I aboslutely agree with oyur views on this matter. However apart from Turkey why I wonder influential and rich Muslims in the West are not contributing much to this particular one.

Providing aid is only a temporary solution. What Somalia needs is a stable government which can maintain law and order throughout the country.

In this vein , what is needed is that turkey backed by other Muslim governments must bring all other factions under one roof and come up with a consensual government and that government must be backed with force of arms.

All Western effort in Somalia are going to escalate the sitaution evern further.

Why didn't I donate money to Somalia? Simple, I was sending my money to groups that are working in parts of Ethiopia also suffering from famine but which have gotten far less notice thanks to the media focusing entirely on Somalia. Furthermore, I've encouraged people I know to focus less on just donating when the media mentions a big crisis and more on donating consistently over a period of time. It's all well and good to donate now but that just lets people feel good about themselves without reminding them that the problem will still exist in five years time.

We talked about Somalia in class and why more people are not donating but when a natural disaster hits Japan or Haiti or something new happens people start sending suplies in by droves. Our professor talked about fatigue and while it is not something anyone wants to talk about it tends to be a major reason. She joked about how for the most part people are like goldfish and when an issue can't be wrapped up in a week or so they get board and move on to another issue.

Such famines and starvation brings sense of deprivation which is exploited by extremist or force people to become Somali pirates, this is something which is not yet realized by this world, when they do? if not now.

Islamists often present themselves as victims of foreign powers, whereas foreign powers present them as irrational would-be conquerors... One point for the foreign powers here--I mean: one wonders why the emergency rescue of these muslims is not as important to the Islamists as, say, the liberation of Palestine... So, maybe what they really care about, in the end, is not so much the security of muslims as it is their own power over all others.

how's about using a charge often laid against Western nations for their lack of sympathy for Africa? Namely, racism.

It is possible that the Peninsular Arab political, tribal, economic and religious leadership might think the Somalis not worth the money, except as potential foot-soldiers in the ongoing geopolitical game they are playing with the West. Like the Afghans, Pakistanis, Iraqi Sunnis, Palestinians, Somalis represent a pool of manpower for terrorist networks, an unspoken cause celebre amongst said Peninsular Arabs. But, please take note, Westerners should not take this as a reason for invading or intervening in Somalia.

What Somalia needs, like so many other smaller nations, is to spared outside interference and the ability to develop, organically, responses to the social and ecological problems besetting them. The Horn of Africa has always been an ecologically unfriendly zone for human beings. There never was a time when it was easy living, so what did they do before hand? Before, that is, well-meaning, but naieve Westerners went in to many parts of Africa and elsewhere and destroyed sustainable demographic trends with medicines, etc. Europeans no longer dumping waste off their shores would also help.

The answer is simple: Arabs are very racist against blacks, Muslim or otherwise. More racist than white southern Americans were during Jim Crow. Slavery (mostly of blacks) was not illegal in Arabia until the 1990s, and exists in shadow markets and the treatment of foreign menial workers (Bangladeshis, Filipinos, Indonesians) to this day.

No. Egypt used US-donated military choppers to give foodstuffs to Al-shabaab rebels.

Saudi Arabia has been a prolific sponsor of Al Shabab. So has Pakistan. Gulf States have laundered money for Al-Shabbab.

Remember, these countries always "pledge" money - they pledged 8 billion to Gaza after 2009. how much money ended up going to Gaza?

Zero.

And the only time these countries will actually send aid is to islamize their targets. You know, in Africa where Muslim thugs bring in their billions. Yes yes, you can eat - as long as you join our religion. It's how they recruit. How else would anyone want to join such a F***ked up religion?

Muslims do care about Somalia but their governments do not seem to care. The Somali case is a creation of the U.S interests in the first instance and thius is a fact we cannot wish away. The lack of a proper government stemmed from American hostility to anything Islamic. This led to a U.S. prodded Ethipian invasion after the Union of Islamic Courts catured power in Somalia leading to the current instability. The Gulf Kingdoms are too busy aping U.S.s and Europes' lifestyle to really giove a sincere look at the Somali case and they are too scared of invoking U.S displeasure or too hostile to any islamic Rule that is NOT tied to their to dictatorships and interpretation of islam anyway to be seen assisting a Muslim government.
As for the rest of the people, many want to helput there is a dearth of information on how to donate except the few that have access to the internet and Credit. The few that are aware have made teir personal donations through the various organisations that are helping the Somalis. If the charities can set up recieving accounts in our countries certainly many will help and donate their widows mite.

For all the blather about zakat Islamic countries have a dismal record of helping each other in times of crisis. In the Pakistan earthquake of 2010 donations from the UK were triple that of the nearest Muslim country (Kuwait), even the US donated more than any other Muslim nation.

I agree with the person who cited racism, the anti-black racism of Arab nations is well known, but I do wonder if the real issue is that Muslim nations just don't help each other, full stop?

