Somalia Quotes

I want people to know there is more to Somalia than looting and piracy.

A little goes a long way in Somalia: $5 will feed a person there for about two weeks.

I left Somalia when I was seven years old, but I witnessed a whole year in a war.

We women in Somalia are trying to be leaders in our community.

Freelancing in Somalia during their civil war and in Kuwait right after the first Bush War, I had some rather intense experiences that made life in the U.S. seem rather shallow and superfluous.

The people of Somalia just do not have a voice. They are to me the most forgotten people in the world.

We should teach the foreigners and colonialists that Somalia cannot be led by other people and that the traitors who fled the country will never lead Somalia.

We're going to take out seven countries in 5 years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.

The long-term solution in preventing another famine in Somalia is to promote self-reliance.

If we look at Somalia, Ethiopia and Lybia, to how they're reduced now, and to how they were before, with Italy, I think that this page of history will be rewritten and there will be a positive evaluation of the role of Italy

When we think about millions of hungry children, we don't think about America. We relate the problem to other nations, like Ethiopia, India or Somalia. The sad truth is that one is five American kids is at risk due to poor nutrition.

In the time of war, everyone was basically trying to live and manage the best they could. But you also had another period which was not a hard time at all - it was just a beautiful time. I lived in both eras. I got to fully experience and appreciate both the tragedy of Somalia and the beauty of it.

We grew up as poor people but we never knew poverty. I still love and miss the Somalia I grew up in. Things changed, when my father became a diplomat later on.

[Somali maritime violence] is a response to greedy Western nations, who invade and exploit Somalia's water resources illegally. It is not a piracy, it is self defence. It is defending the Somalia children's food.

In the current situation, it is very difficult for foreign NGOs to work in Somalia because it is so unstable and dangerous. I really hope that my country will one day rise out of this mess and reach the potential it has.

I think now Somalia is turning a corner and we can, with the new political development, build on momentum - really build a peaceful future.

You kids have fun, and be home by Thanksgiving!" our parents would call to us on Halloween night, as we staggered out the front door, weighed down by hundreds of pounds of concealed vandalism supplies, including enough raw eggs to feed Somalia for decades. By morning, thanks to our efforts, the entire neighborhood would be covered with a layer of congealed shaving cream and toilet paper that, around certain unpopular neighbors' homes, was hundreds of feet thick. This is how the Appalachian Mountains were formed.

The terrorism from 9/11 has metastasized. It's metastasized in Iraq and Syria, in Nigeria, in Somalia, in Yemen and in other places in North Africa. We need a very comprehensive strategy to deal with that threat.

When the US withdrew their troops from Somalia, I recall making a comment that [in] the way the peacekeepers had been withdrawn from Somalia, the impression had been given that the easiest way to unravel a peacekeeping operation is to kill a few soldiers.

You need the will to disarm the civilian population. If we can do it in Somalia, we can do it here.

I think the biggest challenge for Somalia has been the sense that it is a hopeless case of incomprehensible internal conflicts and there is nothing we can do.

With a decrease in the number of pirates, there has been an increase in global warming over the same period. Therefore, global warming is caused by a lack of pirates. Even more compelling: Somalia has the highest number of Pirates AND the lowest Carbon emissions of any country. Coincidence?

The same men who are placing all these outrageous restrictions on women’s freedoms in southern Somalia – that type of mentality – that’s what I had to deal with in captivity.

I have big hope for the Canadian government to help Somalia with something concrete and tangible. I haven't seen that.

What worries me is that we want to close down our relationship to the world at large. In other words, people's instincts are overwhelmed by the amount of images, or they can't distinguish anymore between Rwanda or Bosnia or Somalia.

I come from Somalia. We start working young, and we understand that kind of life. I would be bored to death not doing anything creative.

Bin Laden was very keen to point out to me that his forces had fought the Americans in Somalia. He also wanted to talk about how many mullahs in Pakistan were putting up posters saying, "We follow bin Laden." He even produced a sort of Kodak set of snapshots of graffiti supporting him.

Outside events can change a presidential campaign, a president, and the history of the nation: the Iranian hostage crisis, the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, the downing of the helicopter in Mogadishu, Somalia, the suicide attack on the USS Cole, and, of course, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Kelly, there are people in Somalia who would die for a banana.

A drone is a high-tech version of an old army and a musket. It ought to be used in Somalia to hunt bad guys, but not in America. I don't want to see it hovering over anybody's home.

