Brigadier R.H Smith Burco District commisioner 1923-1941Brig

Dedicated for Somaliland politics and affairs.

Moderator: Moderators

Sanbalolshe
SomaliNetizen
SomaliNetizen
Posts: 537
Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2009 9:47 pm

Brigadier R.H Smith Burco District commisioner 1923-1941Brig

Post by Sanbalolshe »

The Brigadier Smith Method of Dealing with Somali Looters

Brigadier R. H. Smith was a dashing British army officer who was posted to disorderly Somalia to take command of the British armed forces in Somalia in the aftermath of WW II when the entire Somali peninsula, from Gardafui in what is today known as Puntland to the borders of Kenya, came under British tenure (1941-48). Smith was charged to restore law and order to lawless Somalia and stop the internecine killings in clannish feuds and vendettas and, above all, to halt the relentless camel rustling among the clans. In this wild environment of murder and mayhem, the beleaguered British officer, according to native testimony,(16) came close to a nervous breakdown. Then one day, in a manner of speaking, he was struck by a sudden epiphany. Fortunately, he did not leap out of his ramshackle Mogadishu office to fall on an innocent pedestrian but realized, to his great enlightenment, that the Western concept of individual guilt and individual innocence was alien to the Somali weltanschauung. Instead, he began to appreciate that in Somali customary law and legal sanctions, the principle of collective punishment was paramount. For example, if a man from a certain lineage is murdered by a member of another lineage, the murderer's guilt was instantaneously transmitted to his entire lineage. Members of the whole lineage collectively became fair game as targets of a flying spear of vendetta. So was their livestock liable to seizure. The aggrieved party was free to mete revenge to any member of his clan.

At once Smith began to apply collective punishment to the kin of recidivist trouble-makers, especially camel rustlers. He arrested kindred elders of offending individuals, and captured their camels. The seizure of the camels and then corralling them, sometimes to the point of starvation (camels on which the nomads' livelihood depended) though brutal, had Smith's desired effect. In other words, the method of collective punishment worked. Clan after clan laid down their spears and arrows. And he had the peninsula pacified, according to indigenous oral sources,(17) in twelve short months, making his name legendary in the land. He became the only European, to my knowledge, whose name was so seared into Somali consciousness that it was immortalized in Somali classical poetry, poetry being, in B. W. Andrzewski and I. M. Lewis's informed judgement, the Somalis' "principal cultural achievement."(18)

Thus, the great Dervish poet-warrior Ismaa'iil Mire riffed on in a tone of contrastive ironies:

1. Isma oga Ismiir iyo ninkii, ayro foofsadaye
2. Isma oga arbaha weerka iyo, ariga goosmaaye
3. Isma oga waraabaha amliyo, awr la laayacaye
4. Isma oga atoor qadow bartiyo, uubta loo qodaye
5. Isma oga nin urugaysan iyo, eelka kii dhigaye
6. Isma oga dhillada uunsatiyo, awga taaibaye
7. Isma oga aqoon-xume dhargiyo, malag arsaa'iile
8. Isma oga agoon iyo ninkii, aabihis dilaye
9. Isma oga askari qooqan iyo, nimaan afbuux siine
10. Isma oga abeer qalabliyo, inanka doonaaye
11. Isma oga ugaar iyo libaax, adamiyaystaaye
12. Waxba gabaygu yuu ila ordine, waxaan ku soo ooday
13. La illow nin aakhira tegoo, iilka hoos maraye(19)

1. Two know not each other: the camel seizing Smith and he who carelessly
grazes his herd near him;
2. Two know not each other: the prowling striped hyena and a flock of straying
goats;
3. Two know not each other: the lean hungry stripeless hyena and the he-camel
not protected by its owner;
4. Two know not each other: the dikdik used to nibbling fallen seeds under the
acacia tree and the trap thereof set for it;
5. Two know not each other: the grievously embittered man and he who is the
cause of his grief;
6. Two know not each other: the over-perfumed prostitute and the pious ascetic
who has renounced the world;
7. Two know not each other: the over-satiated fool and the avenging angel of
death;
8. Two know not each other: the revenge-seeking orphan and the murderer of his
father;
9. Two know not each other: the armed, over-arrogant rogue cop and the
aggrieved civilian who maintains his silence;
10. Two know not each other: the camel with a chattering bell and the young man
who is looking for it by following the sound of the bell;
11. Two know not each other: the stalking hungry lion and the unsuspecting game
lazily grazing nearby;
12. Now let not these lines of poetry bolt away with me: here is my conclusion:
13. He who is dispatched by death to the other world is easily forgotten.

