by Muuse Yuusuf
Friday, May 27, 2011
The current political stalemate between President Sheikh Sherif and Sherif Hassan, speaker of the parliament, is a telling story that should not be left without assessing its negative impact on the country. The two men’s fallout has all the hallmarks of the notorious factionalism within Somalia’s political elite that seems to erupt at the eve of important political changes. One just needs to look back at the recent political history, which is full of fallouts from the armed rebels groups (SSDF, SNM, and USC) to the infamous warlords, Islamic courts to the subsequent transitional governments. Throughout the recent history, it has always been the case that one particular leader or a figurehead of a faction decides to block or disrupt some major political events mainly for parochial personal interests from the late General Aideed and Ali Mahdi’s disagreement over power-sharing with its deadly conflict to political fighting between the Islamic Courts Union and Colonel Abdullahi Yusuf’s government which led to the Ethiopian occupation.
Here we go again. This time the country is at crossroads as the Transitional Federal Institutions (TFG) are facing elections within the next few months as stipulated by the Djibouti political agreement and the current transitional charter. Leaders of the two camps are at loggerheads over these changes. The parliament has unceremoniously and shamefully extended its tenure in office for further three years, though it has a divine right to do so. Many Somalis and the international community have condemned this action. The executive particularly the president is keen to extend his tenure of office for further few years. Both sides are opposing what other is proposing. As intractable as the new crisis seem, members of the Security Council have gain met in African for the second time mainly to mediate between these warring factions or put it brutally to bash heads together by a mixture of carrot and stick, e.g. the threat of withdrawal of funds unless they resolve their disagreements, which seems the only language they understand.
The new factionalism within the executive and parliament is a classical example of what Prof Menkhaus has called “situational spoilers” where some leaders, supported by their constituents from war profiteers, mooryans, gangs, clansmen, businessmen and people who have interested in perpetual state failure, would do every thing in their power to disrupt a legitimate process. It is particularly important to point out that the current standoff is led by what Prof Menkhaus has dubbed as "spoilers of sovereignty”. This is a process in which top politicians would use the “paper state” created in foreign lands as an enterprise to get access to all benefits that come with state paraphernalia, including foreign loan and aid, international business, and money laundering in order to enrich themselves by any means. One only needs to appreciate Amin Amir’s cartoons of the two Sherifs which depict their current mental heath state as power hungry and wealth grapping characters, carrying bags full of dollars, or clinging to the chair of presidency at any cost.
This is exactly the case right now because the two Sherifs have no huge ideological difference and since their government was concocted in Djibouti both men have been fighting Al-Shabaab and Co. who they describe them as spoilers of peace. In fact, if any thing, the two Sherifs have more in common than differences. Their political partnership seems to have started off when Sherif Hassan joined the Islamic Courts Union in Mogadishu in 2006 after deserting Colonel Abdullahi Yusuf’s government in Baydhabo. Sheikh Sharif, then the ICU executive leader, welcomed Sherif Hassan in Mogadishu as a hero who rejected a stooge and pro-Ethiopian government. At the time, supporters of President Yusuf and his government saw Sherif Hassan’s defection as an act of betrayal, which would lead to the gradual disintegration and collapse of the TFG-I. They described him as an unstable character who was more interested in looking after his parochial interests.
After the Ethiopian invasion and occupation, the two Sherifs fled to Asmara and launched the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS) in September 2007 as an umbrella group to oppose the Ethiopian invasion and the TFG. However, believe or not, both men again deserted their political masters and colleagues and within a few months they set up another organisation in Djibouti. By their action, the liberation or the opposition movement, whatever you call it, was split into two: Asmara and Djibouti wings. They were again accused of betrayal and lack of principle for having given in to the enemy: TFG/Ethiopia. As a result of that political fallout, the country was plunged into further sectarian violence that is still rages in Mogadishu.
Having become leaders of the TFG-II, both men returned to Mogadishu where they became close personal and political friends. Indeed they were seen as the two sides of the same coin. Furthermore, and Ironically, the two men’s names carry the term “Sherif” which is an honorary title given by Somalis to people who they believed, rightly or wrongly, to be descendents of the Prophet Mohamed, as an honour of their position in society. Or even if they were not related to the Prophet, parents would confer the title to their children at birth in order to instil in them a sense of higher status of royalty, nobility, decency, honesty, and integrity, all exemplary human qualities which they are expected to adhere to throughout their life times.
Also, I cannot help but to see the term Sherif synonymous with that of the American title of Sheriff given to those elected police officers who command their counties’ police force. Indeed, the term Sheriff, from the old English worlds of shire reeve and cīrgerefa, was designated to royal officials responsible for keeping the peace in their counties on behalf of their political master, the king. Apparently the English word carries nobility and royalty and a sense of responsibility as the Somali word “Sherif” derived from Arabic conveys a message of dignity, nobility and responsibility. The difference between the two Somali Sherifs and the American ones is that the American Sheriffs are elected by their people while Mogadishu residents have not elected the two Sherifs who are supposed to protect them but now seem to be betraying them because of their political deadlock, which could stir up another wave of sectarian violence with its usual devastating impact on this long suffering city. And worse of all, the power of the two Sherifs, supposedly heads of the highest institutions of the state, is confined in some quarters of Mogadishu exactly as American Sheriffs’ constitutional powers are limited to their counties. In fact, while they squabble over power their institutions are unable to assert their authority in Mogadishu, or to dislodge Al-Shabaab and Co. For this reason, the two Sherifs have not even reached the status of a fully fledged Sheriff of a county in America!!
And finally, the two imposing questions that I would ask the readers are: have the two Sherifs honoured their names, and have they behaved or are they behaving in the way that their parents would have expected them to? Only time will tell. But my sincere advice to both of them is to act with honest and dignity in the interest of the Somali people at this political juncture where “Islamists” and spoilers of peace are being defeated and when most Somalis are placing hope on the forthcoming elections which could save the country from further political turmoil if the transitional process goes smoothly.
Muuse Yuusuf
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Reference: Ken Menkhaus (2004). Somalia: State Collapse and the Threat of Terrorism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.