What is Peace?

[Archdemos]

Very old piece on peace and state theory in the Somali context. As you can tell i was very much an outsider.

 

 

 

What is Peace?

 

When you are seeking peace, send for the old and the learned but if they fail you the spear point becomes a necessity.

 

Somali Proverb

 

 

 

Peace in its most myopic definition usually encompasses the absence of external belligerence. However the nature of peace and the favourable conditions for its emergence are often ignored. A prerequisite for the existence of peace include notions such as human rights, democracy and the concept of justice. Robust mechanisms for conflict resolution and greater dispersal of power or democratisation are also included in the modern notion of peace and its nature. This is repeated when Albert Einstein was quoted as saying;

 

“Peace is not merely the absence of war but the presence of justice, of law, of order--in short, of government.”

 

However acceptable the above quote may sound it still doesn’t deal with the alternative to peace that of war. One cannot talk about notions of peace without first acknowledging the alternative. It can be said that the history of man is a history of military struggle. Without focusing too much on the horrors of war, one can safely say that it provides for expressions of courage, heroism and loyalty. War is also known to change the social status of groups within society and even be act catalyst for greater democratisation. An example is that of the civil rights movement in America post Second World War. African American soldiers pioneered the integration within the US military, which ultimately lead to landmark decisions such as that of Brown Vs Board of Education in 1954. Another accepted definition of peace that implicitly supports Einstein’s statement is that of Reardon when she is quoted as saying peace is;

 

“the absence of violence in all its forms --physical, social, psychological, and structural”.

 

The above quote once again fails to deal with the elements that constitute a peace. By focusing on the absence of violence one cannot effectively understand the nature of peace. Only by focusing on the reason people go to war, their aims and goals can one realistically hope to discover the condition for peace. Enlightenment philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes defined peace as a;

 

“period when war was neither imminent nor actually being fought.”

 

However Michael Howard criticises this definition as not being comprehensive. He categorises this as a negative peace, a peace that people can be thankful for and possibly the greatest that can be attained. Moreover this view was widely held from the early enlightenment period onwards to the 19th century when the Prussian military strategist Carl Von Clausewitz claimed that “to secure peace is to prepare for war.”

Others such as Immanuel Kant imagined a world in which peace ensured an international order in which war was no longer the primary instrument of nations. He envisaged a world in which every nation was a republican. On this point he is quoted as saying;

 

“republicanism is the original foundation of all forms of civil constitution. Thus, the only question remaining is this, does it also provide the only foundation for perpetual peace.”

 

For Kant like many of his predecessors he believed that the state of nature for man was one of perpetual war, Kant is similar in this respect to Hobbes. The result of this is that a state of peace must be created for the suspension of hostilities does not guarantee the security of peace, unless reciprocated by a neighbour (state). Only then with ideals of republicanism can the aspiration of a perpetual peace be established. It can be said that Kant is the father of the modern theory of peace in the international arena. For Kant a republican constitution incorporated the democratic control of the means to wage war. This notion is further reflected with the saying that democracies do not go to war with one another.

 

Moreover today the notion of a positive peace is more usually associated with a social ordering of society that is generally considered as just. The creations of such an order Howard claims can take generations and they can be easily destroyed by social dynamics. In the Somali context this was achieved through the traditional system of Xeer (pronounced hair). This is a distinct social structure that derives from kinship. It includes a system of ethical standards and regulations that are adaptive to the pastoral ways of the Somalis. This uncodified constitution is loosely customary to all of the Samaale (see appendix A) bloodline. They are categorised by their pastoral way of life compared to the settled Saab clans that are agriculturalist. It must be noted that the vast majority of Somalis belong to the ‘noble’ Samaale clan. The Xeer itself merges customary law with that of Sharia (Islamic law). It is in fact a social contract that forms the rights, communal responsibilities and sanctions for those that go outside the social norms of collective responsibility. Tribal warfare has flared throughout Somali history but the use of the Xeer system of arbitration has ensured rights of citizens within society whether they are part of a larger clan or as an individual, and it this missing link as a result of the Italian system of colonialism that has kept southern Somalia from following the example of Somaliland in its incorporation of Xeer as primary tool for conflict resolution.

Moreover the Xeer constitutes a social contract in that peace is determined by a process of dialogue between tribes, clans and sub clans. Therefore peace is based on a subsequent balance of powers and involves patterns of cooperation. Moreover peace in this context is undermined when there is gap between expectation and power.

 

 

State Theory

 

“A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture.”

