Ignorance is the Enemy of Love, (1937)

[Taleexi]

Ignorance is the Enemy of Love, (1937)

entitled in Somali “Aqoondarro waa

U nacab jacaylâ€

 

Faarax M. J. Cawl

 

Translated from the Somali, with Introduction and Notes, by B.W. Andrzejewski. London: Zed books, 1984.

 

 

Contents

 

1. The Childhood and Youth of Cawrala and Calimaax

2. The Voyage by Sailing Ship and the Meeting of Cawrala and Calimaax

3. Cawrala and the Growth of Her Love

4. The Red Sea Offensive of the Dervishes

5. Calimaax is Injured and Recovers

6. Cawrala in Misery and Distress

7. The Wedding Feast of Cawrala and Geelle

8. The Death of Cawrala: Calimaax’s Grief and his Prayers for Her

 

Editors’ Note: Not only was this the first novel published in the Somali language since the standard script was adopted in 1972, but it is also significant because it engenders an adaptation of Somalia’s rich oral tradition. The novel, which is set in 1915, is the love story of a Dervish fighter named Calimaax who rescues a woman (Cawrala) from a sinking ship. The couple are soon afterwards separated, because of the Dervish struggle, with Cawrala eventually expressing her love for Calimaax in a letter. Both die before they are able to be reunited.

 

Reviewed by Andrzejewski

 

Historical and Social Background

 

The story told here is a true one, even though it is presented in a fictionalized form. The hero, Cali Maxamed Xasan, popularly known as Calimaax, ‘Cali the Seafarer’, and the heroine, Cawrala Barre, were real people, and the memory of what happened in their lives is still preserved among older people in the Sanaag region of Somalia. The author has used material from their oral testimonies in his novel, constructing on this basic framework his own fabric of invented detail and dialogue.

The plot unfolds against the background of Somali national history in the first quarter of this century, when members of a Muslim Brotherhood, who called themselves “Dervishesâ€, were fighting against the foreign powers which had partitioned the Somali territories, and against those of their compatriots who had accepted colonial rule. The struggle was led by Maxamed Cabdule Xasan (1898-1921), who was a Muslim revivalist reformed as ell as a nationalist leader. The title Sayid, “Masterâ€, was usually applied to him, though his enemies coined for him the pejorative epithet of “Mad Mullahâ€. He was a man of outstanding gifts as an organizer, politician and strategist, and among his achievements were an efficient network of military intelligence and a well-organized army with appropriate logistic support; he was masterly in his use of the element of surprise in warfare. As an astute politician he manipulated the network of interclan alliances and hostilities, while at the same time aiming at the unification of all Somalis. Although he appears in the novel in only one scene, his plan to attack the British garrison in Aden is of pivotal importance to the plot, affecting as it does the lives of the hero and heroine.

The account of these historical events, like the personal story of Cawrala and Calimaax, is based on oral tradition rather than documentary materials. These two sources of information are to a great extent in agreement, though not always in matters of detail: as far as I have been able to ascertain there is no confirmation from British documentary sources, such as colonial and military correspondence and records, that a plan to attack Aden existed, but on the other hand there is nothing in them to contradict it. It would certainly have been in keeping with the astuteness and inventiveness of the Sayid as a strategist, especially since Aden was very close to the outposts of the Ottoman Empire, a Muslim power at that time at war with Great Britain, and research into Turkish state documents about Somalia, which I do not think has ever been undertaken, would very likely through light on the matter.

The authors’ interest in political history is equaled by his feeling for authentic period detail and social history. He is very careful to be accurate in providing information about methods of transport and communication, about clothes, habitations and dietary habits, and about survival techniques on land and sea, as well as bout various supernatural beliefs which were strongly held in those days. One aspect of that life at that time assumes special prominence, for it is crucial to the plot: this is the method of sending and letters in a country where there were postal, telephone or telegraph services to the public, and where in any case the majority of the people were illiterate. The main means of communication was the oral message carried by travelers or special messengers, but when letters were sent or received those who could not read or write had to rely on help from others who could. No privacy of correspondence was possible.