The effort of trying to translate a Somali classical poem into English surely constitutes a daunting task; for the poetic sense and sensibility of the two languages, as well as their physical structural scheme of versifying, are so alien the one from the other. Still, I hope I've managed to bring out in this imperfect English rendition something of the scent of the Somali original. The one thing that becomes obvious from a content analysis of the Somali version relates to the fact that a line is missing from each of the tenth and twelfth stanzas; for Ismaa’iil Mire, the great general--who played a central role in the cataclysmic social upheavals that shook the Somali peninsula (1900-20) as a result of the liberation war waged by the Somali nationalist Dervish movement (20) and the colonial efforts to put it down--characteristically composes in triplet stanzas, like his master, Sayyid M. A. Hasan, the poet-mystic warrior who led the anti-colonial struggle. However, the fact of the missing two lines does not matter insofar as this piece is concerned. The essential point revolves around the first line of the poem that enshrines the British officer's name in the corpus of Somali pastoral verse.

The pacification of large swaths of dour Somalia must have been Smith's crowning achievement. Bizarrely enough, years later he, to borrow an anthropological jargon, went native, setting up shop in Somalia whence he married a beauty of the Ali Geri clan-family. Still years later, in keeping with the long memory of Somali clannish feud and vendetta, he was gunned down by a descendant of an elder whose herds had been seized by the ill-fated Smith. In July 1977, I met Smith's beer-swilling assassin, one Mahammad 'Eegaag, in a Rome bar. In between burps and puffs, he boastfully claimed to have been the trigger man. Said he, "Smith went ashen blue when he sighted the revolver in my hand." He said, half defiantly and half pleadingly, "Are you going to kill me?" I said, "Yes, with pleasure, and shot him twice." Thus ended Brigadier Smith's eventful career in Somalia.

Below is the link to the original post made by X.Playa:

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=245929
Sanbalolshe
SomaliNetizen
SomaliNetizen
Posts: 537
Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2009 9:47 pm

Re: Brigadier R.H Smith Burco District commisioner 1923-1941

Post by Sanbalolshe »

I accidentally stumbled on the above piece this afternoon and found it quite interesting. It would be nice if the historians on the page could expand on it a bit further, and discuss abit more about the history of this Smith, the Samatar fella named in the above post who seems to have spiced up the story for our own pleasure, and last but not least the great Dhulbahante poet Ismaaciil Mire who himself had his own personal history spiced up by the Kacaan government. Ismaaciil Mire confuses me for he seems to be all over the place; I mean the man is said to be leading armies when he was 12 years old :lol: :lol: , which woulda been impossible in real life, but the fake revolusionary historians were known to be so shameless as to create fantastical myths bordering on science fiction in the hope of glorifying the history of the insignificant Dooro clan :lol: .

In any case I really enjoyed the above piece, irrespective of how questionable its truthiness is; and will someone please take the time to illuminate on the characters of each gentlemen I mentioned above, with a particular emphasis on the death of Smith, and Ismaciil mire.

X.Playa, Rightwin iyo cidii kalee wax ka og bal noo yara taataabta ilamaderayaal, thanks in advance.
User avatar
HooBariiska
SomaliNet Super
SomaliNet Super
Posts: 7692
Joined: Thu Apr 08, 2004 7:00 pm
Location: In My Ardaaa - Ballin' & Haasaawin'

Re: Brigadier R.H Smith Burco District commisioner 1923-1941

Post by HooBariiska »

^^ who the fok r u?
Sanbalolshe
SomaliNetizen
SomaliNetizen
Posts: 537
Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2009 9:47 pm

Re: Brigadier R.H Smith Burco District commisioner 1923-1941

Post by Sanbalolshe »

