ON WHY HOPE IS ESSENTIAL FOR PEACE BUILDING in Somalia..(why despair is such a shitty feeling) ..

Today, as I was discussing with a colleague about some current issues in the world, we diverged from a topic to a topic fiercely agreeing on many things, then we settled to untangle and decipher the knot of Somalia navigating through our many complicated deep-rooted issues in Somalia.

He was very pessimistic, saying that he would never understand or work with Somalis, that Somalis were nomads, that there was a barrier of understanding and communication between him and them. But the most shocking statement of all was when he said, “We are better off if the government of Somalia sells our land to foreign countries/investors to make it progress!!!".

Ok. Language is not limited to verbal or non verbal communication that helps us connect to each other and carry out our social affairs. Language extended to our emotions; we communicate our moods, our emotions, good and bad, positive or negative. This is especially true and apparent when a certain emotion dominates a person and it becomes his/her 'aura', when we dislike being around them because of their gloominess and bleakness. When they communicate their lack of hope, it discourages us and dampen our instincts for hope, our aspiration to 'believe' despite all the odds that we may face.

You see, I say that the most expensive emotion of this era is hope, for hope is the wellspring from which all other good emotions emerge from. Hope is the motor for creativeness, for possibilities, for a better tomorrow, and losing it `at such 'dark times'` is very disastrous to humanity in general and to us, Somalis, especially.

With all the poverty, crisis, wars, internal feuds, crimes, injustices, and discrimination happening around us every second, with negativity controlling our headlines, with us fully being engaged and graphically or virtually connected, it depresses us, it makes us feel helpless and hopeless, and most importantly 'cynical' about humanity.

In these cases you will either dwell in floods of despair and 'avoidance' at your best when you’re being compassionate and empathetic  or bunk in a “I don’t care, its none of my business” apathetic, passive attitude “if it’s not happening to me then it’s not real!!”   

I feel like these two attitudes are negative, because negativity isn’t just a state of mind, it’s the absence of positivity and hope, the absence of possibilities.  Looking at the world or our country (Somalia in my case) in a lens of gloominess and to decide it’s a hopeless case crying out loud with no shame “let’s sell our land and get rid of all our disagreements” is being in denial, lazy, passive and treasonous. 

Because belief and behavior are interconnected, by believing in negativity and losing hope in humanity we create more troubles in the world because it's a 'self fulfilling prophecy'. By focusing our headlines on all the wrongs in the world, by us focusing on how desperate the world is we cause and create more of it because we discourage people around us from 'doing good'!!!

When we communicate our emotions, we send of desperate signals to the world by being negative and losing hope then we become part of the problem by being fixating in a passive negative mood.

Hope believes that good will come in the future despite all the gloominess of the present. Hope is empowering by nature it creates visionaries and empower them.

All the great revolutionist of history who led humanity by example rallying for freedom and justice were inflamed with hope, without Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) believing that one day the message of Islam will conquer across the world, that the Almighty Allah (exalted is he) will be worshiped for his oneness he wouldn’t be chosen for that honorable message; a message that introduced the golden ages for a land that was dwelled in idolism and tribal long termed wars, a message that introduced the light of science and civilization to the western Europe that was deeply embedded in the 'dark ages' through Andalusia.

Without Martin Luther King’s dream and hope for a day when segregation ends who knows what would the state of African American civil right would be today?!.

Hope gives you an inside peace, it gives you the settlement of truce from the invasion of cynicism, the kind that my colleague was pushing at me today. I truly felt bad today hearing his comments about Somalia, I thought that he would most likely pass on his cynicism and negativity to his children , the 'future' of Somalia.

He communicated his negativity to me, he communicated fear to me; he made me feel like a 'fool' for believing in Somalia and the 'good' of my people. I tired communicating hope to him; I tried convincing him that hope is our stepping block towards reconciliation and peace building in our country.

I mean how bad do we really want to reach peace in our country? Will we forever hide behind the mask of tribalism, negativity and cynicism?

 If the answer is YES TO PEACE AND COUNTRY BUILDING then I say let’s start with building hope...hope within ourselves before others, because hope makes you believe and without believing we can never lit the candle of progress as a nation.
  

Hope is a very expensive commodity, that’s why it’s easier and cheaper to despair! and despair is indeed a 'shitty' feeling because its the mother of all bad gloomy emotions. So, let’s communicate hope and our message shall reach Inshallah. Let’s teach it to our kids and Somalia and the world will be fine again.

If not than, at least keep your mouth shut, keep it to yourself. Stop discouraging people, feeding them off of your poison; people who are eager to re-build what everyone else is busy using, destroying or in most cases ignoring !! People who chose to "believe' when everyone else hid behind their masks.


Asia

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. ~Anne Lamott