What was communist Somalia like ?

[hannah54321]

Everyone always talks about the dictatorship but never bring up communism. Anyways I asked my mum she said she was happy that the Russians left / hated communism , had to sing and praise the ussr leaders Lenin etc in school . Said that her family had a factory but the government took control of it . She also said there were always long queues for everything and only men and children would stand in the queue, the mothers would just go into the shop . she said wearing proper hijab and being religious was frowned upon.

my dad likes communism but he already left Somalia in the 70s

 

[Boogie]

Communism is failed ideology thank goodness its gone

 

[Sloane Ranger]

Communism is one of the worst things that has ever happened to mankind.

 

[OffTheDome]

It was horrible, Somalia was the poorest country in Africa and arguably on Earth. The country was run like a prison. Alcohol was sold, communism was preached and Islamic Scholars were killed by Barre. Luckily communism never caught on with Somalis. Somalia is much better off today.

 

[Juke]

My mom told me the same thing. School kids sang praises to Marx, Engels and Lenin every morning

 

[The Inquisitive]

The queue thing began in 1985 (by then the military regime got rid of Communism because the USSR supported Ethiopia in 77 war, and shifted to free market Capitalism) because of draught and shit economy as result of the disastrous 1977 war, everything was much better specially in 60s and 70s, according to mom and dad. My uncle owned a cigarette company and he run it not the government. It's true that religiosity was frowned up tho. Mom and dad were fairly religious and they lived in constant fear, dad specially (all this after 1985).

 

[hannah54321]

The queue thing began in 1985 (by then the military regime got rid of Communism because the USSR supported Ethiopia in 77 war, and shifted to free market Capitalism) because of draught and shit economy as result of the disastrous 1977 war, everything was much better specially in 60s and 70s, according to mom and dad. My uncle owned a cigarette company and he run it not the government. It's true that religiosity was frowned up tho. Mom and dad were fairly religious and they lived in constant fear, dad specially (all this after 1985).

Why did the live in fear ? From the government or the people ?

 

[hannah54321]

despite the failures of communism I still believe it had some good
Free healthcare , food for schoolchildren etc .

 

[The Inquisitive]

Why did the live in fear ? From the government or the people ?

The government

 

[hannah54321]

It was horrible, Somalia was the poorest country in Africa and arguably on Earth. The country was run like a prison. Alcohol was sold, communism was preached and Islamic Scholars were killed by Barre. Luckily communism never caught on with Somalis. Somalia is much better off today.

I don’t think it’s better off but communist policies stagnated the country. It’s interesting , only Somalia and Ethiopia became communist countries in Africa , most Arab countries were led by socialist military dictatorships and are all doing badly. Far East Asian Muslim (Malaysia/Indonesia) countries were lucky .

 

[The Inquisitive]

despite the failures of communism I still believe it had some good
Free healthcare , food for schoolchildren etc .

I believe healthcare, education, food and shelter are basic human rights, but i don't agree with Communism's "abolishment" of private property. Most Communist states that pledged to realize the Communist utopia degenerated into autocratic dictatorships, like the USSR, north korea etc

 

[reer]

I believe healthcare, education, food and shelter are basic human rights, but i don't agree with Communism's "abolishment" of private property. Most Communist states that pledged to realize the Communist utopia degenerated into autocratic dictatorships, like the USSR, north korea etc

due to cold war era propoganda too many americans think communism and socialism are the same. somalia was ruled by a socialist party. a relaxed/diluted form of socialism would be suitable for somalia. government needs to nationalize resources and means of production. africans have a weird hard on for usa style capitalism.

too much post ww2 propoganda hasnt taught people enough of the horrors of imperial communism.

 

[convincation]

due to cold war era propoganda too many americans think communism and socialism are the same. somalia was ruled by a socialist party. a relaxed/diluted form of socialism would be suitable for somalia. government needs to nationalize resources and means of production. africans have a weird hard on for usa style capitalism.

too much post ww2 propoganda hasnt taught people enough of the horrors of imperial communism.

In my opinion what somalia needs is authoritarianism in government but with a free market except that the government owns specific important sectors of the market. kind of similar to what china has going on but minus the whole communism thing. Personally I don’t think citizens should have a say in government unless the government is oppressing them they have a right to rebel but other than that citizens should keep quite and let the higher ups do the governing. Democracy was made to keep africa down

 

[Som]

Everyone always talks about the dictatorship but never bring up communism. Anyways I asked my mum she said she was happy that the Russians left / hated communism , had to sing and praise the ussr leaders Lenin etc in school . Said that her family had a factory but the government took control of it . She also said there were always long queues for everything and only men and children would stand in the queue, the mothers would just go into the shop . she said wearing proper hijab and being religious was frowned upon.

