By Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal
Editor’s note: Peaking into the rich WDN archives full of ten years of rare collection of historical pieces, news, commentary, opinion as well as cultural and poetry analysis and writing from across the globe, we come upon a jewel, a rarity, a genius piece of writing, honest and true and free of bias. Indeed, it could be called the past calling with glaring disappointment. As we approach our tenth anniversary, we reflect and share with our readers, esteemed and staunch the first of a series of articles from the past. The first of these is “a talk by the late Hon. Prime Minister Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal gave at a meeting of The Royal African Society held at The Royal Society of Arts on 22nd March 1968.” It couldn’t be timelier when across Somalia there is inept of leadership; the drumbeat of Somalinimo brings a daunting thought of where Somalia is headed. Indeed once upon a time, there were those who had the interest of the country at heart.
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IT IS NOT easy to speak about Somalia. The very nature of the country, the way of life of its people, and their cultural background, appear to evade objective thought and rational explanation. Most of those who have chosen Somalia as a subject for their scholarship have found themselves the inevitable victims of one of two emotions: they have either become enamoured with the Biblical character of the Somali way of life, the rich and the poetical language of the people, the absolute independence of the Somali in character, thought, behaviour and intellect-which at times may appear to outside observers as even bordering close to anarchism; or else they are overwhelmed with pity, by the harsh nature of the country’s environment, the persistent fght of the Somali nomad against merciless odds, and his unawareness and even disdain for any association with modem technological advancements and amenities.
I shall attempt today to fnd a happy medium between these two extremes. However, being a Somali myself, I must forewarn and plead guilty to an element of pride in some of the characteristics of my countrymen. Even though many modern thinkers reject the validity of such a thing as a national character, I personally believe that a people living in a country, conditioned to the same elements, exposed to the same hazards, sharing the heritage of democratic traditions, bound by language, religion and culture, and linked together by the pursuance of a unique way of life, must inevitably develop similar inhibitions and attitudes as well as a common and unifying philosophical code of ethics and conventions. It is such ties that develop the characteristics com mon to a nation and which can be described as its national character. This national Somali character, therefore, with its strength, its weakness, but its truly sublime love of freedom, strong sense of unity, and independence of spirit forged over the centuries is what binds my people together and gives them a pride in their institutions.
Somalia is geographically an and country in which life is diffcult and in which the individual is engaged in a constant battle for survival. The vast majority of the Somali people follow their nomadic way of life not from choice but from the necessity of having continually to seek pastures for their livestock. Grazing and water for their livestock are almost never found in close occupation of moving the livestock to suitable pastures on the vast inland plateaux and then driving them back to water. This process is repeated at intervals of two to three weeks during the great dry season. The Somali nomadic mode of life being almost unique in the world, the Somali has never benefted from examples set elsewhere for the improvement and the amelioration of his life. Also the previous colonial regimes that ruled the two parts of the present Republic of Somalia made no serious attempts to interfere, for better or for worse, with this traditional way of life. The Somali nomad was thus left to his own initiative to develop those amenities which he considered to be suitable to his own environment, to improve the existence of both himself and his herds, and to build up an economy to sustain his essential needs.
Thus, practically unaided by any government, colonial or indigenous, he has had by his own initiative and ability to improvise means of bringing water nearer to the more permanent pastures for his livestock; and for this purpose, he has constructed cemented water reservoirs to retain water available during the rainy season on the plateaux which ten years ago were only accessible to his livestock for a few months of the year. These reservoirs-which are roughly similar to your swimming pools in Europe-are now not only revolutionising the economy of the nomad by almost trebling the numbers of his livestock but, more important still, are creating permanent settlements which are slowly de veloping into pastoral/agricultural villages with the resultant need for social services. This development in the interior is happily matched by the deter mination of the Somali to seek outside markets for his livestock by trading with other countries. Again practically unaided by any government either colonial or indigenous, he has had the good sense and the acumen to recognise the potential and accessible markets for his livestock in the oil-rich Arab state across the Red Sea. Today there exists a fourishing export of livestock on the hoof to Saudi Arabia, to the Persian Gulf, to Egypt, to Kuwait and even as far as Iraq. This in turn has enhanced the breeding of livestock in the interior. These successful eforts are purely due to Somali diligence, initiative and enterprise in which I and any Somali can with justifcation take some pride.
I would now like to go back to the history and the origin of this resourceful individual, the Somali nomad. The origin of the Somali people, like that of most other nations, is lost in the mists of history and has likewise become the subject of mythical fables and folklore. Association with the Pharoahs as the Land of Punt is one of these mythological fables that has received credit because of certain evidences found in the ancient pyramids of Egypt. The history of myrrh and frankincense shrouds Somalia with unrelated allusions in ancient history. However my own belief is that the Somali people derive their origin from the ancient empire of Adde whose capital was Adari, now known as Harar, and whose main port was Audal now called Zeilah. This empire flourished in the tenth and eleventh centuries A.D., and was part of the Arab expansion during the Khalifate Empire. It is my opinion that after the decline of that empire in the twelfth century those who stayed behind made their home in the Horn of Africa, in scattered settlements among the indigenous population.
There was naturally a period of chaos when Islamic traditions disappeared and the whole country reverted to its former paganism, tribal strife, and the ‘ law of the jungle \ This chaos lasted for a period of several decades. Across the Gulf of Aden, the rulers in Yemen were disturbed by the news of atrocities and the reversion to paganism which reached them from the country over which they had previously held suzerainty. At first they affected to ignore the situation, but eventually after a period of reorganization in their own country and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of the Imam, they decided to make another attempt at resuscitating Islamic traditions in the Horn of Africa. They decided to send over a group of eminent Sheikhs to settle at strategic points and to preach and bring the people back into the fold of Islam. So, in the earlier part of the thirteenth century, Islamic missionaries came back from Arabian Peninsula and re-established Islam and the rule of law. The task of these eminent Sheikhs was a tremendous one. Their main objective was to re-establish Islam and Islamic culture and to create a society that would last and develop within the traditions of the Islamic doctrine. So they took the easiest and most natural course. They chose and concentrated on that portion of the people with Arabic blood, the descendants of the people of the Adde Empire, who were living in scattered settlements, organized them politically, instructed them in the teaching of the Holy Koran and the Islamic tradition. The rest of the population were relegated to serfdom and assigned menial tasks. As the power of these people grew, they gradually expanded their suzerainty and pushed the other ethnic groups further west and south.
Read more: Somalia: Nomadic Individualism and the Rule of Law
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