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WHY SOMALIA IS NO TERRITORY FOR ISLAMIC TERRORISTS
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The recent dramatic rout of the U.S backed warlords in the Somali capital of Mogadishu by militias loyal to the so-called Islamic Courts Union(ICU) and the latter’s rapid ensuing expansion into much of southern Somalia has caught the world by surprise. Thus, the Islamists’ sudden rise as a force in the land to reckon with has prompted U.S. “concerns” that, as President Bush declared, Somalia might become “a haven for terrorists.” This is highly unlikely. In fact I’d defy Murphy’s Law to argue that Somalia will never be a breeding ground for Islamic terrorism. Here is why: the Somali polity is shaped, to an extraordinary degree, by a central principle that overrides all others, namely the phenomenon that social anthropologists refer to as the “segmentary lineage system.”
Stripped of the scientific razzle-dazzle with which it is often presented, segmentation, to paraphrase an Arab Bedouin saying, may be expressed thus: “my uterine brother and I against my half brother, my brother and I against my father, my father’s household against my uncle’s household, our two households(my father’s and uncle’s) against the rest of the immediate kin, the immediate kin against non-immediate members of my clan, my clan against others and, finally, my nation and I against the world."
Segmentation, that is, is a chaotic non-system that divides Somali society into unstable warring segments and that pits practically all levels of the Somali body politic, including the religious level, against one another, thereby enshrining institutional instability as a norm. Thus, segmentation stands as the root cause of the reason the Somalis have repeatedly failed to form a centralized national government for over fifteen years now, despite much strenuous trying, principally because the underlying social fabric of the Somalis militates against centralization but, ineluctably, predisposes them into being extremely individualistic, anarchic and egalitarian with a marked tendency to endless schisms.
Furthermore, the recent political history of Somalia has shown that among Somalis ethnic loyalty easily trumps loyalty to Islam, making it all but impossible for a Somali religious figure to command the absolute allegiance of his followers—if indeed he manages to muster any followers at all—or to rise to the level of reputed piety and spiritual sanctity as to make his word a law unto others, as is the case with al-Qaeda and other Islamic jihadists elsewhere. Consider, for example, the structure of the ICU: it is a rickety amalgam of kinship factions rather a single unified Islamic organization, composed of at least eleven separate squabbling groups, nearly each of which represents a different ethnic entity. Hence Sheikh Shariff Ahmed, until recently the figurehead chairman of the ICU, is alleged to represent an Abgaal sub-lineage court. Similarly, Sheikh Hassan Daahir Aways, an ex-army officer, known for his exploits in the now defunct Somali military, is said to be the real power behind the movement because his ‘Ayr sub-lineage constitutes the bulk of the fighting force of the ICU. Now that he has been officially elected as the boss of the Shuura, or Majlis (ICU’s council of notables), he is manifestly more equal than the rest. Further, the ‘Ayr lineage controls the greater part of southern Somalia from Mogadishu to Merka to Baraawe to Kismayu, practically all the way to the Kenya border. Which explains the strong suspicion among Somalis that Abdiqaasim Salad, president of the last failed Transitional National Government(TNG) before the present one, who is an ‘Ayr, is the Godfather of the ICU.
(Here at the risk of committing a breach of scholastic etiquette, it may do to interject a personal note. The BBC World News TV recently did--at the kind suggestion of my good friend, Emeritus Professor I. M. Lewis of the London School of Economics and Political Science [LSE]--a couple of interviews with me on the Somali muddle. In the first, possibly because I was so complimentary of the ICU, I was featured in a prominent spot in the aired segment; in the second, I offered rather unfavorable opinions of the ICU, whence I was duly zapped out of the segment! Gossip later reported to me that a very influential Somali at the BBC, especially where Somalia news is concerned, took exception to my second-round critical remarks. If this is true, it is a remarkable circumstance that the BBC, ostensibly the most prestigious news organization in the world, because of its world famous reputation for objective reporting and unbiased news analysis even under fire; the BBC that Winston Churchill once denounced as the “enemy within,” because of its steady unprejudiced news coverage as between Britain--its own country struggling for its very survival--and the German enemy—this very BBC succumbed, unwittingly, to censoring me on account of a Somali influence. Hurray! Two cheers for us Somalis; in our own perverse way, we have once again shown ourselves to be a race of born Machiavellians, having pulled off the virtuoso feat of seducing the reputedly un-seducible BBC, and thus succeeding brilliantly where the great Churchill failed!)
More than this, the open secret among Somalis has it that in addition to the Abgaal and ‘Ayr courts, there is a Murursade court, a Shiikhaal (Shiikhaas) court, a Hawaadle court and, potentially even a Leelkase court, in view of the fact that, in the fiendishly murky Somali clan politics, where the Hawaadle go, so do the Leelkase. In short, the Islamic courts Union is neither truly Islamic, nor courts, nor a union but a fragile coalition of clans wrapping themselves in an Islamic flag in order to make themselves appear respectable to the international community. And of course to give the U.S. a fright! That they won so easily against the warlords is less indicative of the greatness of their strength and more the lack of support in the Somali populace for the hated warlord thugs.
Curiously, the segmentary law makes success lethal to any Somali group that rises to power and prominence because it works in both centripetal and centrifugal ways. The segments, that is, unify as easily against an interfering foreign force as they splinter when left alone. This is the lesson that recent Somali experience teaches. When the U.S. and other forces of the international community intervened to save Somalia in Operation Restore Hope in the early 1990s, the U.S. appeared to Somalis to be the new Big Boy on the block. Predictably, the segments banded together behind the late Gen. M. F. Aydiid against America. The result was the disastrous U.S. military reversal on bloody Sunday, October 3, 1993. And when Aydiid in his turn appeared to be the next Big Boy, warlords Muuse Suudi Yalahaw, Muhammad F. Qanyare and others banded together against him. He was duly fatally wounded. Then when in January, 2000, Mr. Abdiqaasim Salad became president of the TNG (Transitional National Government) before the current TFG (Transitional Federal Government) in the ‘Arta process in Djibouti, Yalahaw, Qanyare and others brought him down. And now the president of the current TFG, Mr. Abdullahi Yusuf, is two years into his term trying to placate opposing factions of his own government. His decrepit outfit becomes, even as I write this, more and more weakened by the day through wholesale desertions and resignations. Would-be foreign force deployed to Somalia in future, take note.
Accordingly, as the strength and influence of the ICU expand, the segmentary law is certain to sabotage them by inspiring a counter-coalition of clans to form against them. Conversely, any intrusion, for the time being, of a foreign force into Somalia against the ICU would only serve to legitimize them as a nationalist movement and thus galvanize patriotic fervor of support for them from the Somali mass. On this point, the alleged massing of Ethiopian troops on the Ethio-Somali border to bolster the beleaguered Mr. Yusuf’s TFG in the temporary capital of Baidoa would particularly be tragically counter-productive; for such an Ethiopian move would surely strengthen the hand of the ICU and possibly unleash a general conflagration in the region. On the other hand absent a foreign intervention, the ICU despite its current success, is in the long run likely to turn out to be a Somali version of “an old wine in a new bottle.” Meantime, a piece of unbidden advice to the U.S.: “Don’t worry, Be happy;” you have nothing to fear from the plague of Islamic terrorism from Somali quarters; for you have a formidable ally in Somali lineage segmentation working for you more effectively than any amount of money that CIA screwball personalities can squander on useless warlords.
By:Prof. Said S. Samatar
Rutgers University
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