my dad likes communism but he already left Somalia in the 70s

This is my impression based on family members accounts.
Negative sides: it was a dictatorship, you couldn't criticise the governement, there was a lot of corruption (less than today though).
-the economy was bad especially in the 80s after the ogaden war. Actually Somalia opened it self to some forms of capitalism in the 80s like China did after Mao Zedong died.
Positive sides:
-affordable or free schools and university scholarships. An entire generation of somalis studied for Free , many poor people had the opportunity to become doctors, engineers, lawyers etc. Today most schools are private, if you have the money you can study , if you don't have any money you stay illiterate for the rest of your life
- affordable health care. The health system wasn't very developed but it was better than today. Right now if you are sick in Somalia and don't have any money you die, back then many hospitals would provide free treatment for poor people.
-security. Even though things started to fall apart in the 80s somalia was a pretty safe country if compared to what is going on today. There was no terrorist attacks, even cadaans would come as tourists and felt safe. Socialist countries had strong control over the people and this helped have less crime in some cases.
-freedom of religion and less extremism. Islam was the official religion but nobody would persecute you for being from a different muslim sect or even christian, today if you are a muslim who has a different opinion on anything you are at high risk of being killed by the khawarij terrorists.
- iska wax u qabso (do it yourself). People cared about their cities, they would come out and clean their neighborhoods once in a while, schools and buildings were built with popular support. Even the litteracy campaign was carried out by students who went to teach to nomads. People were encouraged to help each other and the nation. This was part of the socialist ideology.
-worker rights. It wasn't perfect but workers had more rights. Today if your boss doesn't pay you how can you get your wage? There's no authority that can help you.
- functioning governement. Socialist Somalia had a lot flaws but it was way better than today when it comes to burocracy. Somali institutions today are a joke, our passport wasn't even recognized untill a few years ago and our universities aren't recognized. During the Siad Barre era we had functioning embassies that could help somalis abroad, recognized school institutions , Mogadishu's university had high quality teachers and degrees were recognized etc etc.

 

[Som]

I believe healthcare, education, food and shelter are basic human rights, but i don't agree with Communism's "abolishment" of private property. Most Communist states that pledged to realize the Communist utopia degenerated into autocratic dictatorships, like the USSR, north korea etc

The main problem with socialism in somalia/Ethiopia was that Siad and Menghistu copied the europeans. Siad himself said that somali socialism was different because we don't have a class system.
Somalis were either nomads, farmers or traders. We had no bourgeoisie and since we weren't an industrial country our working class was small.
Maoism was more suitable for third world countries with large rural populations, but Somalia tried to adopt soviet style marxism leninism

 

[QueenofKings]

My parents didn’t mind it at the start, my dad said there was a feeling of national purpose - something to get behind. But things got bad the more MSB felt threatened ( hence resorting more and more to qabyaalad) and then pretty unbearable post 77.

I’ve never heard that Islam was frowned upon. My siblings went to dugsi, mosques were open, and national celebrations still revolved around Islamic holidays.

 

[The Inquisitive]

My parents didn’t mind it at the start, my dad said there was a feeling of national purpose - something to get behind. But things got bad the more MSB felt threatened ( hence resorting more and more to qabyaalad) and then pretty unbearable post 77.

I’ve never heard that Islam was frowned upon. My siblings went to dugsi, mosques were open, and national celebrations still revolved around Islamic holidays.

Well religion wasn't frowned upon per se but, with the rise of wahabbism more and more sheikhs converted to wahabbism (Arab petrodollars) and used insidious rhetoric against the regime, some even went as far as calling the government kuffar, so the military began crackdown against sheikhs. Muslim brotherhood™ was also gaining support, women started to wear burkas and refused national service so the people saw this new radical version of Islam as a subversion (it was).

 

[QueenofKings]

Well religion wasn't frowned upon per se but, with the rise of wahabbism more and more sheikhs converted to wahabbism (Arab petrodollars) and used insidious rhetoric against the regime, some even went as far as calling the government kuffar, so the military began crackdown against sheikhs. Muslim brotherhood™ was also gaining support, women started to wear burkas and refused national service so the people saw this new radical version of Islam as a subversion (it was).

That’s interesting to learn.

My parents weren’t exceptionally religious. They prayed of course, they fasted, and my mum wore shaash/ilyar and diracyaal/dresses. I can understand more religious people would have struggled if there was a policy against their particular believes and dress.

 

[The Inquisitive]

That’s interesting to learn.

My parents weren’t exceptionally religious. They prayed of course, they fasted, and my mum wore shaash/ilyar and diracyaal/dresses. I can understand more religious people would have struggled if there was a policy against their particular believes and dress.

People confuse religiosity with extremism, if they fasted and prayed they were religious just not extremists and that was ok.

 

[Som]

That’s interesting to learn.

My parents weren’t exceptionally religious. They prayed of course, they fasted, and my mum wore shaash/ilyar and diracyaal/dresses. I can understand more religious people would have struggled if there was a policy against their particular believes and dress.

There wasn't any particular policy against religion, actually unfortunately the regime had good relations with Saudi arabia and allowed wahabi teachers to come over to somalia and spread their views.