For many people in the U.N., the 1990s was the worst decade the organization experienced. This was the decade of Somalia, Srebrenica, of Rwanda and so forth, and yet the reality is, during this period, although there were these awful conflicts, the overall number of wars had gone down.

The problem is everybody is worrying about explosive vests and people with AK-47s. We live in a day and age when someone sitting in Somalia or in Chile or in Perth, Australia, can be sitting there with a laptop and can theoretically take down one of our power grids or part of our infrastructure and do infinitely more damage. Nobody talks about that. It's not a question of who comes into the United States. We're way past that.

The brain is only three pounds of blood, dream, and electricity, and yet from that mortal stew come Beethoven's sonatas. Dizzie Gillespie's jazz. Audrey Hepburn's wish to spend the last month of her life in Somalia, saving children.

Nowhere is this challenge more critical -- and the need for action more pressing -- than in the Horn of Africa. From Kenya to Ethiopia, Djibouti to Somalia, the devastating consequences of drought, desertification and land degradation are playing out before our eyes. The worst drought in 60 years has placed more than 13.3 million people -- predominately women and children -- in need of emergency assistance.

The really disturbing thing about Somalia is that in a country where there are few economic opportunities, pirates are perceived as glamorous and are held in awe by young boys who aspire to their lifestyle.

In our Revolution we believe that we have broken the chain of a consumer economy based on imports, and we are free to decide our destiny . And in order to realize the interests of the Somali people, their achievement of a better life, the full development of their potentialities and the fulfilment of their aspirations, we solemnly declare Somalia to be a Socialist State.

We certainly would be happy for more help, but not at the price of condescension and arrogance. If the Europeans believe they can afford to be less committed in Somalia, please - we can deal with it ourselves.

Death in Somalia seldom bothers to announce its arrival. In fact, death calls with the arrogance of a guest confident on receiving a warm welcome at any time, no question asked.

I grew up in Somalia, in Saudi Arabia, in Ethiopia, and in Kenya. I came to Europe in 1992, when I was 22, and became a member of Parliament in Holland.

Along the borders to Ethiopia and Somalia, anarchy reigns, the police and military have retreated quite some distance.

I could have sworn that they were originally Americans who maybe fled. Maybe they were illegal immigrants or something who got here, come here with an entitlement mentality, didn't like it, fled the scene because Republicans drove them out of the country in the last election, so they went over to Somalia and started pirating things. Because they have the attitude of entitlement just like a lot of American citizens do.

I enjoy Chicago as one of the great American cities. When I come here and take a taxi from the airport, I meet a young man from Somalia. I meet a young man from Eritrea who engages with this nation with a sense of hope and a sense of desire. But we also we know that there are other elements of this nation that are toxic.

Finally, I also come in recognition of the great work that has been undertaken by the NGOs and UN agencies that have been active for many years here, especially through the local staff and international staff here in Somaliland and in Somalia at large.

The United States has been essentially engaged in an ongoing war that most people date from 2001. That war has taken us to Afghanistan, to Iraq, in a lesser way to other countries - Libya, Somalia, Yemen.

How about Burma, Somalia, Afghanistan, Libya, our streets, our neighborhoods, our own minds. We don't have to look far - and we should look far as well.

I think what happened with 9/11 is that people sort of felt that it came from nowhere. Whereas I think now we understand the roots are very deep. I say it's like revolutionary Communism, something that is going to have to be knocked out over a very long period of time. This strain of extremism continues to be very strong, whether it's in Afghanistan, or Somalia or Yemen, or any of these places.

Poorly secured nuclear material in the former Soviet Union, or secrets from a scientist in Pakistan could help build a bomb that detonates in Paris. The poppies in Afghanistan become the heroin in Berlin. The poverty and violence in Somalia breeds the terror of tomorrow.

Famines occur under a colonial administration, like the British Raj in India or for that matter in Ireland, or under military dictators in one country after another, like Somalia and Ethiopia, or in one-party states like the Soviet Union and China.

It is convenient for the old men to blame Eve. To insist we are damned because a country girl talked to the snake one afternoon long ago. Children must starve in Somalia for that, and old women be abandoned in our greatest cities. It’s why we will finally be thrown into the lakes of molten lead. Because she was confused by happiness that first time anyone said she was beautiful. Nevertheless, she must be the issue, so people won’t notice that rocks and galaxies, mathematics and rust are also created in His image.

The experience of Somalia shows that famine in the late 20th century is not a consequence of a shortage of food. On the contrary, famines are spurred on as result of a global oversupply of grain staples.