By Abdourahman Waberi I have known Professor Mohamed Abdi Mohamed aka Gandhi for many years. I read his books and pamphlets devoted to the history of his native Somalia. A longtime resident of Besancon, France, we occasionally met in Paris or in Djibouti. A former researcher at the IRD (Institut de recherche pour le développement) […]
By Abdourahman Waberi* Jeffrey Gettleman will not run the risk of being seen as ‘a nobody, a cockroach, a gangster,’ unlike the Somali pirates he depicted in the columns of the New York Times Magazine last weekend (‘Taken by Pirates‘, Oct 5, 2011). In that particular piece of reportage, a totally asymmetric treatment is set […]
What’s in the news these days? a) New reports of famine in parts of Somalia, Ethiopia, and northern Kenya, alongside the difficulties of getting food and medical aid to areas in which famine is partially caused by what’s often referred to as the ‘political conditions’. b) The so-called phone hacking scandal in which News Corp.’s […]
With new reports of drone strikes by the American military in Somalia–the aim is to take out after members of Al Shabab– and a CIA base (and prison) in Mogadishu, I asked Alex Thurston, also the blogger know as Sahel blog, to unpack what’s going on. He sent this 1000 word post. It’s very informative–Sean Jacobs. […]
The first thing that comes to mind is our unquestioning admiration and obsession with wealthy people. Our newspapers and magazines are chock-full of personal interviews of rich people. In these interviews, people born with silver spoons in their mouths often offer the average Kenyan advice on how to work hard and make it to the […]
K’Naan, the Somali-Canadian singer, usually sings sort of earnest and sometimes strident political songs about war, refugees and militarism. His song, “Waving Flag,” is a good example. The organizers of the 2010 World Cup asked him to turn his song into the official tune for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. What would happen […]
The movie trailer for “Desert Flower,” the new feature about the short and very eventful life of Somali model Waris Dirie–she was circumcised at 5, married off at 13, was a supermodel by the time she was 18 and is now a UN spokeswoman against female genital mutilation. If the trailer is anything to go […]
Around this time of the year The Economist publishes its annual publication, “The World in …” The 2010 edition just came out. The prize is not something to be proud of. This year’s prize, surprise, surprise, goes to an African country: Somalia, and claims it has good reasons:
