Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Editorial: Al Shabab defeated in Somalia, thrives in the West


April 10, 2012


Awdalpress, London – The recent suicide bombing of the Somali National Theatre by Al Shabab was a despicable, barbaric and horrendous crime committed with the intention of Al Shabab trying to prove that they still exist and that they can harm, hurt and cause havoc. But the truth of their heinous crime was not lost on the Somali people. It was an act of desperation, one last attempt by a defeated ragtag army of gangsters to kill the growing will of the people to restore the life that Al Shabab has suppressed for so long.

What was more repugnant, however, than the crime itself was how the spokesman of Al Shabab has shamelessly desecrated the holy Quran and the name of the Prophet in his logic defying invocation of Allah by standing before the cameras and thanking the Almighty for bestowing them with his mercy and victory. If anything this has again exposed how Al Shabab live in a cuckoo world of their own making. No sane human being can begin to understand what God would reward or be on the side of murderous terrorists who killed innocent people spending their evening in a cultural concert.

Surely, with this last despicable episode of Al Shabab’s dark era, no one will be under illusion anymore that these terrorists are an insult to Islam and Muslims. The Somali people, particularly those who suffered under Al Shabab’s ruthless rule, have turned against them and this is why they want to punish the people before they disappear into the dustbin of history.

The Somali people will rebuild the National Theatre and it will thrive as it used to be as a beacon of enlightenment and cultural revival. Great music will be born and performed in it and the Somali youth who have been tortured by Al Shabab for listening to music will in turn torture Al Shabab by blaring music into their solitary prison cells.

It is obvious that Al Shabab are defeated in Somalia both militarily and ideologically but the fear of Somali mothers whose children and husbands were killed, tortured and maimed by Al Shabab will be hard to disappear as long as they know that there are fanatic ideologues who preach and glorify Al Shabab’s crooked thought and recruit young impressionable converts in their safe havens in western democratic countries.

Awdalpress.com