An a typical prize for a children’s contest might be a backpack, a lunchbox or maybe some toys. Not in Somalia.
Over the weekend, a Somali radio station run by the Shabab, the most powerful Islamist militant group in the war-ravaged country, held an awards ceremony to honor children who were experts at Shabab trivia and at reciting the Koran.
The prizes? Fully automatic assault rifles and live hand grenades. The contest itself was held during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting, and featured questions that the Shabab seemed to think every child should know, like which war was Sheik Timajilic (a famous Shabab warrior).
Without a functioning central government, Somalia has some of the lowest schooling rates in the world, and many Somali children are more familiar with rifles than rulers. Contestants in the Shabab quiz included children from all across Shabab-controlled areas of Somalia, most of the southern third of the country. The children competed live on air from the many radio stations nationwide that the Shabab control.
On Sunday, the awards were handed out at a ceremony held at the Andalus radio station in Elasha Biyaha, a small town near Mogadishu, the capital. (Andalus was the part of Spain seized by the Arabs in the Middle Ages.) The first- and second-place winners won AK-47 assault rifles, some money and Islamic books. The third-place winner was given two hand grenades. The contestants were 10 to 17 years old.
It was not clear how exactly the sponsors determined the winners — or the choice of prizes. But at the awards ceremony, Sheik Muktar Robow Abu Monsur, who is widely considered a moderate Shabab leader, proudly said, “Children should use one hand for education and the other for a gun to defend Islam,” according to Somali accounts of the event.
The Shabab and other militant Islamist groups in Somalia have become famous for their zeal in enforcing their strict interpretation of Islamic purity. Last year, the Shabab outlawed school bells in a southern Somalia town after deciding that they sounded too much like church bells.
The Shabab have also banned bras, gold teeth, dancing and soccer, deeming them un-Islamic, and barred many Western aid groups, even though Somalia is suffering from a famine and tens of thousands of people have already starved to death.
Another militant Somali group, Hizbul Islam, ordered radio stations to stop playing music, which forced broadcasters to eliminate even the faintest suggestion of harmonious sounds from their daily programming. Some stations substituted the musical introductions to news broadcasts with the sounds of gunshots, engine roars, car horns and animal grunts.
Somalia has subsisted without a functioning central government for two decades. The country is now fragmented into various zones of loose control, with Islamist groups, clan militias, regional administrations and a very weak, internationally supported central government battling one another.
Within three months of the UN's declaration of famine in Somalia, the world's attention is slowly shifting away. The Somalia death toll mounts but Africa sleeps on The Somalia death toll mounts but Africa sleeps on. The story of dying children and displaced citizens has lost its sexiness factor for most people, other than those working for aid agencies such as South Africa's Gift of the Givers.
But things have got far worse since that July announcement. Almost half of Somalia's population of 3.7million has been affected by the famine and UN estimates say that tens of thousands have already died, most of them children. Neighbouring countries have been affected as well, with Somalis moving into refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia.
But the heart-rending pictures are slowly disappearing; the lenses of the world's photographers are ready to turn elsewhere. The global aid agencies are there, but where is the humanitarian focus of governments around the world?
For Britain and France, ushering in a new regime in Libya has been paramount, if the pictures of the shameless Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron are anything to go by. The plight of more than a million Africans has certainly not warranted the personal attention and intervention of Zuma, Mbeki, Sarkozy or German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Our president has much more serious business to attend to at the UN, in New York - while two of his wives fight for the right to be his official spouse. It would be infinitely preferable to see the president's plane land in Somalia, and his wives holding children in their arms, so that the world would know that we care about those on the continent who have nothing to offer in terms of business deals or oil wells.
But to ask governments on this continent to take the lead in saving our own is perhaps too idealistic. Who cares if a few more thousands of Africa's children die?
Over the weekend, a Somali radio station run by the Shabab, the most powerful Islamist militant group in the war-ravaged country, held an awards ceremony to honor children who were experts at Shabab trivia and at reciting the Koran.
The prizes? Fully automatic assault rifles and live hand grenades. The contest itself was held during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting, and featured questions that the Shabab seemed to think every child should know, like which war was Sheik Timajilic (a famous Shabab warrior).
Without a functioning central government, Somalia has some of the lowest schooling rates in the world, and many Somali children are more familiar with rifles than rulers. Contestants in the Shabab quiz included children from all across Shabab-controlled areas of Somalia, most of the southern third of the country. The children competed live on air from the many radio stations nationwide that the Shabab control.
On Sunday, the awards were handed out at a ceremony held at the Andalus radio station in Elasha Biyaha, a small town near Mogadishu, the capital. (Andalus was the part of Spain seized by the Arabs in the Middle Ages.) The first- and second-place winners won AK-47 assault rifles, some money and Islamic books. The third-place winner was given two hand grenades. The contestants were 10 to 17 years old.
It was not clear how exactly the sponsors determined the winners — or the choice of prizes. But at the awards ceremony, Sheik Muktar Robow Abu Monsur, who is widely considered a moderate Shabab leader, proudly said, “Children should use one hand for education and the other for a gun to defend Islam,” according to Somali accounts of the event.
The Shabab and other militant Islamist groups in Somalia have become famous for their zeal in enforcing their strict interpretation of Islamic purity. Last year, the Shabab outlawed school bells in a southern Somalia town after deciding that they sounded too much like church bells.
The Shabab have also banned bras, gold teeth, dancing and soccer, deeming them un-Islamic, and barred many Western aid groups, even though Somalia is suffering from a famine and tens of thousands of people have already starved to death.
Another militant Somali group, Hizbul Islam, ordered radio stations to stop playing music, which forced broadcasters to eliminate even the faintest suggestion of harmonious sounds from their daily programming. Some stations substituted the musical introductions to news broadcasts with the sounds of gunshots, engine roars, car horns and animal grunts.
Somalia has subsisted without a functioning central government for two decades. The country is now fragmented into various zones of loose control, with Islamist groups, clan militias, regional administrations and a very weak, internationally supported central government battling one another.
Within three months of the UN's declaration of famine in Somalia, the world's attention is slowly shifting away. The Somalia death toll mounts but Africa sleeps on The Somalia death toll mounts but Africa sleeps on. The story of dying children and displaced citizens has lost its sexiness factor for most people, other than those working for aid agencies such as South Africa's Gift of the Givers.
But things have got far worse since that July announcement. Almost half of Somalia's population of 3.7million has been affected by the famine and UN estimates say that tens of thousands have already died, most of them children. Neighbouring countries have been affected as well, with Somalis moving into refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia.
But the heart-rending pictures are slowly disappearing; the lenses of the world's photographers are ready to turn elsewhere. The global aid agencies are there, but where is the humanitarian focus of governments around the world?
For Britain and France, ushering in a new regime in Libya has been paramount, if the pictures of the shameless Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron are anything to go by. The plight of more than a million Africans has certainly not warranted the personal attention and intervention of Zuma, Mbeki, Sarkozy or German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Our president has much more serious business to attend to at the UN, in New York - while two of his wives fight for the right to be his official spouse. It would be infinitely preferable to see the president's plane land in Somalia, and his wives holding children in their arms, so that the world would know that we care about those on the continent who have nothing to offer in terms of business deals or oil wells.
But to ask governments on this continent to take the lead in saving our own is perhaps too idealistic. Who cares if a few more thousands of Africa's children die?
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