^^ Lool khasab aan isku barano miyaa? Anagaa belyaao aragnay!
theyuusuf143
SomaliNet Super
SomaliNet Super
Posts: 17680
Joined: Sun May 01, 2011 1:15 pm
Location: "Dareen naxli reeba iyo nolosha aan loo sinayn naftaaday dhaawacaan" by dhaglas

Re: Brigadier R.H Smith Burco District commisioner 1923-1941

Post by theyuusuf143 »

"he became the only European, to my
knowledge, whose name was so seared into
Somali consciousness that it was immortalized in
Somali classical poetry, poetry being, in B. W.
Andrzewski and I. M. Lewis's informed
judgement, the Somalis' "principal cultural
achievement."(18) "


there is an other famous ismael mire gabay he says

"Adaa dunida kaligaa leh buu Koofil
eersadaye Kashiisaba ma galin wiilalbaa
keebka kuu qabane Ragow kibirka waa lagu kufaaye kaa hala ogaado"

ismael mire was one of the greatest somali poets, i like this particular line

" kunka reer cali geri ee QABAAL kaw iska siiyey kasi waayey wuxu waa qabaal waanad kabataan, waar ragaw kibirka waa lagu kufaaye kaa hala ogaado "
User avatar
LiquidHYDROGEN
SomaliNet Super
SomaliNet Super
Posts: 14522
Joined: Fri Mar 16, 2007 10:48 am
Location: Back home in Old Kush

Re: Brigadier R.H Smith Burco District commisioner 1923-1941

Post by LiquidHYDROGEN »

Sanbalolshe wrote:The Brigadier Smith Method of Dealing with Somali Looters

Brigadier R. H. Smith was a dashing British army officer who was posted to disorderly Somalia to take command of the British armed forces in Somalia in the aftermath of WW II when the entire Somali peninsula, from Gardafui in what is today known as Puntland to the borders of Kenya, came under British tenure (1941-48). Smith was charged to restore law and order to lawless Somalia and stop the internecine killings in clannish feuds and vendettas and, above all, to halt the relentless camel rustling among the clans. In this wild environment of murder and mayhem, the beleaguered British officer, according to native testimony,(16) came close to a nervous breakdown. Then one day, in a manner of speaking, he was struck by a sudden epiphany. Fortunately, he did not leap out of his ramshackle Mogadishu office to fall on an innocent pedestrian but realized, to his great enlightenment, that the Western concept of individual guilt and individual innocence was alien to the Somali weltanschauung. Instead, he began to appreciate that in Somali customary law and legal sanctions, the principle of collective punishment was paramount. For example, if a man from a certain lineage is murdered by a member of another lineage, the murderer's guilt was instantaneously transmitted to his entire lineage. Members of the whole lineage collectively became fair game as targets of a flying spear of vendetta. So was their livestock liable to seizure. The aggrieved party was free to mete revenge to any member of his clan.

At once Smith began to apply collective punishment to the kin of recidivist trouble-makers, especially camel rustlers. He arrested kindred elders of offending individuals, and captured their camels. The seizure of the camels and then corralling them, sometimes to the point of starvation (camels on which the nomads' livelihood depended) though brutal, had Smith's desired effect. In other words, the method of collective punishment worked. Clan after clan laid down their spears and arrows. And he had the peninsula pacified, according to indigenous oral sources,(17) in twelve short months, making his name legendary in the land. He became the only European, to my knowledge, whose name was so seared into Somali consciousness that it was immortalized in Somali classical poetry, poetry being, in B. W. Andrzewski and I. M. Lewis's informed judgement, the Somalis' "principal cultural achievement."(18)

Thus, the great Dervish poet-warrior Ismaa'iil Mire riffed on in a tone of contrastive ironies:

1. Isma oga Ismiir iyo ninkii, ayro foofsadaye
2. Isma oga arbaha weerka iyo, ariga goosmaaye
3. Isma oga waraabaha amliyo, awr la laayacaye
4. Isma oga atoor qadow bartiyo, uubta loo qodaye
5. Isma oga nin urugaysan iyo, eelka kii dhigaye
6. Isma oga dhillada uunsatiyo, awga taaibaye
7. Isma oga aqoon-xume dhargiyo, malag arsaa'iile
8. Isma oga agoon iyo ninkii, aabihis dilaye
9. Isma oga askari qooqan iyo, nimaan afbuux siine
10. Isma oga abeer qalabliyo, inanka doonaaye
11. Isma oga ugaar iyo libaax, adamiyaystaaye
12. Waxba gabaygu yuu ila ordine, waxaan ku soo ooday
13. La illow nin aakhira tegoo, iilka hoos maraye(19)

