This is what Said S. Samatar wrote in 2007
"Good evening, colleagues and comrades.
We gather here tonight to celebrate a legendary life, to renew old friendships, and to make new ones.
The title of my remarks goes something like this:
HUSSEIN ADAM: How an ordinary Boy became an extraordinary man
But first, a disclaimer on behalf of Hussein Adam. He did not want this trouble. He was dragged into it, kicking and screaming. He did agree that it is time that Somalis learned to honor their own, but he wanted the honoring to go to someone else. So, he rattled out a string of names—what about so and so?
No, I ain’t interested, I replied.
What about this, that or the other?
No, I ain’t interested.
Special Event for Dr. Hussein Adam "Tanzani"
Tribute to Dr. Hussein Adam - Coutessy of Bartamaha.com
After six months of speechifying in which I talked at him, around, over him, under him, the man began to fear I might talk the hind legs off him. So reluctantly, he finally relented, and I rejoiced!
I’d like to start, if I may, with a Somali cautionary tale:
Waxaa la yiri: Shimbiri maalin bay dabqaaday, maalintiina Gurigii hooyadeed bay gubtay
Translation: Once upon a time a bird tried to do something good for her mother by offering to transport the fire for the family, and she ended up burning down her mother’s house.
This is the first time, ever, that I’ve tried to do something good. And I hope I don’t end up burning down your house, Hussein!
To go back to the beginnings: In the lush green valley on the foothills of Mount Mero, 50 miles away from Hemmingway’s “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” in the Tanzanian city of Arusha, in April 1943, a baby boy was born of a Somali father from Hargeisa and a mother with a mixed pedigree of a Masai woman and an Indian Muslim. Exotic, isn’t it? The boy was a Madi, Somali for “an-only child,” and yet he was destined to make up for that “deprivation” by siring 7 children—children who, now as grownups, are in their turn busy siring. This means that Hussein will have increased the Somali population by no mean percentage. Talk about psychology!
According to my passport—nobody knows for sure the year of my birth because I was born among the camels and camels do not keep records--according to the arbitrary date on my passport, I too, was born in 1943. Obviously, genius has an excellent sense of timing. Thus, 1943 heralded the birth of two stars.
Being raised in a strange land necessarily involves growing-hazards.Dr. Adam reminisces about one particularly traumatic experience when he was a school boy. I quote it verbatim from the notes he provided me with:
“One of the memorable moments of my life took place when I was in the 4th grade. During the usual school parade, the African headmaster asked four of us Somali students to step up to the front of the parade. He then proceeded to humiliate us in front of the whole school. He chided us with the following words that have been ingrained in my memory: “Look carefully at these 4 beggars. They are begging us to stay in our paradise, green land of (the then) Tanganyika. This is because they have no land to go to. A friend who fought in the war [WWII] visited Somali areas and confirmed to me that there is nothing but desert sand, sand and sand; and a very hot sun. They should thank us for saving them from the sandy hot desert.”
Being mocked in front of an unruly mob of school boys is devastating enough; but when the mocker is the supreme authority Figure who is looked up to as to a god, the impact on a young sensitive child can be a shattering of a kind that leaves a permanent wound.
But the boy was gifted with an inner strength, in truth a steely hardihood that was to stand him in good stead throughout his life. Instead of being crushed emotionally, he characteristically, responded with an in-your-face gesture of defiance. He recollects:
“It was at that public humiliation moment that I resolved to love sand and deserts. I resolved that at the end of my studies, however long it takes, I would go straight to help Somalia even though I did not even speak Somali, whereas my Swahili was more than excellent. The humiliation made me love everything Somali: the beaches and the sand, the anthills, cities like Mogadishu, Hargeisa, Burao, Beled Wein, Bosaso and Garowe, and [also] love the food, and above all, really love Somali women!!!” Amen, brother, I second that sentiment!
For the gift of Hussein, we have that Bantu headmaster to thank. Here a vignette may be worth telling: during the height of the Spanish Inquisition, the Muslims and Jews of Spain were confronted with three stark choices: convert to Christianity, be exiled, or worse still, be put to death. The Muslims retreated to their sanctuaries in North Africa. But Jews had nowhere to go. Then in an episode that both testifies to the liberal tolerance of the classical age of Islam and the debt Jews owe to Islam, the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II (r. 1481-1512) invited the hapless Jews to settle in his dominions in complete religious freedom, with the rider to the Spanish king: what kind of sovereign is it that “impoverishes” his kingdom, while “enriching mine” by dispatching the best of his citizens “to me?” By analogy, what kind of Headmaster is it that impoverishes Tanzania, while enriching Somalia by sending Hussein to the latter?
At his secondary school: “there was a lot of bullying. Fortunately I was protected by Ismail Okash, Head Prefect, a fellow Somali from the Ogaden.” Despite the bullying and general brutalities—brutalities that included being bounced out of bed at 5:00am in order to till the land for the school elite--he graduated at the top of his class, and then sat for the Cambridge-administered exams wherein he scored six distinctions and one credit.
