p.197 Hartley describe Somali gangs blowtorching down the statues of Somalia national heroes such as Ahmed Gran and Sayyīd Muhammad `Abd Allāh al-Hasan. Click on the names for more information on these two gents. He describes the atmosphere of destruction in Mogadishu as ‘electric’, further describing it as a “dionysian orgy of destruction.”
p.198 At checkpoints, civilians would have to describe their clan family trees: The genealogies tumbled back generation after generation to a founding ancestor. It was like a DNA helix, or a fingerprint or an encyclopedia of peace treaties…” One guy who belongs to the ‘wrong’ clan is summarily shot.
p.199 The british officers who had been stationed in Somalia had called it the “Furthest Shag of the Never-Never land.”
p.200 In the 14th century, Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta described a flourishing port where hundreds of camels were killed everyday. Even after their conversion to Islam the interior clans/nomads remained wild and superstitious.
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