I don't doubt the authors' good intentions, or the good intentions of those who have donated to Somali refugees, but the simple fact of the matter is that this is a give a man a fish/teach a man to fish situation. The head of MSF has said as much:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/sep/03/charity-aid-groups-misleading-somalia

Somalia is, essentially, a man-made crisis. Nothing will ever change until the people of Somalia change themselves--which is a tall order, seeing as it calls for reconfiguring their culture, government, and civil society. Turkey and Qatar could give Somalia $1 billion each and they'd still be starving. All the money in the world would not help these people.

The answer is NO. If they really cared, Somalia, would not have languished in the mind-blowing bloody conflicts which some of the same Muslim countries directly or indirectly support.

If we Muslims really followed our teachings and practices, none of what happened and still continues to happen in Somalia could have occurred simply because the ongoing conflict has anything to do with Islam. With the opposition protests in Middle East, the Arabs are themselves now experiencing in a lesser sense of the word what we in Somalia have lived with for the last 21 years.

The Turkish Prime Minister should be hailed for his efforts so far. We hope that his intervention and that of the other few Arab countries and humanitarian agencies like Kuwait, Qatar and Oman will not be a public relations gimmick but will continue.

Somalia needs more that the rice and other foods and medicines brought in by the Muslim and other international aid agencies helping our needy people. The country needs a massive boost to revive its dead economy as well as its dilapidated infrastructure in order to make the poor peasants and the camel herders chance to survive another drought or any other natural calamity.

The backbone to Somalia’s problem is insecurity. Mogadishu is currently experiencing a new found peace with the ouster of the notorious Al-Shabaab militants. The interim government needs financial and material support to maintain its grip on the country’s security and to finally kick out the militants from the entire Somali republic.

It is despicable for Somali Muslims to suffer as other rich Arab Muslims live so lavishly. One thing am pretty sure is of it was vice versa we Somalis would never have simply watched as other Muslims languish in utter poverty and the totally unnecessary conflict.

Somalia is best known for its helping so many other African countries that are not necessarily Muslims during the struggle for independence in Africa. The entire southern Africa benefitted a lot from Somalia’s benevolence.

Today it might be our turn to suffer, but who knows what tomorrow holds. We will come out strong and prove so many people wrong and show how to help a needy Muslim brother or a troubled country.

There's an interesting dialogue happening in Somaliland about whether it was a good idea to give Somalia any aid. The conversation reflects the tensions between Somaliland residents who view Somalia as their homeland and those who view it as a lost cause from which they want to disassociate. Naturally I'm pretty far from either of these nations but looking in from the outside it seems like wasted resources for Somaliland to aid Somalia.

The publics of Western nations tend to be most generous when a humanitarian situation has a single relatively clear cause (an obvious natural disaster, etc.), and if the donated aid can be seen as hopefuly helping to return the situation to some degree of "normality". When there's a complex convoluted situation with many twists and turns and different groups with opposing interests (as in the Congo), and aid is likely to be used as subsistence food maintenance for years and years to come while waiting for conflicts to be resolved, then people often feel less inclined to be generous. (Maybe they shouldn't, but they do.) And if there's less public interest and support in a crisis, there's less pressure on a nation's government to make a big donation. When it comes to Somalia, people naturally wonder how the current situation is really different from that of 20 years ago, and if it will still be much the same 20 years from now...

It doesn't seem like anyone cares about Somalia. No one will, either, until Somalis stand up and take the respect they deserve as a people. Bythat I mean, ending corruption in the government there, behaving like civilized people, andbeing transparent about the way in which they are developing their country. The world is sick and tired of the TFG whining about how the world does not care about Somalia becasue the world has yet to donate enough moeny to buy peace. If they want peace, they have to make it!

msmignoresit.blogspot.com

Yes, I agree that we people should be more altruistic. But what about Muslims have? To blame for the situation in Somalia Muslims think is a great evil. Somalia is a poor country where governors steal and people starve. What links have Muslims. None. There, in Somalia need a revolution, after which they can be helped and the rest of the world, not just Muslims.
But developed countries have interests in the area. They occur only in those areas where there is still oil. Where financial interest sends. And have the courage to blame the Muslims.
We are all selfish and only intervene where our interests to send. The last example is Libya.
In a poor country like Somalia will never flow milk and honey
.

Saudi Arabia has sent aid to Somalia three times so far this year.

Last month they air lifted 4,000 tons of food to Somalia.

http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article497612.ece

In July they sent 60 million dollars worth of aid.

Aid may be given. Delayed or just on time, help can always be given to the Somalia people who need food, shelter and clean water. But then, how long would they keep on asking this? Rich Muslim countries are able to feed their people with almost anything or something good like antiinflammatory foods and shelter them with the best homes – this is because they have the knowledge and the wisdom on how to make it possible. Somalia needs a leader who will support each and every family in the country. They cannot always ask for stocks of help, they need the exact knowledge on how to multiply and make the most of what they have received.

What Somalia needs, like so many other smaller nations, is to spared outside interference and the ability to develop, organically, responses to the social and ecological problems besetting them. seslichat The Horn of Africa has always been an ecologically unfriendly zone for human beings. There never was a time when it was easy living, so what did they do before hand? Before, that is, well-meaning, but naieve Westerners went in to many parts of Africa and elsewhere and destroyed sustainable demographic trends with medicines, etc.