Anarchism in Somalia
- Thread starter momohaji
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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.
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.
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.
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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.
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I disagree with this point. Despite the corruption and dysfunction of Somalia's early government, there was still real political representation and low tribalism as Somali nationalism was at its peak during this time. The Kacaan removed all that by introducing MOD, an oppressive qabil based system. Your point about insurgencies being funded by foreigners is true but people don't rebel without good reason. Barre's oppressive rule gave the rebels a reason to accept foreign help to overthrow the government.
His socialist policies, qabilist agenda + the failed Ogaden War tanked Somalia's economy thus reversing the growth it was achieving in the early 70s and subsequently created a bunch of internal enemies eager to accept foreign help. The 60s civilian government while far from perfect would have eventually grow past its issues instead of needing a dictatorship or monarchy to do that.
In the first regime there wasn't really a real political representation, like i said it was those groups with wealth & connections that monopolized the political process and was heading the decision making. This is the illusion of choice that democracies create, even in America we can see this blatantly.
There was no MOD , its fiction. In the first 10 years of the Kacaan regime, virtually every clan who was present in the urban centers were represented. He actively disarmed and jailed many proponents of Ogadenians and other clans, because he rightfully didn't trust people with arms and they were anti-siad as a result of it. There was never an alliance.
There was no qabilist agenda in reality, only during the early 80s did he start to surround himself with family members he could trust out of pure reaction to betrayals and conspiracies agains them but this was not qabil based. You can see this to be the case because he kept certain people loyal to him that was not related to him in positions.
People also see the make up of the army and say that certain groups were over represented, but that is also not the case, the army reflected the urban population of Mogadishu at the time and not the general country.
All the insurgent groups that wanted to take down the government existed before Kacaan entered office, they all were foreign supported, especially by Ethiopia who plotted to use the North and had aspirations of removing/destroying the government from the very beginning. Luckily at the time Ethiopia didn't have the arsenal of military equipment and arms to give to those groups and any attempts by them was thwarted, but that quickly changed when Soviet flooded billions of dollars worth of military aid to them and now they had lots of it they coud give arms freely. They used them even against their own to commit autrocities.
Siad Barre up until that pointed wisely disarmed and gave no weapons to any Somali faction or clan groups, knowing that it would spill disaster.
Those insurgencies groups had zero government, political or policy agenda and one of their public mission statement announcement was to destroy Somalia , like literally. They weren't even opposed to Siad Barre's regime specifically, but rather the concept of a united Somali nation altogether. They were at war with the Somali people.
His socialist positions at the time was the right thing. It was done to take back control of our economy from colonial and private abuse and as well as somalinize education and key institutions. As a consequence it spawned development to benefit the people.
The Ogaden war didn't actually tank the Somali economy, it was the IMF structural programs that did.
Luckily the economy could have recovered from it, because by this junction they had discovered oil and gas , they was looking for ways to explore it. That could have been used to rehabilitate the economy but also there was economic reports launched that made recommendations.
The foundations of infrastructure and power generation projects would have also spawned growth in the 80s.
Also like i said Somalia would have just transitioned into a mixed -capitalist and socialist economy in the end. Much like how the Nordic countries did in end , after experimenting with socialism and it would have also transitioned into a democracy later on, i believe with Siad Barrres passing, kinda like Singapore did after decades of Lee Kuan Yew as the head. There was already talks about a regime change in the early 80s after his accident.
The 1960-1969 regime could best be described as a ''banana republic'' and if it had kept up that way it would have been sustained underdevelopment like what you see in other African countries and would have been swallowed a whole by Ethiopia, who was btw trying to claim more Somali territories. But what that regime succesfully proved is that Somalis are quite capable of an electoral democracy and passing down the mantel to another leadership.
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Really walaal? How do you explain Jubaland going from being a mainly Rahanweyn territory to a Darood one? Its well known that Barre settled a lot of Ogadenis and Marehan in Juba at the expense of Rahanweyn and was taking their properties and farmland
And this was due to the civilian administration? Either way, the economy wasn't doing very well under either the civilian administration or the Kacaan. There was tons of growth during the UN administration until it fell off.
