Quest for a new Somalia
‘Somalia: one week in hell’ was the headline over a recent report from that war-torn country in the UK Guardian newspaper.
Into that tragic mix of tribal conflict, insurgency and piracy have stepped two Australian Somali men – both La Trobe University graduates, one still completing his PhD at the University.
They are Abdirahman Farole, who holds a PhD in history, and Issa Farah who has helped bring ill Somali children to Australian for medical treatment and is still completing his doctorate in Law. Both came to Australia as refugees. They lived and studied here while bringing up their families, and are now determined to make a difference in their homeland.
In January this year Dr Farole came to worldattention when he was elected President of the new and little-known semi-autonomous State of Puntland in Somalia. He offered the post of Minister for Oil and Minerals to former La Trobe colleague, Issa Farah.
Six months later Mr Farah returned to Australia to attend the University’s Islamic Banking and Finance symposium (see previous page) describing it as a useful event ‘because we are a new government and a new state, and we want to develop a banking system’.
He says Puntland is the most trouble-free part of the country. Yet armed body guards and a personal pistol are still needed when he travels. His Australian wife and two young children still live in Melbourne. But he is optimistic that may change. If the new regime ‘works hard with cool heads and good politics’, says Mr Farah, it will be able to not only develop Puntland ‘but have an opportunity to bring peace to the whole of Somalia’.
When he took up his post as General Director of the Puntland Petroleum and Minerals Agency in January, he found a barely functioning office with considerable debt. Since those days, meetings have been organised between oil companies and he says there are plans for off-shore exploration in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Oil prospects for Puntland, and Somalia, look good, he adds.
‘The Somalis are tired of civil war. There is this perception that twenty years of fighting did not produce anything for Somalia. It’s time for all of us to get together and say, let’s try to sort our differences.’
Much of what goes on in Somalia no longer makes world headlines. But piracy does. ‘While Somalis perform this hijacking, the west contributes greatly to the problem because they give them money. Piracy in Somalia is a global problem,’ he says. And there have been discussions recently between his new regime and US and British officials.
Mr Farah says people in Puntland’s new government are mainly from the Somalia diaspora. ‘They’re highly educated with a blend of western ideology and Somali traditional values and Islamic values. Islam is the back bone, but we have a lot to learn from the west.
‘I see myself as a western Somali who can go back to Somalia and wants to do the best that he can.’ He regards Puntland as ‘embryonic of the Somali new political system’, and in need of outside help. We want the Australian government to play a role in rebuilding Somalia, especially in Puntland, because we are Somali Australians. I think Australia can help influence the international community.’
Because both he and President Farole are La Trobe alumni he would also welcome some assistance from the University, possibly by organising a symposium about Africa, particularly Somalia. ‘That could be really important for peace and reconciliation of Somalia,’ he concludes.