Mazrui’s visit to Somaliland His Call for Somalistan Nation!

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Mazrui’s visit to Somaliland & His Call for Somalistan Nation!

Faisal Roble

July 15nd, 2006

(Wardheernews)

 

So far, we knew only names like Iqbal, Pham, Matt Brayden and others who write and feverishly lobby in favor of “Somaliland†and its never-ending pursuit for illusive recognition of statehood. Most of these self-aggrandizing lobbyists don’t have the right credentials to do the job. These are neither students of African studies nor specialists on Somalia. They often play on the fear of Westerners visa-vi Islam (see Yasin Ali’s level-headed rebuttal to Mr. Peter Pham’s hyperbolic piece, Wardheernews, July, 13, 2006).

 

The “Somaliland†issue and its impractical secession has become a cottage industry for hitherto unknown individuals. There is no doubt that some of them are retained with consultants’ fee. To borrow a description Cadde Muse of Puntland recently used to describe his own oil consultants and contractors for oil exploration in Puntland, Dr. Pham and his elks are the “Jirri†(scum) of the lobbyist community scavenging on the failed Somalia state.

 

But, Professor Mazrui is a top-notch African Studies Scholar and his position on the case of Somalia can’t be ignored. As such, his visit to the breakaway region of northern Somalia (“Somalilandâ€), March 21 to 23, and his subsequent endorsement mean much in some circles. It may not matter much in terms of immediate recognition for the breakaway region. It says a lot, though, about the passion for sectarian politics in the Diaspora community, especially the secessionist wing. Lobbyists for secession have remarkably done well so far and succeeded to plunge Mazrui into Somalia’s muddy situation.

 

The Pan Africanist Mazrui

 

Professor Mazrui has close affinity with Somalia and many Somalis. He hails from the disenfranchised Swahili speaking people of the coast of East Africa, particularly those in Kenya. As such, his community’s cultural similarities with Southern Somalia' s Bajun, Barwani and other Somalo-Bantu communities run deep.

 

In a rare and short encounter with him at the 1991 African Studies Association (ASA) conference, in Baltimore, Maryland, Mazrui spent a considerable time with us (a group of Somalis). I recall him telling the group the extent to which the Swahili speaking coastal communities in East Africa, including his family, enjoyed for years listening to Asha Abdo's songs in Swahili aired on Radio Mogadishu in the early 1960s. Asha Abdo is a Somali singer who was hired by Radio Mogadishu’s Swahili branch. He recalled the nickname "Malikiya," the queen of songs that is, as she is popularly known among East Africa’s coastal communities. In that encounter, Mazrui did strike a chord with us by the story of “Maliaka†– i.e., our linkage with him and his community.

 

In that encounter, Mazrui never missed an opportunity to praise the Somali people, appreciate their tenacity in the face of merciless colonial rules and their awareness of their culture. He also noted his visits to Somalia when he was drafting his most celebrated book “The Africans, a Triple Heritage.†In it, Mazrui seems to endorse Somali nationalism. He enthusiastically talks about the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF) forces and gives them favorable coverage on their offenses against the Ethiopian forces; he pays homage to the Somali women and her participation in the national army. In his other book, “Cultural Forces in World Civilization,†he refers to Hawo Tako as “Somalia’s version of “Joan of Arc.†Hawo Tako was a remarkable woman who had played in the Somalia struggle for independence a similar role that Jamila played in Algeria’s fierce war of independence against France.

 

In the span of 30 or more years, Ali Mazrui has given us a huge body of scholarly work on pan African themes. To appreciate Mazrui’s earlier commitment to Pan Africanism and his recent revisionist position on Somalia’s territorial integrity, one needs to review some of his earlier works.

 

One of Mazrui’s earlier books and his only political fiction “The Trial of Christopher Akigbo,†was fittingly based on Biafra’s war of secession that threatened the existence of the largest and most populous African nation, Nigeria. Ironically, I was encouraged to read this book at UCLA by an older friend (the late Mohamed Abdillalhi Farah, Xasharo, who hails from Borama, northern Somalia, and prematurely died as a staunch unionist in 2002 in Mogadishu).

