Rashid Abdi on twitter publicly decried about trolls getting at his family. He preached all he can about keeping families out of the fray. As a victim of village media (gossip) growing up and now social media, I was touched by Rashid’s plea. I am deeply sorry about trolls’ attacks on his family.
But, if truth be told, Rashid Abdi is a culprit and not a victim as he portrays himself in this trolls game. He has free rein in his discussions and portrayal about other people in negative light. As a magician, he concocts all maner of claims and puts them as a matter if factly.
Rashid Abdi discusses his targets’ families as his favorite pastime only that he gets paid for it. This he does publicly across social media platforms and privately in his consulting (reconnaissance/informer) business. For anyone who is not a state agent and who engages in the kind of analysis Rashid Abdi does is privately engaged in clandestine subversive activities against the interest of a person, a politician, a businessman or a state.
I bet not many are privileged to know Rashid Abdi’s clan. If you didn’t know Rashid Abdi will hate you forever without your knowledge if you ask him what clan he is. This, notwithstanding his penchant for discussing his targets’ clans (read his client’s target because analysis (read reconnaissance) it’s a livelihood thing for RA). And whimsically making all maner of association between his clients’ targets and their clan affiliations.
Rashid is a bully who has an agenda against others who he perceives or internalized as superior to him lineage-wise. He has this constant internal struggle and battles in his mind which [in]voluntarily shows up in his im person interactions and communications or the wild wide web.
Like Rashid Abdi a lot of us were born into minority/marginalized/alienated/ostracized communities. As a natural defense to being ostracized, some of us give in while others fight back in more destructive ways to harm themselves and others who they perceive as their aggressors. Rashid Abdi belongs to the later. As a victim of societal alienation growing up, he takes all Somalis as enemies with his indiscriminate and disproportionate revolt against all Somalis.
As a manifestation of psychological ailment, Rashid Abdi is in a creepy rebellion against himself and other innocent Somalis for the crimes of their ancestors. One of classification of Somali families into “bilis iyo boon” or “nasab iyo nasab-dhiman” which both his ancestors and their dominant peers had a part to play in that dehumanizing dichotomization.
Instead of living in the enslavement of past societal construct, Rashid should seek help to heal himself.
Puntland PNG-ed Rashid Abdi back in 2008 for unethical conduct and so did the current federal government. That PNG still stands.
Rashid Abdi is an anarchist for faults not of his own making but which he has full responsibility for and control over how he manages. It’s not right that he loads it over on other innocent people who had nothing to do with his and families fate from the policing cultures of the Somali society of yesteryears.
You may have noticed, Rashid Abdi makes occasional generic reference to some of his Twitter followers, especially ladies, as “abti” meaning maternal uncle. That’s should signal a red flag for person familiar with basic Somali culture.
In the days when Somali classification was done on the go as hardship after hardship or as trying situations came and went, men earned their place in the society they lived in. The tags they earned as a consequence of their split second decision/action during consequential times in history would come to haunt their progeny down the generation line for ages to come. That’s how folks earn their nicknames in the military as well. And does anyone blame the military for that?
Through social policing, individuals (men) were responsible for how the society viewed and treated them. They were to observe strict unwritten code of conduct. Rules about ethics, norms and values. Any innocent and even single incident led to one’s eternal summary excommunication from the lowest family unit to the broader Somali.
With modernity’s onslaught on tribal society’s cultures, lots of the classifications on segments of Somali communities has been relaxing over time. Plus, after 1991 a total shake up has occurred on the entire Somali dominant cultures.
After the Somali state collapse and the ensuing civil war, a lot of the cultural cops/judges have themselves fallen victims by failing their own standards and tests of strict adherence to social norms and values after the trials of fear, hunger, loss of lives, wealth and health. That volcanic eruption rendered everyone a “nasab-dhiman” in an instant.
So Rashid’s journey, like mine, has not been a lonely from mid 90s onwards. The “nasab and nasab-dhiman” or “bilis iyo boon” subjective classification disappeared.
The fact that Rashid Abdi married when such lockdowns were strictly enforced shouldn’t make him a perpetual victim. Thanks to Somalia state collapse and modernity, people like Rashid and yours truly can now marry from once noblest among Somali families.
Waryaa cuqdadda iska daa. Cuqdad sidaad Soomaalida kale ugu dhibaysid ayay adiguna kuu dhibaysaa. Waryaa caadi iska dhig oo dadkaaga dhinac ka raac oo ka kor inangumeednimada aad da’daan dhex dabaalanaysid.
War diintaada iyo dadkaaga qadari oo ka xishoo oo xashiish yar ha siisan.
Muqdisho-Somalia
