After all, an own thing could help fix the Horn of Africa
Abdul Ghelleh
2014-06-21
There have been numerous failed attempts to restore collapsed Somalia over
the past two decades. A nation-building model that takes into account the
society's nomadic culture and the deeply embedded historical narratives that
shape the people's worldviews stands a chance.
Finding the right framework for a workable governance system for Somalia has
been problematic for both governments in the West and academics from around
the world for more than two decades. To this day, the need to reconstruct
the Somali state is being merely considered as a means to counter Terrorism
and Piracy, with little urgency for the highly important issue of what to do
with the overall nature of state failure. It's also seen, albeit with less
importance, as having the potential to destabilise the East Africa region.
But the response to the conflict has so far been inadequate, because the
policy-makers continuously misunderstand the Somali social structures and
cultural narratives. Therefore, the issue of state building has become an
endless academic discourse, and the actual resolution to the conflict
eluding everyone involved for so long. Since 1991, every attempt to find
some sort of a centralised governance system for Somalia - the latest one
being the blurred and poorly defined federal system - has so far failed.
In fact inadequate knowledge and skills can prolong conflicts (as we now see
in Somalia and Afghanistan) and are a major problem when it comes to
reaching trust building levels. And a cognitive cultural misunderstanding
can create deficiency in policy making processes and can mislead those
trying to find solutions to the conflicts.
Firstly, this paper aims to measure how local actors - the federal
government, the regional governments and the civil society - can come
together as a team able to work through their differences and build
cohesiveness among them to create the necessary environment to develop their
conflict resolution skills. And secondly, it will provide an alternative
approach of block by block state building mechanisms to external
stakeholders, namely the United Nations agencies, interested individual
countries and non-governmental organisation; and to lay down the road map
for their future cooperation in order to achieve successful stabilisation of
the country.
I have closely observed from my vantage point in Nairobi at the latest
United Nations supported government in Mogadishu and compared it to a number
of federal systems and self-governing states within states in different
continents, including the devolved system in the unitary state of the United
Kingdom, the federal Directorial Switzerland, the federal Ethiopia, the
federal United States of America, the federal Germany and the United Arab
Emirates, and I have concluded that none of these governance systems can be
identified with the Somali society (in a separate paper, I will go into
detail on the ways in which all the world's functioning federal systems of
governance can be incompatible with traditional societies, with particular
focus on the Somali society). But without some components of traditional
order - something that traditional societies can immediately identify
themselves with - modern governance system would be very difficult, almost
impossible, to transfer to them.
At this stage, I set out to shed some light on the urgent need for an
alternative system governance for Somalia which can combine 'federalism and
clan-ism' in a future Somali state structure, and will vigorously
investigate the dynamics of societal relationship with modern statehood, the
rule of law and identity, in order to establish the legitimacy of a
functioning state.
A historical prospective would be central to this approach, starting with
the society's nomadic culture from the middle ages to the present day and
colonial period; and the deeply imbedded historical narratives that shape
worldviews, opinions and norms of the Somali society.
This paper together with an upcoming second part will make a theoretical
contribution and recommendations to a workable solution to the Somalia
conflict and to provide a richness of a case study scenario to underpin the
reconstruction of a fragmented social order in the Horn of Africa country.
An organic Somali governance process is currently underway whereby
individual regions are currently building internationally supported
institutional foundations for self-governance. After concluding my study, I
will be recommending that Somalia should be assisted in establishing and
strengthening five regional governments with Equal Powers. And it's
envisaged that the heads of these regions will eventually sit down together
and appoint their chairman, who will then act as the president and the head
of state. This process would be implemented through elections by the five
regional government's elected assemblies or would be based on a pre-agreed
rotating presidency, where one region takes the chairmanship for a certain
period of time. In fact this removes the grievances held by the other
regions as the power and resources are currently concentrated in Mogadishu,
where overwhelmingly one clan dominates the national political landscape,
and leaves little room for members from the other clans to be elected to the
presidency.
The international community may not have realised this but the lack of a
tangible political progress since 2008 can be largely linked to the
semi-centralised system in Mogadishu, as the ownership of the federal
government is left unchecked with a single clan.
