Murax wrote:
Amthiest,
I heard the plan that some Somali intellectuals put up in the past to change the capitol. Part of the plan would be to have checkpoints coming from every road going into the city, checking for paperwork, ID's etc. and deciding who goes in and who goes out and this would continue for years until the Country is stable. Secondly what makes a city is the Human Recourse not the location, etc. The Human Recourse in Garowe is better than it is in Xamar because the people there are accostomed to living under some type of law and order. Secondly the Int'l Aid/Investment Garowe would receive as a recognized capitol of a Nation would pale in comparison to an impoverished semi autonomous region of a failed State! The capitol of Nigeria was changed from Lagos to Abuja after they had a tough time with crime and lawlessness in Lagos, and it worked perfectly. I see no reason Why it wouldn't work in Somalia.
Murax,
I agree with you. Many countries have moved their capitals for strategic positioning. Wasnt it in Brazil as well, from Rio De Janeiro, because their government wanted it to be more at the center of the country, but also because it had too many poor people or too much crime or something?
Two problems as I see it. 1) Our people are way too emotional, about their 40 some odd years old "capital". While the focus would be on development of a nation, you'd catch them bicker and hamper whatever progress there could be, focusing all their energies on something as insignificant as "where the capital should be. After all, the only reason why Mogadishu is in turmoil today, is because everyone from all the regions of the country flooded it after the civil war thinking that the taking of it would give them all the advantages of its size, port, businesses and resources. These same people have yet to move back to where they came from neither, leaching, in the hopes of whoever toppling the government one day (either them or otherwise) continuing the capital there.
2) They'd scream Bloody Murder Puntlanders, if moved anything higher than gaalkacyo.
Anyway, without making too much of an uproar, plan could be to cut this off, and find a new commercial capital, all while keeping Mogadishu as the "symbolic" one. I'm sure they'd move to the new place. After all people move all the time for economic reasons. You have xoolo-dhaqato from the remotest of baadiyaha moving into the cities, just like you have others moving away from cities that previously held 100's of thousands, for something as simple as it no longer holding enough natural or otherwise, resources for their livelihoods. Then when things cool down....Move the government back.
Anything south, and preferably close to it, would suffice.
