Dear Editor,
He is the first high profile leader in 20 years to visit Somalia. Risking the lives of himself and his family, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, arrived in the Somali capital, Mogadishu on Friday.
Mogadishu is one of the most violent and dangerous cities in the world today. Erdogan is there to tell the world that “There is a fire in Somalia and we must extinguish that fire. This is a test not only for Somalia but for humanity. I am sure that our people are keeping the suffering of the Somali people in mind. Turkey cannot remain a mere spectator to this spectacle of human misery”.
What did not make news in the West, was the emergency Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) meeting in Istanbul to address the situation in Somalia. OIC member-states pledged 350 million dollars in aid to Somalia in Istanbul on Thursday.
Interestingly, this is not the first meeting in Turkey in support of Somalia; Turkey has been a quiet mediator trying to broker peace among the different factions in Somalia.
And while the government of Somalia and Al Shabab have to take some responsibility for this human catastrophe, Somalia hardly has arable land to sustain food growth.
The growing desert and continuing drought only bring misery to this already poor country. Sadly, the United Nations, the Arab League, the Organisation of African Unity (AOU), the European Union and the United States paid little attention to what was going on in Somalia.
Turkey has emerged as a regional economic and political power house, and is quickly becoming the voice of the Islamic global community (Umma) as the Arab Spring is set to continue into the fall, and winter. Today, Turkey is the 17th biggest economy in the world, and a member of the G20. Missing in the Somalia crisis is Saudi leadership, which pledges about 70 million dollars towards Somali aid.
Instead, they are busy working with the US and Israel to destroy Iran, and wasting billions of dollars to support the US economy with a purchase order of 60 billion dollars of weapons which their people don’t have the skills to use.
At the same time, they have a backward and dysfunctional education system that can’t prepare their students for the modern day work place. They spend millions of dollars to send thousands of these semi-illiterate students to the West who mostly drop out after a year.
Against this backdrop has emerged, Tayyip Erdogan, the leader of Turkey- charismatic, stern and humble. Erdogan attended Friday prayers and had the iftar meal with Somalis before departing to Turkey.
Name and address withheld
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