Clan Consciousness Disorder

[Coloow]

From Wardheernews

 

Clan Consciousness Disorder

Dole Muktar

April 22, 2005

 

The history of clan is one that's full of love, hate, loyalty, killings, revenge and utter destruction. It is one that has left the individual self (shaqsiguu) lost in the darkest chamber of clan sickness. I hold the opinion that, clannish behaviors contributed to the creation of unhealthy and unreasonable human being. It's very important to understand that the individual self is one that has developmental process. The individual develops in the clan. The clan and the self co-exist. The self lives within the clan and the clan exist within the self, in other word the clan will not exist without the individual.

 

However, the individual self and the clannish behavior have often been in constant opposition, sometimes consciously but mostly unconscious and submerged. The individual self often tries to launch an internal fight against clannish behaviors, but with less needed boldness and often these attempts dies unrewarded and unrecognized. These very unrecognized and unrewarded fights within the self eventually create two things;

 

 

First, it creates a blindly uncritical self loaded with extreme loyalty to the clan whether good or bad.

 

 

Secondly, the above condition of the self leads to the common ruins of the contending classes. This finally leads to the ultimate destruction of all.

 

George Herbert Mead, a great thinker, armed with the concept of the “Self†pointed out something very interesting. He suggested that “the self {Ruxaa or shaqsigu} is something which has a development; it is not initially there at birth, but arises in the process of social experience and activity, that is, {the individual self} develops…in relations to that process as a whole and to other individuals within that process.â€

 

The Somali individual developed within the complex process of the clan; a process which has no provable universal practicality to heel its short comings. The individual self is forced to develop within the circles of the clan. These very conditions demanded the self to be conscious and loyal to the expectation of the clan. The social experiences of the clan dictates to the individual self the idea of belongingness and the understood set of expectation of the clan. These set of expectations may sometimes be unfair to the individual or rather the other contending classes. Nevertheless it affects the behavior of the self tremendously and ultimately the community at large. The individual self is bind in an illusionist contract he or she hardily got any chance to consent to or agree with. It's innately imposed on the self during the course of social interactions with the clan members. You are expected to be loyal, the defender of the clan for better or worse. The clan comes before the individual's needs, yet no one is holding gun to the self. The self just conforms to the innate rules of the clan.

 

After the self is long exposed to such poisonous processes the individual self ends up reasoning along the clan lines. Once infected the clannish attributes may not be strange to the individual self any more, even when the action seem foolish according to the assessment of the same individual. The same individual self may shy off from embarrassing practices outside the clan comfort zone; Practices which may be welcomed by the clannish atmosphere. This is so because, the social experience of the individual self developed within the mainstream of the clan. Take for example those Somali individuals brought up within the clan and those brought up outside the clan influences. I suspect they have different developmental behaviors. I suspect that most individuals who were brought up in clan influenced environments are more likely to suffer from clan consciousness disorder than those brought up in urban household.

 

I don't think the individual self knows much about this disorder neither do we have enough research out their to deal with these menace but I strongly suspect that this vicious disorder agreeably exists in all tribal based communities. The sad beauty about Clan Consciousness disorder is that it doesn't favor any clan over the other. It paradoxically also don't directly affect the clan as an entity. It rather affects the individual self. It incubates in the heart and the mind of the self. It equally destroys everyone and everywhere it affects. It destroys those values that make the self humane. It is a stealth psychological menace that has no boundary. Regardless of which clan or tribe the individual belongs, the effect of Clan Consciousness disorder spreads across the spectrum. Like any other disorder it doesn't discriminate its victims. In the case of the Somalis, everyone is one way or the other affected by this disorder both young and old.

 

It s very important to remember that Clan struggle left no single clan free from sufferings. The Somali people suffered despicably. So, it is just more than concern to ask: How did this happen to us? And the most urgently how might it end? Or to just put it simple is it possible to have the Somali people realizes that Clan Consciousness disorder reaped apart everything we held so dearly and that we may need therapy of some sort. Well, reasons has that if we don't do something about it, we will self-destruct ourselves and become ancient and join the ranks of Timbuktu as was nicely stated by Faisal Roble city planner L.A, in his magnificent article. The Clan system in Somalia developed quickly into a regular institution. The clan system has evolved over time to a point where it proved harmful and dangerous to the people. The negatives acts of clan Consciousness Disorder violated every tenet of humanity by deceptively tailoring itself into the hearts and the minds of its victims. It poisoned every healthy capillary of the living self. Its devastation is written all over the faces of the Somali masses. Basically no one is safe from clan consciousness disorder. It's therefore collectively the responsibility of the people affected by these forces to act.

 

But, again we may not be able to act if we don't understand the stealth nature of the forces of clan consciousness disorder. If we are to ever survive from this disorder we must stop relating and judging every little incident along the clan line. We have to look critical whether it's worth to hate and categorize people. We must recognize that we are not independent in our clannish actions. We need to realize that unless the sick is diagnosed by a physician he or she may never know the symptoms of the disease he or she is suffering from. For example if people didn't know malaria is caused by mosquitoes, people may never have cleared the swampy bush around their villages and that they may be dieing from the disease. Like wise we may never know we are sick unless we acknowledge that we are suffering from clan consciousness disorder especially when we hate and categorize people. I think we are being deceived by this terrible disorder. If we ought to know how these manifestation works, how it dupes us to hate, divide and sub-divide we ought to look back in our past. There are nothing much to be proud of. Things are messy even today yet we still have no answers.