 

Joseph Stalin 1913

 

 

Stalin’s theory on what makes a nation people is centred on three things, namely a shared common language, territory, economic life and a common culture. This he argues constitutes a nation. However it can also be argued that Somalis are the one of the most homogenous groups in Africa. They share a common language Somali, they inhabit specific lands that are in modern day Somalia, Ethiopia and they share an economic life in that the majority are pastoralists. The pastoralist Somalis being descendant of Samaale means that they share a common culture which is interpreted through the Xeer and poetry. The combination of Islam and Xeer ensures a loosely uniform custom is encompassed amongst most of the pastoral tribes and this constitutes a common culture. However Stalin qualifies his statement by stating that ‘the nation is ‘not racial or tribal’. It’s a definite community of people that are stable, therefore this leads to a paradox in that Somalis by his definition do constitute a nation but because they are also tribal they do not effectively constitute a nation people. However Stalin’s theory is backed up by Ernest Gellner when he is quoted as saying;

 

“There has to be a standard language to replace all of the local dialects…society therefore needs a homogenous culture in which people have to be inducted.”

 

What Gellner is highlighting here is not what constitutes a nation in the sense Stalin emphasised before but what can make nationalism work. The example Gellner goes on to cite is that of earlier ‘agro literate’ societies, he argues that these societies weren’t cohesive in that nationalism wasn’t diffused. This task was undertaken by certain groups such as religious or class institutions. However in the modern context he argues that it is imperative for a nation state to diffuse a ‘national character’ by state organisations. The result of this is that homogeneity defines a modern nation state in that it appears on the surface as nationalism.

 

However one can argue that Somalia underwent its own form of state sponsored nationalism. During the 1970’s the traditional system of Xeer was outlawed in an attempt to stamp out tribalism. The national language Somali was officially changed from the Osmanya script (1961) to its current incarnation in the Latin script form (Af Soomaali 1972). This was an attempt to foster a feeling of nationalism in an already homogenous society. These changes occurred under the leadership of Gen Mohamed Siad Barre in what he called Scientific Socialism, a term borrowed from Friederich Engels. However the resilience of clan identity and tribalism continued to survive during this era of purges. Nevertheless Gellner’s theory that nationalism needs a ‘high culture’ to permeate throughout society is not necessarily workable in the Somalis context. One needs to ask the question what is a high culture in a pastoral society. The *****, ****** and ****** all claim noble ancestry. Each one also had their own sultanates or ruling families, which acts as a link between the various sub-clans. Once more this collective identity falls within the realm of the traditional Xeer system. The result of this is that the Somalis are anarchic by nature in that it is very difficult for a national character or consciousness to take hold due to their clannish nature. The diffusion of power throughout society also makes them especially democratic in that the abscense of a central authority in the conventional sense leads to tribal congresses (shiir) resolving disagreements by consent.

[Archdemos]

Furthermore Gellner’s theory of nationalism is firmly rooted in the context of industrial societies. It doesn’t explain the emergence of nationalism in pre industrial societies. The national sentiment in Somalia was maintained and perpetrated by the political and military arms of government rather than the economic and industrial base of the country. If Gellner’s definition of nationalism and the modern concept of the nation states aren’t sufficient then Buzan gives a more comprehensive definition of the state. Similarly to the Weberrian concept of the state Buzan argues that any state has a triad of components;

 

“the idea of the state, the physical base of the state and the institutional impression of the state.”

 

This definition is useful in that it can be used to define the Somali case in that the State did exist and have a physical base, there was an institutional impression of the state drive by the theory of Hanti wadaagga ilmi ku disan (scientific socialism) and this disintegrated during the 1980’s. It is important to bear in mind that it was the Somali people who brought the state into life. This was done because the people existed prior to the state. It was also the Somali people’s will that brought these three components of the state into collapse. The idea, physical base and the institutional impression of the state all disintegrated. Nevertheless the question of state collapse in Somalia is looked at simplistically by regional experts. State collapse is reflective of wider dynamics at play within society such as the myth surrounding the origins of the Somalis (mixture of Arab and African ancestry). The state collapse of 1991 revealed the crisis within Somali political and social identity. There was an immense breakdown of what little national consciousness there was and the old tribal and clannish systems prevailed. This leaves the question that did the Somalis evolve from a state of statelessness to statehood, and back to statelessness again. The fact that Somalis are clannish and power is devolved to the tribal level coupled with the fact that there has never been a history of a Somali state in the minds of ordinary Somalis. Therefore any attempts that aim to ‘reconstitute’ the state from peace settlements using the so-called 4.5 formula are automatically at a handicap due to the fact that there is no history prior to the 30years dictatorship of a Somali national consciousness. The following chapters will highlight the early medieval history of Somalia all the way up to the advent of colonialism and the infancy of statehood.

[Paragon]

Peace is the interval between painful experiences.

[Cambuulo iyo bun]

peace is when people live in harmony