The Peninsula

On Thursday Jan 28, we had indepth conversation with Abukar Arman on the main challenges that are responsible for the continued instability of Somalia and its root causes.

Dr. Nuur Hassan and AbdiRizak Warfa discuss books and authors whose writings impacted our intellectual thinking. Very ienlightining conversation. The conversation was held live on facebook Saturday, September 25, 2020.

Hello and welcome to The Peninsula co-hosted by Abdi Warfa and Nuur Hassan. On this podcast, we bring you uninhibited intellectual discourse aimed at generating ideas and body of knowledge for better world

In this episode, Dr. Nuur and I speak with Dr. Idil Osman, an Assistant Professor at the School of Media, Communication and Sociology at the University of Leicester, UK about social media, diaspora and Somali politics. Dr. Idil has a longstanding interest in Somalia and Sub Saharan Africa. Her research focuses on how media and communications relate to modern-day conflicts, foreign policy and engage refugee, migrant and diaspora communities. Prior to her academic transition, she spent over 12 years as a national and international journalist working for the BBC, the Guardian and the Voice of America in Washington, DC covering Sub Saharan Africa and its diaspora.

In this episode, Dr. Nuur Hassan and I discuss the idea of Sa'ada (سَعادة, happiness) which was a key political philosophy of Abu Nasr Al-Farabi.

The Peninsula brings you the third and final episode of its inaugural three-party series on Ethiopia. On this episode, we host Patrick Gilkes, a former senior policy advisor to the Ethiopian ministry of foreign affairs. In our conversation with Patrick, we ask Why democracy has historical pushbacks in Ethiopia? In doing so, we critically examine the relationship between the big man syndrome and the history of state-building in Ethiopia in the late 19th to early 20th century, from the Hobbesian perspective of law and order.

In this episode of The Peninsula, we are joined by reknown human rights activist and indepdent researcher, Fowsia Abdikadir, as we ask:  Can attempts to centralise federalism prevent or precipitate Balkanisation in Ethiopia? We problematize the question of federalism in Ethiopia by debating: What is the history behind ethnic-based federalism? Under the current conditions, how do we address federalism in Ethiopia? Do we assume it will remain in its place or replaced? Is it correct to assume Medemer is hell bent on doing away with federalism? What is Medemer? A bit of theorizing but if geographic federalism were to replace the current multi-national federalism, does that mean the Somali Region would become more like NFD? Something else?

For better or worse, Ethiopia appears to be undergoing once in a lifetime generational change. Will this usher in a new dawn or will the country revert back to its old self? As a new debate on the virtues of provincial vs. ethnic federalism rages, we ask: what is the Somali Region to do? In an upcoming essay, we argue there is a need for a new way of doing politics in the Somali Region. We discuss some of those ideas in this first episode of our new podcast – The Peninsula. Dr. Nuur Hassan has written a lot on politics in Ethiopia and its impact on the Somali region and has new radical ideas on how to transform politics in the region. Dr. Abdi Warfa joins him to enhance the conversation, challenge underlying assumptions in our theories, and open up the space for further discussion.