By Ismail Warsame
Opinion Columnist
In the past few years we have been watching the deterioration of democratic values and cherished traditional values of the most powerful nation today on earth, the United States of America. We all have witnessed that the rule of law and constitutional imperatives could be fragile and trampled upon by unscrupulous group of people incited by political opportunistic leader(s). If, even the USA had experienced this kind of civic and constitutional violations by the same leaders elected to uphold and preserve the solemn obligations of keeping national sacred contract, then one doesn’t hold much hope for the well-being and survival of weaker nations.
The tragedy is that now there is no role model for sound and strong democratic public institutions after the fact of what had happened in today’s United States. I say today’s United States because that country’s history is full of cruelties and injustices. But the government of United States now has weaker public institutions following partisan gridlock along the way to bring those responsible for January 6 insurrection at Capitol to account, including the inciter of the riots, the President of the United States, Donald J Trump, the leader of the phenomenon “Fake News”.
Here in Somalia, a failed state with long history of political corruption, religious sectarianism and tribal violence, justice, rule of law and preservation of fine national traditions remain a pipe-dream, perhaps, for many generations to come. The latest examples of this anomaly are Siyad Barre’s tyranny through military coup, USC’s clan cleansing in Mogadishu and Farmajo’s political and security shenanigans and damages he has done to national governance and vital national interests.
What to do about it? Everyone has a role to play. There is a common saying that states personal responsibilities towards common good: “Do whatever you can, wherever you are, with whatever you have”.
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[This article has been updated since posting.]
