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[Wadani]

Somalia: Censoring Islamist, Sanitazing Warlords

By Aden Sh. Hassan

March 31 2012

In the contemporary global politics, where mendacity reigns supreme, the truth is easily reduced into a mere variable of falsehood. Misdiagnosis becomes the rule rather than the exception, bogeymen are invented left, right and center, and franchised meta-narratives are employed with reckless abandon to simplify complex socio-political phenomena.

 

Political Islam is an all-season fall guy; a punching bag for all and sundry. It is the bane of Asia and the blight of Africa; the plague of the past and pestilence of the future. The hydra-headed monster, whose tentacles slither east and west with reptilian callousness. The menace that must be confronted with occidental asperity and oriental iciness.

 

With the abundance of Salafist torpedoes across the Islamic world, tactless and bungling, political Islam is bound to raise a storm of negativity. A cocktail of anarchist-Takfiri entities like Al Qaeda, Al Shabaab and the plethora of Lashkars across the Indian subcontinent ensure wicked tags like ‘Islamo-fascism’ are over-consumed without anyone suffering bloat. To the hordes of Islam bashers, including many so-called liberal Muslims, there really is not much difference between Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. Or the Somali Islaah and Al Shabaab. They are all political Islamists; toxic and singularly undesirable.

 

And that is where the danger lies. We are deliberately misdiagnosing our problem.

 

In terminally-ill Somalia, political Islam seems to have been burdened not only with its own hefty cross, but also the crosses of all the warlords, murderous tribal chieftains, rogue militias and meddling outsiders who instigated the Somali implosion and abetted its intractability. The lamentable advent of Al Shabaab and their predisposition to evoke public disgust seems to be inculcating an adverse distaste for political Islam. Suddenly, Somalis seem to be inching, rather subconsciously, towards the conviction that these ‘wadaaddo’ should remain in their dugsis and mosques, and should not dabble in the sophisticated, but decidedly secular, science (or art) of politics.

 

Suddenly, as a result of Al Shabaab’s nefariousness, their Islamist predecessors in the Somali politics, like the Islamic Courts Union and Al Ittihad of the early 1990s, are roundly condemned as trailblazers of Islamized madness. Most of these criticisms are not about what wrongs those Islamic movements committed – and there is a lengthy catalog. Instead, there is an unnerving notion that Islam should never have been politicized; that those groups should never have ventured into politics in the first place; that it was primarily inappropriate for them to have sought the instruments of power and its facilities.

 

In the span of just a few years, Somalia’s central problem seems to have been crystallized into Islamism. All the internecine clan chaos has been forgotten. The tribal deities, and the incendiary mentality that nurtured them, are being sugar-coated right before our eyes. We have somehow forgotten about the warlords, the vampires who have been sucking Somali blood for all those years. The blame-game has now reached a fever pitch crescendo, and the Islamists represent evil - its alpha and omega. All that went wrong in Somalia is recklessly being attributed to Islamic radicalism.

 

The centrality of tribal warlordism is being mendaciously ‘sexed-up’, and Al Shabaab, who only appeared the other day, are seen as the metaphor of evil. The former have their misdeeds sanitized, some even branded ‘patriots’ who meant well but erred a little, while the latter are portrayed as the epitome of evil, the ultimate threat to nationhood. But that is not the point.

 

Political Islam is not inherently wrong

 

The point is that there is this pervasive notion of presenting this band of fanatics as the true representation of Political Islam, culminating in the logical progression that Islamized politics is somehow perverted.

 

It is imperative that we combat this Eurocentric subterfuge that political Islam is, per se, wrong because religion is incompatible with governance. Islam, as a colossal ideological edifice, is a reference point for a wide range of political, economic and social schools of thought. Just like every other ideology, it has its lunatic fringe and its moderate cultures, each with its own continuum of shades, flavors and varieties. Therefore, it is unconscionable that political Islam gets demonized simply because of its lunatic fringe like Shabaab or Taliban. If it is right for racists, clan warlords and ethnic chauvinists to exercise their political aspirations under liberal or socialist banners, why is it wrong for a Salafist or an Ikhwani to do so under an Islamic philosophy? We need to be very careful, lest we swallow wholesale the deceptive and hypocritical nostrum that religion cannot be politicized. If someone’s religion cannot breed political theory and practice, ours can and no one should tell us otherwise.

 

Of course the violent radicalism espoused by Al Shabaab is a potent threat, but we must fight it our own way, without getting ensnared in some alien booby-trap.

 

Channeling the blame

 

And, anyway, even if –for argument’s sake- we take it for granted that AL Shabaab is the only representation of political Islam in Somalia, is it the nation’s only problem?

 

Somalia has been pulverized and plundered by tribal warmongers, with neither religion nor ideology; a class of Mephistophelean profiteers who viewed the world through the nozzle of the rusty bazookas in the hands of their wiry, drug-addicted ********. For two decades, with unlimited help from their obsequious clans, they bludgeoned the Somali spirit into utter submission. They raped its women, starved its children, burnt its trees and auctioned off its seas. They killed without compunction, with stray and straight bullets and bombs. They mined the farmland and bombed the refugee shelters.

 

For generations, Somali clans and sub-clans were no more than a conveyor belt that produced one savage killing machine after another. No sooner had one been neutralized by the elements than the tribal academy brought forth a brand new criminal, as base as his predecessor, but probably more agile and adept at engineering atrocities. These are the demons that defiled Somalia’s dignity, with the connivance of regional governments, especially Ethiopia which continues to view Somalia as its chessboard. Many of the same quislings are now seen as saviors.

