recent regular articles.
Faisal started his press releases with a clarity, whether we like it or not, that Somaliland will never be a country one person can rule and lead alone according to his own outlook, and concluded with clear ultimatum that Muse Biixi will not sit in Somaliland presidential palace if he would not change his attitude and listen to the noble ideas Faisal and his likes suggest.
A doctor cannot cure an injury with a potion. Somaliland doesn’t totally need a protruding mouth with no prudence. Stupidity and obstinacy cannot obliterate differences and difficulties. Approach and attitude of that sort cann’t make the future safe
Only time can tell which one will triumph: Faisal’s approach or Muse Biixi’s attitude.
By: Jama Falaag
       Hargeisa, Somaliland

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