El Presidante.

ailamos;750163 wrote: OMG Norf, such a long post... No, TWO posts! I just got done with ElPunto, I'll get back to you at a later time. However, just for the record, I think having lived 15 years in the 'Khaleej' qualifies me as "immersed", no? I must say that they were some of the best years of my life. Oh yeah. Forgot. Maxaa ka si'a markaa?

He is either telling the truth and being naive in giving details of the outcome of a private discussion or he lying. Who would deliver weapons by putting their name on the package to look like humanitarian aid? Sheekaa la inoo disaya

Title of thread and the photo doesn't match. The pic is obviously an aid delivery.

Ilaayay ha u naxaristo.

^Careful there. One of his relatives might be an SOLer

A good time to buy apple shares....

ailamos;749880 wrote: I think what I stated above explains my reasoning very well. If not, then please be specific as to where I am being unclear. As for my statement, there are several different 'forms' of Muslims e.g, some who want to give equal shares of inheritance to both their sons and daughters, some (women) who may fall in love with a non-Muslim and would like to marry him, some who may have an (alcoholic) drink occasionally, and so on. To have Shari'ah is to force everyone (whether you are a "liberal" Muslim or a "conservative" Muslim) in one pot and tell them: "look you're a Muslim and this is how you should live your life because you're obviously too incompetent to make your own decisions regarding your faith". A secular system will tell you none such, you are your own regulator of faith because faith is between you and The Almighty. I am of the opinion that no one should force their version of morality on others. People should be able to come to their own conclusions regarding faith, God and how to live their life. I personally think it is a form of weakness in faith that one should require fear of punishment in order to be a good Muslim or a decent human being for that matter. And that people who have a necessity for such rules suffer from moral poverty. Your reasoning has been one of portraying secularism as a system accommodating to individual ‘freedoms’ rather than catering for society as a whole which is what sharia intends. Individuals should be able to do what they want is what you’ve said. However, what you’re choosing to overlook is that these freedoms have their limits and can affect society as a whole. One should be able to drink alcohol you say. It’s their decision. All this whilst ignoring the fact that easy access to alcohol leads to some becoming addicted which in turn leads to the break up of families and/or even death. Resulting in societies with a proportion of the population dependent on expensive healthcare paid for by the tax payer. Shouldn’t the tax payer be free not to pay as someone getting addicted to alcohol is not his doing? Or is it? Isn’t this a case of forcing societal ills on the Somali people? Can you imagine alcohol being made available to Somalis? There are Somalis in the west today who are alcoholics or addicted to qaad (just as there are in Somalia). Many of these guys have neglected their families resulting in unruly school drop outs (meaning no jobs/income and maybe a life of crime for those youths). I mean, if that doesn’t show you these individual freedoms you’re advocating for is a recipe for a broken society, I don’t know what will. Sharia protects societies. Secularism tells individuals you’re free without offering any form of protection for society. A man is free to have a drink but when he drives home (illegally) and kills someone who is at fault? The man (who didn’t know what he was doing) or the system (that told him he is free to drink as much as he wants but not to drive home (how is he supposed to know not to drive home when drunk?))? You’re rather naïve in believing people should be left alone to decide what they want in a society with the presence of alcohol, clubs, drugs etc (thinking it will all be honkey doory). These things will always be available in any society but the restrictions imposed on them in a Sharia society will aid and protect society as a whole which should be the objective of any legislative structure. You only need to look at the AIDS epidemic in sub-saharan Africa where people ‘are free to choose’.

Ethiopia is ahead of it's neighbours when it comes to electricity grids/generation. This will give them leverage in the geopolitical environment when they're supplying a certain percentage to Djibouti, South Sudan Somalia etc.

