Communicating Arts - Main Web SiteThe first time the government closed three broadcasting units (June 2007), I took an interest; on the second go-round, I marked a note here [4].
For the record, last week, according to Reuters, two gunmen, unidentified and unafilliated, attempted to murder Jafar Kukay, a manager with Shabelle Media, a broadcast and online news vendor; the government not only failed to follow-up with an investigation, it raided Shabelle Media, "briefly arresting" 18 staff. Its troops sprayed down the building with gunfire afterward. [3]
The natural evolution and related temptation for governments installed by arms is generally to eliminate their enemies outright, not a bad thing when the enemies aren't talking either.
Since the Ethiopian army's route of the Islamic Courts Council (ICC) in Somalia, Mogadishu has been plagued by violence.
Some of that has been called "Iraqi-style"--roadside bombs, assasinations, random mayhem in marketplaces and theaters (grenades tossed; automatic weapons fire; etc.)--and related to ICC remnants. What part comes from other sources, one may wonder.
The response by President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed may have been called to this point, "standard operating procedure": lay the foundation for a national reconciliation conference; in concert with Ethiopian and AU peacekeeping troops from Uganda, disarm the population; hunt out the remaining ICC in Mogadishu and elsewhere; restore security, tranquility even, to the capital.
Instead, against a mix, probably, of ICC-related violence as well as the static produced by anarchic violence (for vendetta, for the hell of it), the government may have produced the more Draconian measures its enemies wished it to in order to turn constituent opinion against it.
One may get the sense that if the state stalls, it's enemies will turn around and eat it alive; if it advances, it harms those it most intended to defend.
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As a U.S. citizen and blogger, I go with an old patriotic saw: "Without the First Amendment, all of the others are meaningless."
As a former college-level English instructor, I also believe in responsible rhetoric.
As a blogger with what I call the "second row seat to history", I believe in integrity in journalism, including this opinion-making part of the art.
Finally, globally, I would paraphrase Hemingway's remark about hunters: all writers are one writer.
With all of that in mind, what possible excuse could there be for shuttering what seemed to me a responsible but hamstrung news operation?
What I would get from visiting http://www.shabelle.net/news/english.htm would be reports of murders and other violence with little follow-up, if any, which I took as an indicator that journalists like Aweys Osman Yusuf--I always enjoyed his stuff--may have felt caught between the expectations of a newly installed government and the scrutiny of the "Islamists."
Over some months now of reading about Islam and surfing across the sea of related conflicts, I'm inclined to think there's more of "design" involved in inter-Islamic violence than political or religious motivation.
In fact, the recurring themes--e.g., response and regard for authority; male honor and pride; clan and tribal relationships and related unquestioned nepotism; and practices relating to the ownership of women--predate Islam.
Don't blame Somalian anarchy on The English (or the Italians): the cultural endowment that drives a leader to drive out a resident population in search of a handful of true committed enemies may run bone deep.
Kabul in Afghanistan and portions of Baghdad and surrounds have become quiet, or less violent, one may say, as government forces and allies have found ways to incorporate opposition apart from the Al Qaeda movement while producing tactics that better draw out and identify AQ-type fighters.
One may hope that vacate-cordon-and-sweep works in Mogadishu, but I feel the more difficult struggle may be with the autocratic, one may even say the "California-F", contribution ingrained in Somali culture.
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1. "11,000 fled Mogadishu fighting in September-UNHCR." Reuters, September 28, 2007.
2. Oppenheim, James S. "No News Somalia, 3." Oppenheim Arts & Letters, June 6, 2007.
3. "Press group deplores attack on Somali media boss." Reuters, September 27, 2007.
Correspondence and Permissions: James S. Oppenheim
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