He was leaving it all to run one of the most dangerous capitals on Earth. That night, more than four months ago, Noor told his family he might never return.
“I may be killed any time. You have to accept this,” Noor recalled telling them.
Noor is the mayor of Mogadishu. To some, he is an idealist, struggling to repair a shattered city, and armed only with a bare-bones plan, ambition and memories of the beautiful place it once was. To others, he’s an inspiration, a promise of what this quintessential failed state could become if only there were more men like him.
On a recent morning, Noor entered a ramshackle primary school. A dozen bodyguards with hardened faces surrounded him. Like most days, Noor was on a mission. He swiftly looked at a blueprint for a building to be paid for with United Nations funds. Then the lean, outspoken 55-year-old with a silver goatee, round face and intense brown eyes stood before a large crowd of children. His voice rose.
“If anyone tells you to kill, don’t accept that. We are all Muslims,” he said with conviction. “You will inherit the country. A good future awaits you.”
There were no cheers, no thunderous applause; only blank stares, shy smiles and a sense that words matter little in war-riven Mogadishu.
A long ago peace
Noor grew up in a capital that was once among the continent’s most peaceful. He played basketball in boarding school and college. His fondest moment was of playing in an exhibition game in 1972 with the 7-foot-2 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who visited Mogadishu with his Milwaukee Bucks teammates. “He was so tall,” said Noor, who is about 5 feet 10.
Noor dreamed of moving to the United States. He even had a map on his dorm wall. But he never made it.
Instead, Noor left for Saudi Arabia in 1977 after he grew concerned about the socialist policies of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. By the early 1990s, he and his family sought asylum in England and settled in London.
Like many Somali exiles, he remained attached to his motherland. He headed a European Union funded nonprofit group that provided business advice to Somali immigrants. He also monitored events unfolding in Mogadishu through Somali news Web sites.
When Ethiopian troops entered Somalia in late 2006 to suppress an Islamist uprising, Noor founded a group that opposed the invasion. That brought him into contact with political players in Somalia; he made several exploratory trips to Mogadishu to see whether he could play a role in the new U.S.-backed transitional government. He felt a responsibility to give back to his homeland. “I wanted to bring change,” Noor said.
So far, all he has received is a $50,000 budget for a capital where garbage has not been collected in 20 years, and where electricity is nonexistent unless one owns a generator or buys it from someone who does.
“The government has not kept its promise,” he said.
But that hasn’t stopped him. He persuaded a generator operator to light up a few streets at night by threatening to bring in two large generators and drive him out of business. He hired 10 trucks to pick up garbage; that made a small dent in one neighborhood. He replaced officials who had been chosen because of clan ties and installed people with experience.
In some neighborhoods, he created community-policing units to prevent spies from al Shabab, the al Qaeda-linked militia seeking to take control over the country, from infiltrating government areas.
“Security has improved,” he declared, radiating with optimism.
His supporters applaud him: “He’s energetic. He’s everywhere. He works hard,” said Abdirahman Omar Osman, Somalia’s information minister. “He’s good for the capital.”
But others say Noor needs a dose of reality. Focusing on trash collection or lighting in one of the world’s most volatile war zones should not be a priority, said Dahir Mohamud Gelle, the country’s former information minister, adding that ideas hatched in London hadn’t worked well here. “People were expecting security to improve when Noor came, but it hasn’t,” Gelle said.
Noor concedes that there are limitations. “We don’t have the tools, the trucks. We don’t have the equipment that any city should have,” he said.
But he insisted that the longer the capital – once home to 2.5 million people, though hundreds of thousands have fled the conflict – goes without electricity, garbage collection and other basic services, the weaker the government becomes and the stronger al Shabab gets, he said.
“They are defeating us psychologically,” Noor said.
A lost Somalia
After leaving the school, Noor’s convoy sped through the capital, past roads filled with mounds of garbage, past an intersection where al Shabab snipers routinely shoot at passing vehicles.
At 11 a.m., he arrived in the Medina neighborhood, one of the few the government controls, to attend a rally in support of Somalia’s newly appointed prime minister, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, a Somali American from New York. Noor greeted the area’s commissioner, the recent target of an assassination attempt by al Shabab militants. He had lost his left leg.
The rally spoke to a lost Somalia. Colorful fabric and pictures of Somali nationalist figures, who once kept the country unified, covered the walls of the compound. Somalis from many different clans clutched the nation’s aqua blue and white-starred flag.
Noor’s guards watched the gate and the buildings that rose above the compound: Al Shabab suicide bombers had attacked gatherings like this in recent months.
Noor stepped up to the microphone. He railed against al Shabab as destroyers of Islam. He urged Somalis to give back to their country, to rely on themselves to rebuild it. Then he sent a message to the new prime minister.
“You must provide services, what the people expect the government to do,” he said. “We need a clear plan, Mr. Prime Minister. We need jobs. The capital has no clean water. And this is the center of Somalia.”
The crowds cheered, danced and whistled.
His critics resent his growing stature.
“He has the ambition to make things better, but you cannot realize your dreams on your own,” said Abdul Kadir Nur Aale, a lawmaker and former agriculture minister. “This is a city of surprises. If you think you are the center, and the center moves around you, that is a problem.”
By 12:20 p.m., Noor was back in his office. He delivered an ultimatum to a contractor who had not yet removed trash. “If you don’t clean it up in three days, I will fire you,” Noor informed him. The man nodded glumly.
That evening, at the hotel that is his temporary home, the conversation turned toward death. Stray bullets fly through the yard nearly every day. In August, two al Shabab militants attacked a nearby hotel, killing 19, including several lawmakers. Noor knows he could be next.
“They hate the person who is doing something, who is changing something, who is attacking them publicly,” he said. “I will die one day. I am psychologically prepared.”
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Washington Post
