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Somalia
Like many others, I'm sure, I know Somalia from the movie Black Hawk Down. I don't really know much before that or after that, but the truth is that 12 years have passed since Black Hawk Down and Somalia today is not much different that what it was back then. True, some changes have happened, a Prime Minister has been chosen after almost a decade without any form of government. To me, it seems that most of the blame for the Somali situation today should go to the UN. I believe the UN can't do much without the support of other countries, but they do have a responsibility. The US is also responsible for totally withdrawing from Somalia after those two helicopters went down (how many helicopters down in Iraq?) and the European countries (Union) share the responsibility not only for ignoring the problem, as they usually do, but also and particularly for being the initial ones to intefere during the colonial times up to the country's independence from England and Italy in the 1960s. France has its share of blame as well.
Today, Somalia has an added problem: the growing evidence that the country has become a haven for international terrorists. This aspect is discussed in the article The Perilous Chaos of Forgotten Somalia in the Global Policy Forum website. May be this will eventually force the US back to Somalia, or may be not, given the messy difficulty in Iraq already.
The UN has very little info about Somalia, the website for the UN in Somalia doesn't seem to work and not much relevant and uptodate information is available, something I find symptomatic, although I could be mistaken. I did find a document (pdf) issued by the Economic and Social Council of the UN that draws a picture of Somalia today and urges countries and other organizations to help this empoverished country. It invites, among other things, "All Somali parties, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development and African Union member States to support fully the new Transitional Federal Government to move the peace and reconciliation processes forward;"(...) It is a small step but it is one step.
This posting is supposed to be a part of my All 55 African countries project and I should be showing a Somali artist by now. I have to say that Somali artists living in Somalia are very hard to find online, but relatively easy to find in communities around the world, namely the US, the UK and Canada. In London, I would like to mention the oh!art project in the Oxford House that supports Somali Arts.
A very good source for news about Somalia is Hiiraan.com. Here I found another report from the Relief Web, the Nutrition Update for Somalia (April 2005) that not surprisingly says: "Most of the areas with increased nutrition concern have encountered persistent insecurity, with resultant population displacement and hindrance to humanitarian assistance delivery".
Returning to the art project, I have chosen Amir Amin, for his talent and for his incredible story. Amir "was the personal artist of Major General Mohammed Siad Barre, the military strongman who ruled the Somalia for two decades until the country dissolved into anarchy in 1991. (...) When Barre was ousted by General Mohamed Farah Aideed, Amir changed masters and became Aideed's personal painter, until the notorious warlord died in a hail of gunfire several years ago." The whole story here, by Alif Sharrif for the Toronto Star. Amir currently lives in Canada, in Toronto's Etobicoke's Little Somalia. And, finaly, here is a painting by Amin Amir, the artist representing Somalia:
