In mid-July, the British international foreign-policy organization, Chatham
House, released a report on the (possibly) approaching political
"transition" in Somalia: "End of the Roadmap: Somalia after the London and
Istanbul Conferences." The Chatham House report, written by the
organization's associate fellow in its Africa Program, Jason Mosley, who was
previous the senior Africa analyst at the strategy organization, Oxford
Analytica, is the first major document concerning the "transition" that has
been published by an important Western establishment think tank for the past
several months. With the end of the Roadmap fast approaching on August 20,
Mosley's report, which, according to Chatham House, is "the sole
responsibility of the author," assesses the status of the "transition" and
the political situation that is likely to follow it, and suggests the policy
direction that the Western "donor"-powers to Somalia, particularly Britain,
should follow in the short term. Moseley's report is significant because t
reflects current Western establishment analytical thinking on Somalia.
The Western Establishment Think Tank
Like its counterparts in the United States, the Center for Strategic and
International Studies; and in Continental Europe, the International Crisis
Group, Chatham House is not a governmental organization - as Chatham House
puts it, it "owes no allegiance to any government or to any political body.
It does not take institutional positions on policy issues." Nonetheless, all
of the major establishment foreign-policy think tanks are closely associated
with their home governments and supra-governmental organizations,
interchanging personnel with them, inviting their officials to meetings and
symposia, and directing policy recommendations to satisfying what are
perceived to be their interests.
The establishment think tank holds a particular position in the
configuration of Western institutional political power: it functions as a
semi-independent source of political analysis and policy proposals to
Western governments and the foreign-policy public, providing critiques of
and policy alternatives to "institutional positions." Yet it is committed to
the basic strategic interests of those governments and would like them to
act on its recommendations. In order to try to accomplish the latter, it
must take care not to offend the governments that it would propose to serve.
Given its aim of influencing governments, the establishment think tank
cannot "speak truth to power." Instead it must try to tell as much of the
truth as it can without offending power.
The compromised situation of the establishment think tank makes it necessary
for analysts taking a less compromised position to recognize the limitations
of its discourse and adjust for them. The establishment think tank is
staffed by intelligent professionals with impressive resources for research
and political contacts at their disposal. It caters to informed professional
audiences. Therefore, the establishment think tank does not spread
misinformation or disinformation, or engage in ungrounded speculation or
partisanship. The limitations of its analyses and policy recommendations
come in what they systematically leave out; that is, what would offend the
governments that the think tank proposes to serve.
When one first reads a report of an establishment think tank, it appears to
be reasonable and cogent until one realizes that some of the most important
considerations are missing.
What Chatham House Gets Right About the "Transition"
It is to the credit of Mosley and Chatham House that they acknowledge the
most important fact: the "transition" is no a transition at all, but a
continuation of the conditions that currently exist in Somalia. As Mosley
puts it: "The end of the Roadmap will not signal an end to Somalia's
transition. The new administration will face many of the same challenges
threatening the TFG, and some others generated by the Roadmap process
itself." It must be added, of course, that Mosley is not credited here for
having come up with an insight; what he says is blatantly obvious, but the
Western "donor"-powers do not (want to) admit it in public, and it is an
analyst's business to point out that the "emperor has no clothes" when that
judgment applies.
As a good professional analyst, Mosley does not merely point out that
Somalia is going through a transition to another transition; he demonstrates
his case beyond any reasonable doubt. Again, although the considerations
that Mosely brings up are right on the surface of events, they deserve being
repeated (over and over again) because there is such resistance to admitting
them on the parts of the "donor"-power, the organizations through which they
operate, the regional powers allied with them, and even the Somalis who
persist in nursing false hopes that the "donor"-powers will some day do
something in the interest of the Somali people. The emperor has a lot of
dependents in his retinue who will try to weave a rhetorical tapestry over
his nakedness.
"When the transition 'ends' and the current government hands over to a
'caretaker' administration, South-Central Somalia appears to be set for more
of the same," says Mosley. Among the many points that Mosley raises in
support of his thesis are that "a political crisis is being approached
primarily through a security lens;" the "transition" is not inclusive, being
confined to the signatories of the Roadmap; "dissenting voices" to the
Roadmap process "have not only be ignored but branded 'spoilers';" "the
Roadmap's initial scope" has been narrowed in practice "to finalizing a
draft constitution and setting up a National Constituent Assembly to approve
it and to select a new parliament;" the new transitional institutions are
likely to be staffed in great part by members of the old government and
parliament; "the new federal government will probably continue to provide
only relatively weak central authority;" and, in conclusion and most
significantly, the inattention to political reconstruction, the lack of
inclusiveness in forming and implementing the new institutions, and the
weakness of the new "caretaker" government will lead to "previously dormant
rivalries" being "reactivated."
