3 powerful families
3 self-made politicians
1. Galmudug State MP Fardowsa Eid, Cabudwaaq
2. Somali Federal MP Raysal Qorane, Cabudwaaq
3. Galmudug State MP Farhia Sheekhdoon, Cabudwaaq
- Fardowsa Eid is the sister of current Galmudug VP Ali Eid, but she was a Galmudug MP before her brother.
- Farxiya Sheekhdoon is the cousin of former PM Said Shirdoon and she has been a Galmudug MP as long as Fardowsa.
- Raysal Qorane is the cousin of former President Farmaajo, but she has been a powerful fixer and civil society powerhouse in Cabudwaaq before the Farmaajo Presidency.
A woman by custom has traditionally never been allowed to have a place in such a sitting. A "gogal" has been the ultimate expression of Male prerogative in Somali culture. For if conflict is waged by men, only men can resolve it has been the unspoken rule. And no other women were present with them as equal participants of the "gogol."
That a clan would even allow them, let alone allow them in a gogal where the clan is only one side of the sitting (i.e. between the clan and another clan) is really quite extraordinary.
This is not cosmopolitan Somali Federal Government "space" and the venue lavish invitements to hotels and conference halls.
This is Mudug countryside and the venue under an acacia tree---between men who would kill each other in the event resolution is unsuccessful.
These women express the ultimate reflection of power in Somali masculine monopolization of real socio-politico power.
And they are so powerful an entire community is mesmerized by these 3 women competing only against each other in a space they together have wrenched from male domination.
One of them will become the Margaret Thatcher of Cabudwaaq and possibly find themselves conquering a national glass ceiling for all of Somalia's women.
For anyone who is interested in or is studying/profiling gender and power in Somalia, observe this ongoing battle for the Margaret Thatcher of Cabudwaaq very closely.
