When the May edition of The Somali Link came out; the amount of feedback I received was astonishing. Friend’s and like minded individuals thanked me, while others asked me to come up with solutions that might end the long standing chaos that surrounds our nation. The truth is we must educate our populace on the situation we face at home and abroad. No single editorial, however moving it may be can end years of violence and lawlessness. No single editorial can change the mindset of a lost generation, who only know how to channel their frustration through the barrel of a gun. Shedding light on matters of national critical importance through an open atmosphere in which discussions can take place is key in promoting both nationalism and education, both of which are important in ending the long standing civil unrest our nation faces.

Nelson Mandela once said “education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mine worker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of great nation”. If these are the fruits of education, imagine what a lack of education can bring. Imagine an entire nation whose people are illiterate. Imagine a warlord who says 1+1 =3, but when you ask him what’s 1 AK47 + 1AK47 he replies “o my friend I have 2AK47’s”. Then imagine these are the people running our country, these are the people who speak for us all, and on top of that they are all corrupt. They are more loyal to a clan or a militia than to their nation.

I ask myself where is the Somali version of Thomas Edison, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington. We have found our Hitler a hundred times over. Where’s our Isaac Newton. Our potential leaders die before the age of five, they go hungry without food. They are motherless, fatherless, and worse-hopeless. They wonder why they can’t compete with geniuses in Europe, Asia, and America. They wonder to themselves why they can’t receive an even playing field. All this comes back to a lack of education, a lack of what a government that is ineffective can create.

Surely we are more than a group of clans who have competing interests. Surely we are more than a collection of autonomous regions in the grips of illiterate warlords. Like Barack Obama says you cannot have the same players playing the same game and expect different results every time. We have had the same warlords in the same game, playing by the same rules for two decades. Tragically the results have been the same year after year. More blood shed, more lives lost and another year our nation and people lose hope for everlasting peace and all that it provides.