Teachers in Somalia

Preface

In my previous blog, I discussed school systems and the negative impact that they had, In that blog on the small topic of teachers I stated that I will discuss this topic in my next one, So I will be telling all my honest and truthful experiences that I had when I was a student I am not exaggerating or lying, The following are exact experiences that I encounter, I’m not quoting any other source rather than my experiences 

I know some of the things that I will say here are very harsh but I have no way other than telling the truth.

Through all my teachers that taught me anything, I am very grateful for your teachings even though the way you taught me was wrong.

But this writing is not about all past experience is about acknowledging the wrongdoing of the teachers in Somalia and trying to come up with a way that we can change together, And to protect our future children and present also. What teachers are doing to the children is not fair and we can’t find any justification for that.

Even though a lot of teachers think that they are doing the best possible way of teaching that exists. I admit all delinquency and wrongdoing in this blog is on myself.

Introduction 

In this leg of my blog, I’m only discussing the Madrasa teachers and I will discuss it later about formal school teachers.

Teachers in Somalia are secretive, taciturn, honored figures and most of the people say that they are parents.

They are esteemed among the society, so what we dealing with is not simple, but I have to be brave enough and say it’s a wrong thing even if the person doing is the most respected in the society.

I do accept all the choler and anger coming out the people because I am telling the truth, the truth could be bitter for a lot of people and better for others, the truth is pungent but we have to tell and especially in this area.

Children are vulnerable, helpless, susceptible, and unprotected I know words only can’t change this kind of child abuse, action is also needed but in Somalia we don’t even have words if you try to talk about this area as it happens to me, I was accused that I want to implement western cultures in Somalia and sometimes that I quarreling or preaching secular ideologies.

Protecting children is not a western culture or secularism.

Madrasa 

The Madrasa in Somalia is very important is where the children start schooling is like kindergarten most of the children went there at a very young age between four years old to seven years old at this age they are the most vulnerable and unprotected. 

In the Madrasa most of them are taught the Qur’an Arabic version without translation, and a small book of “DU’AS” prayers called Hisnul-Muslim. 

In madrasa, I was taught how to recite the Qur’an, it took me several years to recite all the chapters and complete them, I don’t know the exact time but it was more than seven years and I never memorized in heart, and I don’t know the meaning either.

Now I can recite the Qur’an while the Mus’haf is open and a couple of chapters in my heart.

Even if we argue that I was not a good student in the madrasa and there are other students who were clever enough that can recite the hole Musf’ah by heart even them, they don’t know the meaning, imaging if you are reading a book that you can’t understand what you benefited, is just lose of time I’m not comparing the Mus’haf reading to any other book, the Mus’haf reading is active worship that you can get rewards.

I was in Madrasa for a lot of years but what I was learned is not comparable with my time, in that time I can memorize not only one book but a lot of books and I will be an expert in that area.  

So there is a question that arises here, What was wrong?

The answer is simple, the way of teaching and the ones who teach.

Teachers

The Madrasa teachers are very secretive, uncommunicative, unforthcoming, child abusive, misopedia, and sometimes pedophilia.

All these things I encountered except pedophilia, why I mentioned it so?

I heard and saw a lot of young girls that were sexually harassed by their teachers so I can not ignore their suffering just because I have no experience. 

I’m not doing any pluralization so there are a lot of Madrasa teachers who are not misopedia and pedophile like my Madrasa teacher but they are all child abusive.

The Madrasa teachers almost all of them don’t have any teacher training course, they don’t know how to teach, even some of them they don’t know what they teach.

In this field is an open business field you can be a Madrasa teacher even if you don’t know the Qur’an by heart.

You can declare yourself whenever and where ever you want, you only needed to appear a certain way that many people thought is active worship or Islamic scholar.

You only wore some Arab cultural dressing like Kandura and Ghutra or you can grow your beard and trim your mustache you will be fine, in the Somali culture how you look divines who you are.

Child abuse of Madrasa teachers

This is an actual fact, all Madrasa teachers in Somalia are child abusers.

There are many kinds of child abuse procedures that Madrasa teachers use like torture & beating, starvation, incarceration, and etc.

Torture

Beating the children is a part of common torture and this habit became an essential part of the Madrasa teachers, I never encounter a Madrasa teacher who doesn’t have a stick on his hand, they all think the beating is an integral part of teachings.

