Is Awdalnews.com an Online Tabloid or a Reputable Website?

While one must respect awdalnews.com’s efforts to be fair to its contributors, one also wonders the purpose of posting tabloid articles that violate pillars of good journalism. These barely articles are not only written poorly, even a layman (like me) could point out their incoherence and inconsistence, but they also deliberately spew out a load after a load of venom towards Somaliland. Are the proofreaders of awdalnews.com dead? This is a mind-boggling exercise, to say the least.

A case in point: recently Aden Mohamed Tani published an article entitled, “Obituary of the brutal hunting of Rahanwayn refugees in the streets of Hargeisa”. In it, Mr. Tani claimed that after a group of local Hargaisa gangs chased 250 innocent Rahawayns through the streets of the city, the panic caused two people to be trampled to death. Does this make sense? Of course not! Since these people were not squeezed into a small area, they were chased in an open space; then there was no way that anyone would be trampled to death. What was even more bizarre than Mr. Tani’s accusation was: why 250 people could not defend themselves from a group of gangs? In his article, Mr. Tani shifted his topic sentence from defending the rights of Rahawayn to attacking the “secessionists’” agenda as he put it. Additionally, Mr. Tani accused the people of Hargaisa and Borame mistreating Rahawayne people. Clearly, his article not only missed its main objective—advocating for the rights of Rahawayn people—but also Mr. Tani shot himself in the foot when he attacked Somaliland people, under the pretext of defending Rahawayn rights.

Worse yet, Mr. Tani published another “article” entitled, “Sports and politics in the self declared Republic of Somaliland” on awdalnews.com. And again, he claimed some bizarre things that happened in Hargaisa, but this time for some odd reason, he was on the side of the people of Borame. In his earlier article, however, Borame was the same city that Mr. Tani accused its residents of mistreating the Rahanwayn people without credible shred of evidence. In his later article, he made fool out of himself when he fabricated yet another story that none of the Somaliland websites reported. As reported by Mr. Tani though, the Basketball team of Awdal region lost the trophy after the team failed to show up for the final game against Hargaisa’s team. And as alleged by Mr. Tani, Awdal’s team could not bear the insults such as Faqash(a derogatory term) that the Hargaisa’s fans hurled at the visiting team in earlier matches, and therefore the team decided not to compete anymore. These accusations are laughable. Why?

First, the provincial games of Somaliland have been played for the past 17 years, and the odd incident that Mr. Tani mentioned in his article was never reported before. So why Hargaisa fans would be so uncivilized all of a sudden remains bizarre. In addition, Hargaisa is not the capital of a tribal enclave as Mr. Tani portrayed it. It is rather a big city that is home to many not only Somalilanders, but also to Somalis. Furthermore, Hargaisa is home to thousands of Awdalites. Not to mention, there is a neighborhood called Isha Boorame. But isn’t it also a Somali tradition to welcome the visiting team rather than insulting them?

Of course, as part of the great Somali tradition, the visiting teams normally would stay with Hargaisa residences as a guest of honor during the games. During their stay, the visiting teams would tour around the city, and eat in some of the finest restaurants in the city with their host. The guest teams would also meet the extended families of their host, their friends, as well as their neighbors. So why the host would insult their guests defies common sense and logic. Second, none of the Somaliland websites or the media has reported this ugly incident that Mr. Tani dedicated to his article.

Without a doubt, Mr. Tani’s accusations—a hail of rubbish—were ludicrous. He even quoted himself and shared his palpable propaganda with us, "Can anyone imagine that a fanatic teacher asks your daughter in a Hargaisa School where she was born and she tells him that she was born in Mogadishu and he tells her from today on you should only say that you were born in Hargaisa?" No sir; but I couldn’t imagine either anyone quoting himself in his article. (And I didn’t know in Hargaisa babies are delivered in schools as opposed to in hospitals.) Why Mr. Tani quoted himself is beyond anyone’s guess. But this self-quoting does not bolster his story nor does it make his accusation more believable, does it?

Even, if we give Mr. Tani the benefit of the doubt and agree with his assertion that the ugly Faqash incident against the Basketball team from Awdal province really took place, how important was it to report such a thing, especially when thousands of Somalis died so far because of the brutal incursion into Somalis by Ethiopia-U.S unholy coalition? In addition, in sports name-callings and hurling insults at the opposing team are unfortunate but are not something new. Nor the hypothetical incident that supposedly happened in Hargaisa was exception to the rules.

In conclusion, clearly, Mr. Tani’s intention was neither to defend the rights of Rahanwayn people, nor to uphold the integrity of the Basketball team from Awdal region. In general, his attitude towards Somaliland speaks for itself, no need to read between the lines. However, undoubtedly, his “articles” make reputable website like awdalnews.com a playground for writer wannabes such as Mr. Tani. Also as it seems, Mr. Tani has his head up in his rear end, and any efforts to pull it out would pose an insurmountable challenge.

Dalmar Kaahin
Ottawa, Canada
dalmar_k@yahoo.com