Does Somalia have anything to celebrate in its indecency?

By Dottor Hashim Ismail Duale MBE
Thursday June 25, 2026

I have asked myself this question every year for a long time but today I express publicly my view. On 26 June and 1 July, we Somalis whether at home or scattered across the globe dress in our finest clothes, drape ourselves in the flag, and gather to celebrate. The great poet Abdillahi Suldan Timacade stood in Freedom Square in Hargeisa that very day; standing in Freedom Square, watching the British flag come down. "Kana Siib, Kana Saar" – "Take it [British Flag] down, put it [Somali Flag] up".

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What is the point of these celebrations? We celebrate independence while we are barely independent. We wave a flag/flags while our nation collapses around us. We sing patriotic songs while our children starve, our young flee dying in the oceans in the hope of reaching EU, and our leaders fight over scraps of power. I argue that we Somalis have no one to blame but ourselves. The endless wars and conflicts, the political chaos, the failure to rebuild, the shameful way we bow to foreign powers, and our steady march towards balkanisation; these are not the work of outsiders. They are our doing. We have betrayed the very dream for which **our** heroes died. And if Timacade, Sayid Maxamed and all the other fallen heroes were to return today, I am certain they would look us in the eye and ask, with tears of rage: "Is this what we gave our life for?"

We Have Become Slaves to Foreign Powers

For all our loud talk of sovereignty, we have become servants to foreign powers. Not in the old colonial way, with chains and governors, but in a modern, shameful way through dependency and manipulation. Our leaders constantly make secret deals with foreigners. We cannot blame foreign powers. Yes, they have meddled. They bribed us, and used us for their own games. But they have meddled because we have invited them in. I am ashamed to say it, but I must say it: we sold ourselves cheaply.

Our March towards Balkanisation

The ultimate result of our failures is that we are now on the brink of balkanisation. This is not a distant threat. It is happening right now, in front of our eyes. We celebrated in 1960; Timacade sang about with such hope. We are victims of our own greed, our own clan pride, and our own refusal to see each other as brothers and sisters rather than rivals.

Our Heroes Would Weep

This is the part that breaks my heart the most. I think about our fallen heroes did not sacrifice their lives so that we could spend years fighting over clan quotas. They did not dream of an independent Somalia so that we could become beggars at the tables of foreign powers. They dreamed of strong, and honourable nation. If Timacade were to walk among us today, I believe he would weep. He would look at our politicians, and our complacent citizens, and he would ask us, with a voice shaking with grief: "Is this what our fallen heroes gave their lives for? Is this what all that sacrifice was for?" And I would have to look him in the eye and say: "No. This is not what you died for. We failed you. We failed ourselves. We failed our children."

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Dottor Hashim Ismail Duale MBE

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