So let’s investigate their claim of children can learn well when they are afraid or fear.  

For instance, science tells when our brain is in the fear mode it can’t able to memorize anything, the physiologist clarified us in fear emotions is part of “Fight and Flight” and the brain can’t contribute other functions like memory the physiologist also stated the chemical involvement of fear and memory are far apart. 

So literally even if we put science aside, and put in our common sense like when I was a student at the Madrasa the students who are beaten more often are less likely never complete all chapters of the Qur’an or graduated from the Madrasa and even having trouble to memorize just one page. 

Therefore how can this act is still continuous? Where the teachers are getting justification to continue this trouble act? Are they don’t have even common sense? Why they are ignoring the result of most beaten students is not making it the way it should be?  

   

Starvation

Most students attend the nearest Madrasa at their home, the teachers open the Madrasa’s too early like 6 AM in the morning the student come early too, so some of the students are barely eaten and most of them are not, hence between 9 AM and half the students are given break time of half an hour to go back to their houses to eat breakfast, but except in one condition, students who recite their lessons by heart they were let to go and have breakfast and the others who will not able will stay at the Madrasa till they recite their lessons or they will stay there sometimes whole the day.

How can be possible for a child who starving to memorize anything?

How can you justify punishment like starvation on a growing child who needed more energy?  

We know the brain demands 80% of our energy while we are at the rest condition.

Starvation is one of the worse possible punishments in the world, even the totalitarian despotic regimes in the world did not use this act of punishment on grown adults, yet we are allowing it to happen to our children, so I don’t think I could find words to describe how children are suffering my part of the world.

Incarceration or imprisonment

Most of the children are helpless they tolerating all these astonishing punishments put on their shoulders, some are not and they try to escape all these horrific things so they didn’t come to the Madrasa and they will try to escape and they hide somewhere in their village cause they are children they can’t went to faraway places, therefore teachers use a technique they sent a group grown children to capture the child and bring back to Madrasa, so other children who sent by the teacher are most likely know where the kid is hiding and they caught him, and they bring back to Madrasa.

Therefore the teacher has chains, they will be handcuffed and leg cuffed by the escaped student, and the child will be beaten so hard, in the worst-case scenario that I wasn’t experienced in our Madrasa but the others were pretty common was a group beating called “WASHAMSI” literally means the chapter 91 in Qur’an called surah ASH-SAMS it consists of 15 verses, so the student is blindfolded and then beaten by the teacher and another group of students, basically, they will recite the surah verses and in every verse, they will beat them on their sticks together until the surah finished this act made a lot of children hate this surah.

The incarceration may continue on a week or two as far as the teacher wants.

This sentence was put by innocent children who don’t do anything wrong or commit any crime.

In all this put in context, a lot of children is now suffering in Somalia, and some others are suffering their adult life because such medical conditions arose the torture that they had, like one of my siblings is now suffering a chronic illness caused by the torture he had in Madrasa when he was a child.

And many others that I don’t, the suffering that they had some of them are physical and some of them are mental.

We may only see physical things like scars and wounds that can be healed too fast, but the suffering that they had is beyond that, some of them did not make an adult, unfortunately, passed away to circumstance I mentioned above.

And in a worst-case scenario, a lot of girls are raped by their teachers and never reported due to cultural ashamedness.

Parents

Finally, parents are part of this, so they are not protecting their children from these malevolent teachers because even parents in Somalia are vulnerable they were indoctrinated that these teachers are right because they are teaching your child to the word of God, so you child have possessed by a devil that rejecting him to the learn the word of God, so teachers have to use every possible way to teach him the word of God.

Even though most of the parents in Somalia are also child abusers, they are okay and allowed to abuse their children cause they are abusing their children too.

There are small parentage of parents who are not comfortable or can not tolerate their children to abuse, and they are also silent or they are not trying to stop because even them they were indoctrinated that the Madrasa teachers have strong human eye spirit which that can cause a mysterious illness that their child will suffer forever.

You can see how parents are vulnerable in Somalia they fearing teachers’ human-eye spirit which I’m very doubtful of her existence rather than the actual fact that can come from torture, starvation, and so on, we can prove scientifically.