 

In “The Trial of Christopher Akigbo,†putting aside the sex and romance, which the author flirts with, Mazrui sets up an imaginary court trial of “after-Africa.†In After-Africa, poet Akigbo is accused of betraying the ideals of the people. Presided by the likes of Kwame Nkaruma, Amilcal Capral, Gamal Abdul Nasir, and the forefathers of pan-African nationalism. Mr. Akigbo is charged of a serious seditious crime: The crime committed by a pan-African poet who had abandoned his high ideals in favor of championing the cause of primordial tribal cause. He is given the chance to explain to the court why he chose, at such a critical moment in the nation’s history, Biafra over art and Nigeria, or between being an Igbo over an African artist. Mazrui puts poet Akigbo in the middle of contradicting tides of globalism vs. parochialism, humanism vs. clanism.

 

This early work of Ali Mazrui was followed by several pan-African works, primarily aimed at explaining to the West the African condition, its uniqueness and the murky cultures of tribalism versus nationalism. In his book “The African Condition,†which resulted from a serious of lectures that Mazrui gave to several universities in England, he discusses and educates us on the complexity of Africa, its ambitions and all the insecurities that surround its polities. That complexity is something that Mazrui conveniently brushes aside when he decided to endorse a meaningless secession of northern Somalia.

 

Consider this: In Chapter five of his book, “The African Condition,†Mazrui polemically describes Africa’s cleavages along ethnic, linguistic, religious, and political lines. He blames the British Indirect Rule in Africa for preserving differences and ultimate fragmentation of African societies.

 

However, in his recent speech to the joint houses of Somaliland and to the students at Hargeysa University, Mazrui urged Somaliland leaders to use the Common Wealth Association as a conduit venue to getting British recognition of their secessionist region. In layman’s terms, Mazrui is advising them to play Britain’s colonial patronage since this association is a protégée of England. Mazrui’s contemporary view of yesterday’s forces of evil (colonial rulers) seem to have been reversed as today’s agents of good deeds. He seems to advocate that Britain could be the force of deliverance to the people of “Somaliland.â€

 

Only through “transcending fragmentation will Africa increase her capacity for self-development and self-pacification,†wrote Mazrui in the “African Condition.†But, why is he pushing Somalia’s fragmentation is untenable. Is he conveniently forgetting that by fragmenting the Somali society, each side will surely be weaker than when they are united?

 

To wit, would Mazrui apply the same rule to his own Sawahil-speaking minority if Kenya were to take an unfortunate road similar to that of Somalia, or would he work hard to not advocate fragmentation? We have to wait for Kenya’s turn of events to find that out.

 

This is not the first time Mazrui advocated radical ideas that are in total contravention to the national interest of Somalis. In a less known piece that Mr. Mazrui published on the Economist Newsmagazine some time around 1994, when he was a member of the Committee of Eminent African elders, Mazrui directly undermined and sacrificed Somalia and its national interest in his search for a grandiose ideas. In that piece, Mr. Mazrui had advised that Africa be broken into five regions with five power centers. (These powers would be Ethiopia in the east, Nigeria in the west, Egypt in the north, Zaire in the center (Congo) and South Africa in the south.)

 

He recommended that Ethiopia, as regional power, would over see Somalia and Djibouti (another Somali-speaking inhabited region). In which case, Somalia’s both security matters and resources, to mention three of the original greater Somalia, would be under the jurisdiction of Ethiopia. Here in the interest of promoting pan-African unity, he proposes to empower Ethiopia. But, when it comes to Somalia’s territorial integrity, he plays deaf to the cry of the millions of Somalis who still want their country be protected from warlords and radical sectarian politicians. The manner in which he promotes African unity, on the one hand, and Somalia’s disunity, on the other hand, is a typical Mazruian contradiction, which often his critics on the left would like to highlight.

 

Mazrui has once rhetorically called Western countries’ unconditional support for Israel and Apartheid South Africa their condemnation of PLO and ANC as terrorists as double standard. Can one assume that Mazrui’s call for the dismemberment of the Somali nation state (basically a nation with one language, culture and history, not to mention an unprecedented intermarriage among its clans) and his relentless promotion of regional integration and pan-African unity a double standard?