1. Two know not each other: the camel seizing Smith and he who carelessly
grazes his herd near him;
2. Two know not each other: the prowling striped hyena and a flock of straying
goats;
3. Two know not each other: the lean hungry stripeless hyena and the he-camel
not protected by its owner;
4. Two know not each other: the dikdik used to nibbling fallen seeds under the
acacia tree and the trap thereof set for it;
5. Two know not each other: the grievously embittered man and he who is the
cause of his grief;
6. Two know not each other: the over-perfumed prostitute and the pious ascetic
who has renounced the world;
7. Two know not each other: the over-satiated fool and the avenging angel of
death;
8. Two know not each other: the revenge-seeking orphan and the murderer of his
father;
9. Two know not each other: the armed, over-arrogant rogue cop and the
aggrieved civilian who maintains his silence;
10. Two know not each other: the camel with a chattering bell and the young man
who is looking for it by following the sound of the bell;
11. Two know not each other: the stalking hungry lion and the unsuspecting game
lazily grazing nearby;
12. Now let not these lines of poetry bolt away with me: here is my conclusion:
13. He who is dispatched by death to the other world is easily forgotten.

The effort of trying to translate a Somali classical poem into English surely constitutes a daunting task; for the poetic sense and sensibility of the two languages, as well as their physical structural scheme of versifying, are so alien the one from the other. Still, I hope I've managed to bring out in this imperfect English rendition something of the scent of the Somali original. The one thing that becomes obvious from a content analysis of the Somali version relates to the fact that a line is missing from each of the tenth and twelfth stanzas; for Ismaa’iil Mire, the great general--who played a central role in the cataclysmic social upheavals that shook the Somali peninsula (1900-20) as a result of the liberation war waged by the Somali nationalist Dervish movement (20) and the colonial efforts to put it down--characteristically composes in triplet stanzas, like his master, Sayyid M. A. Hasan, the poet-mystic warrior who led the anti-colonial struggle. However, the fact of the missing two lines does not matter insofar as this piece is concerned. The essential point revolves around the first line of the poem that enshrines the British officer's name in the corpus of Somali pastoral verse.

The pacification of large swaths of dour Somalia must have been Smith's crowning achievement. Bizarrely enough, years later he, to borrow an anthropological jargon, went native, setting up shop in Somalia whence he married a beauty of the Ali Geri clan-family. Still years later, in keeping with the long memory of Somali clannish feud and vendetta, he was gunned down by a descendant of an elder whose herds had been seized by the ill-fated Smith. In July 1977, I met Smith's beer-swilling assassin, one Mahammad 'Eegaag, in a Rome bar. In between burps and puffs, he boastfully claimed to have been the trigger man. Said he, "Smith went ashen blue when he sighted the revolver in my hand." He said, half defiantly and half pleadingly, "Are you going to kill me?" I said, "Yes, with pleasure, and shot him twice." Thus ended Brigadier Smith's eventful career in Somalia.

Below is the link to the original post made by X.Playa:

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=245929
I'm not even going to bother.
Sanbalolshe
SomaliNetizen
SomaliNetizen
Posts: 537
Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2009 9:47 pm

Re: Brigadier R.H Smith Burco District commisioner 1923-1941

Post by Sanbalolshe »

LiquidHYDROGEN wrote:
I'm not even going to bother.


