July 20, 2006
If the world is to contain a public space, it cannot be erected for one generation and planned for the living only; it must transcend the life-span of mortal men. Without this transcendence into a potential earthly immortality, no politics, strictly speaking, no common world, and no public realm is possible. … It is what we have in common not only with those who live with us, but also with those who were here before and with those will come after us.
Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, The University of
Chicago Press, 1958, P. 55
In responding to the ethnic appeal, the voters are frozen in a moment of particularity that effectively cancels the prospect of sharing in the universality, at any rate, the synthesis of universality and particularity which is the whole meaning of democratic participation and consensus-building. They are left one-sided, stunted, undeveloped, as they remain confined to their small parochial space, and in their entrapment pay for the realization of the ambitions of the elite for whom their enthnicization is just one strategy of power.
Claude Ake, The Feasibility of Democracy in Africa, Codresia,
2003. pp. 171-172
I. A Rebuttal: Round Two
The International Crisis Group (ICG) Report on Somalia’s northern region (Somaliland) released on May 23, 2006, is the second of its type since 2003. The Reports are useful in that they add to the plethora of contributions urging the International Community to help Somalis help themselves. In addition to an attached reprint of our response to the 2003 Report, this intervention consists of three components: Part one presents brief responses to the most recent ICG Report; the second section proposes an alternative; and the third part comments on the danger of substituting aprioristic perspectives for an open-minded and judicious analysis.
The ICG Report rehashes many of the claims made in the 2003 account. A central argument at that time was this: If the International Community does not recognize the region (Somaliland) as a separate and independent country, it will be tantamount to inviting war and violence. Three years later, that ICG attempt to frighten the world on the basis of faulty analysis and alarmist predictions did not come to pass. The new Report tries the same tactic and urges the African Union (AU) to act urgently. We think that heeding such blatantly biased analysis and ill-founded prognosis will not serve the best interests of the Somali people or the African Union. Consequently, we urge the African Union and African governments to become more engaged with the Somali problem, but in a manner that is based on careful and deliberative analysis. That alone, we propose, will foster reconciliations and the reknitting of the “common self” among the Somali people. Rather than providing a constructive analysis, we hold that the two ICG Reports put forth dangerous propositions that could only further corrode national identity and, therefore, compound the current fragmentation. On the contrary, we suggest that the most sensible mechanism for solving the Somali crises is through a democratic reconciliation among Somalis rather than the imposition of a solution from above or endorsing a sectarian project. The African Union is well placed to play a pivotal role in such a scheme.
Our response to the first ICG Report, a companion to this memo, challenged nearly all the claims repeated in this most recent one. This brief essay, then, is intended to alert the AU, African governments, and others sympathetic to Somali issues about the fatal flaws inherent in the Report. We hope this memo and the attached essay provide sufficient information and analysis to generate an alternative roadmap for the way to a peaceful resolution of the Somali predicament. In combination with the attached essay, these remarks directly and succinctly tackle key points of the ICG Reports.
A. The history of the voluntary union between the British and Italian Somalilands is wrongly portrayed in the ICG Report. A more accurate assessment of this issue is in our earlier response (See pages 5–7 of attachment). Moreover, item E of this memo provides useful historical data on the subject.
B. The ICG Report submits that unless the AU urgently acts in accordance with its prescription, there might be war between the North and South. This assertion is identical to the alarmist prognosis contained in the first Report, which has not been borne out by the facts. More significantly, since the issuance of the 2003 ICG Report, the admittedly feeble and less than legitimate Somali Transitional Federal Institutions have committed themselves to a peaceful resolution of the question of the North. Our judgment on the panic-mongering tactics by the Report is on pages 14–15 of the attached document.
C. This new Report claims that a noisy minority of the people from the North and militant Jihadists from the South favor unity. Surprisingly, elsewhere the Report indicates, “a significant minority of the people in the region is opposed” to secession. Now, a careful reader would wonder which of the two statements represents the greater truth. Moreover, given the fact that it is highly treasonous in Hargeisa to question the ambition of breaking away, how do the authors of the Report know what proportion of the total population of the region is opposed to the secession?
