Anarchism in Somalia

[momohaji]

Why don’t us Somalis try to apply anarchism to our mother country of Somalia? Communism doesn’t work, Liberal democracy doesn’t work, Islamic theocracy doesn’t work, why not just anarchism?

 

[Aseer]

We already experienced anarchism in 91

 

[momohaji]

We already experienced anarchism in 91

Somalia was a failed state and not truely Anarchic, we still had local governance and clans still existed. Multiple transitional governments were formed but failed many times. So Somalia wasn’t a true anarchy.

 

[berberaboy66]

Somalia was a failed state and not truely Anarchic, we still had local governance and clans still existed. Multiple transitional governments were formed but failed many times. So Somalia wasn’t a true anarchy.

There has always been structure in our history though within the clan system. We have Xeer/Sharia and whenever there are disagreements clan elders usually sort it out under a tree.

 

[Testo 21]

Qof gaajeysan gob ma'ahan

We had everything we could ask for, and we blew it. It was good run while it lasted.

 

[altrae]

Why don’t us Somalis try to apply anarchism to our mother country of Somalia? Communism doesn’t work, Liberal democracy doesn’t work, Islamic theocracy doesn’t work, why not just anarchism?

First learn about some of the effects anarchism has had. War, Violence, Counter Culture Movements, ect. Imo its probably best to research the others then make a final decision about which to add.

 

[Idilinaa]

Somalia was a failed state and not truely Anarchic, we still had local governance and clans still existed. Multiple transitional governments were formed but failed many times. So Somalia wasn’t a true anarchy.

Clans are not a governing system, or something that competes with the state. They are family lineages created for resource pooling and connection building, they are not culturally speaking political entities but rather economic. For big chunk of Somali history we've been living in city states, sufi communes and larger empires and sultanates, it has never truly been a society without hierarchy .i.e anarchsim.

The first two governments after the colonial period emerged in succession of eachother , the first 1 emerged out of Somali peoples self determination in creating an independent state of their own, but fell short on only uniting 2 territories, it also inherited a neo-colonial structure where colonialists controlled key sectors of the economy and education, there was foreign interference as well and the democratic system became corrupt because of lack of capital. Unlike regular states that have accumulated wealth over decades taxing trade and agricultural production, whereas for Somalis our cities and sultanates that accumulated that type of wealth were dismantled by colonialists, so most wealth was in private hands and not public/state hands when the state was established. The private individuals/groups with wealth monopolized the political process , whereas the ones with lack of wealth in order to bridge the gap took bribes and allocated public funds intended for development to fund their election campaigns. You need to raise a lot of money to fund elections, thats how democratic systems work.

The revolutionary regime emerged out of the backdrop of that to redress those problems.
It was the right direction. Believe or not most modern democracies that are functional today, started as monarchies and dictatorships and transitioned into an electoral democracy later, after laying a framework, building key industries and collecting state capital. It's more effecient because you bypass all the beaucratic barriers to get stuff done. Thats what happened in Somalia.

Naturally the revolutionary regime made enemies trying to fight for the interests of the Somali people, and because it ran contrary to foreign governments interests and plans for us, so they ended up supporting our historical adversary against us and they together started arming insurgencies to make war against the Somali people. And exploit various tensions within our society.

That government collapsed due to foreign governments arming insurgencies that acted as proxies to destroy and remove the government, to replace it with something that appeases their interests. Now its basically kept in that state of rampant foreign interference that basically keeping the government from coming back and destabilizing it, this is where transitional governments and federal structures comes from, they are all imposed from the outside.

What is more apparent is that anarchy is not our natural inclination, because our kneejerk reaction to the collapse was to set up Islam courts, so our natural tendency is to seek law, order and structure. It similar to the Tariqa Orders of the past that. But that was dismantled as well by foreign interference.

 

[Idilinaa]

Clans are not a governing system, or something that competes with the state. They are family lineages created for resource pooling and connection building, they are not culturally speaking political entities but rather economic. For big chunk of Somali history we've been living in city states and larger empires and sultanates, it has never truly been a society without hierarchy .i.e anarchsim.

The first two governments after the colonial period emerged in succession of eachother , the first 1 emerged out of Somali peoples self determination in creating an independent state of their own, but fell short on only uniting 2 territories, it also inherited a neo-colonial structure where colonialists controlled key sectors of the economy and education, there was foreign interference as well and the democratic system became corrupt because of lack of capital. Unlike regular states that have accumulated wealth over decades taxing trade and agricultural production, whereas for Somalis our cities and sultanates that accumulated that type of wealth were dismantled by colonialists, so most wealth was in private hands and not public/state hands when the state was established. The private individuals/groups with wealth monopolized the political process , whereas the ones with lack of wealth took bribes and allocated public funds to fund their election campaigns. You need to raise a lot of money to fund elections, thats how democratic systems work.

The revolutionary regime emerged out of the backdrop of that to redress the problems.
It was the right direction. Believe or not most modern democracies that are functional today, started as monarchies and dictatorships and transitioned into an electoral democracy, after laying a framework, building key industries and collecting state capital. Its more effecient because you bypass all the beaucratic barriers to get stuff done.

Naturally the revolutionary regime made enemies trying to fight for the interests of the Somali people, and because it ran contrary to foreign governments interests and plans for us, so they ended up supporting our historical adversary against us and they together started arming insurgencies to make war against the Somali people.

That government collapsed due to foreign governments arming insurgencies that acted as proxies to destroy and remove the government, to replace it with something that appeases their interests. Now its basically kept in that state of rampant foreign interference that basically keeping the government from coming back and destabilizing it, this is where transitional governments and federal structures comes from, they are all imposed from the outside.

What is more apparent is that anarchy is not our natural inclination, because our kneejerk reaction to the collapse was to set up Islam courts, so our natural tendency is to seek law, order and structure. But that was dismantled as well by foreign interference.

If i were to sum up our downfall , it is the situation we were born into. We were born as an Islamic state connected to the middle eastern political and cultural core , that has traditional been seen as ideological opponents of the west and with a hostile genocidal Christian enemy nation that has been an ally of the west and a colonial puppet extension of it.
The eastern countries we are geo-politcally connected to are not very useful allies and have compromised leadership.

That's really what it all boils down to. It's not about which systems we use or our incapability of building functional government.