Insight Africa

There were times I was touched by so many beautiful minds. Within my people I found fertile moralities ready for the revolution. I don't know how the world should be, but I know it shouldn't be like it is, do we aspire for more. Dancing to the pipers fiddle, the young are marching for one terrorist or another and the first option is always war. Now every time we met again your confusion ink's my pen. Toxic is your resolution, telling me we can change things from within. Like the devil you seek a damned companion, trying to swallow your own misgivings. Old friends, together we stood and fought for freedom. Now you pretend they don't own soul, cheaply you gave away your vision, and worthless paper bought you whole. I can still see your anguish even if I was clinically blind. You ran out of faith and now its constantly pacing through your mind. Mental weakness sent you back to slavery, now you kneel and prostrate before the enemy. I pray to the heavens that my life ne...

“If anything this generation must teach the next generation that true undulated power can only be found in the hearts of the hungry. Sooner or later change will destroy the corruption, and who desires change more than the hungry?”                                                                                                                 - Hamza M.O Egal It is said that there are no new immoralities under the sun, and all of humanities experiences virtuous or undesirable have touched all of mankind in one way or the other. Throughout my continuous search for knowledge I have always been fascinated by history. The eloquent records of how previous civilisations reached their heights then by their own ...

“When a society intends on pursing every avenue of division amongst all its social and economic facets, the result is a guaranteed waste of precious time in the struggle for sovereignty. The only saving grace of such a peoples is a united and focused populous of youth”                                                                                                   - Hamza M.O Egal The recent social debate or debacle surrounding the announcement of the youth conference in the Somali capital ...

Extremism is killing people all over the world on a daily basis yet the media only responds when the casualties are European or Caucasians. We live in an environment where all humans are under extreme cognitive manipulation, what happened in Paris is a constant reality in the Arabian peninsula and Africa. The questions we must ask are why innocent people are dying? Why the world leaders choose war over peace and stability? Why European foreign policy that is directly linked to extremism is not being evaluated? Why we are ever ready to blame victims i.e refugees as dangerous? Why no study was commissioned on the subsequent policy failures of the war on terror? The truth of the matter is no one more than the Muslim community suffers from these kind of attacks and the repercussions on a daily basis. The media needs to stop calling it Islamic terrorism and refer to it as what it is, a war between the Arab world and the western world sadly the Muslim community are stuck right in the mid...

Much has been said of the horn of Africa and it is appropriate to say that the commentary has always carried a deleterious narrative. Somalia has been a nation at war with itself for various reasons; nevertheless its indigenous people have shown resilience that is extremely hard to replicate. This spirit is not only evident in the Somali ability to live within a land void of governance or any genuine political structures outside of the tribal setting, but more so in the private sector that has flourished in over 20 years of civil strife. In fact with all the money the international aid agencies have or have not put into humanitarian efforts in Somalia, it barely compares with the remittance industry of the country. An estimated $1bn-2bn is sent to Somalia from the huge diaspora communities the world over annually. The second largest driving force of the Somali economy is that of the telecommunication industry. The country has one of the cheapest tariffs on the continent giving peo...

Often I shy way from participating or commenting on political matters concerning my land of origin, partly due to my lack of contextual knowledge, and partly because it is illogical to partake in something fundamentally flawed in relation to one's principles. This fault is the reason why my previous A-political stance has altered, and also due to my unwavering belief that we are each capable of becoming catalysts of positive change so long as it is truly desired. Since the civil war ended in Somalia, subsequent governments have all based the administrational structures of the country on the clan quota system.  This tribal established structure known as the 4.5 formula, which empowers the four main clans namely Darood, Digil, Hawiye and Mirifle while grouping the rest of the country’s inhabitants as the others (0.5), is what I consider illogical. Traditionally in Africa such systems have been used to unify different ethnic groups who found themselves fo...

Often during economic downturns in all human societies, those existing today and those of the past, ethnic minorities are the first targets of the majority populous and their frustrations. Foreigners regardless of how assimilated or integrated they maybe be, often bear the brunt of misguided hate. In 2012 I was asked to take part in a BBC debate on the radicalisation of the Somali youth, once again we being demonised, chastised and eventually ended up being victims of circumstance leading to a high number of hate crimes. What was even more disturbing was the other Somalis who were engaged in the debate along side myself. It seemed that they felt indifferent to the community; therefore they had no reservations in condemning an entire community for the actions of a very minute ill-advised segment of the British Somali youth. I asked one gentleman whether the average white British citizen would be able to differentiate between him and the community he was denouncing on live...