Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Somali Regional State of Ethiopia: Of symbols, sideshows, and real issues

By Muktar M. Omer

AMID all the engulfing hysteria about an imminent change of political leadership in the Somali Regional State of Ethiopia, it is imperative not to get distracted by the sideshows and lose sight of the fundamental problems we face as a people. Abdi Iley – the current President of the Somali Region of Ethiopia – was and remains a puppet who inflicted untold misery on his own people in exchange for fleeting “power” and money. His demise may bring momentary respite but it will not alter the master-servant relationship between the colonizer and the colonized in the politics of the region.

Cabdi Iley
Cabdi Maxamuud Cumar ( Cabdi Iley)

It is a badge of our servitude as a people that symbols are deployed to run us, to “develop” us and of course to kill and pillage us when we demand what is rightfully ours. Faking rulers for us and running symbols that provide no material benefits has been a punishment long administered into our body-politick by our real rulers. That design won’t change and this recurring scheme of our oppressors is not what is most irritating. What is irritating is our inexcusable habit of preoccupying with the inconsequential while misreading the cast and drama before us. Every time our Ethiopian puppeteers rearrange their devices in the region to create the illusion of change, we get into Elysium and once in that delightful state we, like the proverbial fool, forget the dying bird and get fixated with its plumage.

Instead, we should have asked standard and existential questions. Who chose Abdi Iley for us? Who chose his predecessors? Who is now trying to change him? Do we have a say in who replaces him? Do we know why he is to be changed? Do we know if he is to be changed? Do we know anything on matters that are supposed to be ours? Do we have a say at all in anything? The answers to these questions are simple and revealing.

We did not elect Abdi Iley or most of his predecessors, which is not to say they were all bad or that given the chance we would have elected better leaders. The issue is not about the personality and suitability of these individual rulers or the quality of our communal judgment for that matter. The issue is the legitimacy and integrity of the mechanisms and processes that bring these “rulers” to power.

Cabdi Cumar IleyWe – the Somali people in Ethiopia – have no control over who rules us. We have no control over how long they should rule us. We have no say in how they should come to power. The right to elect your leaders is the a-b-c of autonomy and self-determination.  Thus, if we cannot elect our own leaders at any level of administration –Presidential, Zonal or District levels – we do not have autonomy. We cannot claim to own our “development” and identity.

As unseemly and ahistorical it is, even in the event our rulers pick a competent and fair-minded leader for us, it would still be an abiding alibi of our indentured political servitude rather than a signal of the benevolence of our oppressors. Indentured, because we are expected to exchange our political rights for “development” – few roads and schools given to us to pacify us; to reward our capitulation.

Iley and the other puppets in the region have never been selected to represent us or to demand on our behalf. They are Somali faces to colonial designs. They do not have power. They have trappings of power, given and taken away at will by the real rulers. This denial of our natural right to govern ourselves – even within the framework of a Federal Ethiopia – sits at the heart of our contemporary political confusion and bitterness.

This is the real issue we should focus on and struggle against, not the frenzied political cat-walking of puppets and their masters. Not the nebulous roar, fumes and dust of squaring puppets in Jigjiga.

Symbols that need our aspiration 

In addition to giving us rulers who have our looks and speak our language but do not represent our aspirations, our masters have also continued to attack us by confiscating our myths, narratives, legends and cultural expressions. Subduing people is not enough for colonizers. Controlling the narratives of the subjects, including the after-life narratives of the heroes of the colonized people, is far more important. That way the control will be complete. Indeed, this is the core philosophy of Colonialism.

Our colonizers give us loud plays of Dhaanto, build monuments to our past heroes, and allow us to speak in our languages. These symbols are supposed to lend a tinge of credibility to our “self-governance” and “renaissance”. That is why we have an overdose of Dhaanto. That is why the statue of the anti-colonial hero Sayid Mohammed Abdille Hassan is erected in Jigjiga.

Dhaanto Cabdi IleyBut one stubborn reality is that these symbols will need our semantics, our history, our aspirations to serve as expressions of our identity and foci of inspiration. These symbols need to embrace our ideals and collective grief to represent us, to persuade us, to please us. Otherwise, they will remain what they are: worthless tools of coercion and control. A Dhaanto that does not reflect the pain of its people in a context of oppression and extermination, a Dhaanto that does not decry injustice and weep for its people will not be a symbol of our empowerment and revival. It is a symbol of colonial gimmick and a prisoner of war. A statue of Sayid Mohammed unveiled by agents of oppressors will not be a tribute to freedom and self-rule. It will be a tragic reminder of our communal humiliation.

Fending off, fighting on

Perhaps comparing the weight of the voice of the whole of the Somali people in Ethiopia against that of the aging General Abraha (kwarter) in Harar will illustrate the intensity of the indignity we suffer as people. The General can pick and unpick who rules us. All of our people cannot put a district chairman into office if this General or any other in his capacity decides against it. Those of us who think this is a natural or normal arrangement that we should live with need to get their heads examined. There is no historical precedent or theoretical postulation where submitting and naturalizing to misrule and abuse of colonizers sets one on a path of freedom and justice. It hasn’t happened anywhere and it can’t happen in Somali region.

It is clear that past liberation projects have failed to attain any result. The current armed struggle in the region is not working as well. Only a delusional fool or an overzealous idealist would be oblivious to the limitations of the clan-centered, poorly-led, and directionless armed struggle. In fact, the increasing interest with the internal politics of the Somali Region – by most of the people from the region – is a natural reaction to the realization that the armed struggle is a lost cause.

But, and here is where care must be taken not to succumb to despondency and hopelessness, the failure of a political/military strategy or a liberation front must not put into question the validity of the ideals and aspirations of a people. Demanding self-determination cannot be wrong. Asking for a genuine autonomy cannot be petulance. These legitimate aspirations cannot be wrong just because our oppressors punish us harshly when we demand them. Owning your destiny is the gateway for political dignity, social transformation and economic prosperity. We should all know that we will not get what we want by pleasing or becoming nice to our rulers. We get what we fight for.

The time is ripe for the emergence of a pan-Somali political opposition that reframes the longstanding struggle of the Somali people in Ethiopia, taking geopolitical realities into consideration. This political movement should mobilize people around the vision of attaining genuine autonomy. It should work hard to create a pan-Somali identity and bridge the rampant clan division and mistrust. It should seek alliances with like-minded and democratic political formations in the country. It should educate the people about their innate rights and should fight defeatist and submissive mentality. It should work to thwart the emerging communal trend of naturalizing to oppression.

Notwithstanding its Somali centrism, it should understand that the problems of the region cannot be seen outside the travails of the whole country. The current problems we face in the Somali region are the byproducts of the absence of democracy and rule of law, and the institutionalization of tyranny and tribalism at the national level. The prospective political movement should ask if there can be a regional remedy to a national disease and should formulate its strategies accordingly.

Muktar M. Omer
WardheerNews contributor
Email:[email protected]


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