As night descended, Hargeisa sank into a hushed calm. The city, alive with motion by day, seemed to hold its breath after sunset, its silence broken only by the distant bark of a dog and the whispering wind threading through narrow alleys. Amid this darkness, the glow of mobile screens flickered intermittently, like watchful eyes poised for something to unfold.
That moment arrived through a live broadcast. Poet Hassan Zahir Ismail, known as “Widsamy,” addressed his phone camera and recited his poem The Claimant. He spoke evenly, without raising his voice or resorting to emotional excess, yet his verses carried clear weight: allegations of corruption, pointed questions about justice, and direct criticism of the authorities.
Within hours, the poem moved beyond the digital space and into public life. It dominated conversations in cafés, circulated within households, and sparked debate across social media. The reaction was rapid. Poets aligned with the government responded with counter-poems, while others openly supported Widsamy, turning the episode into a public poetic confrontation.
The surge soon acquired the name “Memli,” derived from the letter that opened most of the poems. Within weeks, it had developed into a notable phenomenon, highlighting the entrenched role of poetry in society and its capacity to provoke debate or contain moments of crisis.
Explaining how a poem could generate such widespread discussion in northern Somalia requires revisiting the society’s historical context, where language predates formal politics and has remained central to public life since its unsettled origins.
From unity to the post-disintegration reality
The flag of Somaliland, a symbol of a polity that declared its independence in 1960 and then reasserted it in 1991 without international recognition.
In the summer of 1960, the northern Somali territories, formerly under British administration, attained independence at a moment that coincided with the approaching end of Italian rule in the south. Within days, the two regions merged to form the Somali Republic, a development that embodied widespread aspirations for a unified national state overcoming the legacies of colonial division.
The early process of state formation, however, soon encountered difficulties. As British historian I. M. Lewis notes in A History of the Modern Somalis, political authority became highly concentrated in Mogadishu. Over time, this centralisation fostered perceptions among segments of the northern elite that their role within the national administration was limited.
These strains intensified after 1969, following Mohamed Siad Barre’s rise to power and the consolidation of a strictly centralised system of governance. Lewis records that policies pursued during the 1970s and 1980s, including military operations in parts of the north, deepened internal tensions and reshaped relations between the centre and the regions.
From one of the peace conferences held in Somaliland in the early 1990s, which laid the groundwork for a phase of local political consensus.
The collapse of the central government in the early 1990s and the outbreak of civil war left the northern regions confronting a profound political and security vacuum. In response, a conference convened in Hargeisa in 1991, bringing together clan elders and local leaders to organise regional affairs and avert the disorder spreading from the south.
In Becoming Somaliland, researcher Mark Bradbury, drawing on extensive fieldwork, observes that the political entity that emerged in the north was not the outcome of a single, unilateral decision, but rather the culmination of an extended process of collective agreement.
Bradbury further explains that communities relied on traditional mechanisms, such as clan councils, as pragmatic means of maintaining stability and managing everyday affairs in the absence of a central state, rather than pursuing a fully articulated political project from the outset.
The power of word that ruled the tribes
Before the modern state took shape in northern Somalia, the written word stood alongside politics as a governing force in its own right. Poets occupied the centre of this world, watching closely, interpreting events, and giving voice to truths that might otherwise remain unspoken. Their poetry was not ornament but authority, a trusted instrument through which influence was exercised and opinion shaped.
This social reality was captured by the British explorer Richard Burton in his 1856 book First Steps in East Africa. He observed that every leader was accompanied by a poet who represented him, defended his standing, and at times exposed his failings before the public. This was no symbolic arrangement. A single verse could calm a brewing conflict or, just as easily, ignite tensions between rival groups.
Journalist and Somaliland affairs researcher Mubarak Fuad, speaking to African Voices, attributes this distinctive status to a deeply embedded social role. In the collective consciousness, the poet functions as a moral intermediary between society and authority, articulating public anger or approval in a socially acceptable form and voicing sentiments that leaders often avoid expressing. For this reason, poetry has been treated with seriousness, even when it placed decision-makers in uncomfortable positions.
The poet Muhammad Ibrahim and his caricature “Hadrāwī” were among the most prominent voices to use poetry to critique authority in Somalia and Somaliland during the 1970s and 1980s.
During the 1970s and 1980s, the poet Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame, known as Hadrawi, emerged as a singular figure who employed poetry as a vehicle for direct political criticism of Mohamed Siad Barre’s regime. His verses became emblems of protest, circulating both publicly and covertly. In his allegorical poem Mother (Hooyo), he condemned state neglect, while in his landmark work The Killing of the Camel (Halkii Abeesada), he issued a stark warning that the regime’s excesses would ultimately bring about total collapse. His imprisonment and exile further reinforced his influence, embedding the idea for later generations that the poet occupied a powerful position within the public sphere.
Following the collapse of the central regime in 1991, poetry assumed a practical and decisive role in local reconciliation efforts. The conferences that laid the foundations of the region’s first administrative structures opened with poetic recitations, and the words of leading poets were invoked to reinforce agreements and persuade participants to accept difficult compromises, all with the aim of preventing a return to conflict.
Researcher Mark Bradbury observes that a number of major decisions were shaped within these reconciliation forums, which were characterised by dynamic debate in which poetry functioned as a mechanism for consensus, no less significant than written texts. It served as a means of persuasion and social regulation, helping to shape the overall climate and steer parties towards mutually acceptable outcomes.
