NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/9615

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-24 | 6.9 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Jay Robert Hauben)
Subject: Somalia:Not war lords but clan traditions
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Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 21:09:54 GMT
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     Over 1000 years ago, the camal was introduced from the
Arabian Peninsula to what is today called Somalia. Before that
time and since, the people who inhabited Somalia have been
organized in what ws call clans but what Lewis Henry Morgan in
his study  -Ancient Society- (1877) called gens. The gens is the
structure invented independently by all the eariest gatherings of
humans. Each gentile person is part of a group of people all of
whom trace their origin either by female line or later by male
line to a common ancester. Each member of the gens derives rights
to participate in decisions, marriage rites and a system of
mutual help and obligation from his or her common lineage.

     Somalia has always had areas that are inhospitable with
frequent and severe droughts. On the other hand camal herding and
some forms of agriculture have been carried on virtually
continuosly for at least the last 1000 years. What ever the hard
times have been, the people of Somalia have survived them by
expecting and fulfilling on their gentile (clan) obligations.
Clan members have always been able to count on the absolute
obligation of sharing required of fellow and sister clan members.
One reason peoples all over the world survived all sorts of hard
times for perhaps the 100,000 years or more of human society's
infancy is the resiliency of the clan or gens system. While not
appropriate for urban or industrial life and therefore abandoned
when peoples entered territorially defined societies, the clan
system must be counted as among the two or three greatest
inventions in the history of human society.

     In 1960, what were once Italian Somalia and British Somalia
were more or less united into an effort at an independent Somali
state. From that day until today the forging of a single, stable
Somalia has been frought with problems. There have been problems
despite the fact that the Somalis are considered one of the most
homogeneous of African populations. Seventy-five percent of all
Somalis belong to the Samaale Tribe of pastoral nomades, about
twenty percent to the Sab Tribe of agriculturalists and about
five percent to neither of these main groups. Each tribe is
formed from clans which are based on male descent. Although inter
related, the Samaale clans dispute continually over water and
grazing rights. The homogeniety of the Somali people comes from
their common language, common religion (Islam), and common
struggle to survive on the Horn of Africa. The divisions in
Somali society are from pastorial versus agriculturalist
differences, tribal differences, an emerging urbanization, and
from inter clan rivalry over sources of subsistance and over
political power.

     A "bloodless" coup in 1969 installed a one party government
under Major-General Mohammed Siad Barre. This government tried
unsuccessfully to outlaw the milleniums old clan loyalties.
Somalia also became a pawn in inter super power rivalries which
meant the militarisation of Somalia. In addition to the
disruptive influence of the USA and the USSR, there were problems
during the 21 year rule of the Barre governmet caused by clan
differences and defiance, a series of droughts and sparodic
fighting in the Ogaden area outside Somalia's territory but
inhabited by nomadic Somalis. The current disruption of Somali
society traces itself to the failures of the Barre governmet and
to the overthrow of that governmet in 1991, but also to the
continuing importance of Somali clan structures.

     Since 1960 and especially since 1991 Somali clans have vied
for political power. The situation has been aggrivated by the
worst drought since 1987, but also substantially worsened by the
introduction by those international relief activities which have
tried to bypass the clan structures. Traditionally in all clan
societies, the source of what we call relief or welfare is each
person's clan. Had relief supplies been distributed among the
clans according to their relative size to distribute to their
members much of the so called looting would have been avoided. To
add disaster to injury, now foreign troops are being introduced
into Somalia, which in the name of humanitarianism can only lead
to greater disruption of Somali society. Foreign troops or forces
of occupation always and inevitably take sides or impose a
solution unless the indiginous forces are strong enough to defeat
them which in this case they may not be.

    There has been and continues a struggle among the Somali
people over the path forward. The introduction of foreign forces,
insensitive or hostile to the important clan traditions of these
people can in no way help the Somali people find the necessary
Somali solution to their problems. The situation in Somalia is
not that of "rival war lords" with too many guns, but rather a
clan based society tryimg to solve a multitude of problems. In
the long run every such society has chosen the path of nation
building and a political state. But this question is an internal
one for the Somali people themselves to resolve. Even if the path
chosen is a temporary break up of a single Somalia or leaves many
problems unsolved or must await the outcome of a civil war, the
Somali people deserve the universal right to decide on their own
future not for the imposition from out side of a "modern"
solution. The correct principle of international and inter people
relations is the right of every people to work out and fight out
if it comes to that their own solution.

     When the truth is known of the disruptive role of some of
the relief agencies and of the foreign troops epecially those of
the USA in Somalia, the American people and all democratic people
will realize the this military invasion was among other things a
diversion from the fundamental domestic problems indemic in the
industrial societies today. Not only is it in order for the
Somali people to solve their problems, a contribution to them
would be for the American people to take up to solve our internal
problems of e.g., government encouraged declining production,
diminished health and safety protections and the wholesale
forfeiting of US society to business interests. The existence of
Usenet News is a sign that the taking up of all these problems is
becoming possible.