working round the clock!

Hey peeps I apologise for my long absense from the blogosphere reason being the above title. It's been a non-stop back-to-back working schedule for the past week. I attended the Somali conference at the CSIS on Tuesday which proved to be very interesting (though some Somalis couldn't help but put their spoiling suit on by attempting to talk!). Dr Samatar was there too who I've become to admire. He's well screwed on and highly articulate.
On Wednesday I went to a senate hearing about the recruitment of young Somali-Americans by Al-Shabab for possible terrorist activities. So far approximately 20 youngsters are believed to have disappeared from America and are now reecruited by Al-Shabab. (By the way the same issue is affecting Britain too with the Somali boy from Ealing, London going to Somalia and committing terrorist activities).
The FBI has made an official statement recognising Shirwa as the first Somali-American who last October went to Somalia to blow himself up and a representative of the FBI was one of the witnesses at the hearing. There were also two Somalis given testimonies, one of them represented the Somali families that were affected by this ordeal. The other was a youth worker who worked and went to school with some of these youngsters.
I recorded the hearing to prepare a 5 and half mins package. I'll probably cover this further as it now has become breaking news surfacing the front pages of most newspapers and other media sources.
On a personal note if I can add my two cents to this issue, there seems to be a fundemental part that is somewhat disregarded by folks. Many of them are accusing external sources of kidnapping these youngsters and manipulating them into deciding to go to Somalia making it look like they're two year olds with no real conscious who've been dragged to Somalia when in fact they're grown men who have actively taken steps towards that decision.
There might have been some radicalisation that took place but nevertheless the key point is that these boys went voluntarily. So the real issue is what made them decide to leave a peaceful country to go fight and possibly kill themselves in a wartorn country where the only applicable method is survival of the fittest. They left their families, their friends, their schools, their whole life literally and figuratively. They weren't criminals or drop-outs, in fact many of them were university students studying to become the nation's next doctors, lawyers and engineers. Therefore I think it is key to dig deeper than the surface rather than taking the easy way out and dismissing the issue as a simple manipulation of the mind. I'm willing to believe there might have been forms of radicalisation and brainwashing that have taken place but I refuse to believe conscious, grown men have decided to end their lives simply because someone told them to. Investigators should therefore research what factors contributed alongside the radicalisations that made these boys choose suicide bombings over a peaceful living.
Moving on I'm also doing the press review regularly with my partner in crime Hussein. Thoroughly enjoyable feature which comes on air every Friday around 9.40am DC time.
I'm glad the weekend is here though, I could do with some TLC.