D. The Report conveniently describes the propagation of a new “Somaliland” identity as an inclusive project and, in the process, avoids the unpleasant fact that kin genealogy has been turned into a poisonous political apparatus. Consequently, some groups consider the idea of a “Somaliland” as theirs; others feel disenfranchised. This is a main reason why the sentiment towards secession is strongest in some parts of the central zone and weakest in the east and the west of the region. For more on this see Item E below.
E. The Report notes that, “the claim to statehood rests on the territory’s separate status during the colonial era.” This assertion has two major failings. First, it privileges colonialism as an indelible historical experience that trumps choices Somalis had made in pre-colonial as well as post-colonial eras and the resultant experiences. Here is one critical historical fact that the authors of the ICG Report consciously erase from memory: various Somali kin groups in the region signed different treaties with the British. These agreements were the foundation of the colonial establishment. In light of this, it would seem reasonable to expect that the ICG authors would underscore the traditional autonomy of the genealogical groups at least to the extent that their document relies on colonial records. Moreover, and even more compelling, is the voluntary choice Somalis of the North and South made in 1960 to form a united Somali Republic. The whole people of the two regions made this decision in a free and democratic way, without any fear or intimidation. We think that objective analysts would seriously consider the importance of these three major historical benchmarks rather than favoring the one that sits well with a particularistic agenda: pre-colonial autonomy of genealogical groups; colonial treaties; and democratic choice free Somali people made after independence.
We would like to remind readers of some crucial facts about post-colonial democratic Somalia. One of the most impressive events of the Somali Republic’s post-colonial democratic history was the constitutional plebiscite of 1961. It was in this referendum that the Somali people endorsed the Union Act embedded in the constitution, which read, “The state of Somaliland and the state of Somalia do hereby unite and shall forever remain united in a new, independent, democratic, unitary republic, the name of which shall be the Somali Republic.” The results of the plebiscite sanctioned the birth of the new African Republic and closed the curtain on pre-colonial and colonial political order. The table below shows the distribution of votes and indicates that two areas voted against the constitution while six approved. A finer resolution of the evidence reveals major differences within those localities where opposition was strongest (Table 1). In the North, 54.63% of the voters in the Hargeisa area rejected the constitution while 51.15% of those in the surroundings around Burao approved it. The figures in the table show that a narrow majority of the voters in the central areas of the North voted against the constitution while an overwhelming majority of the people in eastern and western zones voted in favor of the charter. The other area in the country where most of the voters rejected the constitution was in Hiran. In fact, Hiran had the highest rejection rate of 61.99%. It is critical to understand the reason why the margin of the majority negative vote in the North was relatively slim and why the Hiran region was the exception in the South. Our research shows that the rejectionist areas had one thing in common: two leading politicians were not satisfied with the way the new ministerial portfolios were distributed. In Hiran, Sheik Ali Jimale, one of the leading politicians who hailed from the area, was very unhappy with the fact that the Provincial President did not appoint his friend, Abdillahi Issa, as prime minister, but instead chose Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke. Similarly, Mohamed Ibrahim Egal, the most eminent northerner who was allied with Abdillahi Issa’s camp, felt unappreciated despite being called to run the Ministry of Defense of the new Republic. Available evidence illustrates that Sheik Ali Jimale, Mohamed Ibrahim Egal, and their associates decided to campaign against the constitution in order to get even with President Aden A. Osman, Prime Minister Sharmarke, and their political camp. The dissidents assumed that if voters turned down the constitution, then the new government would be discredited and, as a result, they could rise to power.
Thus, their campaign was about portfolios in government rather than the substance of the draft constitution. Unfortunately, however, they politicized kin identity to such an extent that it enabled them to mobilize a notable proportion of their respective genealogical groups to oppose the constitution. An examination of the political geography of the plebiscite clearly reflects the influence of politicized genealogy in the two regions at the time. But we hasten to add that, despite the power of this ideology, the vast majority of the Somali voters sanctioned the constitution. Over forty years later, the political divide among the population in the North (Somaliland) is along the same lines: most of the people of the eastern and western areas as well as a minority in the central parts are opposed to the secession; a majority of people in the latter zone support the separatist agenda.
The authors of the ICG Reports conceal these facts. We think that the aim is to advocate for a segment of the population in the central parts rather then express the comprehensive temper of the whole population of the region. Here, it is worth remembering the fact that the resistance against the odious dictatorship of Siyaad Barre’s order that appeared in the North, in the form of the Somali National Movement (SNM), forcibly imposed the secessionist project on others in 1991. SNM was quintessentially the armed party of one genealogical group (see Part II, pp.16–17 of the attachment).
