Adli Yacubi | Substack
Adli Yacubi
Cape-born writer weaving memory, tasbīḥ, and resistance. Creator of Rabbānī scrolls & The Road to Return. I write where the sacred meets the everyday — in Cape idiom, longing, laughter, and the rhythm of remembrance.
Launched a year ago
Adli Yacubi
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[And so when Israel — itself sustained through a long architecture of occupation, partition, militarisation, and settlement — suddenly moves toward recognising Somaliland, many of us cannot help hearing older echoes beneath the newer language. Not because Somalilanders themselves are reducible to imperial puppets. But because empires have always known how to enter history through fracture.
And so when Israel — itself sustained through a long architecture of occupation, partition, militarisation, and settlement — suddenly moves toward recognising Somaliland, many of us cannot help hearing older echoes beneath the newer language. Not because Somalilanders themselves are reducible to imperial puppets. But because empires have always known how to enter history through fracture.
Adli Yacubi](https://adliyacubi.substack.com/p/when-empires-learn-new-languages?selection=69f03733-6806-4e94-8422-4dbc679d0ec9)
[I had been following the reports surrounding Somaliland’s deepening relationship with Israel — embassy exchanges, recognition, strategic cooperation, the language of normalisation. Somaliland, the self-declared republic that broke away from Somalia in 1991 after the collapse of the Siad Barre regime, now seemed to be entering another geopolitical orbit altogether. The announcement carried the familiar vocabulary of modern diplomacy:
recognition, security, partnership, stability.
I had been following the reports surrounding Somaliland’s deepening relationship with Israel — embassy exchanges, recognition, strategic cooperation, the language of normalisation. Somaliland, the self-declared republic that broke away from Somalia in 1991 after the collapse of the Siad Barre regime, now seemed to be entering another geopolitical orbit altogether. The announcement carried the familiar vocabulary of modern diplomacy:
recognition, security, partnership, stability.
Adli Yacubi](https://adliyacubi.substack.com/p/when-empires-learn-new-languages?selection=9b0b8ae6-47c2-4c84-9109-53fe4f046e2e)
[Every empire redraws maps.
The enduring question is who benefits when the lines move.](https://adliyacubi.substack.com/p/when-empires-learn-new-languages)
When Empires Learn New Languages
[This article stopped me in my tracks.
For years we spoke about colonialism in terms of land, labour, minerals, and markets. Today another question is emerging: data.
As artificial intelligence, digital governance, and global health systems expand, we are being asked to think more carefully about ownership, consent, sovereignty, and power.](https://adliyacubi.substack.com/p/when-empires-learn-new-languages)
[propublica.org
“Digital Colonialism”: U.S. Demands to Access Africans’ Data Raise Privacy, Sovereignty Concerns
The United States is requiring access to health data as part of lifesaving aid deals with African countries. The U.S. says the data will be aggregated and anonymized, but privacy experts fear the information could be misused or exploited.](https://propub.li/4uOCYh8)
As another year settles gently upon me, I find myself thinking less about age and more about companionship.
To everyone who sent a message, offered a prayer, shared a memory, or simply paused for a moment of kindness—thank you.
Enkosi.
Tramakasi.
Let your hearts be troubled.
Not every age calls for comfort. Some seasons ask us to remain awake.
To carry grief without surrendering to despair. To let anger mature into conscience rather than hatred. To walk through the long winter with others.
"Know your griefs have friends."
— Deacon Blue, Let Your Hearts Be Troubled
Liz Loh-Taylor writes from the place where reportage becomes witness.
The piece never retreats into abstraction. Dust, heat, fear, waiting, uncertainty — the realities that survive long after the explosion itself.
This is a journalism of witness: remaining close enough to human experience to reveal what distance, statistics, and political language often conceal.
A remarkable piece of reporting.
[There is something different about seeing a story in print.
The Children of June began as a reflection on June 16, memory, and the many rivers that flowed into South Africa's liberation struggle.
This week it appeared in the pages of Muslim Views.
Looking at the printed page, I found myself staring once again at the child in the photograph …](https://adliyacubi.substack.com/p/ten-june)
Eight years have passed since that morning in June when the world tilted and nothing seemed certain. Between that day and this one lie essays, notebooks, posters, friendships, losses, prayers, recoveries, and countless acts of mercy too small to measure.
Ten June
#TenJune #StrokeRecovery #Aphasia #Witness #Rabbani #Alhamdulillah