 

I strongly argue the case that many of us are indeed infected and not in control over our actions. This clan consciousness disorder dictates our actions because it took a great role in our development. That is why when the individual is infected with clan consciousness disorder his original self gets distorted. The individual unconsciously develops both extreme loyalty to those he or she temporarily associate with and an extreme hate for those he or she disassociate with. Reasoning is merely subdued. The hateful factor is the most dangerous. It has a very poisonous element which negatively commands the self to extremely hate those categorized to exist outside the loyalty ring. With this develops inexpressible feelings; one that incites the person to divide and farther categorize.

 

Often sometime it's understood that when the group is too small to even divide, these very hateful forces deceive the individual to farther subdivide. This is where we find the development of the sub clans, sub tribes and even sub-families. Sometimes it snow blows to the family level. We have many living examples among the Somalis. For instance one can find brothers of the same father or sisters of the same father hating each other simply because they have different mothers or plainly stating, differences that are very complicated and unexplainable even to the same individuals involved. Individuals in these kinds of scenarios often say that they feel strong hate towards their opponents but cannot effectively substantiate why they feel this hate. I chose to call this hate, “Clan Consciousness disorder.†These very forces push calls for division in the family level. Sad to say but the individual self unconsciously responds to these false calls. I find these symptoms rather reasonable and may lead us to the very heart of the way to understand what we are dealing with.

 

The Clan conscious disorder and its forces sedate the self. It destroys the independent mind of the self. This terrible disorder paralyses the original family loving, clan loving, land loving and people loving self and replaces it with something else. Something we know very little about except the strange symptoms we have been observing.

 

The bad news however, is that this disorder is hereditary. The more it's left to live and flourish in the family or in the community at large the more complicated it gets. The more the father passes it over to his children the more it farther sub-divides the family. Eventually it weakens all social, political and economical infrastructure of the family or community. It attacks the central pillars of the family. Finally the family collapses. Currently the forces of this disorder proved to over power family love, clan loyalty, Somalinimo (nationalism), religion and customary (Xeer). Clan struggle have turned out to be the untreatable cancer in the Somali society.

 

Its' very important for us to analyze these symptoms, make something out of it, understand and bring them to the light before it completely destroy us. Only then can we have the capacity to fully understand and be able to recommend remedies over the forces of this disorder. But again one may ask why I belief that clan consciousness disorder is such a terrible disease? Well, because I hold the belief that it is what deceives the healthy self and drives the individual to divide and categorize people. It should be normal to love ones own family, Country, customary, neighbors and above all one should be holding humanity high.

 

Sometimes I wished I had easy answers. The simple truth is that there are no simple answers. Again I don't want my generation to pass this terrible disorder to the next generation. I don't want to choose to hate instead I want to fight this evil disorder that is preventing the self to act responsibly. From my observation I have no doubt in my mind that something is preventing the self to love his or her family, Country, customary and religion. The self is not in control of himself or herself. I suggest we use other successful people as a mirror take a deep look at ourselves and borrow if we have to and be pragmatic about life. My father once said to me “if your culture decays, drop it.†I wonder if he had a point.

 

One observation that really surprised me in my research was the fact that our beloved elites who were to be the beckon of hope were actually manipulating the disorder and self serving their egos and in the process they were too deceived by the disorder. The clannish sickness corrupted the elite and the educated individuals. Most of them thought they understood and could actually use the disorder for their own benefit; they decided to cash on it. They have discovered the power in it, the power to control the infected poor people of their clan. But what actually happened was that the elite also got deceived by the disorder.

 

What the elite didn't know was that this disorder has properties that adapt, change and re-manipulate the self. It made the elites become self-centered individuals who only seek to quench personal thirst for his or her selfish needs. So they go ahead and release their frustrations by inciting their clans' men. For instance if an educated person from clan “A†fails to meet the qualifications of an important job position and a slightly more qualified person gets the job from clan “B†the elite from clan A takes things to the next level. I will actually argue that from this point on ward the elite are acting out of hate and no longer independent in their actions. The educated person from A gathers his weapons to fight back even when he or she very well knows that the other person by merit was more qualified and deserved the job. This is now what I call back firing manipulation. The manipulator becomes manipulated and eventually no one is safe. After the elites infect the poor with higher dose of highly negative clannish incitements, the disorder tremendously flourishes causing absolute anarchy. In the end, everyone loses.

 

Now must we deal with the destructive nature of Clan Conscious disorder; a disorder that still continues to claim many lives and property? I believe we have no choice. Any society that allows complete uncontrolled clan influences in the development of the self will most likely be plagued with Clan Conscious disorder. I hold the view that everything that has a beginning must have an end. This very optimist notion kept me thinking and at the same time hopeful.

 

That's why I want to specifically challenge our young psychologist majors and professional alike to further investigate this subject and hopefully conduct a serious research if possible. Like I said earlier I wished I had easy answers. I think the fact that I identified my clannish feelings as a possible ingredient for a disorder kept me on the alert to watch myself against my own actions. So far it kept me out of troubles. I hope it will work for you too.

 

 

 

Dole Muktar

[Sky]

whats up with wardheernews these days. its like the new website everybody is talking about. great articles like this one right here. i heard about the guys behind this website. of what ive heard, this website has a great future in being an unbiased and proactive medium for the somali ppl.