From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Tue Apr 20 2010 - 14:30:01 EDT
A Second Independence Movement for Somalia
20 Apr, 2010 - 4:50:07 AM
Report Drafted By: Dr. Michael A. Weinstein
Somalia is currently becoming caught in an existential crisis - the threat
that it will disappear as a place for Somalis, as a self-organized political
community.
The crisis is directly caused by a state of frozen warfare that has been
polarized in confrontation between transnationalist Islamic revolution and
multi-lateral neo-colonialism. The former is represented by Harakat
al-Shabaab Mujahideen (H.S.M.) and the latter by the coalition that has
disjointedly mobilized against H.S.M. - including as one player among others
Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (T.F.G.) - and that is
incompetently orchestrated by a divided international coalition composed of
Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Washington and Brussels, along with the African Union
and the United Nations. An emirate in a would-be caliphate or a collection
of neo-colonial dependencies: Is that what Somalia's leaders want?
The present situation is the result of the 2006 Ethiopian invasion and
occupation of Somalia, undertaken to quell the Islamic Courts revolution,
and the resistance to it: frozen war between the most transnationalist
elements of the Courts revolution and the most abject dependents of external
powers. Nationalism is missing from the equation - the sense that the Somali
people should stand on their two feet and be able to exercise some
discretion over their future. That sense was there in the Courts revolution,
but Washington and Addis Ababa crushed it with help from the excessive
provocations of the militant Salafists. One cannot expect the Somali people,
having been betrayed and punished, to try it themselves again. If the
alternatives of emirate and dependency are to be avoided, then only leaders
can do the job.
The job, most generally put, is to create a strong form of political
organization for post-independence Somalia that will allow it to have some
self-direction in a highly competitive world of predatory states. It does
not matter what form it takes at the end of a more or less protracted, but
developing process: it could be a league of independent states with a
unified foreign policy, a confederation, a federation, or a unitary state -
in any of their myriad variations. Its political formula could take account
of clan or not; it could be a formally Islamic/Islamist state or not.
In order to do the job, the leaders would have to have two characteristics:
1) share an interest in post-independence Somalia achieving a measure of
self-determination in the world; 2) be willing to work within their factions
and constituencies, and across factional lines to advance that interest.
The point here is not holding another conference - with or without foreign
intervention - but of forming factions dedicated to effective, rather than
merely juridical, Somali statehood within each faction, and then for the
statehood factions to form links with each other, at first unsystematically
and by affinity, and eventually by systematic coordination. As the statehood
factions built support within their own groups and worked with each other,
the basis would be laid for a popular national movement that that would give
leaders a chance to withstand external pressure and would strengthen their
positions within their respective factions. The movement would be a second
independence movement that would tap the associative tendencies of
traditional Somali dispute resolution.
At present, the most likely result of post-independence Somalia's conflicts
is multi-lateral neo-colonialism, which would most likely take the form of
Balkanization, neglect by the divided predators consistent with their
exploitative interests, continued domestic disorder, and a drift toward
genocide/suicide. It is much less likely that H.S.M. would create an
emirate, because anything is preferable to the predatory powers than that
outcome, including the present frozen war and its attendant humanitarian
disaster.
The possibility of a second independence movement is offered as an
alternative to multi-lateral neo-colonialism - as a description of what is
required to overcome the latter. Its probability of success, were it to be
initiated, was not of uppermost concern, because it did not seem that
anything less could be effective.
A Somali intellectual and activist writes: "Who has the definition of the
leaders they want?" That is a question for Somalis to answer. The foregoing
piece has been written as an appeal to Somalis to think about that question.
Report Drafted By: Dr. Michael A. Weinstein, Professor of Political Science,
Purdue University Chicago <mailto:weinstem@purdue.edu> weinstem@purdue.edu
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