Mubarak Fuad contends that this dependence on poetry reflects a deeply rooted local approach to generating legitimacy, in which society places trust in spoken expression that resonates with collective memory and shared values. This enduring tradition, he argues, explains why poetry continues to serve as an open arena for addressing issues that are difficult to confront through formal politics, and remains a vital space for discussing corruption, resources, and power through a time-honoured voice that retains public trust.
The poem with a new tongue
A young Somaliland woman in one of the halls of the Hargeisa International Book Fair, browsing new titles in a cultural space that has opened up to a different generation.
In a small café on the outskirts of Hargeisa, the young poet Hidayah Mohamed scrolled through a video on her phone showing a poem she had performed a few days earlier at a book festival. The ambient sounds of the street blended with her voice as she delivered verses reflecting on meaning and raising questions of identity and reality in a rapidly shifting world.
She smiled modestly while reading the comments that had poured in on her Facebook page. Some praised her courage in addressing women, love and freedom, while others criticised her for what they saw as a departure from the “language of the tribe”. Caught between admiration and rejection, the poem appeared to have moved beyond its traditional confines.
“My father was also a poet,” Hidayah said, her voice tinged with reverence. “But he never imagined that poetry would be recited on a phone screen. He used to say poetry belonged in gatherings… and now I am reciting it to the whole world”.
In his study of modern Somali literature, researcher Martin Oren argues that poetry in northern Somalia, while preserving its social role, has redefined its audience. Once closely tied to the clan sphere, it has entered a wider public space in which more complex identities are taking shape and questions are being raised that go beyond a single framework of belonging.
This shift has not taken place in isolation. The expansion of education, the spread of the internet, and the return of migrants from Europe have reshaped the tempo of cultural life in Hargeisa. As a result, poetry’s function has evolved, becoming a form of everyday reflection that observes small details, satirises lived reality, and opens debates that were previously left unaddressed.
Mubarak Fuad notes that social media, rather than weakening poetry’s presence, has endowed it with new characteristics. Poetry is no longer simply recited and allowed to circulate slowly by word of mouth; it has become part of an active public conversation. Audiences comment on it, share it, and at times reinterpret or rewrite it, particularly among younger generations and within the northern Somali diaspora. In this way, the relationship between poet and audience has shifted from passive reception to direct engagement.
A scene from the Hargeisa International Book Fair, reflecting the transformation of poetry from a clan-based sphere to a new audience shaped by young generations, education, and modern communication tools.
These changes are visibly embodied at the Hargeisa International Book Festival, sometimes described as a “parliament of poets”. A young man wearing headphones may stand beside an elder in a white turban, both sharing the same microphone, each speaking in his own idiom and from his own perspective. The scene illustrates how older and newer forms coexist within a single cultural space.
Mark Bradbury explains that such moments reflect the local culture’s capacity for renewal without abandoning its core. Despite changes in medium, poetry has remained an informal political instrument, expressing social concerns and taking the measure of public sentiment beyond formal institutions.
Between traditional gatherings and mobile phone screens, poetry continues to occupy a central place in northern Somalia, adapting to a new environment in which the audience is no longer uniform.
Poetry: A parallel power
The poet Jamaak Kali Hassan (“Gashan-Kid”) in Hargeisa, one of the voices that participated in reconciliation debates after the civil war.
The debates surrounding “Memle,” which drew the participation of more than ninety poets, expose a deeply rooted reality in northern Somalia: poetry is not regarded as entertainment, but as a potent instrument embedded at the core of political life.
This function is longstanding. Poets such as Jamak Kale Hassan, known as “Gashan-Kid,” belonged to a select circle who, in the early 1990s, used cassette-recorded poems as tools of lobbying and consensus-building during key reconciliation conferences, contributing to the formation of the nascent administration. In the absence of formal institutions, their poetry operated both as political commentary and as a form of social accountability.
Today, this influence has migrated from cassette tapes to live digital platforms. Widsame now publishes his poems on Facebook, reaching thousands within hours and converting an oral tradition into a broader, faster, and more consequential digital discourse.
The reach of this poetic authority extends to the highest levels of the political hierarchy. A recurring scene at the Hargeisa International Book Festival illustrates this dynamic, as President Muse Bihi Abdi sits in the front row while poets on stage deliver pointed criticism of his government.
A photo taken during the Hargeisa International Book Fair shows speakers on stage reciting poetry, while Musa Beyhi Abdi and several officials in the front row listen attentively.
Mubarak Fuad attributes the endurance of this phenomenon to a simple fact: poetry remains the medium people trust. “The public,” he observes, “responds more readily to words spoken and debated openly than to an official document in which they do not recognise themselves”.
This dynamic became evident when media reports intensified about a possible rapprochement between Hargeisa and Israel. Amid official political silence, poets articulated public opposition. Widsame, in particular, released his poem The Intruder, a forceful allegory portraying a stranger who knocks at the door bearing promises of wealth, while harbouring designs on one’s home and ancestral inheritance.
The broader picture thus comes into focus. While formal policy is shaped within institutions, northern Somalia sustains a parallel and more deeply embedded form of authority rooted in the spoken word. An official decision may be issued from an office, but its legitimacy is ultimately tested in poetry recited and received by the public.
Translated by: Mostafa Hassan
