Salvage for Somalia now or never!

[NASSIR]

Long and interesting to read if you have the patience. It is also a partial rejoinder to Prof. Said Samatar. Good constructive debate.

 

By: Abdalla A. Hirad

The reason for my fear of the alternative is very much related to what Professor Samatar calls “segmentation”—a tool which he often handily and rightly employs to analyze the illusive Somali political reality and its multi-faceted and multi-dimensional arena. Actually, I have pursued the concept of territoriality, perhaps for the lack of a better word, which combines “segmentation”, which is the organic aspect, with the geographic or mechanical element of the disintegration phenomenon. It means that each segment of a clan group has kinship right claim to a territory. I have presented a number of unpublished papers on the concept of “territoriality” both at the Somali studies Association Conferences, in the early nineties, and to the African Studies Association, in the year 2000.

 

Territoriality suggests that upon the commencement of the civil war in Somalia, the population in major population centers, which could be considered cosmopolitan in terms of clan composition, returned to their original homesteads as segments prevailing in those location took control, usually with a varied degree of hostility to their guests from other parts of Somalia. Thus, Mogadishu had naturally and easily fallen into the hands of the ****** clan, where they drove out all but people of their own sub-lineages. However, clan politics driven by warlords and the civilian political clan elite took its toll to split up the ****** community into its traditional segments. Hostilities heightened through the years and leeriness and suspicion between the sub-clans took the place of the hoped for political cohesion and solidarity. This phenomenon is by no means particular to the ******. It is observable throughout Somalia. What makes the conflict in Mogadishu so towering over those in other parts is the political value assigned to its control by warring factions and clans—given its political symbol as the Capital of Somalia.

 

Full Essay