The above listing of Mosley's points only indicates the situation that he
describes more exhaustively, coherently, and convincingly in his report,
which should be read by anyone who still doubts that a travesty of a
"transition" has been foisted on the Somali people.
At only one point in his exposition does Moseley's argument lose coherence,
when he is discussing the selection process for the new institutions. He
says: "...the contentiousness of the selection of the caretaker leadership
will probably prove less of a stumbling block for the new government than
observers might fear. This is not to say that the new leadership will not
suffer from questions over its legitimacy. However, this is no more of a
disadvantage than that which affects the current administration. In that
sense the new administration will be building on a foundation left by the
TFG."
Although he has already said that Somalia "appears to be headed for more of
the same," Mosley seems to lose heart when he comes to elaborate on that
judgment in more detail. It is worth retracing his troubled paragraph.
Mosley begins by attempting to dispel the fears of "observers" that
"contentiousness" in the selection process will prove to be a "stumbling
block" for the new government. Then he admits that the new "leadership" will
suffer from "questions over its legitimacy." How, then, one must ask, will
the selection process not prove to be a stumbling block? If the new
government does not have legitimacy, then what does it have? Mosley cannot
answer that question. All that he can come up with is that the lack of
legitimacy of the new government "is no more of a disadvantage than that
which affects the current administration." Yet is it not the lack of
legitimacy that gutted the T.F.G.? Perhaps the lack of legitimacy of the new
government is "no more of a disadvantage" than the T.F.G. had; simply it was
a fatal disadvantage. Had Mosley kept his courage, he would have said
forthrightly that the new "transition" is doomed to the same fate as the old
one. Since he did not do that, he ends the paragraph with a statement that
defies belief in terms of its absurdity: "...the new administration will be
building on a foundation left by the TFG." What foundation is Mosley
referring to? The foundation that proved to be unsustainable? The corrupt
foundation that the "donor"-powers were driven to try to replace? Mosley
simply cannot bring himself to say that the new government will be a replica
of the T.F.G. But in a contorted way, he said it nonetheless. It is just too
much for the "donor"-powers to be told plainly that they have perpetrated a
travesty. One cannot expect Mosley to employ dramaturgical analysis. A
transition to a transition that isn't a transition is, to repeat, a
travesty.
What Chatham House Leaves Out
Mosley got it right, despite quavering a bit, that the "transition" is a
sham, although he could not quite say it in so many words. What he could not
do, because as an establishment analyst he must try to tell the truth
without offending power, was to say why the process ended up replicating
what it was supposed to replace. Indeed, there is not a whiff of causal
analysis in Mosley's report, the responsibility for the fiasco is never
addressed, and the discourse of power is entirely absent from his account.
The reason for those absences is, of course, plain: the "transition" was the
brainchild of the "donor"-powers, they are the ones with the power (the
power of the purse, primarily), and they are responsible for the travesty.
Had Mosley done a complete political analysis, including power, rather than
a truncated "policy analysis," he would have had to acknowledge that the
"donor"-powers were the most powerful players in the "transition" and that,
as a consequence, they were the most responsible for how it turned out.
Holding the "donor"-powers to account is, however, outside the bounds of
establishment think-tank discourse. It is possible for the establishment
analyst to hint that the emperor has no clothes, but it is forbidden to tell
the emperor that his naked body is ugly and deformed.
From a methodological standpoint, it is always necessary for readers of
establishment think-tank reports to be continually aware that such reports
will avoid placing responsibility for failures on the shoulders of those on
whom those think tanks try to exert influence. The reader has to add the
power-responsibility component of the analysis to the think-tank report in
order to get a complete and adequate analysis. One needs to exercise what
the critic-poet John Keats called "negative capability" - seeing what isn't
in the text.
The Irrelevance of Chatham House's Recommendations
A causal power-responsibility analysis might be thought to have primarily
intellectual interest, except for the fact that its absence tends to vitiate
and render irrelevant any policy recommendations. That is clearly the case
for Mosely's report.
Mosley has but one recommendation for the "donor"-powers, to which he is
speaking in public: "Somalia's international partners should focus in the
next few months on how to transform the momentum [what momentum?] injected
into the Roadmap process into policy attention and diplomatic support, or
pressure, needed to see the caretaker administration develop into more of a
government. A more functional government would focus on the provision of
services beyond the attention already paid to the security sector."
In short, Mosley is telling the "donor"-powers to do what they have never
done up to now. Why should anyone expect them to do it now? Their behavior
in mismanaging the "transition" does not bode well for their changing their
entire approach. Indeed, there is even less of a prospect now for the
"donor"-powers to own up to their responsibility, because they undertook the
"transition" to diminish their commitment, a point that would have followed
from a power-responsibility analysis.
