Tuesday, March 19, 2024
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Syncopation of Deceptive Words

By Jama Hersi

“Where everything is bad it must be good to know the worst” F. H. Bradley

Creation of political parties and Somali election have become topical discussion that any free reasonable Somali person should engage these days. It even seems that engagement of this discussion is a national duty to build and strengthen reasonable and free society, to the extent that the participation of Somali election has sacred importance, a false conformation that mere voting exercise can remedy social, political, cultural and economic degradation that Somali people confront contemporaneously. What is also quite surreal in these discussions is the absence of historical contextualization – historical forces, trajectories, discourses, experiences that brought us where we are today. Any humanist scholar would agree that political discourses exist in contexts, and in order to establish where one is and their future ambitions, reflection of historical dimensions will render political, intellectual, cultural rigour and stability to one’s proposition – historical ideas that establish the interplay of peoples’ life and the creation of future political vision. Instead we are experiencing an alienating verbosity, rather revolutionary rhetoric that without political parties, without voting, Somali people will be wretched. Is it not quite axiomatic that ‘the quality of politics depends on the intellectual qualities of those who engage in it.’ Despite the condescending political pontification of Somali political elite, they failed miserably to articulate how seldom political participation and voting will transform the lives of wretched of the earth. Indeed it is the sonority of their rhetoric that is convivial, ‘not its transforming power.’

Somalia voting
One man one vote

Yet these self-appointed political actors are framing, guiding and dictating all the discussions without real participation of masses, even some argued that ‘in presenting this election model (their own model), we aim to advance Somali ownership of the process and foster a culture of civic responsibility.’ In today’s Somali political situation, it is quite dizzying that someone has the temerity to utter such rhetoric – mere syncopation of deceptive words. However if the intention of these bourgeoisie group is to mobilize the public to have a candid debate about our current condition, they have failed to connect to the public and constructed their own special political procedure, a special cure for our political malice, voting. It is deeply regretting if native political actors see mere voting as the most efficient political procedure in today’s Somali situation, without cultivating a ground to plant healthy seeds of political democracy. In my opinion sanctification of voting political procedure as a magic arsenal of Somali politics is a misrepresentation, it is a living lie of political emancipation, and the public will ignore with contempt, even reply with equal falsehood. A critical independent mind might argue however that this political initiation and engagement of political dialogue might be both inhibitory and stimulating. Inhibitory because without prior political orientation or future guidelines, it will exacerbate maleficent political spirit that Somali people are familiar with; stimulating because it might alter historical political negativities that are so impregnated in Somali political emotions. I am not necessarily against political participation crafted and managed by the people, but my contention is that where are the people who are authentically participating these debates? Let alone own them. Somali political class is very knowledgeable that there is no authentic public participation in Somali political affairs, but they deeply belief the Karl Marx’s famous dictum when he was referring the Eastern people that ‘they (Somali public) cannot represent themselves; they must be represented.’ What we are witnessing here is a classical political decadence – those who profit from status quo (keeping the public in the dark) ‘will be suspicions of any intellectual independence.’ Let remind this decadent political class that no individual, group or institution should have the total control over the definition of future Somali political arrangements, nor do they have the monopoly of any special intellectual competence and privilege to occupy public political milieu as ‘there is a place for all at the rendezvous of victory.’

The sad aspect of those who elected themselves to chart Somali voting model is that they failed to ascertain a native metaphor that represents the cultural and cognitive processes of Somali people. Their pioneering research engendered an imported foreign phrase, ‘Proportional Representation model’, and even went further to argue that ‘proportional representation offers a fair, just and equitable solution.’ What is quite conspicuous is that their thinking and vocabulary are free from all dimensions of Somali nativism (culturally, cognitively, pedagogically), and yet argue that this model will ameliorate Somali political situation – downright, disgraceful chauvinism in action. What this condescending attitude displays is the blindness of their mouth, forkedness of their tongue, their cultural and emotional illiteracy and the totality of their intentions; of course beautified with colourful rhetoric, which is not more than melodious syncopation of deceptive words. I might appear at this stage of my argument that I am a rejectionist regarding ideas, theories and systems imported from other lands and nations. Far from it, I really advocate the far-reaching intellectual distribution that the Golden Age of Arabic science championed in 9th century; as Ya’qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi argued:

We ought not to be embarrassed about appreciating the truth and obtaining it wherever it comes from, even if it comes from races distant and nations different from us. Nothing should be dearer to the seeker of truth than the truth itself, and there is no deterioration of the truth, nor belittling either of one who speaks it or conveys it.

Albeit al-Kindi envisions an ideal world where the truth is a natural phenomenon and exists independently, a world which is very different from the ontological position of Deconstructionism and Derridian orthodoxy, nevertheless I principally share with al-Kindi’s vision of intellectual permeation across boundaries and races; but my issue is that when the foreign ideas and theories become unadulterated, simplistic ‘copy and paste’ approach, then there will be a mismatch in the interplay of ideas and the people, and this is why our political class are just daydreamingly entertaining themselves.