Bal dhoocishan soo dheregtay arka! "I'm not even gonna bother" kute, oo maxaad naga soo doontay marka macaanto? :lol:
Sanbalolshe
SomaliNetizen
SomaliNetizen
Posts: 537
Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2009 9:47 pm

Re: Brigadier R.H Smith Burco District commisioner 1923-1941

Post by Sanbalolshe »

theyuusuf143 wrote:"he became the only European, to my
knowledge, whose name was so seared into
Somali consciousness that it was immortalized in
Somali classical poetry, poetry being, in B. W.
Andrzewski and I. M. Lewis's informed
judgement, the Somalis' "principal cultural
achievement."(18) "


there is an other famous ismael mire gabay he says

"Adaa dunida kaligaa leh buu Koofil
eersadaye Kashiisaba ma galin wiilalbaa
keebka kuu qabane Ragow kibirka waa lagu kufaaye kaa hala ogaado"

ismael mire was one of the greatest somali poets, i like this particular line

" kunka reer cali geri ee QABAAL kaw iska siiyey kasi waayey wuxu waa qabaal waanad kabataan, waar ragaw kibirka waa lagu kufaaye kaa hala ogaado "
And it didn't occur to you that I coulda googled this for myself? Dadkani horta ma faraxalkay cabaan anigu waanba yaabe? War read what we wrote and address the questions asked laxyahay waa laxe!
User avatar
Hodan94
SomaliNet Heavyweight
SomaliNet Heavyweight
Posts: 4931
Joined: Sat Jun 09, 2012 4:16 pm
Location: cirka iyo dhulka dhexdooda.

Re: Brigadier R.H Smith Burco District commisioner 1923-1941

Post by Hodan94 »

lool at 'ismiir'
looks like Somali's have always had an issue in pronunciation.
User avatar
Tanker
SomaliNet Heavyweight
SomaliNet Heavyweight
Posts: 3607
Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2012 4:59 pm
Location: Enjoying my life :) I am so happy ! and endless succes has arrived in my life

Re: Brigadier R.H Smith Burco District commisioner 1923-1941

Post by Tanker »

How come Smith was not deported after independence regarding all the crimes he committed against Somalis ? he was allowed to live in country until 1977 wtf ?

in x players dervish thread you can read about another high ranking british colonist falling in love with a dulbahante teenage boy :lol:

Smith lived like a true Somali he killed our men, fought our tribes, married our girls and was killed in a somali tribal style :lol:
User avatar
Hodan94
SomaliNet Heavyweight
SomaliNet Heavyweight
Posts: 4931
Joined: Sat Jun 09, 2012 4:16 pm
Location: cirka iyo dhulka dhexdooda.

Re: Brigadier R.H Smith Burco District commisioner 1923-1941

Post by Hodan94 »

lol- dooros are known to give their women to gaalos.. past and present.
User avatar
Thuganomics
Posts: 14075
Joined: Wed Sep 08, 2010 12:56 pm
Location: Arguments gain nothing but resentment, Disscussion however creates learning

Re: Brigadier R.H Smith Burco District commisioner 1923-1941

Post by Thuganomics »

Hodan94 wrote:lool at 'ismiir'
looks like Somali's have always had an issue in pronunciation.

I noticed he called him Ismiir too lol.It might have been a derogatory term though."Miir" in Somali is to filter and "Is" means oneself
Last edited by Thuganomics on Mon Apr 21, 2014 3:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Thuganomics
Posts: 14075
Joined: Wed Sep 08, 2010 12:56 pm
Location: Arguments gain nothing but resentment, Disscussion however creates learning

Re: Brigadier R.H Smith Burco District commisioner 1923-1941

Post by Thuganomics »

I learned a few Somali words from that though.I wish there were more translated Gabey like that.
Sanbalolshe
SomaliNetizen
SomaliNetizen
Posts: 537
Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2009 9:47 pm

Re: Brigadier R.H Smith Burco District commisioner 1923-1941

Post by Sanbalolshe »

If you guys are referring to the poem by Ismacil Mire he would not have called him Ismiir, most likely Ismiidh just like most rer woqooyis, and the famous HJ poet Gamuute, he called him smiidh in a poem after the gaal accused him of going against the British Emprire at the time. Ismiir with an R is used by southerners and dhabayocos, just likw ari, instead of adhi. It was the kacaan aka boon faqash translation of Somali peotry lool.
User avatar
HooBariiska
SomaliNet Super
SomaliNet Super
Posts: 7692
Joined: Thu Apr 08, 2004 7:00 pm
Location: In My Ardaaa - Ballin' & Haasaawin'

Re: Brigadier R.H Smith Burco District commisioner 1923-1941

Post by HooBariiska »

^^
dhaandhaankuni ciduu yahay
wali laygama dhaadhicin
Locked
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Return to “Politics - Somaliland”