Regardless, at the end of the day: how do you justify what Barre was doing in the late 80s? The Isaaq genocide, the Majeerteen masaacres, poisoning wells, executing religious scholars who disagreed with him ect. The man has a lot of blood on his hands even if his intentions were to clamp down hard on foreign funded enemies. I heard a theory that after his car accident, he was not of sound mind and all those atrocities were perpetual by other members of his government instead but that sounds like an attempt to absolve Barre of any responsibilities.
Also
Groups like SSDF and SNM existed in the 60s? What are the names of these groups? I only know of a single attempted coup in 61 and the was done by members of the military.
Firstly the Darood migrations into Juba happened 1 century before Siad Barre was born , they were already living there.
He did however resettle people of various clans into different places, due to the drought , to give them a fighting chance and to change their occupations into something more sustainable. Thats how Gedo was even created.
He even resettled thousands of northerners on the coast as fisherman and some he resettled into the fertile plains.
It was not done at the expense of any group, they allocated farm land in a democratic way under the nabadoon system.
This is the core problem of looking at things from a Qabil lens, because you project your own per-conconcieved beliefs onto certain decisions being made. Which often has no qabil motivations.
It reminds me of how people in the west make up conspiracies to explain when bad things happen when the answers and motives are real simple in reality. Their civil service have a rule '' Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence''
The economy was doing fine before the IMF structural programs
As this report lays out.
The real economic growth would have happened during the rest of the 80s and 90s, but it never got to that point due the insurgencies and IMF.
The policies of the 70s were more about taking back the economic control and building infrastructure, industries and foundations for growth.
How do i justify? If you are launching a war against the government and invade the place with foreign personnel, burn down the Somali flag, attack civilians and bomb infrastructure,, expect a government counter offensive to defend themselves. It's only false propaganda to reframe things as oppressions and massacres/genocide after a defensive reaction you provoked out of them.
It's also false to re-frame a legitimate government as an occupier they are fighting against when there was a vote referendum where Somalis collectively voted for a union and their insurgency movements are based and conceived from outside, not through local sentiments.
The locals complained about them plunging their regions into chaos and mayhem, you know what they did? they replaced the local leaders with stooges and puppets that agreed with their positions.
The Untited states that were on the ground as human rights watch and humanitarian relief said:
''I hope that the SNM will not prolong the fighting in order to gain the propaganda victory resulting in more civilian deats and more refugees''..
They did exactly this and have cooned many Somalis to believe that propaganda.
Also their actions soon after the dismantling of the government exposes them , for example the SNM elected the same people who were in the government and that was in charge of the so called ''massacre/oppression/genocide'' into office as presidents. How do you explain that? These are the same people accussing Siad of qabilism lmaao And Abdullahi Yusufs Democratic Front wasn't even democratic because he tried to bring in Ethiopian troops to remove a democratically elected sitting Puntland president. He was subsequently resented and hated by somalis as a whole and was chased out, died in exile.
Another thing that exposes them, is that they never even spoke to the interests of Somalis. Its either using government counter offensives for propaganda to deligitimize it or maligning Siad Barre or attacking the concept of Somali identity/unity.
Never did they ever contiplate the economic and political situtuation of Somalis or how to best improve that. They were are all motivated by their own narrow selfish desires and power grabs. They are traitors through and through. They put themselves before the somali nation as a whole and it shows.
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The locals complained about them plunging their regions into chaos and mayhem, you know what they did? they replaced the local leaders with stooges and puppets that agreed with their positions.
The Untited states that were on the ground as human rights watch and humanitarian relief said:
''I hope that the SNM will not prolong the fighting in order to gain the propaganda victory resulting in more civilian deaths and more refugees''..
They did exactly this and have cooned many Somalis to believe that propaganda.
