Biased comparison....Xamar's busiest place is not the entrypoint from Balcad. Bakaarah and Bacaad are the busiest roads in Mogadishu.
Also, since you want to compare Afganistan and Somalia which seem to witness the same phenomena: Warlordship, foreign occupation, puppet regime, divided country, taliban the loose heads, civil society, diaspora groups etc.
Who is in better place and will, judging from the experience of other historical cases, overcome the current mess?
Most definetly Somalia. Why?
You only have to look at the main protaganist in this mess: Warlordism,
This phenomenon is not new in the world, Republican China witnessed it after the central power fel into the hands of warlords and as a consequence became divided. Medival Europe during feudalism witnessed it which was divided into fiefdoms controlled either by landlords, princeses, kings and bishops. In Europe it took several centuries to overcome it, in China it took mere decades (1919-49) to overcome it.
The two crucial factors which ''saved'' the societies of China and Medieval Europe were:
- the emergence of strong, aggrieved economic interest groups that led the charge against the existing system
-the appearance of transformative ideas from outside the existing culture that supported those groups’ aims and convinced an increasingly literate population of the desirability of change.
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In what country are these two crucial factors developing? Somalia or Afganistan?
Facts on the ground point out to Somalia.
A study was conducted to the phenomenon of Warlordism, it is titled: Warlordism in Comparative Perspective, written by Kimberly Marten.
The conclusion of this analysis for Somalia and Afganistan was:
''Powerful interest groups have had a strong sense of economic grievance in
contemporary Somalia, and the international cellphone networks of Somalia’s
large diaspora have become a means for outside ideas to penetrate the country.
Somalia may thus be ripe for a successful anti-warlord revolution.
In contrast to Somalia, contemporary Afghanistan lacks both strong national
economic interest groups that are aggrieved by warlordism, and reliable mechanisms
for the widespread communication of transformative ideas.''
Our future is bright, a commercial economy is taking root in Mogadishu and Somalia in large, and a young generation of Western-educated Somalis who will bring back knowledge to their land. The two most crucial ingredients for modernization and economic development.
Young Somalis should look to the future with their heads up. Looking to the past which is the product of the older generation of Somalis only depresses us and this will negatively affect the product of our generation.
