For decades, the Somali people have endured a visible landscape of conflict, the rubble of cities, the scars of war, the stark reality of poverty. Yet, beneath this physical devastation rages a more insidious and equally destructive conflict: a sustained assault on the Somali mind itself. This war, waged through a toxic alliance of political despotism and rigid religious dogmatism, has systematically stifled critical thinking and intellectual creativity, plunging the nation into a state of profound intellectual paralysis. The result is a cultural ordeal of immense proportions, where a society renowned for its poetic spirit and mercantile ingenuity finds itself unable to coherently engage with the challenges of modernity.

Hurricane Imelda’s core has moved over Bermuda, lashing the British territory with destructive winds, damaging waves and flash flooding.