A. An African Analogy
A South African context will most vividly reveal the hidden but divisive propensity of the ICG Report. It is instructive to recall that the vast majority of the black African population and other progressive groups resisted the apartheid regime’s strategy of maintaining tribal/race groupings as a basis of citizenship and, instead, opted for a national identity and political order that would be inclusive. The fact that the African National Congress (ANC) did not win a majority of the votes in two important provinces in 1994 did not invalidate the liberation of South Africa and the new democratic constitutional order. To the contrary, the country has flourished since. We think that the analytical framework the ICG team reporting on Somalia has adopted would have interpreted differently the meaning and significance of South Africa’s first national election. The authors’ logic would legitimate a secession of the zones that the ANC did not win. Astonishingly, the IGC would have advised the Organization of African Unity to endorse the formation of Zululand and Colorland republics!
II. An Alternative Proposal
The 2006 ICG Report raises four specific questions and provides four correlate answers. We find their answers/recommendations wanting.
A. Should the people of “Somaliland” be rewarded for creating stability and democratic governance in the midst of the chaos that is the failed State of the Somali Republic?
The authors of the ICG Report advocate that the AU should at least reward “Somaliland” for its peaceful, stable, and democratic order by minimally granting it observer status in the AU. We strongly agree that the people of this region have come together to put into place a modicum of peace, order, and institutional life that are superior to other initiatives around the country. This success deserves positive and concrete encouragement. Here, substantial international aid in the critical spheres of human development (e.g., security, education, health, agriculture, water and electricity, transportation, job creation, and the consolidation of the democratic procedures) is long overdue. We hasten to add, however, that such support for the achievements of the region ought not to be conflated with an acceptance, let alone an endorsement, of the disintegration of Somalia. On this issue, and because the actual historical record is at odds with the claims of the ICG Report, our analysis leads us to urge the AU and the rest of the world community to resist ill-informed and partisan points of view that, in the end, only accelerate the destruction of Somali peoplehood.
Finally, in our opinion, the ICG team fails to understand the difference between authentic democratic practice and propaganda. To be sure, there have been elections but it is a undeniable fact that the foundational ones were neither democratic nor free around such a critical topic. Democracy entails, among others, autonomy and choice; freedom’s prerequisites are an absence of intimidation and fear. Together, democracy and freedom presuppose tolerable reasonableness over contentious issues such as the nature and future of associative belonging. At that time in the region, some communities had the freedom to publicly propagate their preference for separation while others were coerced to toe a predetermined line -- that is, to endorse the secessionist demand by the armed wing of the Somali National Movement. Given the above, we propose that the AU should embark on a new task that IGAD and the international community have, disappointedly, failed to accomplish; that is, playing the role of an impartial, competent, and patient facilitator for reconciliation. The AU and prominent African countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Tanzania, and Egypt should take the lead and act as non-partisan mediators. Reconciling Somalis in an environment that precludes duress and violence is the most precious gift continental leaders can offer to the Somali people in this darkest hour of their contemporary history. We proffer that the transitional period is the appropriate time to engage in rigorous constitutional negotiations. Used wisely, such an opportunity could afford the people of northern regions as well as those in other parts of the country to debate any restructuring of the future political dispensation. At the conclusion of such a process, the entire population of the country could then vote freely (as they did in 1961), with international witness, on the adoption of a new constitution. In this context, a word on the national responsibility of the political class of the South is in order. For too long, many in the southern part of the country have been so preoccupied with their own peculiar form of clanist and destructive battles over what we have called, “the cadaverous state.” In addition to the local ruin, best underscored by the ghastly condition of the capital, that such horrid and myopic indulgence has brought, the greatest cost has been a devastating withering of the national spirit. Subsequently, many among the most thoughtful of the people of the North, who hold on to the sanctity of a united and democratic Somali Republic have often and bitterly spoken about the repetitive failure of the Southern elite to help hold up and protect the national cause. Northerns frequently pose, “Wey isku maqanyhiin; intayba lasugi?” (They are obsessed with their own petty ambitions and grudges; how long must one wait?). This question is not merely rhetorical. On the contrary, it is as urgent as any of the great concerns that face the Somali people. In short, the communities of the South ought to realize that the preservation of national unity has been a most difficult topic in the North to such an extent that the keepers of the faith, as it were, have found their conviction shaken by the constantly depressing tidings from the rest of the country. The moral of the point, then, is this: if compatriots from the South, too, continue to be mesmerized by local clanist machinations and instrumentalist politics to the neglect of the pressing and supreme national project, they will deprive themselves and the rest of the nation the invention of a formula that at once successfully addresses genuine local troubles and responds effectively to the gathering danger of dismemberment.
