Reading the Ambassador’s tweets alone is more revealing than somebody writing volumes about the same activities in prose and poetry.
It is quite clear right from the beginning that Mogadishu agrees more with the Ambassador than any place else within her geographical scope of responsibilities – including the Republic of Somaliland.
The more recent tweets of UK Ambassador to Somalia, Harriet Mathews, are like a clean, black slate in the middle of which is written in big, white gothic letters ‘READ & LEARN!’.
That is, read and learn from the ambassador on how to engage your subjects, sections of the local community for maximum effect without losing a moment on silly functions and listening to bragging local Presidents, neighborhood chiefs.
The Ambassador Tweets her awe of landmarks and architectural remains of old and/or half destroyed buildings to communicate to Mogadishu that the city can stills hold on to its niche in the coastal histories of Africa.
Tweets such as the samples below cannot fail to pull heart strings that naturally gravitate towards the purveyor. diplomacy at work.
#Mogadishu cathedral, past and present. Still beautiful! @UKinSomalia pic.twitter.com/l5Ak9s3Lac
— Harriet Mathews (@HarrietLMathews) August 23, 2015
This stunning building in #Mogadishu is …the prison. pic.twitter.com/jLliQrq8Kh
— Harriet Mathews (@HarrietLMathews) August 19, 2015
Look at how the Ambassador is being the perfect diplomat by addressing the dreams and ambitions of motivated, enlightened, academic young women.
https://twitter.com/UKinSomalia/status/639318295418679296
Look at how the Ambassador has started her assignment in Mogadishu by ‘recognizing’ the talents and critical roles of young people who are good with words: media practitioners, poets, writers. Who else can one find in a volatile place like Mogadishu in order to captivate local imagination, enlist much needed help for execution of duties and for charming the community to swing along with her in order for them to start on a better road to another day.
The people brought together in this ‘Eat & Tweet’ get together express themselves and what they want to see happen in their ‘homeland’.
Impromptu poetry reading at lunch for some of the wonderful poets and authors at #MIBF2015. Soul food on the menu. pic.twitter.com/XGxfb5awfi
— Harriet Mathews (@HarrietLMathews) August 29, 2015
https://twitter.com/UKinSomalia/status/637108910835527680
Read and learn from local media seasoned by careening deaths, smoking bodies, blown up mothers, smothering homes, dicey fates and Al Shabaab faces behind grinning kid faces – killer shoeshine boys scrounging for living out of old milk cans serving as carrier bags slung over their scrawny, emaciated shoulders.
Somalia media practitioners build. They sweep what they perceive as a threat to security, nation-building, peace-building, democracy, governance, ‘constitutional’ roadmaps, communal dialogue and rule of law under the carpet.
They build where elsewhere – as in Somaliland – the media often careens off dangerously on collision issues courses with the society and the law.
In Somalia, the media and civil society actors make friends for Somalia. Words used are well chosen to find a soft spot in donors, governments and international organizations. That, perhaps, is another major factor in the international presence, interest in a burning Mogadishu that cannot guarantee a single minute of peace without an AMISOM army personnel car shielding you from the sniper and the suicide bomber.
Read and learn.
Great to finally meet with @HarrietLMathews & discuss NGO challenges in #Somalia with @NJtweeting @NGOConsortium pic.twitter.com/XfSvvpBAVt
— Abdurahman Sharif (@AbdurahmanShar) September 1, 2015
#Media4Somalia group photo with @HarrietLMathews on Journalists meeting. pic.twitter.com/6icy3op3J6
— Radio Dalsan (@DalsanFM) August 20, 2015
UK ambassador to #Somalia @HarrietLMathews is meeting journalist and bloggers at UK embassy in #Mogadishu. #Media4Somalia
— Mohamed Bashle (@mohamedbashle) August 20, 2015
https://twitter.com/Harbi_jama/status/634300768590430208
#Somalia UK ambassador to Somalia @HarrietLMathews "Somalia is rising" pic.twitter.com/ZfjAV0WbSc
— Radio Dalsan (@DalsanFM) August 20, 2015
Thanks @UKinSomalia 4 the amazing event. Seeing Ms Ambassador @HarrietLMathews was very inspirational.#Media4Somalia pic.twitter.com/lietFemfs8
— Mohamed Bashle (@mohamedbashle) August 20, 2015
The only way Somalis can get to tell their narrative, unbiased, is through the social media #Media4somalia @HarrietLMathews @Fatumaabdulahi
— Mohammed Hirmoge (@mhirmoge) August 20, 2015
#Somalia #Media4Somalia inspiring group of journalists and diplomats at Eat and Tweet event in the British Embassy
— Goobjoog News. (@Goobjoognews) August 20, 2015
An engaging afternoon eating n tweeting with a group of dynamic #Mogadishu based journalists and bloggers. #media4Somalia @HarrietLMathews
— Fatuma (@Fatumaabdulahi) August 20, 2015
Except for the Honorable Chief justice of Somaliland, Adan Haj Ali, we have not seen anybody engaging the Ambassador’s attention and imagination the same way in Somaliland.
The Ambassador, it appears, is not getting the right signals from the Somaliland politicians, media, civil society to come to life as she did in Mogadishu.
Politicians, particularly, must take a realistic, nationalistic stock of their presently caustic activities and understand where it leaves us all – active in that sphere or not.
Perhaps, Somaliland can ‘read and learn’ from the very few Tweets above to correct a 25-year old lethargy that leaves it still grovelling in the dark for a recognition it half-heartedly pursues in fits and starts like an asthmatic engine.
Sovereignty and development will not be delivered on a silver platter. Never.
