Mass Formation in Hargeisa Drives the Civil War in North Somalia

[Deeq A.]

Warlord: Somali President Muse Bihi Abdi reiterates the false narrative that Somaliland is a republic.

Berbera (Comment ) — In Hargeisa yesterday crowds of people took to the streets. The demonstration was televised on Somaliland television. The hatred spewed by the young demonstrators was made worse by lady Edna Adan Ismail, who donned military fatigues and promised to go to the battlefield.

Last Friday, forces defending Laascaanood ended a six-month siege of the district by Somaliland forces that shelled residential areas and caused deaths and destruction. Mass formation can explain the tragic turn of events in Hargeisa where the secessionist leaders and their supporters believe in the false narrative that Somaliland is a republic.

Mattias Desmet, the author of The Psychology of Totalitarianism, a book that popularised ‘mass formation’.

Mattias Desmet, a clinical psychologist at Ghent University, theorised that mass formation happens when social bonds break down and even the most intelligent people accept a narrative to a point of not tolerating alternative viewpoints, an attitude that leads to murder of people who oppose the narrative.

The silence of Hargeisa notables provides the validity for of the Professor Desmet’s theory. Somalia is a country that has yet to recover from the traumatic state collapse during 1990s when heavily armed militias dispossessed fellow citizens and resulted in the historic famine of 1992. The mass formation has been prevalent in Somalia albeit in different degrees of severity. Mass formation even overwhelms Islamic precepts about the sanctity of human life and property rights in Somalia.

The International Community, particularly UNSOM, downplays the impact of the conflict in North Somalia by not addressing the secession narrative driving the conflict. The Federal Government of Somalia must challenge the claim of Somaliland that its militias “are fighting terrorists in Laascaanood and that Somaliland is securing a now-defunct colonial border between the ex-British Somaliland and ex-Italian Somaliland”.

It is time to rein in Somaliland political leaders behind this episode of mass formation before total close of social bond leads to pogroms in North Somalia.

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