On account of that impressive scholastic achievement, a letter came one day from out of the blue, containing an offer of a scholarship to Princeton—Ivy League Princeton, Woodrow Wilson Princeton.
At Princeton the boy from Arusha came to rub shoulders with, among others, the eminent General Muhammad Abshir Haamaan, founder and commander of the Somali police force, which was judged at that time as one of the best in Africa.
The rest is history, BA from Princeton, MA from Makerere - Makerere then was referred to as the Oxford of East Africa. Another MA from Harvard, then the icing on the cake: a PhD. Dissertation title: “The Social and Political Thought of Frantz Fanon.” You remember Fanon? The titan in African thought? But then it takes a titan to tackle a titan! With the Harvard PhD, Hussein Adam must surely have scored a stunning first—the first Somali to earn a doctorate from that super-prestigious institution.
Dr. Adam’s professional career is too vast to recount. A few highlights: in addition to his formal degrees, he received diplomas or attended seminars at the following: Institute of Social Studies, at The Hague, Holland, American University, Cairo, University of Paris, (I did not know, Hussein that you got mixed up with the French, too, and are French-speaking!)
By turns he taught at the following: Makerere University College, Somali National University, where he helped and educated a generation of Somalis, Brandeis University, and last but certainly not least, the College of the Holy Cross where he serves as a distinguished member of that University’s department of political science.
Impressive scholarly output, too: author, co-author or editor of , by my count, 9 books, the latest just hot off the Red Sea Press entitled FROM TYRANNY TO ANARCHY: The Somali Experience. If it is on display at the Red Sea Press book stalls on campus, don’t leave home without it. Scores of essays in learned journals; book chapters galore. Awesome. Dr. Adam’s academic honors and awards are equally too numerous to recount. I will not even bother to go there, nor will I wander into his extra-scholastic stints, like his tenure with the U.N. as a consultant and his role in the formation of IGAD—Inter-governmental Authority on Development.
Hussein officially migrated to his beloved Somalia in 1974, where he began a new life in new country. As it turned out, beloved Somalia was not always kind to him. During the long reign of Muhammad Siad Barre, he was repeatedly passed over for government positions worthy of his stature. Repeatedly, year after year, illiterates were appointed to choice ministerial posts on account of their ethnic connections, while the Harvard don looked on. If that jackal that went by the name of Siad Barre had a drop of patriotism in his blood, he’d have appointed Hussein, at least, ambassador plenipotentiary to the three East African countries of Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. With his native Swahili, exceptional learning and urbane manners, diplomatically he’d have run circles around the bloody Abyssinians, and Somalia might have been spared the fate that was to befall her.
If there ever was a man with grounds for grievance and bitterness, it is Hussein. But he took it all in stride with grace, and without bitterness or grudges. And that, ladies and gentlemen, bespeaks character, it is the distinguishing mark of noble substance. But in a sense this injustice might have been a blessing in disguise. If he had gotten embroiled in the world of politics, he would have been lost to that of Somali education, where scores of Somali students have learned from his giving nature. He gave much and received little in return.
By the way, lest some of you think that I am given to singing panegyrics, may I remind you that Hussein and I have had a few guerrilla skirmishings, which on occasion flared up into a veritable sniping. For example, he once called me an opportunist. I won’t tell you what I called him to return the favor!
The ancient Greeks used to take it as a verity that pain and suffering lead to redemptive wisdom. If so, maybe what followed in Hussein’s life would have a meaning. He was going from success to success, living the dream life with his family, when abruptly his world came crushing down around his ears. In 2002, disaster struck. His beloved wife, Faadumo, suddenly succumbed to a coma. Instead of ditching her in a morbid hospital bed, as surely many would do, he took her home where he has been ministering to her needs to the present. And this, in spite of a full schedule of teaching, researching and writing. After all, the man is the bread winner of the family. Again, that bespeaks character, substance, grace. In other words, Hussein was plunged into the fiery furnace of tragedy a mere man, and emerged a hero.
As the English bard reminds us—it turns out that Shakespeare was a pot head; when they recently examined his pipe, it wreaked of reefer scent—as the English bard reminds us “Some (men) are born great, some acquire greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.” Undoubtedly, by his gallant response to the calamity that befell his family, Hussein has acquired greatness. And don’t be fooled by his frail seeming demeanor. The man is made of steel, with an abundance of inner fortitude and with a wealth of prodigious energies.
To sum up: In Hussein, we have a man, a father, an educator, a scholar of unparalleled versatility, and a patriot—in short a national treasure. Hussein, I salute you. Please rise to receive a token, a certificate of appreciation that I offer in the name of the SSIA. It reads:
SPECIAL EVENT IN HONOR OF
HUSSEIN ADAM
The Somali Studies International Association (SSIA) is pleased to offer you this token of appreciation in grateful recognition of your patriotic contribution to Somali national life and in respectful observance of your role as the FOUNDING FATHER of the SSIA
. I have seen it many years ago.
r u abt to get married to Ebla...she attended OSU wth me ..,but went on to Case Reserve..,