If the civil war hadn't happened, what would Somali be like today?

[Yazi]

Samatar book disproves Somalia's "Could been" dreams. Country was piss poor even before 77 war. Small population, ineffective 5 year plan policies, lack of competent human capital, reliance on aid, debt and donations.

If somehow Somalia remained intact we would still been a poor country. The oil will only exasperate and widen existing inequalities Nigeria style. Somalis love the "What if" scenarios but reality is we always been poor and would probably remain so with or without a government.

 

[wheel]

Samatar book disproves Somalia's "Could been" dreams. Country was piss poor even before 77 war. Small population, ineffective 5 year plan policies, lack of competent human capital, reliance on aid, debt and donations.

If somehow Somalia remained intact we would still been a poor country. The oil will only exasperate and widen existing inequalities Nigeria style. Somalis love the "What if" scenarios but reality is we always been poor and would probably remain so with or without a government.

I agree, but i think Somalia would likely be much better of than it's in this timeline. And thats good enough for most people.

 

[Zak12]

I agree, but i think Somalia would likely be much better of than it's in this timeline. And thats good enough for most people.

That's a given since almost anything would be better than current Somalia

If the civilian administration was never overthrown, Somalia would defintely be comparable to Algeria in GDP and HDI by now.

 

[wheel]

That's a given since almost anything would be better than current Somalia

If the civilian administration was never overthrown, Somalia would defintely be comparable to Algeria in GDP and HDI by now.

If the country managed to make good use of its natural resources and a lot of it was found, then perhaps thats believable. There's not a whole lot of reasons for why it would be higher than your average sub saharan country.

 

[Zak12]

why it would be higher than your average sub saharan country

We are one of the few homogenous African countries, have the longest coastline in the continent and located near one of the busiest water ways in the world.

 

[wheel]

We are one of the few homogenous African countries, have the longest coastline in the continent and located near one of the busiest water ways in the world.

How homogenous are we when folks are still squabbling on a clan level in 2024? water ways? how well did that turn out of Djibouti, eritrea and yemen?.
What leads to prosperity are the people or resources. And i have good reasons to believe resources would be badly mismanaged and we're not exactly for our industriousness, innovates or hard work.

 

[Zak12]

we're not exactly for our industriousness, innovates or hard work.

Lol wut. Somalis do very well in various countries outside of Somalia and are known as businessmen and entrepreneurs.

 

[Abdalla]

On the low end we would be like Kenya, on the high end like Libya (before their war) and South Africa. My primary school teacher visited Somalia in the late eighties. I think we would a tourist hotspot. Our wild life wouldn’t have fled and people all across the world would visit Somali Safari. Every household would have running water and electricity would be cheap and widely available. People would come to use to hair transplantations and BBL work instead of Turkey and Columbia.

Malnutrition would be a thing of the past and Somalia would be studied in universities in how African nations can survive and modernize. Whenever a racist prick would ask ‘Show me a well functioning democratic Muslim country’ he’d have to add ‘Except Somalia’. ‘Made in Somalia’ items would be sold in Zara and our fruits would be in high demand in the shelves of Tesco, Walmart and Aldi.

Albaabka ii xira, aan ooyee.

 

[Vacelere]

Just Imagining it make me cry.

May Allah punish whoever destroyed our nation.

 

[World]

If the gov had not collapsed, Somalia would look something like Uganda, Cameroon, Republic of Congo, Guinea in GDP per capita on the low end. On the high end, something like Kenya ~$1,900. The reason why I don’t think that GDP per capita would be much higher is the 3.5% population growth rate.


There would be massive regional inequalities with Muqdisho accounting for something like 60% of the economy and having something like 5 million people. All other cities would be fairly small in comparison. The urban bias in favor of Muqdisho would mean that everyone would have to live there to have a decent education, income, etc…

Basically a run of the mill African shithole.

What do you think our relationship with China would be like today? I think we would have one of the strongest relationships of African countries with them, they would have massively invested in us.

Population growth would have decreased as well, i think our population would be around 14 million without the civil war.

Natural resources like oil and gas would have been running like 15 years ago.

 

[World]

Samatar book disproves Somalia's "Could been" dreams. Country was piss poor even before 77 war. Small population, ineffective 5 year plan policies, lack of competent human capital, reliance on aid, debt and donations.

If somehow Somalia remained intact we would still been a poor country. The oil will only exasperate and widen existing inequalities Nigeria style. Somalis love the "What if" scenarios but reality is we always been poor and would probably remain so with or without a government.

I think the biggest mistake of somalia is wasting so much of its resources in military spending.

If i was a dictator i would only spend enough in military spending to tame the population to not overthrow my government. Utilise the rest of the resources in developing the country.

 

[Ashraf]

I think the biggest mistake of somalia is wasting so much of its resources in military spending.

If i was a dictator i would only spend enough in military spending to tame the population to not overthrow my government. Utilise the rest of the resources in developing the country.

