Mahamut's story

A BBC article about Life in Somalia had this excerpt from an interview with a Somali. He is currently a scrap metal worker who hammers out the rebar from the cement walls of the former US embassy.

If there is a new government, I would like to go to school and learn something.

But if I could not go to school and had to carry on doing this, at least if there were a government, I would not have to give half the rods to the gunman.

Correct. He would only have to give a third of the rods to the government for taxes. In exchange for that he would get a tetanus shot and his kids would receive a sixth grade level of indoctrination.

Better? Absolutely. They call this anarchy. It isn't so. Anarchy is the absence of law. In Somalia, law is decided by clan warlords. The laws change as you exit one territory and enter another, much like as a motorcyclist has to put on a helmet when they cross from Idaho into Washington. Only the biker probably won't get shot for non-compliance.