Hiiraan Online

By Asha-Kin Duale

It is widely believed that the programs of ‘Iska wax u qabso’ were initiated by the military regime and promoted by its charismatic leader Gen. Mohamed Siad Barre in early 70’s.

This is also what I believed before I come across with Dr. Ali Dhi’sow Liban’s personal history. Hence my article is aiming to correct such misleading narrative on the subject matter and I invite anyone who can prove me wrong.

A rewritten narrative isn’t just about swapping one story for another, it’s rather about building a fuller, evidence-based account that acknowledges complexity while correcting distortions.

Here is how it started.

Dr. Ali was born in Beled/Weyn, Hiiraan Region, in 1941 where he completed his early education. He frequented the Magistrale School  (Teachers’ Training School) in Mogadishu and became one of the first teachers in the Hiiraan region.

In 1962 he went to Yugoslavia to study medicine. He used to come back home for holidays every year but in 1966 when he returned to Beled/Weyne to visit his family Dr. Ali came with specific goals in mind. In fact, as a creative thinker who grasped the concept of community self-reliance, civic responsibilities and the role of government in supporting communities’ initiatives, Dr. Ali embarked in uncommon programs.

At that time, Beled/Weyne city was in a bad shape due to harsh draught and serious hostilities between 2 clans in the countryside causing a lot of casualties and fear that such hostilities may spill over in in the urban areas.

Dr. Ali identified the crucial role of young people in building a healthy and cohesive community. He selected them as his prime and focal point for any attempt of community interconnection. He consulted with the young city dwellers about the root cause of existing hostilities and he found out that the younger generation was in fact less loyal to clan affiliation and that they were disparaging clan’s pride that justified killings.

That was all what Dr. Ali needed to solidify his concept of unity and establishing the basis for working towards the community’s common goals. As a mentor, he quickly encouraged the young people to reject tribal division and violence of all sorts and to foster instead peace among warrying sides.

Dr. Ali set up the first football tournament in the the four districts of the city and the players were selected without any clan reference . The spectators enjoyed supporting their district putting aside siding their clan loyalties breifly, the best football team’s victory was celebrated rather than a clan's triumph.

As the first integration attempt among the fighting clans Dr. Ali succeeded to build trust that often takes more time and effort.

Parallel to the sport activities Dr. Ali grouped young people and provided them with the basic equipment for fishing from the Shabelle river. That was in 1966, an era where eating fish was regards as repulsive act for any Somali person who can afford the red meat from Camel, bovine, goats and sheep. (the four treasures of Somalia- affar dunyo oo akhiro shaneyso)

This time Dr Ali was facing issues of cultural compatibility. His novel idea of “fish eating’ was perceived as conflicting with community’s traditions and ways of life. However, Dr. Ali persisted in training  young people  who shared his ideas and finally won the co-creation with the community such as elders, community leaders and women in accepting that eating fish would benefit their daily lives, it would also compensate the food shortage due to the raging drought named “abaarti bastaley” that has decimated the livestock.

On another note, considering the health benefit, Dr. Ali campaigned against the introduction of Coca-Cola beverage that was flaring up like wild fire among the city dwellers by comparing with the benefit of drinking juices from natural fruits such as watermelon , mangoes, lime . It was neither easy nor trouble-free to fight against the well sponsored publicity stunts of the Coca Cola company. At the time, the trend of emulating the western culture of being ‘modern” by consuming Coca Cola was a real threat that Dr. Ali was facing.

This was in the late 60’s before the recent health movements of labelling all fizzy drinks as a harmful choice. Think how difficult it must have been for Dr. Ali to go against the community’s detrimental new habits.

Dr. Ali understood quite early, that collaborative processes work best and that he required relationship-building, consultation, and consensus to succeed in his goals.

On the onset, as a medical student, Dr. Ali identified the plight of patients who were suffering of tuberculosis (TB).

Limited health infrastructure in Beled/Weyn made the only hospital available being used for all sorts of diseases including TB.

At the time where people were unaware of the highly contagious nature of the disease, which was easily spreadable because it is primarily transmitted through the air. When a person with active TB in their lungs or throat coughs, sneezes, speaks, or sings, they release tiny droplets containing the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis into the air. People nearby can inhale these droplets and become infected

The nature of the family structure(extended family members living together) and lack of preventive medical care made TB at the time the primary killer disease.

On the flip side, there were the widely believed convinction that TB patients were cursed and unholy people therefore were abandoned and left to fend for themselves, with no cure or care,

Dr. Ali sought the support of respected community leaders and elders as he understood that they were the key is to influence local people . He also sought the support of the government as a partner of his proposal. He aimed to build a hospital that will care solely the TB patients and for that purpose he set an organization named” Iska wax u qabso’ “ Do it for yourself” .

The journal “Corriere della Somalia” dated Tuesday 15 March 1966 wrote a lengthy article about the inauguration of the TB hospital in Beled/Weyne built through the “Iska wax u qabso” scheme.

The article outlined 4 major facts:

1) Dr. Ali and his 2 colleagues: Abdiaziz Sh. Osman and Ahmed Nur Abdullahi who together established the organization of “Iska wax u qabso” were officially thanked for their impressive work of initiating and realizing the TB Hospital project.

2) The Hospital costed So Shillings of 125.000 of which 88,300 Somali Shillings was paid through private contributions and through the voluntary work of ordinary people of Beled/Weyne.

3) The remaining balance of 36,700 Somali Shillings was donated by different governmental bodies including the Hiiraan region and the municipality of Beled/Weyn.

4) The Hospital was formally consigned at the ceremony to the Director General of the Ministry of Health Dr. Elmi Ahmed Duale

Credible testimonies, records and data are shown in the article below.

Dr. Ali successfully accomplished a “Iska wax u qabso” project of colossal proportion, but the greatest achievement was building the trust and unity of local people for a common cause. People realized that when united they were in fact able to create astounding projects while division and petty clannism were for eroding community’s advancement and cohesion.

That is Dr. Ali’s historical legacy left behind with the Beled/Weyne TB Hospital accomplishment in 1966.

However, it is in my submission that Dr. Ali also created inadvertently the first Public & Private Partnership (PPP) project: the support provided by Governmental bodies to the TB hospital Project granted them a full partnership of a citizens’ initiative.

As a matter of fact, the arrangement between the government (public sector) and private sector to finance, build, and operate a project or services that should be traditionally provided by the public sector alone has created the mutual understanding of what amounted to a public and private partnership.

The article in the Corriere della Somalia described how the TB Hospital was officially transferred to the Ministry of Health for its future management.

For further understanding the concept of Public Private Partnership projects, Dr. Ali and his colleagues raised funding to build a mosque in Beled/Weyn however, due to the lack of government involvement no partnership was established and the mosque remained within the private sphere.

I conclude my writing by applauding all the magnificent projects realized by the military regime for almost 20 years, that promoted the concept of “iska wax u qabso”.  No one can deny the outstanding progress and human resource growth achieved through such initiatives, however it is also fair to correct the mistakes in its narrative when it amounts to the distortion of the truth:

a) by omission as per the important historical piece of evidence that Dr. Ali was indeed the first Somali national who realized a “Iska wax u qabso” initiative and his name was clearly left out.

b) by framing bias as historical events on the “Iska was U qabso” programs have consistently favored the military regime.