In Mogadishu, a New Moral Code Emerges

MOGADISHU, Somalia, June 18 -- That warm February morning felt so
perfect that Abdirisack Noriftin, a 22-year-old movie buff whose
friends nicknamed him "American," said he imagined himself in the kind
of sandy, sexy Hollywood movie he had watched just the night before.

He
had no surfboard or volleyball, as did the carefree stars of that film.
But his girlfriend, Faisa Hassan, 18, cast aside her Islamic modesty by
stripping off her head scarf and exposing her dark hair to the sun.
Together, she and Noriftin walked on the beach. They kissed in the
surf. Never before in their young lives, they recalled later, had they
felt so exhilaratingly free.

Then, this being Somalia rather than
a Southern California movie set, gunmen arrived and abruptly reminded
the couple of the perils of being young and in love in one of the
world's most dangerous cities.

Just hours earlier, when Noriftin
enticed Hassan into the taboo-breaking trip to the beach, he had vowed
to protect her. This, after all, was a man who had taught himself to
walk like James Bond, pump iron like Arnold Schwarzenegger and speak
English like a New York gangster. Many nights, alone in his bed,
Noriftin had practiced saying firmly, yet with seemingly offhand cool,
"Get the hell out of here."

Yet on this occasion, words failed
him as one of the four gunmen reached for Hassan. She screamed. He
screamed. Nearby villagers arrived in time to chase the attackers away.

Noriftin
and Hassan have not gone back and, they figure, never will. Not only do
criminals still prowl the beach, but two weeks ago most of Mogadishu
was taken over by Islamic militias that are curbing crime but also
demanding adherence to strict moral codes in some neighborhoods. Coed
beach trips, already perilous, are now strictly off-limits, the young
couple has concluded.

Caught in this shifting mix of secular
violence and rising Islamic fervor, Noriftin and Hassan say they want
nothing more than to live as they imagine Americans do -- without fear,
without money troubles, without roving gunmen.