 

The Use of Poetry

 

The facet of life depicted in the novel which is most likely to strike the foreign reader as unusual is the use of oral poetry as a medium of communication in everyday life, and he may well wonder, as the characters address one another in verse, whether the author is indulging in some sort of avant-garde literary experimentation. To the Somali reader, however, the dialogue in poetic form gives an impression of period authenticity, for it is still a matter of common knowledge, even in urban Somalia, that in traditional life poetry was the main medium of artistic expression and wall all-pervasive. A narrative set in the period in question would therefore appear odd and unrealistic if there were no poetic inserts.

Before the Second World War oral poetry was used in interclan and national politics as a weapon of propaganda and to bring peace where there was conflict; it was used in forging new alliances and reviving old ones; it was used to praise or criticize friends and opponents. Poetry also provided entertainment, especially when it involved exchanges in verse between different poets. Such poetic combats were conducted either at specially convened assemblies or through travelers, who often covered great distances and might pass to and fro between warring clans with their marriages.

But poetry was not restricted to the public forum. It was used within a clan or family, between spouses friends, whether in conflict or concord. By custom, opinion expressed in verse could be much sharper in tone than anything said in ordinary language. Exchanges of banter could be extremely aggressive without incurring censure, and praise could be showered on someone, even on oneself, which otherwise might be embarrassing to utter.

The social changes which have taken place in Somali since the Second World War have eroded the position poetry used to occupy in private life, and to some extent in public life, with the ceasing of interclan warfare. It might be thought that the vision of a golden age when poetry could be heart at every turn is an illusory idealization of the past, to which every society is prone. But there is now a great deal of evidence, both published and unpublished, from both Somali and foreign research and critical evaluation, of the role of poetry in the not-so-distant past: what the ordinary Somali regards as a matter of common knowledge is in fact true. In particular, considerable research has been done on the use of poems by Sayid Maxamed Cabdulle, himself a leading oral poet, as part of his propaganda campaign. Many of the poems of those who opposed him have also been preserved, and the dovetailing of evidence in these exchanges adds weight to their historical validity as well.

In the novel, the majority of the poems have been composed in the traditional style by the author himself, but some are taken from other poets, and these he acknowledges in footnotes to his text. In the present volume these footnotes have been transferred to the Notes, since they usually need further annotation to be meaningful to the foreign reader. There are also a few poems which are said to have been composed by the originals of Cawrala, Calimaax, and their minor characters Nuur Ciise and Dalmar Barre, and though these not identified specifically by the author they too have been accounted for in the Notes.

 

 

The novel’s Reformist Message

 

Ignorance is the Enemy of Love appeared in 1974, and was the first full-scale Somali novel to be published; it was preceded only by two much shorter ones printed in booklet form. Its publication coincided with the beginning of mass urban and rural literacy campaigns, and with the rapid Somalization of the school system, and although the novel is historical, its attack on the evils of illiteracy and ignorance had topical relevance at that time. In fact, its popularity among the numbers of newly literate people surely contributed to the success of the campaigns, giving them something to read that was aesthetically satisfying and was based firmly in their own culture. The success of Faarax M.J. Cawl, who won nationwide acclaim, has encouraged other talented Somali writers, and in the few years since the introduction of an official orthography there have been substantial achievements both in poetry and prose.

The reformist zeal of Faarax M.J. Cawl is not limited to the advocacy of literacy, and in his novel he presents a very sympathetic picture of Somali women which by implication shows his total support for their emancipation. This again coincides with the views of the government which came into power in 1969; at the time of the publication of the book it was preparing family law legislation which was to be strongly opposed by some traditionalist opinion. It must be observed at this point that the lot of Somali women, even before this time, was probably somewhat better in many other male-dominated societies, and their difficulties arose more from abuse of the system than from cruelties inherent in it. For instance, women did not have to be veiled, except by tradition among members of a small number of families in some of the towns, and everywhere they had considerable freedom of movement, as can be seen from the women in the novel are traveling independently from Aden to Somalia. Somali men usually feel great reverence and affection for their mothers, and consequently many women of ability and character had a strong influence on family matters and even, by manipulating their menfolk, on public affairs. Marriages were normally arranged by the families concerned, but often enough after the young people had already met and initiated the process, and the custom did not necessarily present any problems. In any case, elopement was a recognized method by which young people could get their own way. Although they would usually be pursued by their families, if they managed to get beyond a certain distance before being caught they were allowed to marry, and this explains the hope that Cawrala, the heroine of the novel, has that Calimaax will rescue her from the situation she is in. The system of bride-wealth payment to a girl’s family was not as degrading as it might seem, for the transaction involved mutual social obligations between the two families, and since a part of the payment was returned to the husband after all had gone well for some time, it acted as a deposit, as it were, to secure his good behaviour. In addition the amount of bridewealth reflected prestige not only on the families involved but on the girl herself.

