(Speech to the Armed Forces)
9th of November, 1969
Nineteen days after the Revolution I am addressing myself to the Armed Forces. I am talking to you because I want to make you understand the responsibility we have for the nation. As you all know, we have sworn to be sincere and trustworthy to the country and the Somali people. The foundation of our sincerity for the country and the Somali people is the conviction that we are the servants of the nation. This service to the nation needs to be explicitly understood.
Imperialism and those with the colonial mentality left in the minds of our people that they were the cream of creation and others were their servants.
The truth is that anybody who draws a salary from the government is the servant of the people because the people pay his salary. This salary comes from people in the form of taxes. It had been a principle of imperialism – and we have been following it after the termination of that imperialism – that we should expect from the public, the learned, the youth and the families a specially flavoured respect. This attitude which persists is wrong, and one easily can see that it is a colonial hangover. It is has been left in the minds of the people that the nationalists is an ignorable creature.
We have launched the Revolution to eradicate colonial hangovers in all their various forms. The purpose of the Revolution is to guide us back to our true characteristics, to clearly understand what we are, and what we stand for, and to work for our people in sincerity and devotion.
We must convince the people of the efficacy of a joint, concerted effort with us. We should attack together and on equal terms, hunger and ignorance; at all times uphold and protect the flag, the dignity, the welfare and the defence of the nation.
We have to defend the dignity, the rights and the livelihood of every Somali person. While we are uprooting the evils that have beset on the nation, such as tribalism, favouritism, nepotism, corruption and injustice, we should train ourselves to uphold the dignity of the Somali nation, to uplift the image of the Somali nation both internally and externally.