A noticeable activity of the organic Somali governance process is already in
motion in most areas of the country and can be utilised rather than ignored.
Somaliland and Puntland, for example, had been relatively functioning for
nearly two decades, and Jubbaland has joined the process in 2013 when the
Kenya army helped pacify the Shabab in the regional capital, Kismayo. And
earlier this year, a forth process which vowed to establish a South-Western
State, has strengthened the position of this approach.
At this early stage of the proposed Somali 'Regional and Clan Federalism',
only one fifth of the country remains without a name, and has yet to
establish boundaries for regional governance. Individual regions will
inevitably contain various clan components in it and, although one or two
clans or sub-clans may dominate the regional state legislature, they will
not, necessarily, acquire an unfettered power, as all the other clans within
the region are expected to make at least fifty per cent of the region's
population.
Once all the five regional administrative systems have been completed, the
customary cultural similarities and/or variations within the Somali society
(those in the midlands, for example, share a common denominator among
themselves than with those in the deep south) will eventually act as a
guarantor for the smooth running of the regional administrations, and their
future relationships with the central government. And Mogadishu and its
immediate environs would be - as most Somalis agree upon - recognised as
federal territory.
This initiative is intended to utilize the available international conflict
reduction and institution building programmes while at the same time
enhancing the current support systems for Somalia. But first and foremost,
the federal system should be redefined and internal territorial boundaries
appropriately marked. Collaborative working relationships would be
established with international partners that are active on the ground,
including the United Nations, the Africa Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM)
and the individual countries like Britain and Turkey.
Under this initiative, comparative studies of the Sierra Leone and
Afghanistan cases will be carried out, and the operations of the current
Somalia Stabilisation programme will be revisited to underpin the
achievements of the past five years. This includes both the on-going
military campaign against the Shabab and a new 'Regional Social
Stabilisation' programme (RSSP) - I will discuss this further on a follow up
paper. The international military stabilisation aspect could stand alone or
work closely with a revamped local security force which will provide support
to the new regional social stabilisation programme.
This new RSSP will have a cultural revival branch, which would help restore
the Somali social norms to pre-1990s levels. At this stage, we would be in
sensitive area which also required substantial funding, but it would be
achieved through mass education of the country's youth population and would
involve a major reform of the media, which is constantly under intimidation
and largely controlled by those with extremist tendencies.
In fact the current international efforts on the ground in Somalia are
depressingly fragmented, with the individual countries and the countless
NGOs delivering their assistance separately. This will have negative impact
on the whole process as it lacks direction and coordination, together with
the undefined federal system confusing the successive Somali governments and
the country's general population since 1991.
Building on clan-based traditional system of conflict resolution and
supplementing it with a dimension of delicately removing discriminatory
social and gender imbalances through peaceful social change are an important
part of this approach. Hardening Islamic attitudes and the Arabisation of
the Somali society were taken to a new level immediately after the state
institutions failed in 1991, adding a religious dimension to a conflict
which was originally driven by clan-based and power hungry armed warlords.
The regional social stabilisation programme would exclusively work towards
addressing and delivering bespoke programmes for the general civilian
population while the international military efforts continue its campaign in
dealing with armed extremist groups throughout the country.
As Richard Dowden, the veteran Africa news correspondent who is now the
president of the Royal Africa Society, summed up in one of his last articles
to the Independent in the early 1990s: 'the Somali Taliban was born soon
after the overthrow of the secular dictator'. This could be true but
Somalia's misfortunes can be reversed if the right support systems and
policies were put in place and effectively implemented throughout the
country.
Knowledge-based and skilfully applied policy making processes serve as a
framework to set a successful road map for countries that are emerging from
conflicts, statelessness, political violence and terrorism. In fact an
inclusive, blended approach (and this should include the civil society)
enables owners of the conflict and those trying to assist them to
collaborate to form improved trust and understanding that meets the
identified goals of all parties involved.
Policies that focus on partnership, flexibility and inclusion
(unfortunately, we see very little of these in Somalia at this stage) can
safe time, costs and, most importantly, live. Only when all parties do their
part and understand the processes involved, can we achieve the required
results in the world's most troublesome country.