As the Somali adage puts: ‘Baylah kugu raagtay,booli ayaa la moodaa’ which could roughly be translated as ‘An unlawful possession of lost item for a long time makes that item deemed as a bounty’, we hear nowadays the predictions of forthcoming ‘Awdalland’ which is meant to be ‘Salal’ and ‘Awdal’ put together. But, do the people of Salal agree to these unstudied adventures of their Awdalan in-laws? Did the Awdalans take for granted our circumstantial absence from the political arena of NW Somalia, or as some people prefer to call it, Somaliland? Isn’t it high time for Hargeisa to revise back its former policies towards Salal and its rightful owners, the Issas? Or do the Awdalans simply ignore that Salal is our ancestral land that we never relinquish anyway anytime? Or could it be because of their biased Herimaad mentality, they think we’ll forget Salal somehow? Let’s put these and many other questions under the microscope.
A couple of months shortly after Silanyo’s election as the president of the self-proclaimed republic of Somaliland, internationally known as NW Somalia, we began witnessing an unprecedented mount in the voices of what our Herimaad in-laws’ call ‘Awdalland’ ,that this presumed land belongs to ‘Gadaboursi and Issa clans of Dir’ ‘the direct descendants of Adel dynasty’ and that although the inhabitants of this phony ‘Awdalland’ worked hard previously to preserve the unity of Somalia intact, despite the fact that the central government in Mogadishu neglected the region, and that later under coercion from the Issaq clan they succumbed to the ‘whims’ of presently so-called Somaliland! Therefore, they issued a declaration of ‘independence’ from Somalia first and then from the regional government of the so-called Somaliland.
To begin with, Salal and Awdal (shown clearly in the map below) are two separate districts of NW Somalia’s region that belongs to Issas and Gadaboursi clans respectively. After conspiring against the SNM liberation movement and collaborating with Siad Barre’s military forces, the Awdalans succeeded in banishing the rightful owners and inhabitants of Salal, the Issa clan, who were supporting SNM, not only logistically but by all means necessary, and thus occupied Salal, contriving again the unification of the two districts under the name Awdal, and under the banner of the so-called Somaliland. For the last two decades and especially after the death of Igal, which precipitated inter-Issaq clashes that in return have brought Dahir Rayale to the presidency of the region, we’ve never heard from Borame nothing other than lavish compliments to the democratic achievements of Hargeisa. Now that Rayale’s ousted we started hearing of oppression, injustice and coercion, inexplicably swift to the tame tone of Borama. But we, the proprietors of Salal, the Issa, have from the outset of the Somali ordeal firmly underlined our prerequisites to join hands with Hargeisa, conditions which could be summed up as such a) That Salal remains apart from any other district, including Awdal. b) That any eventual power-sharing agreement should be reached between all districts. c) That the right of every individual district and naturally every tribe must be constitutional, not merely unwritten inter-tribal consensus. d) That our refugee population in Holhol, Ali Adde, Assamo (Djibouti) and Dhagagoo, Harmuukaale and Dire Dawa (Ethiopia) return peacefully to their homeland. Apart from those proposals we’ve never had other problems with Hargeisa, and now that the short-lived honey moon with Borama seems to be waning, we steadfastly do the same. As another Somali proverb says: ’Gobi way liicdaa e, Ma jabto!’ which plainly means that ‘Decency bends but never breaks!’ the hand of the descendants of Madobe Dir is spread to our brethren, the descendants of Mahe Dir to resolve our problems between us without outside intervention from anybody else, even if that happens to be our in-laws.
Second, we, the children of Salal, are not the descendants ‘Adel’ but rather the proud descendants of the well-known Madoobe,Dir, Irrir, Samaale Aji of Somali Gabar tribes, and we don’t subscribe ourselves to that prefabricated and illusive piece of history which you Awdalans change every now and then in accordance with your wishes.
Third, the most recent discontentment of the Awdalans triggered by the fact that Rayale vacated the presidency isn’t sufficient for us to wage an immoral verbal warfare against Hargeisa, which its people have endured so many plights until they’ve made the relatively secure and stable atmosphere they live in today, in contrast to the total chaos that reigns the Southern parts of Somalia, but instead we show our encouragement now as when they were fighting against the junta regime of Siad Barre. Also, that doesn’t mean that we’re satisfied how the question of Salal and its rightful owners was addressed so far, just because the Awdalans lost presidency but because Hargeisa seems to be heading to the right track!
Last not the least, any disintegration of Somalia and hence secession of the NW region would inevitably fall under the mandate of the UN and would be undeniably an arduous process that could consume much more time if taken into consideration in the first place, let alone the herald of an upcoming ‘‘Awdalland’!
Ultimately, once upon a time, when people used every conceivable healing material as medicine, a cleric (wadad) was asked to piss over the sick genitals of a female patient after all other men failed to do so because of the normal chemical arousal! He, like everyone else got aroused at the sight of the revered place and exclaimed ‘He who pisses on this place will be the only one to be called a real man!’The case of ‘Awdalizing’ Salal is its similitude, and needless to say, we never ever give in to the whims of our Herimaad in-laws however they try to seduce us, Salal isn’t for dowry!....Dhimbiil Dhamac Dhuxul.
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