Purely Fictional Presidential Address in the year 2029

My fellow countrymen and women, distinguished members of the diplomatic corps, the media, Ladies and gentlemen…

To say it is a pleasure to be standing here before you today, is an understatement of the tallest order. To be standing at all, is an answered prayer.

My story is long and painful, but it is, I am afraid, just a chapter in the story of our nation. Many decades of civil war, anarchy and lawlessness left our country a wasteland of graves, broken dreams and both political instability and disability.

Today, we stand tall. We stand, at all, because even when we fell, we picked ourselves up and kept going. We are, because even when we fled, we dared to look back where we had ran from and make a commitment. We made the commitment to never forget our homeland.

So to foreign lands we went and to those nations that hosted us, I say: Thank you!” To those that lobbied our cause, you have my sincere gratitude. To those who prayed for us: May God bless you too. 

It has been said that every adversity has a benefit of greater or equal value. Well, mercifully, we were driven to countries with great educational resources. In our youth we grew up in worlds of possibilities and know not the word “Can’t”. Today, I present to you a nation rebuilt, not by the UN or any well-meaning International agency, although I acknowledge with thanks, their effort. I give you Somalia, by Somalis, both at home and in the Diaspora. A new Somalia by Somalis who never stopped believing that this day would come.

I give you a green Somalia whose water resources have been widely used to change the formerly dusty wilderness into rich agricultural lands that now feed its people and has a huge surplus for export.
A Somalia that is now a major exporter of mutton, poultry and dairy products to the middle East; that is the world's fifth largest exporter of dates and Aloe. A Somalia whose universities are now ranked among the best on the continent; a health care system that ensures that every man, woman or child has access to medical care, if, when and where they need it. A Somalia that is well governed through a unique participatory system of government that is the subject of study by many who marvel at how well it is working and the envy of many; a Somalia that is a model of economic success in the use of its Oil & Gas for the development of the entire country and the uplifting of its people from poverty.  I give you a people whose entire populace has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world; a people once divided but today, united and bound by the bonds of nationhood.

Ladies and gentlemen, I stand tall because I remember, as if it was yesterday, one particular day when I was so hungry and bone-tired that all I could do was sit. I sat there, a young woman just 18 years old, beside a tree that gave no shade, no cover, no protection. I sat there, thinking, dreaming and envisioning this day that has finally come. I stand because all that befell me then gave me the resolve to make sure that my beloved nation would one day stand among the world’s nations, as a sovereign, peaceful nation exuding hope and joy to its people and by its people to the rest of the world.

(Please note that this is purely fictional and is the imagination of one who dreams of a Somalia that will attain all these and more. It is written with utmost respect for the people and leadership of Somalia)
                         

Thank you and Long Live Somalia!