Nuruddin Farah - Crossbones

“He lived on welfare in Canada. Does anyone know why he claimed to be performing for the Courts in North America?” Malik asked.

“He was a scout for them.”

“What does that mean, a scout?”

“He helped recruit young Canadians into Shabaab.”

“What became of him?”

“The other Somalis on the bus who were with him and were also interviewed by the foreign officers but not detained fingered Robleh. They reported that he’d been bragging about being a scout for Shabaab. In the end, his bragging got him a ticket to Guantánamo. It’s said that’s where he still is.”

The interview done, Qasiir comes and drives Liibaan home, agreeing to come back for Malik, to take him to Bakhaaraha Market.

Not a day passes now without news of armed confrontation between the insurgents and the FedForces, that is to say the interim government’s forces, aided by the Ethiopians, shelling each other’s positions. According to Qasiir, the market is heavily involved in selling and hiding weapons, and providing intelligence to the insurgency.

While he waits for Qasiir, Malik whips up a quick meal of spaghetti and tomato sauce, just in case Qasiir wants to eat something. Himself, he would like a salad, only he has no fresh lettuce. He packs his things, ready to be moved into the annex. But he doesn’t think it wise to put his packed suitcase, computer, and cash in the trunk of the car if they are going to the Bakhaaraha, so he decides to leave his belongings in the apartment and to return for them. Then he telephones Cambara to alert her of what he is doing. After which he rings Ahl, who tells him, “No news.”

When Qasiir returns, Malik serves him the spaghetti and asks him for further background on the current role of the market in the insurgency.

Qasiir takes a long time chewing a mouthful of spaghetti, then swallows noisily and replies, “There are a number of reasons why the Bakhaaraha are aiding the insurgency. You see, no businessman will show eagerness in welcoming a government that is bound to levy tax on his business. They would rather there was no government; they would rather not pay tax. The second reason is they do not like the interim president, who hails from Puntland, and whom they accuse not only of having brought along thousands of trained soldiers from the autonomous state, but also of having invited the Ethiopians to invade.”

On the way to the market complex, they come upon more devastation, houses destroyed by recent bombing and families sitting out in the open or under the shade trees still standing in the rubble. Qasiir explains to Malik that many of the homeowners prefer the inconvenience of slumming it near their properties to moving out to the camps, where the homeless and the internally displaced are congregated.

They come across large groups of people moving in the opposite direction, as though they’ve seen enough of whatever it is they have seen. Malik reflects that in the old dispensation, when the Courts were in charge, the city was on the face of it peaceful. Now they drive through agitated movements: of men and women running away from something and looking back, checking to see if the trouble they are fleeing is pursuing them. They discern excitement, fear, and anger everywhere they look. Some of them shout excitedly at each other, heatedly exchanging views.

“Do you want us to stop?” Qasiir asks, glancing at him.

Malik shakes his head and they continue. Soon the smell of burning tires reaches them. A battery of youths and robed men charged with the energy of foment raise their fists and chant, “Down with Ethiopia!” Some shout, “Down with the invading Christians!” and yet others cry, “Long live the martyrs of the faith!” Qasiir turns into a broad dirt road and, just as he finds a parking spot, nearly runs over a man crossing the road with feverish intent. Malik says he wishes he had brought a camera, and then Qasiir pulls out his phone and, before Malik can say anything, starts to take photographs of youths nearby who are setting fire to a crudely assembled effigy of the Ethiopian premier. He and Qasiir walk farther and farther into the heart of the chaos, watching the goings-on with rabid interest. Despite the promise he made to his wife not to be pulled into the abyss, Malik without regret moves in deeper, excited to ferret about in other people’s heightened emotions; to eavesdrop on their sorrows; to listen in on their conversations and intrude on their private and public personae. After all, when one is in a mob, one is private in a public space.

Qasiir says, “For them, it is like theater and what they consider to be a bit of fun. It’s part of the political show, orchestrated to the smallest detail by men sympathetic to the insurgents and against the TFG. The idea is to humiliate the interim government.”

“Did you participate in the debasing of the corpse of the dead Marine in 1993, Qasiir?” Malik asks.

Qasiir doesn’t answer at first.

Malik says, “I know that the chopper nearly killed your younger sister and rendered her mute and forever traumatized. But did you take part in that heinous act of self-humiliation?”

Finally Qasiir says, “Grandpa Dajaal wouldn’t allow me to join them.”

“Would you have joined your mates if he hadn’t?”

“Yes,” says Qasiir. “I would have joined my mates if he hadn’t.”

“I would have expected better of you,” Malik says.

“The way it was put to us at the time, it was all part of a political show of solidarity to the general, an integral part of a performance. Everything pre-rehearsed, taking into account every possible detail,” Qasiir explains, and then after a pause, adds, “I was young, naive.”

“I’ve been to many of these pre-arranged demonstrations in Pakistan, in India, and in Afghanistan,” Malik says. “Initially, they all appear so real. My feeling is that the performance we’ve just seen had a rehearsed quality to it. Although that doesn’t stop many foreign journalists from being taken for a ride.”

“Like hired mourners, wailing,” observes Qasiir.

“I suppose nothing is free,” Malik says.

He recalls the names of giants in his field, journalists and authors who pried into the deeper horrors of the universe, and who returned with all kinds of spoil. He hopes to write an article about staring into the raw truths of rage. The further he goes into the inner sanctums of the market complex, forbidden to him until then by virtue of his outsider status, the more his heart sickens, though. Qasiir, with Malik following behind, is now exchanging high fives with a mate of his who fought alongside him, now giving the thumbs-up to a former fellow militiaman who is making sure that the demonstration doesn’t get out of hand and that the disorder is kept to a minimum.

Malik chokes on the smoke billowing from the effigies and other burning debris. Then he and Qasiir focus their interest on a clutch of youths in a circle clapping their hands, dancing and chanting to a chorus of protestations with the interchangeable terms — Ethiopia, America, Christians, infidels, apostates, traitors — occurring in a discontinuous song. As Qasiir takes pictures of the youths who pose for him, the atmosphere festive, the mood buoyant, Malik realizes with shock that they are stamping on a corpse in uniform.

For Malik, this marks the moment in a people’s history when sectarian rage may be portrayed as national panic. Malik thinks that a cross-section of Somalis have suspended their full membership in the human race because their behavior is unacceptable: one does not debase the dead. Nor, if one wishes to preserve the dignity of one’s humanity, does one raze a house of worship to the ground, desecrate cemeteries, drag a corpse, or kick it while dancing around it. One can understand the rage that inspires a certain section of the populace to behave this way, a rage resulting from the deaths and the humiliation suffered at the hands of the Ethiopians. However, Malik condemns their conduct, because it breaks with Somali as well as Muslim tradition and departs from the norms of civilized behavior.