By Faisal A. Roble
On this day of February 1st, 2014 in this city of Minneapolis at such an unfriendly freezing day, where the temperature is a killer and indeed un-Somali (about -20 degrees), we are gathered here at this expansive convention center to mourn the passing away of AbdiRazak Haji Hussein.
It is a painful day for his family and for this nation that has lost one of its last captains. Painful it is, especially when we know we lost our last captain at a time when the Somali ship is wrecked! The bewildering question of who will pull it off of the wreckage is a constant reminder of our failed state of affairs.
In his death, we have lost a father, a husband and an uncle; Gone with him are the attributes by which we used to measure our leaders: the quality of being sage (Oday Soomaaliyeed), an intellectual browse and a rare statesman, a functionally honest and hardworking public servant, Prime Minister of first class, and an architect of a yet-to-be completed project of nation-building for Somalia.
With him being buried is also gone forever one of Somalia’s last recognizable member of the Somali Youth League (SYL). We are under no illusion therefore that we have lost a leader who along with his boss, the late President Aden Abdule Osman, became to pass as the first team of Somali and African leaders to hand over power peacefully after losing the 1967 election. We are pained by the prospect of lacking an equal replacement.
No wonder therefor that this shining son of Somalia would now defy the contemporary political norm of his people and leave a will to bury him side by side to his friend and his comrade-in arms – that is next to Aden Abdulle Osaman..
May the burial of AbdiRazak Haji Hussein next to Aden Abdule Osman reunite the current crop of incumbent so-called leaders who are hunkered down in one city called Mogadishu! A wish too high to reach!
Almost one hundred years ago when Somalia was partitioned, equally at a time when Ethiopia’s Menelik’s vampire teeth tore apart our ecology and body politic, and only three years after a tripartite Christian powers (Enlgnad, Italy and Ethiopia) defeated the founding father of modern Somali nationalism, Sadyid Mohamed Abdula Hassan, in the middle of a long and devastating drought, a baby boy called Abdirazak Haji Hussein was born in Mudug region.
That year was 1924, a difficult time for Somalis devoured by outside enemies and drought (“col iyo abaar”). Today is 2014, equally a difficult time for those of us who will be surviving the passing of this great son of our nation.
At the tender age of 17, the soon-to-become man, Abdirazak Haji Hussein, was organizing against some of the most powerful institutions – those of colonial Italy, England, and Ethiopia. In his adult years, and as a former Secretary General of the Somali Youth League (SYL), AbdiRazak took a leading and valuable part in the birth of his nation and its early attempts to practice democratic governance.
Not only did AbdiRazak Haji Hussein help midwife the birth of a baby nation called Somalia, but he greatly contributed to the retirement of the vestiges of European colonialism both in his country and in the continent of Africa as well
For those reasons and others, I therefore don’t share this eulogy because I feel sad for AbdiRazak; I don’t feel sad for him lest our hero has lived a life full of struggle, in which every second of those 90 years were well spent for the betterment of the Somali lot.
Alas, I feel sad for his nation state and its children who are left leaderless, rudderless and directionless, especially at a time when the nation is exposed to renewed visionless vultures who run a “rentier market place state,” and whose authority is reduced down to one tattered city called Mogadishu, and whose job is to farther torn us asunder.
My memory of this son we lost will remain intact. My fond memories of him started with my childhood when at the tender age of 17 I too started rebelling against the Haile Selassie rule thanks to the inspirations instilled in my generation by the enduring and endearing values of the SYL.
My late father talked about AbdiRazak so fondly that he used to tell us that Somalis need a new crop of “AbdiRazaks.” Because my home town gave AbdiRazak a brief but temporary refugee while escaping from the Italian fascist security forces, his name was a household one in my community.
Most recently, I can’t forget the humility and fatherly reception he gave me and my friends when I visited him at his house in Minneapolis in October, 2013. Unlike the current corrupt “leaders,” who are in it for the big theft, AbdiRazak was and has remained involved in the political affairs of Somalia for its virtues as a tool to transform his society.
Squeezing my hand with his firm but frail hands, AbdiRazak told me at that visit: “Mr. Roble, don’t ever get tired of resuscitating our beloved country.” I quickly retorted: “How can I?” holding my tears back.
The only way I can honor him is to try to live up to that promise for the reminder of my life.
I still feel his long and bony fingers tightly holding and squeezing my arm…..” I sob when I replay that image, the image of the impending loss of a founder, protector and provider of ideas for his people. Yet, I long for the rising of the next AbdiRazak out of the same Somali society that could prove to be once again generous enough to give us another one like him.
Oh! Somalis, please don’t cry for AbdiRazak! Rather you shall cry for you, for your children and for your grandchildren. It is not him who is in a sad state of affairs for the ultimate had visited upon him. It’s the Somalis he left behind that need to wail, whine and yowl for the waning and vanishing of their once beautiful nation and its picturesque capital city that once housed the dreaming-big SYL institution to which AbdiRazak Haji Hussein so proudly belonged.
Rest In Peace (RIP) Mudane AbdiRazak, for you are our unquestionable conscience for integrity, competence and political consistency of a nation at risk.
Faisal A. Roble
Email:faisalroble19@gmail.com
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