B. Would rewarding “Somaliland” with either independence or significant autonomy adversely impact the prospects for peace in Somalia or lead to territorial clashes?
The ICG Report minimizes clashes that have already occurred in the eastern third of the region as communities there have refused to submit to an unrepresentative secessionist administration. We believe that there is a silent majority in the west of the territory who are equally opposed to the secession but who have decided to buy time. Members of the latter group have been partially placated by the accident of one of their junior politicians becoming president as a result of Mohamed Ibrahim Egal’s death and subsequent political maneuvers in Hargeisa.
The fact that nearly the whole eastern third of the North is beyond the reach of the Hargeisa Administration (as well as the fierce resistance of the population there) highlights the presence of a worrisome conflict. This situation should not be underestimated, as it is potentially a serious warning of a deeper problem. We think an AU acceptance of a self-declared independent Somaliland will mean the endorsement of divisive and flammable politics that masquerade as democracy. In the end, a tribalist disposition, akin to a “gangrene of the mind,” in the sobering expression of Breyten Breytenbach, and corresponding political arrangements are not good for either the whole country or for any of its regions. Subsequently, we have faith that the AU will not allow itself to be hoodwinked to chaperone such a dangerous proposition.
C. What are the prospects for peaceful preservation of a united Somali Republic?
The ICG Report claims that new identities have formed in post-1991 Somalia and this will make it nearly impossible to put humpty-dumpty back together in the form of a Somali Republic. There is no question that politicized genealogy has overtaken Somali nationalism in the last two decades, but any serious scholar and investigator of the country will recognize the weak hold clanist ideology has on the population. We submit that it is the absence of legitimate rule of law, competent leadership, and an inclusive vision of an attractive and plausible future that makes myopic identitarian logic unavoidable. Nonetheless, we are confident that such a perspective will recede once a legitimate and capable order is restored. We think that advocating for and enhancing highly sectarian ideas is catastrophic as Rwanda’s history most vividly teaches all of us.
The challenge to the ICG advocacy for clanist fiefdoms is the presence of a significant counter-movement across the widest reaches of the old Republic, as well as in the diaspora. Here, numerous groups are working for civic reunion rather than degenerative fragmentation of Somalis. Our long-term and historically grounded research in the country continues to reinforce our conviction that what is missing is a genuine process of reconciliation – that is, a dialogic mood protected from intimidation and force, and facilitated by a sympathetic, honest and able mediator. We have little doubt that once such an intermediary, as it were, steps up to the plate, a new Somali consensus about a sane, intelligent, and constructive politics will re-emerge.
D. What would be the implications of recognition of a “Somaliland” for separatist conflicts elsewhere in the continent?
Again, the authors of the ICG Reports on northern Somalia seem so invested in the secessionist project that they fail to separate fact from fiction. The conflicts in the region alone negate ICG observations and recommendations. For instance, take the case of neighboring Ethiopia, where several groups have been contesting the nature of that country. Some of these, such as Oromos and Somalis, have openly championed the establishment of independent Oromia and Somali regions. It is worth remembering that Ethiopia is, culturally and linguistically, an extremely diverse country. In the face of mountains of evidence from Ethiopia, the ICG authors cannot defend the claim that AU recognition of northern Somalia will not encourage populations in neighboring Ethiopia, who are disgruntled over the nature of representation and power arrangements, to seek total independence — a frightening eventuality for anyone who cares about Ethiopia and Pan-African unity. We think the ICG Report is dangerously shortsighted. If the AU sanctions clanism in Somalia, it ought to realize that the genie will be out of the bottle. In the Horn of Africa, centrifugal forces in Ethiopia loom large and cannot be ignored.
