Dear Dreamers,

By Osman Ahmed - Life in peace is beautiful, but a fortune of total peace is practically impossible in most cases. However, what every one of us dreams about is sometimes beyond our boundaries, such cases, we like so many things to happen from out of the blue. No it won’t be like that and it has not been like that.

Article Keydmedia Online
22 November 2011

Rather sacrificing for the sake of what we care about is not enough most times, except those of us, who gave up all the things they wish and decided to leave their loved ones for good. Individual cannot sacrifice to the fullest for the sake of a cause without giving up on what he/she is granted first place.

In religious causes, it is possible, such as the story of prophet Ayyub or in English Job. Thus religious causes are exception here. But the purpose of this writing is to point out, what I trust is essential of country building.

These pieces are more critically important to the nation of my birth. Any leader with these five qualities and have guts to start practicing them, is urgently needed to lead Somalia and any other country, which its statehood is demolish because of internal conflicts, poorly international policies, and ineffective media presentations.

The missing pieces of the peace: are Patriotism, Braveness, Trust, Tricks and to be. If one poses four of those traits and plus, and the fortune of politics allows him in, it is more possible to see in Somalia, what people like me dream about. I wrote these pieces when the Kampala Accord took place in Uganda 2011, and this Accord, which the product of international community divided Somali leaders to the present day.

With Somali leaders’ actions, I observed some of these traits in them and didn’t see some of the traits. However, I have seen a short movie made by Aljazeera English called “The Mayor of Mogadishu”. In this movie, I realized the Mayor showed some of the missing pieces of peace. Let me hit to the point and share the missing pieces of peace.

Patriotism can build a country from the scratch, it cannot function without braveness. A patriotism man and woman have to be brave enough to demonstrate what their hearts hold in every day and night. He or she has to be able to stand for right from the wrong.

The signs of patriotism require one to state boldly, spend time in sleepless, jails, and shrugging off all struggles when impossible to do so. Most patriots that have achieved their dreams have been to jails or struggled, which is why patriotism is intertwined with braveness.

A patriot who is not brave will die with his dreams, and too much braveness without patriotism cannot last long enough. In this scenario, patriotism cannot be separated by braveness, and those two pieces are most essential to have with the ambitious of building a country from bottom up. Because peace can be portrayal like a chain, patriotism and braveness would be daunted without Trust.

Trust is the spinal cord of peace and it holds the missing pieces of peace in near distances. It is the evidences of the patriotism and braveness and the introduction to Training and Tricks. Trustful is not an easy adjective to use in the contemporary world politics, but it is a unique adjective that many cannot demonstrate effectively in political fields. Since Trust is the center of the missing pieces of peace, it is majorly misunderstood in today’s politics due to the world of countless self interest players.

Trust is not easy to balance, and other missing pieces of peace impact it dramatically.

With all these three mention above, Training puts them to work and they cannot shine or be distinguished without correct and effective training. Training, in this case, consists of hands on learning experiences, education, and natural or gained leadership skills. Thus, Training opens doors for Patriotism, Braveness, and Trust. One with first three traits, and Trained, has the potential to build a country. Also, Trained studies Tricks, the fifth trait of effective leader, in order to complete the missing pieces of peace and produces long lasting peace.

In the absence of Training, Patriotism cannot be seen because a patriot cannot communicate freely. Braveness dies readily in the absence of Training, because untrained brave will pull the trick too quickly. In the absence of Training, Trust will fail before it is tested. Then Training is the householder of the missing pieces of peace. Let me adduce suffice and tangible example to this.

Try to picture in your head things falling from cliff of a Mountain or put tennis balls on a table and tilt the table. What would happen? What do you need to protect the tennis ball before they reach the floor? 10,000 hours of training maybe because it is not one tennis ball, but many. Here is where the Training keeps the family of missing pieces of peace together.

Without any force, Training closely holds Patriotism, Braveness and Trustful in their perspective positions. The Training needs to connect with Tricks for effectiveness. A patriot, brave, trustful, and trained that uses positive tricks can overcome obstacles and build a peaceful country. Therefore, an untrained wastes time and energy struggling with the things falling from the cliff or the tennis balls from the tilted table.

Tricks seem aloof from the rest of the pieces, and it is even strange to use Tricks in a discourse of peace. Tricks cannot be easily learned or emulated in circumstances. Maybe the more logos one builds in childhood life can be beneficial to the leadership of building government cabinet. In this writing, Tricks are used as positive leadership method.

Tricks can straighten all other four pieces I discussed above, and they can destroy them in seconds. It depends on where one hits the axe harder. Nevertheless, the four identified pieces determine, where a leader desires to hit harder and use Tricks in critical moment.

A leader with strong Patriotism will hit a branch of a tree in order to save the roots of that tree. On the other hand, a leader with strong Braveness can hesitantly start hitting the roots of the tree to begin with. So Tricks are dangerous to use, but they decide the outcome of other missing pieces of peace in Somalia. Without realization of how these pieces function together and having at least 4 out of the 5, Somalis cannot build a country whether we are in Diasporas or in the country.

I can just name some familiar leaders who had these traits and these leaders include, but not limited to: Somali Youth League, Nelson Mandela and Gandhi. I can give plenty examples of leaders who had these leadership traits, and used them effectively, but these pieces cannot be imitated.Most of them are naturally talented gifts. These are the missing pieces of peace in Somalia, Patriotism, Braveness, Trust, Training, and Tricks.

In this matter, let’s hope one of us has these traits, not only presidential ambitions and will step up to use them.

By Osman Ahmed:  Student at the University of Minnesota.

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