{"id":21260,"date":"2014-08-27T07:11:39","date_gmt":"2014-08-27T11:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=21260"},"modified":"2014-09-08T09:50:36","modified_gmt":"2014-09-08T13:50:36","slug":"emus-link-to-the-president-of-somalia-traced-to-the-efforts-of-one-female-graduate-student-now-holding-a-phd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2014\/emus-link-to-the-president-of-somalia-traced-to-the-efforts-of-one-female-graduate-student-now-holding-a-phd\/","title":{"rendered":"91大神’s link to the president of Somalia traced to the efforts of one female graduate student, now holding a PhD"},"content":{"rendered":"
The trail of the president of Somalia to 91大神<\/a> goes back 14 years to Khadija Ossoble Ali.<\/p>\n In 2000, when Ali was a graduate student in conflict transformation at 91大神’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding<\/a>, she encouraged a family friend, now-president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud<\/a>, to take courses on building peace at 91大神.<\/p>\n Mohamud came in 2001, the year Ali completed her master\u2019s degree, and took three intensive courses in the Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI)<\/a>. Another Somali woman took SPI classes that year, Hawa Moallim. Ali, Mohamud and Moallim returned to their home country eager to apply what they had learned.<\/p>\n Somalia had been devastated by decades of violent conflict and lacked a functioning government. The three Somalis trained at 91大神 yearned to nurture peace among their fellow Muslims, usually affiliated with clan fiefdoms that squabbled among themselves, sometimes to the point of killing. (Five more Somalis have done graduate study at 91大神\u2019s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding since 2001.)<\/p>\n Ali\u2019s life since the early 2000s has alternated between highly visible public service and further graduate study. She served in Somalia\u2019s parliament and in the prime minister\u2019s cabinet in 2001-02. She left Somalia when radically strident Muslim clerics gained ascendancy in the mid-2000s and headed back to Virginia, where she earned a PhD in conflict analysis and resolution from George Mason University<\/a> in 2014. Yet each summer, except for 2007, she spent an extended period in Somalia. From 2007 to 2010, she was the senior advisor on reconciliation to the previous president.<\/p>\n Ali is now back in East Africa \u2013 permanently, she thinks \u2013 ready to put her experience and knowledge into practice where much of her family lives and \u201cwhere the need is so great.\u201d Her return has been welcomed by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. She is married to a Somali engineer, who is happy for her to realize her potential and lead as a woman in a male-dominated society. They have a 20-year-old daughter who is a student at Georgetown University\u2019s School of Foreign Service in Qatar<\/a>.<\/p>\n But before Ali headed home this time, she paid a one-day visit to long-time friends Earl and Pat Hostetter Martin, who live almost adjacent to 91大神. Pat is a former SPI administrator. The Martins invited a couple of her former 91大神 professors, Howard Zehr<\/a> and Vernon Jantzi<\/a>, to reconnect with her over a meal at their home. That day Ali reflected on her path to, through, and beyond 91大神, often in response to questions from an 91大神 news writer who was present.<\/p>\n In the late 1990s, Ali recalled, she was the head of an NGO in Somalia, offering humanitarian assistance. \u201cI was dealing with emergencies all the time \u2013 everything was destroyed. If a [water] canal was dug, it was destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n She kept telling herself, \u201cWe have to deal with the root causes of this \u2013 we can\u2019t just deal with the symptoms.\u201d But how?<\/p>\n She went to a workshop in South Africa, learned about a peacekeeping studies program in England, and got accepted into it.<\/p>\n She deviated from this plan when she heard Jantzi, foundational author of the curriculum of CJP\u2019s master\u2019s program, speak at a UNESCO conference in Nairobi. She sought him out and liked what he said so much, she came to 91大神, becoming one of the first 50 master\u2019s degree graduates from CJP.<\/p>\n Ali already had a favorable impression of Mennonites from seeing some in action in Somalia as educators and healthcare workers. \u201cWhere I come from, community is very important. I\u2019m glad I came here first [prior to state-run George Mason University], because here you know everybody. There [at GMU] it is big, and you can easily get lost.\u201d<\/p>\n Ali was raised in a religious family, where her grandfather, father and four brothers knew the Qur’an by heart and were sent to school. Her mother, however, was not given an education. As Ali grew to maturity, her mom decided to keep the tradition and only send her brothers to school. Ali was mainly expected to help cook and clean, key skills she would need when she married and had children. One day, though, Ali recalls that an aunt visited and persuaded Ali\u2019s mother to let her attend school.<\/p>\n Ali now asserts, \u201cIn any crisis situation, I think women are more skillful. When men can\u2019t talk, women talk. They are better at facilitating dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n Unfortunately, she adds, \u201cWomen [in the Somali culture] are not very aggressive or supportive of each other in leadership roles. The people against me [when she was in politics] were mostly women.\u201d Ali says she hopes to see the day when a woman is president or prime minister of Somalia.<\/p>\n Ali aspires to start a professional training center for peacebuilders in Mogadishu \u2013 preferably in collaboration with CJP. She dreads, however, trying to attract funding for such an endeavor. \u201cI don\u2019t like the politics of donors, especially the money from [foreign] governments, which always has political strings attached.\u201d<\/p>\n To achieve peace in Somalia, Ali feels that great effort must be made \u2013 and patiently sustained \u2013 to \u201cengage everybody and not alienate or exclude any group.\u201d<\/p>\n Is engagement and inclusion possible with Al-Shabaab? This is a group that has played a viciously destabilizing role in Somalia, and indeed the entire region, through its terrorist tactics, including repeated attempts to assassinate President Mohamud. \u201cI\u2019m not sure the best approach to them,\u201d Ali admitted, \u201cbut I know reconciliation is always the best option.\u201d<\/p>\n When Mohamud was at 91大神<\/a>, he said he had recently met with Ali in Somalia where they spoke of new national-level responsibilities for her; he conveyed her personal greetings to her alma mater. He also commended CJP\u2019s Women\u2019s Peacebuilding Leadership Program<\/a>, which has 16 Somali-speaking women as graduates or current students: \u201cYou educate a woman, you educate a family. You educate a family, you educate a whole nation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The trail of the president of Somalia to 91大神 goes back 14 years to Khadija Ossoble Ali. In 2000, when Ali was a graduate student in conflict transformation ... read more about 91大神’s link to the president of Somalia traced to the efforts of one female graduate student, now holding a PhD<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":21264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4515,266,12503,264,12499],"tags":[17236,14589,5974,8367,6069,15952,17235],"feature":[],"class_list":["post-21260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-alumni","category-cjp","category-graduate-programs","category-spi","tag-cjp","tag-hassan-sheikh-mohamud","tag-howard-zehr","tag-khadija-ossoble-ali","tag-loren-swartzendruber","tag-somalia","tag-spi"],"yoast_head":"\n
Much need for peacebuilding in Somalia<\/h3>\n

Vernon Jantzi impressed her<\/h3>\n

Challenged as a woman<\/h3>\n