Volume 46
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Issue 14
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January 16, 2012
TheSomaliRevolution willbeTweeted By Anthony P. Gulston
Right now in the south of Somalia, battles are being fought between Kenya and Somali Islamist militia group al-Shabab. The battles are also being fought on social media headline site, Twitter. The fighting (via Twitter) began back in October when Kenya’s Major Emmanuel Chirchir tweeted about a series of ten cities under al-Shabaab control being bombed: “The Kenya Defence Forces urges anyone with relatives and friends in the 10 towns to advise them accordingly.” This allowed civilian casualties to remain low. Before the Twitter fight began, Kenya was merely trying to create a buffer zone between the Islamist controlled southern Somalia and Northern Kenya. Many Kenyan farmers were complaining of harassment and missing animals. So the Kenyan military armed and trained the Somali military to deal with al-Shabaab. Al-Shabaab, translated as “The Youth” or “The Boys” in Arabic, is a militia group funded and supported by various out-of-country Islamist factions, including alQaeda, that want to see Somalia as an Islamic nation. It was formed in 2006 out of the Union of Islamic Courts government in Somalia. They have denounced moderate Muslim leader of Somalia Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed as a traitor and have no formal ties with the government of Somalia. Al-Shabaab has enforced Sharia laws (Islamic laws) in areas it has control over and the Kenyan government seems to be uncomfortable with human rights violations in said areas: “Life has more meaning than denying women to wear bras..RT [retweet] in support of Somalia women.” This can be seen as tame compared to the routine printing of sexual assaults on young women in the New York Times. It is unclear who is behind the @HSMPress account that is tweeting propaganda. One BBC report claims that it is Somali ex-pats that are behind the account because of its clarity and eloquent use of English. Major Chirchir does not have the same command of the English language that al-Shabaab media socialites have. When al-Shabaab took to the internet to play Chirchir’s game he promptly tweeted that: “With Al Shabaab joining tweeter, lets take fight to their doorstep, lets follow them for a week then unfollow.” Chirchir has almost twice the tweets and almost twice the followers that alShabab has, so he seems to be winning the propaganda war. “Like bombing donkeys, you mean! Your eccentric battle strategy has got animal rights groups quite concerned, Major,” quips al-Shabaab in reference to the early strategy of the Kenyan army to plant explosives on donkeys to explode al-Shabaab camps without sustaining any human casualties. More brutal tweets include the names, ID numbers, and religious affiliation of slain soldiers in Mogadishu before the AU, Kenya, and Ethiopia assisted the Somali military in driving al-Shabaab out. Since then, Ethiopian troops have exited Somalia and AU forces have taken over, due to the politically charged nature of the Ethiopian-Somali relations concerning a border dispute in the 70’s. The purpose of this Twitter campaign is to inform Somali people of the destructive nature of foreign involvement and fighting, according to al-Shabaab: “Somali telecom industry is booming with millions of subscribers.” But what seems like humorous and childish bickering to those observing outside of the country are real deaths in a real battle for Somalia.
Photos by Hana Mohamed
in the paper this week
centre: Peterborough’s music in review p. 3 - unemployment rates, Peterborough vs Canada • p. 4 - finding a great place to live p. 5 - some news about the interwebs • p. 8 - what the Trent film society is up to p. 9 - Trent Reads vote, what they are and where to get them • p.10 - Metaxas fiction