Alan Paton’s classic South African novel, Cry, the Beloved Country, exposed how tyranny produced injustices and social rot in that beautiful and blessed land: South Africa. We may not agree with Paton’s diagnosis of the malady, but most will acknowledge the power of his insights and the humanity of his vision.
A similar colonial plague gripped another beautiful people and land: Somalia. With independence, Somalis partially recovered from colonialism, but a sectarian faction of the political elite has imposed a worse tragedy on them, while the international community and the African Union (AU) wittingly participate as the calamity deepens.
If one were to write a novel about the Somali disaster, it would be: Weep, My Beloved Country.
Recuperating from the colonial calamity
Before colonialism butchered the territory, Somaliland’s area was slightly smaller than contemporary South Africa. The imperialists divided it into five colonial territories: British Somaliland, Italian Somaliland, French Somaliland, Ethiopian Somaliland and the Northern Frontier District of the British colony of Kenya.
Somalis partially recovered from that catastrophe when the British and Italian Somali lands were liberated and united to form Somalia in 1960.
The hope at independence was that the remaining territories would become liberated and join the fold, but that was not to be. French Somaliland became the Republic of Djibouti after it gained freedom in 1977, while the other two regions remain in Ethiopia and Kenya.
Somalia started its post-colonial period with verve and promise. It was the lone country in Africa where the entire population shared a single language, faith and culture.
The curse of a sectarian elite
For most of the 1960s, Somalia was the premier democratic state on the African continent. Somalis’ cultural homogeneity facilitated their attachment to democracy.
But the drive to nurture a genuine representative government was led by a Somali group whose lives were deeply marred by colonial humiliation and who aspired to create a system that would nurture their people’s hopes and dignity.
In contrast, another faction of the political elite, driven by greed and lust for power, sought to capture the state for its egotistical ends.
The democrats accountably managed the state from 1960-1967. President Aden Abdulla Osman honoured his oath of office and told MPs who would decide his presidency’s fate in 1967 to vote according to their conscience. In contrast, the opposition candidate deployed corrupt means, such as cash bribes to MPs, and won the presidency.
Once in power, the sectarians expeditiously consolidated their grip on the state by posting their clients in the cabinet, the civil service and the supreme court. Subsequently, they set their sights on the forthcoming parliamentary election.
The sectarians’ core strategy to win the election was tribal mobilisation of the population and the use of bribes. Consequently, the prime minister invited all the “traditional” leaders to Mogadishu, treated them handsomely, and sought their help to ensure that each genealogical group voted as a unit in support of the regime.
The governing party won the 1969 election, but the corrupt use of government resources during the election was so scandalous that the International Monetary Fund registered its alarm.
Political tribalism stoked communal conflicts during the election. Shortly thereafter, a policeman who felt that his “group” had been cheated of its parliamentary seat assassinated the Somali president in 1969. This precipitated a military coup.
The junta’s progressive-sounding declarations temporarily rejuvenated the national spirit, but like so many military regimes, despotism became the norm. As a teenager, I spent four months in prison for criticising the regime.
The dictatorship became more violent, corrupt and tribalistic in the late 1970s and the 1980s. In response, opponents replicated its tribalist ideology to mobilise supporters. As the regime’s viciousness intensified, a rebel group made a daring raid on the second-largest city from their base in Ethiopia, and the military’s savage revenge annihilated the city.
Mayhem spread across the country, the dictator was chased out of Mogadishu in 1991, the government collapsed, and the country disintegrated.
Tribalised government, the international community & the AU
Tribal warlords and tyrants ravaged Somalia in the 1990s and early 2000s. Then, the government of Djibouti brought Somalis together to find a trail back to civilisation. After months of haggling, the conferees defined Somalia’s political conflict as “tribal” and divided Somalis into “political tribes”. In 2001, they formed a government anchored on this vile formula.
That regime languished for several years until Muslim clerics (the Union of Islamic Courts, UICs) defeated the warlords in 2006. This development alarmed Ethiopia and major international actors. Subsequently, Ethiopia invaded Somalia and committed atrocities. The UICs went underground and outmanoeuvred the Ethiopians.
Alarmed by this turn of events, the international community and AU hastily created an AU military force to replace the Ethiopians. The AU force pushed Al-Shabaab out of Mogadishu and several towns, but has made no further progress.
The international community has since poured billions of dollars into the AU force and Somali government coffers, but the latter has made marginal advances in winning public trust. Dominated by tribalists, the central and provincial governments are often at odds with one another, which impedes national recovery and integration.
Crocodile tears
The international community and AU profusely complain about the inability of Somalis to make measurable progress to secure their country, settle their political discord, create a credible government and improve the lives of their indigent people. These are disingenuous grumblings.
First, the international community has been a key partner to the Somali peace process for at least 25 years and has uncritically accepted the misguided notion that Somalia’s political conflict is tribal in nature. Thus, they knowingly endorsed the empowerment of the most corrupt and sectarian elements of the elite.
Second, the AU has been the foot soldier of funders and has never objected to political tribalism and corruption. Given this, the international community/AU’s remonstrations lack moral force.
As a Somali MP, I have witnessed the destructive role of political tribalism in government: omnipresent corruption, glaring ineptitude and criminal instigation of communal conflicts.
Civic kinship is salvation
Half a century of cruel dictatorship, warlords, tyrants, and corrupt political tribalists have buried Somalis in a wasteland. To undo this hell will take time, serious commitment, resources, and most critically, civic kinship from the international community and AU.
Somalis are fast learners and exceptional entrepreneurs in the right environment. To create such an environment demands that the international community/AU completely alter their approach.
First, they must revamp their conception of the nature of the catastrophe by rejecting political tribalism.
Second, they should sanction the purveyors of political tribalism and corruption, as this clique has wasted millions of lives and the future of an entire people.
Third, they must insist on the formation of a technocratic government with a terminal four-year tenure whose scope is limited to establishing a professional army and police, the scaffolding of a civic government and a functioning set of critical government ministries.
Unfortunately, this transformative agenda, which most Somalis would endorse, would not appeal to the international community/AU as it would terminate the lucrative gravy train.
Tragically, the rot is likely to continue unless a new civic-minded generation of Somalis rises from the ashes of political tribalism and corruption. DM