Talkers and writers couldn’t see eye to eye. If the colonial state governed through newspapers, directives, and notices, Somalis have produced the political through fadhi ku dirir, the public sphere where political ideas have been constructed, contested, and disseminated. And so the state has always been deeply concerned about the power of political gossip; in an oral society, speakers can reach everyday people in ways writers cannot. Publications like War Somali Sidihi were written in English, inaccessible to the vast majority of Somalis who did not speak the language; the majority of Somalis would get their news elsewhere.
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