"Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that great generation."
Rome (Italy) – Wars, famine and pandemics are part of everyday reality in many Subsaharian countries, especially those of the Sahelian belt and the Horn of Africa. Just yesterday a piece of news came in, regarding a terrorist attack in Mogadishu, Somalia, perpetrated by the usual Islamic extremist groups financed by the Salafi Saudis.
Well, there have been stories of Mogadishu, the war-weary capital of Somalia, rising miraculously from the ashes like the proverbial phoenix. It is not hot air. After more than 20 years of madness, and with the African Union peacekeeping force Amisom having trounced Al Shabaab and enabled a new Constitution and election, Mogadishu is happening.
“Once you have tasted the water of Mogadishu, you will always go back,” the Somali novelist Nuruddin Farah told me during his recent visit to Nairobi en route to Somalia’s war-torn capital.
Somalia, with help from its African neighbors, is trying to re-establish a central government in Mogadishu.
Military intervention in Somalia, whether unilateral, multilateral or under the auspices of some supranational body, has never achieved its aims nor led to long term peace let alone political and social harmony.
MOGADISHU – With vehicles and donkey carts packed with their belongings, Somalis are returning, four years after they fled, to their partially standing, bullet-scarred and mortar-shelled neighbourhoods in former Al-Shabaab controlled areas of Mogadishu.
Ory Okolloh, the Executive Director of Ushahidi , is from Kenya but currently lives in Johannesburg. Her blog is "outlet for her opinions. While it is primarily focused on Kenya, she reserves to write about whatever she wants."
Sokari Ekine is a Nigerian social justice activist living in Spain, with a background in technology, gender issues and human rights. She is interested in creating a community of grassroots African bloggers as a way for Africans to exchange ideas, share experiences and tell their own stories in our own words.
Native of Cape Town, Sean Jacobs lives in Brooklyn, New York and teaches in Manhattan. He obsesses about the relationship between politics and popular culture, but the main rationale for his blog is to comment on what passes for media coverage of the African continent.
Rosebelle Kagumire is an experienced Ugandan Journalist. She won the best Journalist blogger English category at the Panos hosted competition in 2009. Currently she is a student of MA. Media, Conflict and Peace studies at University for Peace (UPEACE), Costa Rica.
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