III. Objectivity and Conflict of Interest
The two ICG Reports on northern Somalia (Somaliland) have been presented as an objective examination by dispassionate investigators from an internationally reputable institution concerned with peace and the well being of the Somali people and the Horn of Africa. Alas, we must point out that the form and the substance of the Reports belie these lofty ideals. Rather than judiciously informing the International Community and the African Union on the basis of a non-partisan assessment of the historical and political conditions in Somalia, its authors chose to significantly misinterpret or misrepresent the record in order to support a particularistic agenda. We hold this to be highly regrettable. To the contrary, we are of the opinion that evidence gleaned from the morphology of Somali political history will lead to a contrasting conclusion. If we are right, the glaring ethical and professional question is why would an establishment such the ICG, which prides itself on being an impartial think tank, risk soiling its reputation by producing and disseminating this partisan agenda? This is a puzzle that requires serious investigation. Applying a “hermeneutic of suspicion,” we advance the following proposition as a point of departure: the chief author of the Reports has been an articulate supporter of and counsel to the secessionist movement in northern Somalia for quite sometime. He has lobbied for the movement and has used his position in the War-Torn Societies Project Somalia office as a platform for this cause. Subsequently, some of the key documents cited to support the Reports were edited by the lead author (in the name of War-Torn Societies). This would suggest that the ICG Reports have, in essence, become an extension of a lobbying business. Why, if our hypothesis were valid, would the ICG contract him to head such Reports? We cannot be certain, but it is plausible that the organization lacked the necessary expertise on Somalia and, therefore, saw the author as a valuable resource without carefully checking his political affinity and agenda. The ICG could assert that they had no knowledge of the main author’s background. However, such an explanation will not wash, for, since the publication of the first Report (2003), we have posed serious and publicly circulated doubts about the intellectual integrity and the conspicuous analytical deficiencies of that Report. Instead, and inexplicably, the ICG ignored the challenge and simply reiterated its earlier claims in the second Report. This suggests that there might be other agendas at work in the ICG, hidden behind the vow of providing sound analysis of the Somali problems. If so, this is a grave charge that should be addressed seriously.
We find the ICG approach sufficiently troubling that we openly request the ICG and its authors to reveal their logos, interests, and other affiliations with regard to the Somali society. Such an “x-ray” moves us closer to exposing subtexts that might have crucial implications for the diagnosis and treatment of the Somali condition. We are willing to start with ourselves and, therefore, reveal our orientations and associations. We are both Somali-Americans who grew up and were educated in northern Somalia. Ahmed I. Samatar is James Wallace Professor and Dean of the Institute for Global Citizenship at Macalester College in St. Paul Minnesota. He is neither a consultant to any one organization nor campaigns for any political party. Abdi Ismail Samatar is a professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Geography and in Global Studies at the University of Minnesota. He was a senior research fellow at the Human Sciences Research Council in Pretoria shortly after that country’s liberation. He is not a consultant to or lobbyist for any political party.
To conclude, an Egyptian expert on development noted over two decades ago, “to do the impossible you must see the invisible.” Somalia’s greatest national poet of the modern era, Abdillahi Sultan, “Timacadde,” who hailed from the North, repeatedly warned, over forty years ago, about the deadly pitfalls of a mix of exclusive tribalist interest and neo-colonial machinations. Finally, in a similar vein, both Graham Hancock and Michael Maren, in their memorable and respective volumes The Lords of Poverty (1989) and The Road to Hell (1997), noted that the real beneficiaries of development aid are those who manage it, and not the poor of Africa and elsewhere in the wretched zones of the world — the very people in whose name resources are called for and committed to. With the Somali situation so present in our minds, we sense that different types of lords have emerged in recent times: the lords of disaster. Rather than search for the pivotal questions, seek the best analysis and discern the implications, these individuals and their influential organizations not only often employ superficial and sectarian agendas but also plant new confusions that, combined, infantilize the present and enervate any potential of the future. This breed of lords, while sharing many of the attributes of the old type, is unequivocally more deleterious. The AU and others genuinely concerned with peace, reconciliation, and development must be wary of any advice that comes from such quarters. As for Somalis, the vast majority realizes that they are living in, comparatively, the most politically destitute of their modern history. In the end, only they can clean their humiliating mess. Until the Somalis are ready to become agents of their own history again, it is important that the rest of the world, and particularly their African and Muslim kin, not be party to an agenda that could propel Somalis to become even less than they are now.
Addendum I