By Osman Hassan
One of the most memorable Somali poetical adages is that of Ismail Mirreh: “ Ragow kibirka waa lagu kufaa kaa ha la ogaado” (O Men! beware the perils of arrogance). It is a message addressed to all men (women were supposed to be unaffected) and it is simple and so instructive: Arrogance is the curse of human nature. It overrides right and reason and leads its bearers astray, often to their demise, whether individuals, clans, peoples and nations – both big and small.
We had the USA who sent millions of soldiers to Vietnam in the 1960s to impose their way of life on the Vietnamese people. In the end, they were ignominiously defeated by the will of their victims. Similarly, we had the French colonialists who arrogantly claimed as an act of faith that Algeria was theirs – part of mainland France (Algeria Française)- and in the process killed millions of Algerian nationalists. They too were forced to give up Algeria. History is full of arrogant supremacists who trampled on the rights of other people deemed dispensable but invariably ended in defeat.
When it comes to arrogance in our own Somali history, the context of Ismail Mirreh’s poem is the defeat of the Darwiish liberation movement and the consequences it ushered when Britain’s collaborators were given free hand by the British colonial administration to engage in widespread maltreatment against the unarmed and defenseless clan that was hitherto the backbone of the Darwiish. This clan arrogance as he relates was not the first of its kind but in the footsteps of many before it, all ending in their undoing.
One of the most notorious abusers was a depraved sadist in the police nicknamed Carab Dheere (the long-tongued), who indulged in humiliating and tormenting his hapless victims. On one occasion, he shot dead a young man for being impertinent!. His crime was to ask for his sister’s hand in marriage. In pursuing his indulgence, he had Ismail Mirreh, a famous poet and the former commander of the Darwiish forces, forcibly brought to him for his entertainment – to compose under duress a poem in praise of his tormentor’s wedding.
Ismail obliged but not in the way Carab Dheere expected. The poem he composed, entitled “Ragow kibirka waa lagu kufaa kaa ha la ogaado” ( O Men! beware the perils of arrogance), has become an adage for human relations among Somalis. It lists past arrogant clans and men. It includes Richard Corfield, an overweening British colonel who disobeyed his superiors’ orders and went to battle the Darwiish forces and got killed by Ismail Mirreh men. All the subjects of his poem got their just comeuppance. It cites Aden Galaydh and his famous saying on his defeat:“Aduun i khatal”. It ends by pointing to the excesses of one of them (unnamed but clearly alluding to Carab Dheere) whose days he predicted were numbered – a prophetic warning as Carab Dheere passed away after one week. Dwelling on the context of this adage is very important if its intrinsic message is to be grasped.
History they say repeats itself. Just as with the demise of the Darwiish, the same clan has used the defeat of the central government of Somalia in 1991 (by allied clan rebel groups, armed and supported by Ethiopia), and the consequent immediate collapse of the Somali State, to invade, conquered the unionist Darwiish regions as part of their self-declared secessionist enclave (Somaliland).
Exploitation, repression and daily humiliations and widespread human rights abuses became the whole mark of the enclave’s occupation of the SSC people. Harsh taxes are levied on the occupied whose proceeds goes to top up Hargeisa’s coffers and used to fund their occupation!; hundreds died in their doomed invasion of Buuhoodle and Kalshaale in 2010 for resisting to be conquered and incorporated into the enclave; the right to assembly is routinely denied without prior permission from Hargeisa. Remember their chasing Dr Galaydh (before his defection to them) from one improvised Khatumo conference venue after another in 2014, and when they failed to catch him dubbed him Ali Bile (after Abdi Bile, the famous runner)? And not long ago, they imperiously dared the SSC traditional leaders of all people to hold a conference in Buuhoodle as they wished- imagine in their own town! Even the former colonial power would have balked at such crude excesses.
To top it all, they attacked and occupied on 11 January the village of Tukaraq, a Puntland customs outpost on the periphery of Puntland but just inside Sool. One has to ask why now when they could have taken it from Puntland anytime before, knowing it would walk away as it did everywhere else in Sool?. Clearly, this was timed to cock a snook at President Farmaajo, who was on a visit close to the area, and publicly humiliate and expose him as a powerless paper tiger in this part of the world where they rule supreme.
This mentality of clan chauvinism and supremacy has been evolving over time and engendered by a combination of factors: First and foremost, it has its roots in the overthrow of President Siyad Barre and his government in 1991 for which they preposterously claim sole credit (indeed, that credit goes exclusively, for better or worse, to General Aideed and all the other agitators were simply free riders).