Specificity cannot be implied when you just take into account the UK and the UAE, and then expand those two countries into entire regions, considering there are 191(?) countries. Let me counter with my own observations, that the level of crime in "western secular societies" varies because crime is virtually nonexistent in many towns and cities in countries like Portugal, New Zealand, Germany, Spain, Austria, Sweden, Norway and Finland. However, when you talk about large population centers like London, Paris, Berlin or Barcelona, then that's a different matter, because where you have people living on top of one another, and particularly in areas where many are poor and marginalized (think the Bronx), then you will have crime and criminals, whether you are in Dubai or Barcelona. Quite true. But whereas the population centres of the secular west have high levels of crime, the population centres of the shariah middle/far east don’t. Why is it that the murder rate is lower in say Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta and Riyaadh than in New York and London? Why did the fraudulent banks collapse in the west with many countries now experiencing the after effects whilst the banks in the east have had no such problems? When all of the peripheral issues are done away with it boils down to the laws of the land and how much of a deterrent they are to would be criminals. In affect what you’re inadvertently saying to the Somali people is that their densely populated cities are likely to be criminal playgrounds under a secular system. As for family values being eroded in "secular western societies", that's purely a fallacy, or rather an opinion and not a matter of fact. I have met and lived with European families where the bond of family and the level of respect for the parents is not unlike that of my own family. Similarly, in every setting, whether it be "secular western countries" or otherwise, you will have variations in family values. For example, in this country, family values are stronger in, say Texas, than California, but then again who am I to say that, and how many families have I sampled? None. It's purely a generalization because of the fact that Texas is more conservative than California. I used to travel a lot in my last job, and I realized things I had not know before and things I had assumed about "the other societies". For example, that strong family values are not restricted to just one set of people (contrary to popular belief in this forum) and that there are a multitude of humans from all walks of the cultural and religious spectra who have strong family values. A bit of traveling around and completely immersing oneself in other cultures usually does the trick of eroding one's ethnocentrism Again, you choose to bring up the argument that not all of western society has lost its values. Fair point. But, are more teenagers getting pregnant and becoming fathers in Europe? Are there more teenagers loitering and getting drunk in towns and cities in Europe? Yes? But hey the system allows them to do what they want right? So let them be. Needless to say alcohol leads to alcoholism and alocoholism along with young girls with kids before they finish school are detrimental to society at large. I would suggest you travel around a bit more and/or maybe live in a place other than the west to completely understand the difference between a society that is quickly decaying and one that is trying its upmost to maintain its ordained system. It seems as though you’ve ‘immersed’ yourself with one side of the argument and have decided to roll with it.

^come on You have admit he was a modern day innovation extraordinaire. Remember the first Apple PCs? Look at them today. He fought back against microsoft and took the young generation with him. A big loss to the tech world.

I will address your above post when I get ample time as I’m about to rush out. In the meantime, please explain to me how a Secular Somali state is a good thing because in effect, what you’ve stated above and in previous posts doesn’t really explain your reasoning. I believe Muslims can live in a secular system as well as they can in a Shari'ah system, but the opposite is not true.

NGONGE;749857 wrote: ^^ I need to talk sense into you warya. I will note it down for our next meeting. Will be at a place near you at the end of the month IA. Waa sheeko deer (you know the score )

Report on a Training Needs Assessment of the Somaliland Civil Service [2004] http://mirror.undp.org/somalia/docs/Training%20Needs%20Assessment%20of%20the%20Somaliland%20Civil%20Service.pdf This is what needs to be done asap.

NGONGE;749851 wrote: ^^ Nice to see you take the easy way out. Learned from the best ps I only employ Somalis