Geopolitical climate didn’t allow for that. Leaders were paranoid of the war since it was happening everywhere. Many nations would get military aid from either the U.S. or the soviets and if they weren’t , when their enemies did they would go to the alternative to maintain a power balance. Escalation was easy and a simple border conflict could turn into a war. Many nations invested a much larger portion of their gdp on their military simply because there was a huge possibility of not only a regional war but a world war too. Look at graphs comparing GDP % spent on military in the late 1900s compared to now . You’ll see nato nations not even make 2% quota now whereas before they’d be spending a casual 6%

 

[World]

Geopolitical climate didn’t allow for that. Leaders were paranoid of the war since it was happening everywhere. Many nations would get military aid from either the U.S. or the soviets and if they weren’t , when their enemies did they would go to the alternative to maintain a power balance. Escalation was easy and a simple border conflict could turn into a war. Many nations invested a much larger portion of their gdp on their military simply because there was a huge possibility of not only a regional war but a world war too. Look at graphs comparing GDP % spent on military in the late 1900s compared to now . You’ll see nato nations not even make 2% quota now whereas before they’d be spending a casual 6%

Yeah it was a waste of money, devoting 6.5% of your gdp on average on defence is stupid when you’re a poor country. There’s international recognised borders, NATO doesn’t have that benefit because the Soviets are a superpower. Ethiopia is a langaab country which will self implode if you let them, focus on developing your own country so it’s not a third world shithole anymore.

 

[Zak12]

Ethiopia is a langaab country which will self implode if you let them, focus on developing your own country so it’s not a third world shithole anymore

Yup I agree. Ethiopia is inherently unstable and even when they beat up in 1977, they still underwent brutal civil wars and famines throughout the 80s. Every 20 years, there is a major power struggle that replaces the current regime. Somalia really should have played the long game like Azerbaijan and steadily built itself up while continually supporting rebel movements in Ethiopia.

 

[CABDULWALI XASAN.]

Stop saying like kenya you angry siad haters, Qabilists like you people saying that somalia wouldnt have been better is why somalia is currently in a mess. Fym by somalia would still be poor, what a r3tarded take. Somalia wouldve been a powerful country, there would be no sterotypes. We wouldve been a quiet peaceful developed country probably like malaysia. We wouldnt be a superpower, but we would be eons better then the current mooryan democratic Shithole we are now

 

[Midas]

Samatar book disproves Somalia's "Could been" dreams. Country was piss poor even before 77 war. Small population, ineffective 5 year plan policies, lack of competent human capital, reliance on aid, debt and donations.

If somehow Somalia remained intact we would still been a poor country. The oil will only exasperate and widen existing inequalities Nigeria style. Somalis love the "What if" scenarios but reality is we always been poor and would probably remain so with or without a government.

Your talking about that book that he cowrote right. But yeah after I read that book I realized how fucked somalia had been. In. Some ways we ironically benefitted massively from the civil war creating a diaspora. Since it's given us the ability to develop financial and political influence in the west. Buy the book definitely confirmed what I thought that somalia without this oil that we discovered recently would have no real way to develop economically .

 

[Yazi]

Somalis are like that kid in school who doesn't study and gets C+ while proudly boasting to everyone that if he does study he'll get A+ ... We internalized and romanticized this "What if" wasted potential if it wasn't for the civil war. Relax bro you ain't special with or without war you'd still remain a 3rd world shit hole. It's just that the world moved on and the average par became higher making us look even worse. Everyone went to college and had kids by now while the C+ student is still reminiscing about his time passing without studying and peaking in highschool without doing anything with his life.

 

[Periplus]

The harsh reality would be that Somalia would’ve descended to war regardless, but maybe a short-lasting one.

Siyaad was done whether the war happened or not. The reason the rebels succeeded was because Barre was essentially senile, he survived a car accident and an operation in Saudi that basically weakened him.

While he was recuperating there was infighting between Samatar and his family on who would succeed him. Best case scenario if he didn’t get overthrown would be a military coup that would extend the dictatorship for however long.

Worst scenario, Barre stays on, dies in a few years and his followers fight over who takes over. Either it’s short-lived and we get another dictatorship or it escalates and other rebel groups take part and we see anarchy like 1991.

 

[Haragwaafi]

The harsh reality would be that Somalia would’ve descended to war regardless, but maybe a short-lasting one.

Siyaad was done whether the war happened or not. The reason the rebels succeeded was because Barre was essentially senile, he survived a car accident and an operation in Saudi that basically weakened him.

While he was recuperating there was infighting between Samatar and his family on who would succeed him. Best case scenario if he didn’t get overthrown would be a military coup that would extend the dictatorship for however long.

Worst scenario, Barre stays on, dies in a few years and his followers fight over who takes over. Either it’s short-lived and we get another dictatorship or it escalates and other rebel groups take part and we see anarchy like 1991.

Afweyne was senile since he took over power and introduced tribalism in its worst form to the state which divided the society and the regime itself

 

[Burqad]

Afweyne was senile since he took over power and introduced tribalism in its worst form to the state which divided the society and the regime itself

True. People forget that he persecuted the families of Korshel, Kediye and Caynaanshe. A Camel Herder made president will obviously bring the customs of the bush to government.