The real abuses of the old customs arose when, through poverty or greed, girls were given in marriage against their will to old, brutal or repulsive men who could give a tempting bridewealth in exchange. It is this situation – based on real happenings, it must be remembered – which is depicted in the novel, and in his emotive treatment of the subject, Faarax M.J. Cawl reflects the feelings of many Somali men and women of the younger generation, who support the pro-feminist reforms introduced by the government.

 

The author does not neglect, either, to support another cause, which is of importance to the economic development of his country. He makes his hero protest against the prejudice which many Somalis have against the eating of fish, for in spite of the very long coastline the country possesses, fish has generally been regarded as a very inferior food compared to the meat eaten by the majority of the rural population. The government is trying to overcome the problems of malnutrition by persuading them to the contrary, through the mass media and education.

The dedication with which Faarax M.J. Cawl precedes his novel is addressed to the coming generations of Somalis. It is to be seen in the context of the great changes which were taking place at the time, when a great obstacle to progress was removed by the introduction of written Somali. The use of foreign languages had created political difficulties in almost every sphere of life, depriving the majority of the population of the chance of becoming literate and preventing those endowed with creative talent from writing for their own people in their mother tongue. The new generation to whom the author offers his book will have no such problems. Nowadays, when the whole system of pre-university education uses Somali as the medium of instruction, and young people learn higher mathematics and science in their own language, they may not even be fully aware of the sufferings that illiteracy brought to their forefathers, unless reminded by history and by novels like Ignorance is the Enemy of Love.

 

The Author

 

Like Most Somali writers, Faarax Maxamed Jaamac Cawl is [ was, ‘rest him in peace’] not a professional writer. Born in 1937, he was first educated at Hargeisa Trade School in Somalia and then obtained a scholarship to study at the Chelsea College of Aeronautical and Automobile Engineering in London (1959-62). On his return he first worked as a technical instructor and then in 1964 joined the Somali Police Force, where he was responsible for motor transport and reached the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. The Somali Police, incidentally, have [had] a strong tradition of public service over and above their ordinary duties, and are frequently involved in community welfare and development schemes.

In 1979, Faarax M.J. Cawl was seconded to the National Transport Agency and is its General Manager. In spite of all his responsibilities he has found time to write a second novel, Garbaduubkii gumeysiga (‘the shcackles of Colonialism’), published in Mogadishu in 1978, in which he develops further his technique of poetic inserts and makes extensive use of oral history, a subject in which he takes great interest both through private research and through his contacts with the scholars of the Somali Academy of Arts and Sciences in Mogadishu. Whenever he finds an opportunity he gets away to the rural interior of the country, where the oral poetry and the traditions have suffered the least degree of erosion.

 

Translation and Elucidation of the Text

 

The translation aims at a high degree of fidelity to the text: no unwarranted liberties have been taken with it, even where this might have made the translation easier to read, or made it conform to some imagined standard of what is expected of a novel written in the English language. In particular, care has been taken to preserve the imagery of poetry, though without attempting to imitate he system of alliteration, still les the scansion patters, of the original. The divergence between the phonology and syntactic structure of English and Somali is so great that such an imitation could not be achieved without creating a bizarre effect and imposing impossible constraints on the choice and order of words.

The reader may be surprised by a few aspects of the writing, particularly, for example, by the didactic note of the first chapter, with its dry enumeration of the names of mountain ranges; and there are several other passages where the author turns teacher for a while. But he was aiming to reach the widest possible reading public in the Somali-speaking territories, many of whom would not have any background knowledge of the region where the action takes place; nor would the younger generation of those brought up in towns be familiar with many of the old customs.

The reader may nevertheless sometimes wonder whether Faarax M.J. Cawl is addressing a foreign audience, when he introduces proverbs with the words, “We Somalis sayâ€, or “There is a Somali proverb which saysâ€. But these are merely traditional formulae, which incidentally illustrate very well the typical Somali consciousness of and pride in their own cultural heritage.

