Mogadishu (PP Editorial) — Edna Adan Ismail, the winner of the 2023 Templeton Prize, has done a great deal of humanitarian work in Northern Somalia. She is not a politician, but she is being judged harsher than Somalis judge politicians responsible for forced displacement, massacres, and other clan-based conflicts.
Many Somalis find it hard to make sense of the divisive rhetoric of Edna, who supported the shelling of Laascaanood by Somaliland forces, and who is remembered for the flippancy of the language she had used to describe the victims of terrorism in Mogadishu.
Last month, the University of New England cancelled an event for Edna’s work on safe motherhood and health education for Somali girls. It is unfair to Edna to assume that she barely knows either the consequences of her inflammatory comments or the political situation in Somalia. Someone with her calibre and track record is expected to continue setting a good example about peace-making and peaceful co-existence.
The endeavours that earned Edna the reputation for making a positive difference to her compatriots pertain to the equally important role of contributing to post-conflict reconstruction. It was perplexing to see Edna downplaying the havoc wrought on Laascaanood by Somaliland forces for more than six months. Edna endorsed the claim by Somaliland administration President Muse Bihi Abdi that his forces were “fighting Al-Shabaab in Laascaanood”. “What Somaliland is probably trying to do by saying there are terrorists involved in the fighting is to discredit their opponent,” said Nicolas Delaunay, east and Southern Africa project director at the International Crisis Group.
Supporters of Edna ought to remind themselves that an exemplary humanitarian deeds do not exempt a person from the obligation not to indulge in inflammatory remarks that seek to lend legitimacy to the actions of Muse Bihi Abdi and his ilk.
© Puntland Post, 2024
