I was flying from Somalia to Uganda on November 30th 2020. I was on transit to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and I spent one night in that country, and I was flying from Ethiopia on November 31st 2020 to Uganda. I reached Entebbe airport in the afternoon on that day.
I boarded a bus from the Airport of Uganda before the evening to Jinja, Uganda. We were a team of employees from Somalia to attend a training to be held in Jinja town. Jinja is one of Uganda’s towns and it is located close to 90KM from Kampala. We were approximately 16 people traveling in that bus and the other group was on another bus. During our journey, I was looking at and deeply evaluating the appearance of the country and the behavior of the Ugandan Community.
I saw these six things in Uganda, which I had not seen in my country.
- Law and Order.
There was very much of traffic jam on the road and on our side, there were lots of cars close to more than one km and other side of the road, it was empty and no car was moving on the opposite side of the road. I was surprised at that because, all the drivers on our side were not breaking the traffic rules of the road and they did not try to cross over to the opposite direction and there was no conflict among the drivers during the traffic jam. I also saw that all the people were keeping law and order.
Green environment.
I saw that the whole environment we were traveling in was green and clean. My eyes and brain were relaxed and I liked the country in this environment. I asked the driver of the bus, “Is the whole country green or some places aren’t? “He replied,” Yes the whole country is like this, you see”. I asked him again, “Is this seasonal or ever green? “He told me, “This is ever green.”
The communities of Uganda and their government kept the original trees. They also planted more trees and grass throughout the country which resulted in forests, then, all the land of Uganda got rain forever and the environment became green and good looking. When the people do more to improve their country both moslem and non-moslem, Allah shows justice and rewards them with compassion by making their country beautiful and a prosperous place.
- The Currency of the Country.
All the country uses its own currency of Uganda shillings and there is no other foreign money that you can do shopping with in the markets of the whole nation and they consume only their money. So, their money has value in all their territory, therefore, the government afforded to control the inflation, then, their lives became easy and very cheap.
- The appearance of the District in which the Somalis live.
I went to one of the places of Kampala where the Somali Community lives and that area was the only ugly one in the country, because, I did not see any green environment of planted trees and grass. Also, that was the only place I saw with waste and a very bad smell. I was following a motorcycle (Boodho) and the driver was a Ugandan man. I asked him” why is this district totally different from the rest of the country?” He said to me most of you live here. He meant Somali people live here. I got surprised and I immediately, remembered more places in Mogadishu which were very dirty like this district.
I also remembered several different countries in Africa where I went to several times and they are listed below:
- Ethiopia
- Sudan
- Kenya
- Jabuti
- Uganda
All the above-mentioned countries were the same. The districts where the Somali people live were the only environment which were not clean and had very bad appearance. Then, I remembered again, a Somali narrative says, “The Somali people are proud and always like clean and good-looking environment”. I did more research about that narrative and I asked myself, “Is this narrative true or false.” After all of that, I can say that, narrative is only praising the Somali people made by themselves and we also can say they are selfish people and there is no sense of ownership that they can keep and clean the public interest places, like roads, while, they only renovate and maintain their individual interests.
- The Role of Politics and the Position of the People of the Country.
There was in the whole country law and order and also a real hierarchy. The government plays their role and all the various institutions do their duties without any obstacles from the side of their communities.
Meanwhile, the civilians play their role and they respect the duties that they are delegated to by government. Although, the governance of that country is dictatorial and like colonial rule, the people of the country have a sense of ownership, because, they really like their land and sand. Even you see the low laborers who clean the houses or hotels and also sweep and take the waste from the rooms. They extremely, believe you are a foreign person and the building you stay in is their mother-land.
Moreover, there is a demarcation line that clarifies the different roles of the government and the civilians of the whole nation. For instance, if you asked someone among the civilians, “why are the conservative and opposition arguing and not agreeing to be compromised?” “He or she says I have no idea about that, because, that is political and is not my role, it is the government’s role”.
If we are comparing the Somalis and societies of the mentioned countries above which have different mindsets or beliefs. Therefore, all the Somali people are politicians and there is no any demarcation point that classifies the two different roles of both sides and you can see even the nomadic people like camel keepers who are very deeply interested and also have a lot of influence and talk about politics in his camel’s campus.
- The food of the Nation.
All the population of the country eats the food which comes from their own country and they do not need imported food. Therefore, they produce their own food from their agricultural land. If I mention some of the foods, they produce are different types of vegetables, legumes, beans, rice etc.
In-addition, the people do not eat the rice imported from other countries, they eat only food from their own nation as stated above. So, the imported rice is smuggled and is not allowed to be imported into their country. If the traders sell imported rice the government arrests and puts them in jail and their businesses are closed by the government.
My Suggestions to my people
I am suggesting to all my Somali People to change the bad behavior and follow the world. Because, we have remained the highly civilized and developed technological world. The other people in the world are really surprising to us. Do you know that the other developed world is wondering about the Somali people? “Truly speaking, we are the only people who have the same ethnicity, skin, culture, religion and one nation in the world and also have different natural resources in the country and very small number of people. Unfortunately, we are fighting and not allowing to live together and keeping the nation divided. We also have no sense of ownership and are acting like animals because, we are killing each other.
Thus, my people, we have to wake-up and change all those bad deeds which are stated above and make much effort to reach for the developed world and keep our country. We also need to rebuild our great government in-order to explore our natural resources like gas, petroleum and other different natural resources under the surface of the earth to safeguard ourselves from hunger in order for us to become the richest nation and people in the world.
We also need to produce our own food in-order to stop and prohibit all the imported food from abroad for our own agricultural benefits.
My people, we have to forget all the disaster from the civil war that happened between us and let us forgive each other and trust that we are one people not different from other human beings. We have to think and ask ourselves, what we are? Why we are in the world? And which kind of role are we playing in the world?
If we all try to answer these questions, we truly shall have no problems. So, we have to stop the bad behavior and immediately, change our actions into our good and positive behavior and start to answer the above questions in order to reach the highest developed countries in the world and make our land prosperous and the best country in the world, that most tourists from the world can visit and tour every year.
Finally, I hope my beloved people and nation will urgently make a positive change and develop and improve our country to the level of the other developed countries and become prosperous as one of the richest countries in the world.
December 15th 2020
Article 1
Copy-right by: – SUUDAANI
Writer: Mohamed Muhumed Hussein (SUUDAANI)
Email: suudaani.mof3@gmail.com