Let me just paint the picture for you even more, before they turned the lives in that region upside down.
Somalis in the North lived very peaceful and happily lives.
Description of what life was like during this time:
Memories of Somalia: Codad Ka Yimi Soomaaliya
Is this the Kacaan oppression they are rebelling against? What a joke.
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Barre divided up the Rx dominated parts of Jubaland and Benadir into 9 regions and gave most of them to Daroods. Later on in 1974, Rx lands were further controlled with a domain law when their farmlands came under Darood management. If one were to describe a running theme when it came to the Rahanweyn clan, one could clearly see their marginalization by so called nationalists who instead used anti-clan ideology as a smokescreen for their pro-Darood or pro-Hawiye interests.
Sources: Historical Dictionary of Somalia (2003) by Mukhtar, Mohamed Haji
Are you truly sure about that sxb? The economy was heavily reliant on aid, wasn't experiencing fast enough GDP growth, had a huge debt, bloated military budget. many infrastructure, agricultural and development plans (except for roads) failed and even the few positive aspects like banana exports decline too. All in all, the economy simply wasn't doing very well even before the IMF take over. Somalia was literally worse off than most African countries.
This twitter thread basically highlights a lot of what I said and backs it with data. (ignore some of the brazen rhetoric however, this user is a Somaliland secessionist). Samatar Ahmed's book also talks a lot about Barre's mixed economic performance.
I get that a lot of the atrocities Barre did are exaggerated or blown out of proportion, such as the numbers for the Isaaq genocide but c'mon now. The man literally reduced Hargeisa to rubble, a city that was once thriving burned to the ground with unnecessary force. I suppose the question now should be how much force is needed to eliminate opposition before you enter war crime territory.
I have read what Mukhtar has written and its false.
There was no pro-hawiye and pro-darood in politics. Most Raxanweyn was rural living in the country side and were not even settled in the urban centers were politics were centered in any mayor way.
And Gedo and other places in Juba like i said was created as refugee settlement schemes and rescue operations from drought effected regions. It wasn't some darood motivated plot or scheme to take control over Raxanweyn lands
It might have resulted in in land disputes, but it was born out of genuine desires to aid and help Somalis who were the most vurnerable.
He also not only settled them in various other regions even Shabelle not just Juba, he even resettled a bunch of northern pastoralists on the coast as fishermen.
I have gone through it in another thread, the government was not reliant on aid at all until after the Ogaden War and it did not have a huge debt . Like i said in another thread read through this:
Getting foreign financing to projects and supply in equipment is not the same as getting aid money.
Most of the debt he is associating with the government isn't hard cash injected into the economy in form foreign currency at all , it's stuff like direct investments, foreign financing in state projects and large industrial farms and supply of equipments (both industrial and military) and stuff like that by the Soviet and others. Nor was there much direct aid either.
What i said here is true, it is described in this excerpt i shared to you as well.
The only real problems in the economy emerged after the Ogaden war with the introduction of IMF/US , other stuff like technical problems placing productive constraints are to be expected when you are first starting out industrializing and those things would take time addressing through training and knowledge transfer.
The IMF structural programs imposed a number of conditions and policies that wrecked the economy in the real sense: Which you can read it here:
Infact they would be less reliant on foreign financing/investment for development projects if they hadn't spent their surplus budget on rescuing Somali in the North from drought and creating funds for them. If he wanted to weaken or hated the north he wouldn't have used most of the public funds that was going to go to development and ensure self-sufficiency to rescue and aid them.
I also break down the stats that show that some of those financed development projects led to economic growth and job creation. Read through it.
In the 80s they were also building energy ventures, i shared it in another thread:
Read through that.
They were on roof toops launching rockets and machine gun fire at people and government posts. How was the government going to fight that? What defensive measure would you have them take against it?
SNM also wore plain clothing and blended into the civilians firing from crowds and used them as human shields. How would they respond to that as well?
Assume the position of the government for a sec put yourself in their shoes.
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