Secondly, it is a supremacy that has grown in proportion to the failures of the rest of Somalia, and above all the post-Siyad Barre governments, whether transitional and federal, to do anything about the secession and the occupation of regions that are considered part and part of Somalia and defending the union all alone at colossal cost.
Thirdly, their machismo was bloated by their spectacular feat of chasing Puntland forces from the SSC regions with hardly any resistance; and far from meeting any comeback from Puntland to liberate the occupied regions are instead having it in cahoots with them to deny the SSC people their inalienable right to be free from their hegemony. Their latest unchallenged occupation of the Tukaraq outpost from Puntland further reaffirms and reinforces their perceived supremacy.
Fourthly, it has been equally inflated by the failures of the SSC people to liberate their occupied regions much as they have the potential, despite all the odds they face from Somaliland and Somaliland. History is replete with peoples deemed underdogs but who through organized liberation have defeated their mighty oppressors; and in our own home ground we had the defeat of Siad Barre’s mightiest army in black Africa by ragtag insurgents – as the secessionists never miss an opportunity to remind us.
The logic of the defeat of Siyad Barre’s mighty army holds also for Somaliland and its SSC occupation. The presence of their militia in far-flung locations in the SSC regions, and hundreds of miles away from their clan enclave, with their supplies and their men vulnerable to regular day and nightly attacks, would have been defeated in the face of organized SSC resistance just as did Siyad Barreh’s nemeses. What has thus far spared the occupying militia is the SSC people’s preoccupation and paralysis with their internal problems. All that is bound to change in due course and once they get their acts together woe betide Somaliland.
Fifthly, their arrogance is nourished by the special treatment they receive from some members of the international community and international organizations. Though these affirm the unity and territorial integrity of Somalia, perhaps to be politically correct, yet this is belied by the disproportionate aid given to the enclave and the special attention it gets from the representatives of the UN, EU and some of their leading member countries who regularly pay visits to the enclave but rarely ever treat other regions similarly. This disparity of treatment is tantamount to rewarding the secession rather than censuring it, and all it does is to reinforce their intransigence rather than return them to the fold. They take advantage of the weakness of the federal government which is more preoccupied with its own survival rather than challenge their financial benefactors.
Last but not least, the military arsenal the enclave laid its hands on, after the disintegration of the Somali national army, had overnight made it the strongest clan/enclave in post-Siyad Barre Somalia and accounts for much of its machismo. Having put their relative military might to the test by occupying all the unionist regions in the north – except for Buuhoodle district – and wrested Sool from Puntland, they feel unstoppable and are now at the gates of Garawe, no doubt a nightmare for its residents who hitherto had basked in false security.
The new leaders of the enclave are trigger happy former SNM military die-hards with blood on their hands. For them, the military option to deal with recalcitrant unionist clans in the north, or with the rest of Somalia, instinctively guides their actions. This mentality is a recipe for continued conflict and instability in Somalia.
It is time the rest of Somalia dealt squarely with the problem rather burying their heads in the sand. It is sad that while Ethiopia is intervening, and for better or worth interceding with all sides in the conflict as if they were part of its dominion, the federal government for its part can only come up with a mealy-mouthed statement, as if trying to be neutral and not offend any of what they see as two warring parties. This would only serve as a bonus wetting the arrogance and intransigence of the enclave.
Somaliland’s ill-thought and misguided adventure at Tukaraq is likely to have the opposite consequence than the one intended. As a minimum, it would serve as a wake-up call to Puntland which suddenly wakes up with the front line now moving to their backyard. For the SSC people, it is the last straw that broke the camel’s back. For the first time since their union (now defunct), Puntland could join hands with the SSC people to face what both now perceive as their common enemy. It is in this connection that the SSC traditional leaders have for the first time called for war on their occupiers – strong response from traditionally peace-promoting elders, but reflecting the level of their anger and frustration with the arrogant occupier.
The cause of a possible war between Somaliland and the SSC/Puntland is not about challenging the enclave to give up its secession. That is a matter principally for the federal government. Rather, it would be about its unacceptable insistence to occupy and own in the 21 Century the territories of another clan of Somalia and go to war all the way to Puntland to have its way. Rather than getting its way, the outcome could well be unintendedly the beginning of the end of the secession of the enclave. None of this conflict would have arisen and everyone spared agony if only they heeded Ismail Mirreh’s adage: Sooner or later, they will learn it the hard way: “Ragow kiberka waa lagu kufaaa kaa ha la ogaado.”
Osman Hassan
Email : [email protected]
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Osman Hassan is a seasoned journalist and a former UN staff member. Mr Hassan is also a regular contributor to WardheerNews.
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