I

Acknowledgements

 

In the difficult task of translation I was greatly assisted by two friends and colleagues, Cumar Aw Nuux and Maxamed Cabdillahi Riraash who spent many hours clarifying with me various difficult or obscure points in the lexicon and in the historical and social background. Both were well qualified to help me: Cumar Aw Nuux is a distinguished folklorist and the former Secretary of the Somali Language Commission at the Ministry of Higher Education and Culture, and Maxamed Cabdillaahi Riiraash is a member of the Curriculum Department of the Ministry of Education and a specialist in Somali history. Without their help I would not have felt sufficiently confident to offer my translation to the public. I also benefited very much from three interviews which the author of the novel was kind enough to grant me in Mogadishu, and I was greatly assisted in my study of the text by the truly pioneering work on traditional astronomy and astrology of my friend, mentor and colleague, the late Muuse Xaaji Ismaaciil Galaal, a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Mogadishu.

I owe much to the cooperation of my wife, Sheila, with whom I discussed the work at every stage, and on whose native insights into English I have relied at many points. She also typed all the successive versions of the translation.

 

 

B.W. Andrzejewski

 

 

UNESCO Collection of Representative Works Africa Series

 

This book has been accepted in the African Series of the Translation Collection of the United Nations, Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

 

Original Work :Faarax M.J. Cawl

English Translation Unesco 1981

Translated from the Somali by B.W. Andrzejewski

 

 

Other works of the author Faarax M.J. Cawl

Garbaduubkii gumeysiga, Mogadishu, 1978. [Reviewed, with a summary of the contents, in Northeast African Studies, 1, 1 (1979), 79-81.]

 

 

Author Cawl, Faarax M. J., 1937-

 

Title Aqoondarro waa u nacab jacayl. English

 

Ignorance is the enemy of love / Faarax M.J. Cawl ; translated from the Somali, with introduction and notes, by B.W. Andrzejewski

 

To Find it in AMAZON store

 

 

Source: JSTOR

[hodman]

I read that book and really enjoyed it even though gabayada/geeraar will always sound better in somali

[Allamagan]

^^^ Agree with ya.

 

But, really good book!

[NASSIR]

Great book to read anyone who is interested in in-depth understanding of Somali culture, history and a true love story, this is the book. I have read it three times.

 

What make the novel outstanding are the authors’ poetic inserts and his campaign to fight against illiteracy as well as his accurate interest in cultural and historical relevance to the plot and Somali territories including Harar. The review above by B.W. Andrzejewski explicates everything.

 

 

Have you guys read the scene where Sheikh Araya exposes Richard Burton's disguise as Sheikh Cabdalla, the British colonial spy?

[NASSIR]

The Writings of Faarax M.J Cawl

 

 

Faarx M. J Cawl was a very inspiring writer. He wrote many books that are very useful to the history and culture of his country, Somalia. He was a very prolific writer and has been chosen to be one of the members of East African Writers.

 

 

I happen to locate a list of his books from WorldCat List of Records if you are interested in finding them. Enjoy

 

 

Ignorance is the enemy of love /

Author: Faarax Maxamed Jaamac.

Publication: London : Zed Press ; Westport, Conn. : Lawrence Hill, 1982

Document: English : Book

Libraries Worldwide: 27

 

 

Garbaduubkii gumeysiga /

Author: Faarax Maxamed Jaamac.

Publication: Muqdishu : Wasaaradda Hiddaha iyo Tacliinta Sare, Akadeemiyaha Dhaqanka, 1978

Document: Somali : Book

Libraries Worldwide: 8

 

 

Dhibbanaha aan dhalan

Author: Faarax Maxamed Jaamac.

Publication: Muqdisho : [s.n.], 1989

Document: Somali : Book : Fiction : Microform

Libraries Worldwide: 1

 

 

Aqoondarro waa u nacab jacayl

Author: Faarax Maxamed Jaamac.

Publication: Muqdisho : Jamhuuriyadda Dimoqraadiga Soomaaliya, Wasaaradda Hiddaha iyo Tacliinta Sare, 1974

Document: Somali : Book : Fiction : Microform

Libraries Worldwide: 1

 

 

And Many other books, But the above books can be available if your school has access to WorldCat Link + Database.

[Som@li]

Author Cawl, Faarax M. J., 1937- 1991.

 

 

Faarax M. J Cawl was a great talented writer, and once had listened an inspiring, re-aired interview of him by bbc. He died in 1991, killed by USC militia.