Due to the shortsightedness of Somali political class, they also failed to feel the presence of obstacles in peoples’ experiences, the familiarity of alienating verbosity, the disingenuousness of their discourse for the last quarter of century, singing the paradise is close while the quickest flight is desirable from this political calamity, a political calamity orchestrated by tribalistic and narrow-minded Somali individuals and their foreign interlocutors. As aforementioned the historical political procedure of this group had tribal, chauvinistic tenderness informed and nourished by genealogical social structures, a living lie that Somali people will reject one day with equal force. However, their contemporary political discourse has metamorphosed into something more congenial, rhythmical, pleasantly audible, and yet more disingenuous and dangerous. They deploy a discourse in Foucaultian sense of the word, as a tool to achieve their opportunistic political desires. A charitable commentator will be impressed with their seldom ability of employing journalistic oeuvre that proffer their messages a flavour of social and political genre. One can also infer their spirit of concealment, obscurity of discourse, which they brand as a benevolent political construction for the betterment of Somali people ‘Dadka iyo Dalka’. This discourse constructs itself, promotes itself, camouflages itself and becomes a complex field of network that bewilders anyone who attempts to find a node of that network or questions its construction, intentions, beginnings and manifestations. This novel approach of political procedure, this ‘incorporeal discourse’ as Foucault taught us is ‘a voice as silent as breath’; a discourse that is novel, yet already-said, permanent yet utterly erased; fulfilling all the strategies of discursive repressive presence. This style of discursive formation dehistoricizes the genesis, continuity and totalisation of issues that brought us to this juncture, whilst essentialising and referring the events as and when they occur. What this unteachable class does not understand is whatever concealing discourse they construct, whatever discontinuous history they engender, no discourse can shake the wretched of the earth, until they depart from their childish stupidity that springs from pride blinded by their egotistical journeys. It seems that Somali people are experiencing the Renaissance of political speeches but anyone who is student of Frantz Fanon will immediately discover ‘all those speeches seem like a collection of dead words, those value which seem to uplift the soul “dalka iyo dadka” are revealed as worthless, simply because they have nothing to do with the concrete conflict in which the people engaged in.’ in other words Somali people yearn for new men and women, authentic vocabularies and conscious politics. In order for this new humanity to occur, the whole political structure should be transformed from the bottom and the community should overwhelm these rotten counterfeit prophets who are ‘more dead than alive’, who legislate the robbery of the nation, who brethren their purse, who deceive the people to attain their perfidious ambitions; then the community triumphs and spreads its own authentic political vision.

The second political procedure that these lazy political elite deploy is the lines of nationalism. History taught us Somali national consciousness was all-embracing strategy, a collective activism to terminate colonial exploitation and fashion fruitful and just path, but all-embracing nationalism became an empty shell and national bourgeoisie transpired to be merciless, self-serving agents. Moreover Postcolonial scholarship of our country sufficiently explains tragic political shortcomings, incapacity of political class, spiritual penury of civil society, in a nutshell, a society ‘where the tribe is preferred to the state.’ In today’s Somali political class, they have never moved from this historical social and psychological condition, if anything they are weaker and lack the awareness of national dignity that transformed the life of the people. Thus slogans of nationalism ‘our people, our country’ will never alter the necrophilic behaviour of Somali political class. It is almost worthless but alluring to enquire what the metaphor ‘our people’ represents. Does it represent the wretched of the earth who are the victims of East African geopolitical convocation in Dadaab encampment? Does it represent the nomadic people who perished in the intersection of traditional loss and the absence of alterity? Does it represent hopeless tribal people in Somali regions who lack the art of listening? Does it represent the displaced sorrowful souls who permanently become an alien in their own country? Does it represent Somali Jihadists who offer terror or virtues, depending on who you talk to? In relation to ‘our country’ it is not even worth wasting a breath, considering contemporary Somali spatial-political arrangements. Perhaps the only group who can offer a definitive answer is Alshabaab, who will say ‘our country’ is darul-Islam. Therefore our political class might seduce us with their slogans of usurpation and pretend they know about their people and country, but certainly they do not know themselves.

During colonialism, national bourgeoisie wanted to replace the white officers but created a deplorable political stagnation, today they want to grab the power, a strategy which is nothing to do with the transformation of the people but everything to do with the appalling pathology of power. When this chauvinistic political procedure did not work, as Somali people will never be seduced by this political mirage, they formulate chimerical slogans and lean on immortal, ever-enduring tribal arrangements which always enchant those who are sick at heart, more dead than alive. Colonial national bourgeoisie advocated ‘the rights of the people to self-determination, the right from hunger, and human dignity, and the unceasing affirmation of the principe: ‘one man, one vote’’. ‘Philosophico-political dissertation’ that resembles the mesmerizing slogans that political elite promote today, ‘every vote counts’. The current rhetoric of Somali political class is not different from postcolonial nationalism, but today they hybridize it with vulgar tribalism, which is impervious to the logic and the art of the political evocation they engage. Past and present Somali political class share unchanging practice – deception and destruction of the aspiration and dreams of Somali people. What is more sagacious than encyclopaedic wisdom of Frantz Fanon who once articulated ‘while politician situate their action in actual present-day events, men of culture take their stand in the field of history.’

Any society engaging democratic principles and their epistemological contemplations, one would demonstrate political knowledge informed by political theories, behaviours, traditions in which the political knowledge is applied. In other words political knowledge requires the combination of empirical and imaginative evocation. In this case political knowledge cannot be dissociated from political behaviours, intentions, regularities and understandings of the people; therefore if the political class is offering a platform to discuss Somali issues, why they, from the outset, undertook different political practice with certain orientation and enunciation? This does not only show their naked perfidious ambition, but their susceptibility to theoretical truths they claim – proportional representation. Indeed this type political procedure lacks creativity, administrative ideas and intellectual discipline that will cultivate critical consciousness and transform the livelihoods of many people while preserving their true culture and knowledge. What this also shows is unpreparedness of political elite and how little practical association they have with the public. Let me conclude this succinct affirmation of ‘politics of recognition’ with an indispensable indication for myself and for those who advocate political parties, ideological prescription, and devaluation of ethical and ‘pietistic articulation of political principle’, that these chimerical pursuits have no function in the life hereafter, as our Divine message stated (1: 62): ‘Those who believe (in the Qur’an) and those who follow Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians and Sabians – Any who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and work righteousness, shall have their rewards With their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.’

Jama Hersi
Email:[email protected]


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