Well Informed Somali Youth is the Answer to the Somali Crisis

In the wake of double bomb blasts in Bakare Market yesterday in Mogadishu, I remembered this saying. An African American rapper who died once said, "we don't die, we multiply."

While he was referring to how police brutality in America was affecting young blacks at his time, that once one 'young black male' is arrested and sent to prison, some more will take his place on the streets doing the exact same thing he was jailed for. The reason I qoute the dead rapper is because this is exactly how islamist groups in Somalia work. They fight, a few die, more than double the dead sign up to fight!

As long as there are young men signing up to fight, Shabab and Hizb Islam will always have fighters willing to die fighting so some other war-lord Imam can one day control the poor country. Why they want to join the 'suicide-ish' war is something only a well informed insider can explain.

Nonetheless, on the surface, one can assume that since there are no respectably paying jobs, other than being a militant or a pirate, the driving reason behind the suicidal contracts these young Somalis are signing is the pay check.

Recent reports show that nearly a thousand Somali government troops defected from their camps as soon as they hit Mogadishu. Many are suspected to have joined the Shabaab rebels. Those who didn't join, will surely do so once the Shabaab troop count declines.

Despite the U.S paying last year more than $6.8 Million (US Dollar) to train and pay Somali government troops - some of those already left the government and are the foes - the government pays its soldiers less than $100 per month to fight for Somalia. Thus, they're facing tough competition.

The Shabab rebels are paid $200 or more depending on position, more than double what the government pays. So who do you join if you are a poor Somali youth with no where to go and nothing else to do? The answer is pretty obvious.

I think peace and calm can be illusive in the horn of Africa. Yet best way to achieve it is not by facing the guns with a gun. Guns kill people but you can't kill everyone. One must fight the idea that leads the young Somali men to give their 'little worth' lives to fight for Shabab or Hizb-Islam. In other words,we need to educate the young men and women in Somalia that it is better for them and for their future to have a country with law and order; one with stable government.

Until the next generation of Somalis understand that they can shape and mold their turf into a peaceful country by simply saying 'no' to picking up the gun, there will be no peace in the horn of Africa. And Islamists fighting Islamists, such as Shabab vs Hizb Islam or Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a, is just another way to recruit more men to fight for them! Trust me, if 40 or so died today (some reports claim the dead were mostly Al-Shabab fighters - Read 'Somali al-Shabaab Jihadis Killed In Mosque Bombing'- in the Bakara blasts, more than 100 new recruits will be getting the pay checks of those who died today probably by tomorrow morning - like there is a waiting list of Shabaab fighters.

And no! Killing Somalia's young men (even if they are fighting for Islamist rebels_ faster is not going to diminish the troop count of the Islamist groups,instead, it kills the uneducated young Somalis whose only option for fetching food for their families depended on which side of the war they were. The best thing to do is to educate the potential Shabab recruits so they turn away from joining them. Instead of training thousands of troups to fight for the goverment - something that might not work because they may even hit the road when they're done their training, or worse they may be fighting for the rebels - it is more productive to give the young Somalis jobs or to educate them and basically try to make them understand that no victory is achieved through war.

Somalia is in war nearly 20 years now, has anything changed? No. But if all the young men just stop fighting because they know better, because they understand their future depends on their actions - or lack of, and because they know they're the recipe for their own struggle, then there would be no war, since there is no one to do the fighting. So, I say, Somalia lives or dies with its young fighters. Rebel or not!
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