 

Why is Mazrui, who has been a champion of Somali cause, now talking like a post-colonial scholar by endorsing two Somalia, especially when only one clan in the north unilaterally declared secession, despite that such a move is universally opposed by other major clans in the region? Is he doing this because Somalia had bad leadership, both during and after Barre? We may never know his reasons, but the damage is done.

 

Mazrui has many critics from the left as being simplistic and grandiose in his analysis. His recent endorsement of the Somaliland secession would definitely increase the pool of his critics.

 

Alternative to Mazrui’s Revisionism

 

Compare Mazrui’s uncritical and revisionist endorsement of secession within the Africa that is already “fragmented by colonialism to that of his peer’s assessment of African tribal problems, Wole Soyinka*, Africa’s living and only Nobel laureate in literature. In his small but instructive book, “Africa, an Open Sore.†Mr. Soyinka critically evaluates the hardship, which is created by Africa’s meaningless and artificially imposed boundaries. He equates our ethnic problems to an open sore that refuses to heal. He details the meaningless banana republics and the looming civil war around border areas.

 

Unlike Mazrui, Soyinka does not appeal to our former colonial foes, lest they are the ones who left us this painful inheritance of fragmentation and perpetual violence. Neither does he prematurely jump on the easy solution of fragmenting our fragile communities.

 

With great reflections and circumspection, Mr. Soyinka highlights the depth and magnitude of Africa’s divided societies along borderlines and begs for caution. He challenges Africa’s intellectual community to study this problem in light of uniting, not dividing, those communities who have been hurt in the fragmentation which the continent inherited from it colonial foes.

 

Soyinka’s assessment of the African Sore and artificially divided ethnic communities in Africa reads as if he has the Somalis in mind when he describes the pain of divided African societies.

 

In Marzrui’s recent endorsement, we have seen a revisionist scholar with diminishing originality. Albeit, asking half of Somalia to rename itself as Somalistan is a clear indication of Mazrui’s tradition of polemics and uncritical approach to complex issues. What would follow Somalistan in Mazrui’s opinion? Swahilistan, Fulanistan, Hausastan, and hence the balkanization of Africa in religious terms would go on. In Soyinka, we have a noble laureate who invokes critical approach to our pain with the hope of fostering a meaningful unity.

 

Unfortunately, Mazrui chooses the easy route out by endorsing a meaningless secession which would end up fragmenting a Somali society that has already been hurt by artificial multiple borders. Worse, Mazrui shows us an ugly side of realpolitc and instructs the leadership of northern Somalia to seek recognition by appealing to its former colonial masters. Mazrui’s endorsement of the secession of Somaliland could undo his over 30 years of paper trail that mainly promoted pan African themes. But what is more unforgivable is his recommendation to rename half of Somalia as “Somalistan.†One wonder if he would equally rename, say a seceding Sawahil speaking regions of Kenya as “Sawahilstan!†The religious undercurrent in Mazrui’s recommendation to rename the region, as “Somalistan,†is somewhat unsettling. Somaliland has already changed the old secular Somali flag into a Saudi-Arabia-like flag with expressive “Wahabist†emblem.

 

Did Mazrui take the time to talk to Sonyinka’s own friend and Africa’s next potential Nobel winner, Nuradin Farah, who is both a Somali and a noted Africanist to get more of a dose of the clan complexity surrounding the secession issue in Norther Somalia? Not quite so. If he did so, he could have undoubtedly learnt few inside stories about the complexities of the Somali society and the danger of “fragmenting†Somalia further into enclaves.

 

* Soyinka and Mazrui are long time adversaries. In a recent poignantly written op-ed piece, Soyink accuses Mazrui of arrogance and “only-me†attitude. He cites how Mazrui tries to totally discredit the highly acclaimed work of Henry Lewis Gates’ African series on the BBC. I believe most Somalis find comfort in Soyinka and contradictions and confusion in the new Mazrui.

 

Faisal A. Roble

E- Mail:Fabroble@aol.com