It is as though, for Mosley, the "donor"-powers were born yesterday and had
not been around trying to satisfy their perceived interests in Somalia for
decades. "Be good and be wise!" exhorts Mosley to the "donor"-powers. Who is
he talking to? The "donor"-powers don't mind being told to be good and to be
wise as long as they don't have to do anything about it, as they have always
shown in Somalia. In any case, why should the "donor"-powers expend
resources to "see the caretaker administration develop into more of a
government"? Mosley has demonstrated that the new government will be a
replica of the T.F.G., which the "donor"-powers did not support in part
because it was too corrupt, fractious, unreliable, and illegitimate - in
their judgment - for them to unreservedly trust. Mosley's advice is
irrelevant, except as rhetoric that the "donor"-powers might take up as a
cover for their inaction, and that might plant false hopes in the hearts of
some Somalis.
The rules for reading a Western establishment think-tank report are to take
its description of the problematic situation seriously, add power to the
analysis, and ignore the policy recommendations.
Back to Reality
The disconnect between Mosley's policy recommendation and the actual
political dynamics of Somalia was starkly demonstrated on July 13, when the
convening of the National Constituent Assembly (N.C.A.), which, to remind,
is supposed to approve the (incomplete) draft provisional constitution for
Somalia and to choose the members of a new transitional parliament was
delayed when the group of traditional elders that is charged with selecting
the members of the N.C.A. withheld its list of nominees (the very kind of
"stumbling block" that Mosley had tried to wish away in his troubled
paragraph).
Voice of America reported that a group of elders, spoken for by chair of
Hawiye clan elders Mohamed Hassan Haad was blocking release of the nominees'
list because it wanted the elders' group to consider revisions to the draft
constitution. Interviewed by V.O.A., Haad said: "Actually we have all the
names, but elders were saying to each other if they present the names
everything will be in the hands of the parliament and nothing will remain
[for] the elders to talk and be consulted about." Haad added that the elders
"don't see our role" the way the backers of the Roadmap do.
Faced with the deferral of the "transition" beyond the August 20 deadline,
on which the "donor"-powers claim to insist, on July 14 the signatories of
the Roadmap from the T.F.G. - President Sh. Sharif Sh. Ahmed, Prime Minister
Abdiweli Gas, and ousted parliamentary speaker Sharif Hassan Sh. Adan - met
with the elders' group to try to convince it to release the nominees' list.
Garoweonline reported that the elders said that they would: "work to resolve
the issues." They also said that they had chosen only 75% of the nominees to
the N.C.A.
In a later report on July 14 by R.B.C. Radio, the split between the elders
and the T.F.G seemed to have widened and sharpened. Sh. Sharif told R.B.C.:
"We want the elders to complete all the names of the N.C.A. delegates as to
launch the meeting [of the N.C.A.] very soon. It is expected the meeting to
start on 21st of this month." Sharif Hassan added a threat that any clan
that had not submitted its delegates to the N.C.A. by July 21 would not be
allowed to participate in the N.C.A., a threat, which if carried out, would
severely impair any legitimacy that the N.C.A. might have had.
Countering the T.F.G. Roadmap signatories, R.B.C. reported that elder Suldan
Warsame Ibrahim said that the elders had proposed eleven amendments to the
draft provisional constitution. In addition, he said that half the delegates
were not present in Mogadishu and that only 50% of the N.C.A. nominees had
been selected. Suldan Warsame said that he did not think it would be
possible for the N.C.A. to convene on July 21, adding: "We recognize the
time shortage but we must also assure that there were still challenges."
Even if the N.C.A. convenes on July 21, which is far from assured, and even
if it completes its work successfully in several days, which is also quite
problematic, that would leave only three weeks for the "transition" to be
"completed." Such a tight time frame was not envisioned by the Roadmap, even
though it was already, as Mosley points out in the Chatham House report, a
"hasty" affair.
In itself, the dispute between the elders and the backers of the "transition
is not of particular significance. It is simply yet another of the endless
bumps in the long and winding road that were not anticipated by the
"donor"-powers when they decided to manage the "transition in late 2010. In
the present case, the elders have emerged out of the blue as an interest
group of their own, cross-cutting clan divisions - even though they
represent clans - and adding to Somalia's political fragmentation.
The new dispute evidences a basic flaw in the "donor"-powers' strategy. A
"transition" cannot be credible in the absence of prior social and political
reconciliation among Somali groups and factions. Mosley's report made that
plain in its section on the challenges that would likely plague the
post-transition Somali political arrangement. As long as those "challenges"
are not addressed and the conditions underlying them remain endemic, it is
unlikely that the "donor"-powers will make a concerted and credible effort
to bolster the new Somali government on which they have insisted and which
they have engineered. The political dynamics of Somalia will remain as they
have been.
Report Drafted By: Dr. Michael A. Weinstein, Professor of Political Science,
Purdue University in Chicago weinstem_at_purdue.edu
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Received on Tue Jul 17 2012 - 10:07:31 EDT