A very interesting article. Thanks JB. Nuune, this wasn't an AJ research. The top and the bottom of the list of countries in Newsweek's recent cover story, "The 2011 Global Women's Progress Report", evoke images of two different worlds. At the top of the list - the "Best Places to be a Woman" - we see the usual suspects: Iceland and the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Canada. On that planet, we see rankings in the upper 90s for the survey's five categories: Justice, health, education, economics, and politics. Women are out-earning men in college degrees (United States), domestic abusers are being banned from their homes and tracked with electronic monitors (Turkey), and female prime ministers are being elected (Denmark and Australia). Now look at the other planet, "The Worst Places in the World to be a Woman". In Chad, the worst of the worst, woman have "almost no legal rights", and girls as young as ten are legally married off, which is also true in Niger, the seventh worst place for a woman. Most women in Mali - the fifth worst - have been traumatised by female genital mutilation. In Democratic Republic of Congo, 1,100 women are raped every day. In Yemen, you are free to beat your wife whenever you like. In Chad, women have "almost no legal rights" [GALLO/GETTY] Though it is stunning to see these two worlds in such stark and detailed relief, their existence is not news: Development specialists and human rights groups have been calling attention to these inequities for years. But the systemic oppression of women tends to be cast in terms of claims for empathy: We shouldn't follow these policies because they are not nice, not enlightened. Some development researchers have started to make a compelling case, too, that oppression of women impedes countries' efforts to escape poverty. Economy and oppression But the data in the Newsweek list show that we need to frame this issue in stronger, more sweeping terms: When poor countries choose to oppress their own women, they are to some extent choosing their own continued poverty. Female oppression is a moral issue; but it also must be seen as a choice that countries make for short-term "cultural" comfort, at the expense of long-term economic and social progress. It is not politically correct to attribute any share of very poor countries' suffering to their own decisions. But it is condescending to refuse to hold many of them partly responsible for their own plight. Obviously, the legacy of colonialism - widespread hunger, illiteracy, lack of property or legal recourse, and vulnerability to state violence - is a major factor in their current poverty. But how can we blame that legacy while turning a blind eye to a kind of colonialism against women in these same countries' private homes and public institutions? When the poorest countries - most of them in Africa or with Muslim majorities - choose to sustain and even devise new policies that oppress women, we have to be willing to say that, in some measure, they are choosing the economic misfortune that follows. The developed world's silence suggests that it takes the mistreatment of black and brown women by black and brown men for granted, rather than holding all people to one standard of justice. The "surprises" on the Newsweek list confirm that educating women boosts economic prosperity. Many countries with histories of colonialism and other forms of tyranny, as well as countries without abundant natural resources, have chosen to educate women and grant them legal rights. Some continue to struggle economically, but none is abjectly poor - and some are booming. Think of China, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brazil, South Korea, and Turkey. "Studies show that helping women access trade and grow businesses helps create jobs and boost incomes." - Hilary Clinton, US secretary of state The low status of women on Planet Worst cannot be blamed on cultural stasis: Many of the "surprise" countries - Romania, Portugal, the Philippines, and India - treated women far more unequally a mere 50-100 years ago. In Pakistan, marital rape is not illegal today, and there are 800 honor killings a year. What kind of economic boom might stagnating Pakistan enjoy if patriarchy relaxed its grip? If you are not innumerate, you can start a business. If you are not living in mortal fear of rape and beatings at home, you can organise your community to dig a new well. If you are not subjecting your daughter to traumatic genital injury at three and marrying her off at ten, she can go to school. And, when she does marry and has children of her own, they will benefit from two educated, employed parents, which means twice as much literate conversation in the home, twice the contacts, and twice the encouragement to succeed. Educated, pushy mothers make all the difference. As US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put it in the Newsweek issue, "The world needs to think more strategically and creatively about tapping into women's potential for growth. Studies show that helping women access trade and grow businesses helps create jobs and boost incomes." But on Planet Worst, forcing terrified, uneducated women to remain at home is more socially acceptable than facing the fact that this means choosing to drag down incomes for everyone. It is time to stop tiptoeing around the poorest countries' responsibility to do something essential about their own plight: Emancipate their women. Naomi Wolf is a political activist and social critic whose most recent book is Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy. A version of this article was first published on Project Syndicate.

^ Ngonge, the world isn't perfect and neither are politicians.

Wouldn't mind getting into commercial law as I do something of that nature anyway. Seems like a lot of work (boring work at that) to get there though.

The first sentence made me chuckle Speak to Ngonge. He is a big fish for Kulmiye in London these days.

Afternoon Juxos. A rare appearance from Miss I can't sleep Maxaa cusub? Lovely weather

^Maxaa dhacay?

ailamos;749676 wrote: Norf, there you go again throwing around baseless factoids. A criminal who is intent on committing a crime will do so because the hope that s/he will get away with it will always overcome the fear of of getting caught. And when you say "Western countries", which ones do you mean? Please be specific because there are many "Western countries" out there and not all are the same. The prevalence of crime in NYC is not the same as in Calgary, Santiago or Budapest. Similarly when you say "Muslim countries", could you be more specific because I am sure that the prevalence of crime in Karachi is not the same as in Doha. But surely the number of criminals intent on committing crime will depend on the punishment meted out if caught. The more lenient the punishment the higher the instances of crime. The harsher the punishment the lower the instances of crimes. Fear of getting caught and being subjected to harsh punishment out weighs the hope of getting away with it (which is very difficult in this day and age). I don’t think it really matters which western countries I’m referring to as the above will always be true. Ps Pakistan = Mexico.

Oh those buses JB, imagine being away from Somalis for a week. Would you survive? One of the things I enjoy the most on my brief visits is the general chit chat you have with complete strangers. On the bus, at the petrol pump, at the barbers, in shops and in hotels. Considering most have a sense of humour it's fantastic

There are principals and there are practicalities.

Che -Guevara;749778 wrote: ^Who will do the screening and where will the resources to implement such policy come from? It seems we are talking as if Somalia or Somaliland is proper functioning state with deep pockets and entrenched institutions that can offer basic services. I knew you would agree