Struggling for Peace in Somalia

Mennonite Central Committee Peace Office Publication April–June 2003 Volume 33, Number 2 Struggling for Peace in Somalia IN THIS ISSUE Somalia, Somalia: What Has Happened 5 Making Peace in the to the Beloved Country? Traditional Somali Way, by Abdullahi Mohamed Shirwa by Chantal Logan 8 Trying to Convince Men or the average American, the name of (the Ogaden region under Ethiopian rule, and Women to Make Peace, FSomalia is tied to the image that was the Côte française des Somalis under French by Fatima Jibrell with Chantal flashed across the world in 1993, of tri- rule, and the Northern Frontier District, Logan umphant Somali youth dragging the corpses which went from British to Kenyan rule) of American soldiers in the dusty streets of would also become part of the new state. 10 Mennonites and Muslim Mogadishu. The recent movie Black Hawk But the dream was never to come true. Somalis, by Bertha Beachy Down has expanded on that image and in the wake of September 11, the word “terror- Worse still, 43 years later, the territory of the ist” has been added to the already marred former Republic of Somalia is split into view of Somalis. Yet, for some Mennonites, three main areas. In the northwest, Somali- those images are not the ones that come to land proclaimed its independence in 1991; mind when they think of Somalis. in the northeast, Puntland declared itself an autonomous region in 1998. The rest of the Unknown to the Mennonite community at country is divided into fiefdoms whose con- large and certainly the international media, trol varies with the fate of local militia, war- Somalis and Mennonites started a relation- lords, or clan politics. ship 50 years ago that has endured until today. It is for this reason that a Mennonite At this writing in February 2003, while the presence in the area continues to be possible sixteenth international peace conference is and fruitful in the midst of very complex being held in Kenya, no overall settlement Unknown to the and difficult circumstances. has yet been reached. Everyone is at a loss to explain why the crisis has lasted so long. Mennonite community at large and certainly Independence and Hope Independence, like everywhere else in Africa, had brought great hope. It was particularly the international media, Fifty years ago, when the first Mennonite felt at the time, by Somalis and Europeans family arrived, the Somalis were eagerly Somalis and Mennonites alike, that there was something unique in waiting for their independence. The south- started a relationship the birth of this new nation state. The rea- ern part of the country, a former Italian son was that the new country was made up 50 years ago that has colony, was under the trusteeship of the of what was considered a very homogeneous endured until today. United Nations. The northern part was still group of people. The Somalis were seen under British rule. In 1960, the two regions essentially as a nomadic people who shared became independent and then joined to form one language (Somali), one culture, and a new state, the Republic of Somalia. one religion (Islam) but had been divided But for the instigators of independence, through the vicissitudes of colonization. this was only a beginning. The goal was Homogeneity as the basis for national cohe- that other territories where Somali lived sion was believed to be a recipe for guaran- teed success. continued on page 2 Still, the builders of the modern Somali state The demise of the Somali state cannot be The “Bantu Somalis”: were aware that to the nomad in the bush, understood without taking into account the The First Victims of War the concept of national identity was new and general wave of looting that occurred at the foreign. His identity was founded in the clan onset of the civil war. Like many of its coun- In 2002 the U.S. government he belonged to: it was by reciting his geneal- terparts on the African continent, Somalia announced that it would resettle a few thousand “Bantu Somalis” ogy that he learned at an early age who had adopted a model of state borrowed because of their status as an were his kin and where his loyalty lay, not from the European countries. Called some- oppressed minority in Somalia. by virtue of a written piece of paper, be it times l’État Providence, the state was seen as passport or identity card. So the leaders of the Great Provider for the people, and con- The “Bantu Somali” do not fit into independence used what was at their reach sequently the source of income and wealth. any neat category. They bear differ- to build a sense of unity among their people. The idea of l’État Providence led in Africa ent clan names, which vary from In a culture where the spoken word holds to the subtle and dangerous implication that one region to the other. Most of them live along the rivers and are great power, they composed “patriotic the president of the nation was l’Homme farmers. Some anthropologists con- poetry” to get their message across. Providence, provider and father figure who sider them the original settlers of owned the wealth of the nation and there- Somalia. Throughout the history of the Republic of fore had the right to distribute it among his Somalia, many attempts were made to create protégés, be they clan members or political But in the south, many of them are a sense of oneness among the members of allies. descendants of former slaves, since the nation. The most formidable one hap- many Somalis were slave owners. pened in 1969 after a military coup that Siad Barre, like others elsewhere, followed In the second half of the nineteenth put Mohamed Siad Barre in power. The new that practice. So when he was taken out of century and the beginning of the leaders hailed the change as a revolution, power, the people went on a general spree twentieth century, these slaves found their way to the south, having and adopted scientific socialism as their of looting in the capital city of Mogadishu, escaped or bought their freedom. ideology. stripping clean every government office, from the central bank to the schools. The The slaves were not of Somali ori- The Somali language was written down and people took away what they perceived gin, since Islam teaches that you gradually adopted as the medium to teach in belonged to the president and his clan (who cannot take another Muslim into the schools, replacing English, Italian, and had previously become rich at the expense slavery. They came from neighboring sometimes Arabic. The schools were nation- of the Somali people and took many govern- countries. For this reason some alized, including the ones run by Eastern “Bantu Somali” have different fea- ment resources as they left power) to claim it Mennonite Missions (EMM), and a common now as their own. But what made that loot- tures. The Somali people speak of curriculum was adopted. To defeat tribalism, them having “hard hair” (jareer) and ing so destructive is that the military arse- “short fingers” (fara gaab) versus people were forbidden to identify nals were also looted. Somalia, being on the Somali, who have “soft hair” themselves through their clan affiliations. the side of the Soviet Union first and then (jileec) and “long fingers” (fara In 1977, the country waged war against of the United States later in the cold war, dheer). The term “Bantu Somali” Ethiopia as another attempt to cement had received huge amount of arms. Almost is now widely used, though some national unity. But the defeat in 1978 started overnight, every young man found himself Somali intellectuals object to its use to undo the painstaking work of building a with a gun in his hands terrorizing the popu- because of its racial overtones. national identity. lation regardless of clan affiliation. The figure of the mooreyan (the Somali word for The “Bantu Somali” are known to be As the opposition mounted, the regime a peaceful people who do not fight. the young, armed criminals) appeared and became more repressive and turned into a As farmers, they are often the vic- has stayed ever since. Uneducated, prompt dictatorship. As he felt threatened, Siad tims of the pastoralist (nomadic) to anger, a mercenary par excellence, he Barre started using tribal politics to stay in groups, especially in the dry season hires himself to the highest bidder and forms power and the opposition to the government when the pastoralists drive cattle on the backbone of the warlord militia. With became more entangled in tribal issues. their plots of land and destroy their the guns in the street and in the absence of crops. Because of their vulnerability, When he was overthrown in January 1991, law enforcement, the power came to be in they are often in a vassal relation- the opposition split and no one group the hands of the man with the most gun ship with the more powerful Somali became strong enough to assert its control power. clans, which sometimes give the over the country. “Bantu Somali” weapons so they can fight along with them. Although clan affiliation is seen only as a Clans Provide Structure divisive factor, it also has mechanisms for making peace and imparting justice. When After all the government institutions col- there is a conflict, clan elders are called upon lapsed, people did not know where to turn to reconcile the warring parties, but the pro- for protection and survival; the clan as a liferation of arms displaced the power from closely knit group of family units became the the traditional elders to the famous or infa- only safety net in a chaotic situation.

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