 

So senseless is the Somali conflict that, to this moment, it is difficult to discern exactly what the fuelling issues are. No one knows why clans continue to wage war against each other. War has become an end in itself, a self-perpetuating reality where everyone fights for anything and nothing at the same time. Once proud, dignified and even a little vain, a nation was reduced to an eyesore; a garbage dump where unscrupulous international operatives excrete their yellow maize and nuclear waste in equal measures. Somali children, rendered hopeless waifs and wastrels by their own, flood refugee camps in the region.

 

The question, ‘who did that?’ may sound superfluous, even a little annoying. But it must be posed, because it seems Somalis have a propensity to develop short memory, especially when it is the truth that is the price to pay. It is the clan and its warlords. But that is not what Somalis think nowadays. Listening to any Somali discourse today, one would be forgiven for assuming the only problem in Somalia, from 1991 to date, is Al Shabaab.

 

It is not debatable that Al Shabaab, despite all their viciousness, have had the will to enforce peace wherever they went. Apart from their embarrassing public floggings, there were no gun-toting bandits, no stray bombs and no Isbaaro. In spite of everything, it is a fact that Al Shabaab are simply one worm in that huge can of ghastly worms cultured by clan demons.

Their modus operandi might be obnoxious, and even atrocious, but their crimes are no crueler than those perpetrated by the clan militias. The objective of this article is not necessarily to compare and contrast one set of bestial criminality with another. The objective is, in fact, to prevent exactly that.

 

Double-Standards

 

Muslims around the world complain endlessly about the West’s duplicitous employment of terms like terrorism, and the sub-human treatment its alleged perpetrators are subjected to. Yet, it is the same logic we are seeing Somalis apply on their own mess. All the atrocities committed by the warlords and clan chiefs are being hastily forgotten. Even though they have killed more people and caused more misery than Al Shabaab have, the warlords’ savagery is being depicted as simple criminality. They are, after all, little demons whose madness we can live with. But when something similarly distasteful is carried out by, or attributed to Al Shabaab, an air of extreme depravity is woven around it. Their threat to the fabric of Somalia (not that there is much of that commodity left, anyway), and regional stability is exaggerated. If a luckless biyoole is killed by a militiaman’s bullet, it is just a crime. If the killer has a turban, it is an existential threat to an entire region.

[Wadani]

What is the difference? What makes one a crime and the other an utter monstrosity? The turban?

 

The deplorable backwash of this line of reasoning is that Somalis are forgetting, and a bit too quickly for comfort, the genesis and progression of their malignant cancer. The core issues of the Somali misery are being deliberately obfuscated, and Al Shabaab is everyone’s doormat. It is as if these turbaned desperados brought down the pillars of statehood. As if their Talibanic intransigence perpetuated the ignominy of plunder and death for over 20 years. As if the Somali psyche would be cured of all its debilities once these monsters are obliterated. As if they are the sole reason millions of Somalis scrape through life, with unenviable measures of success, in the squalor of refugee camps. There is a pervading confluence of Somali, regional and international ‘scapegoating’ narrative. Blame all on the Islamists, and everything will be fine.

 

One mortal Gorgon, two immortal ones!

 

Al Shabaab, and the defunct Al Ittihad, have become something akin to Medusa of the Greek mythology. The Islamists are the Gorgon, whose head must be severed for mortal men to enjoy love and life. Now that Medusa has been identified, Perseus has to be invented, and a hodgepodge of rehabilitated warlords, bandits and war profiteers, backed by regional and global bullies, are our heroes to slay the evil, Medusa.

 

Just like its mythological prototype, this contemporary gorgon will be slain. Al Shabaab will, sooner or later, be squeezed into oblivion. But there is unlikely to be a Cinderella story-end. Because, the Gorgons were three, and Medusa - being the only mortal one- was the easiest to kill. We will realize, sooner rather than later, that somewhere in the vastness of the Horn, dwell the other two immortal gorgons; Stheno and Euryale. And everything will not be fine until we find them. With our deluded fixation on the mortal Gorgon, something tells me we are looking the wrong way.

 

Aden Sheikh Hassan

Email : asturre@fastmail.fm

[Xaaji Xunjuf]

Good read thanks for sharing wadani he raised some good points.

[Wadani]

Ur welcome inaadeer.

[burahadeer]

Wadani;820011 wrote:

Somalia:

 

""It is not debatable that Al Shabaab, despite all their viciousness, have had the will to enforce peace wherever they went. Apart from their embarrassing public floggings, there were no gun-toting bandits, no stray bombs and no Isbaaro. In spite of everything, it is a fact that Al Shabaab are simply one worm in that huge can of ghastly worms cultured by clan demons.

Their modus operandi might be obnoxious, and even atrocious, but their crimes are no crueler than those perpetrated by the clan militias.""

 

 

 

 

 

 

""Double-Standards

 

All the atrocities committed by the warlords and clan chiefs are being hastily forgotten. Even though they have killed more people and caused more misery than Al Shabaab have, the warlords’ savagery is being depicted as simple criminality. They are, after all, little demons whose madness we can live with. But when something similarly distasteful is carried out by, or attributed to Al Shabaab, an air of extreme depravity is woven around it. Their threat to the fabric of Somalia (not that there is much of that commodity left, anyway), and regional stability is exaggerated. If a luckless biyoole is killed by a militiaman’s bullet, it is just a crime. If the killer has a turban, it is an existential threat to an entire region.

''

 

 

 

 

 

again the author is wrong,yes warlords did more harm but they gone for atleast 6yrs.Everyone including the world media was talking abou thm in their heydays but there is Shabab today & is the greatest menace, so should be dealt with.In the coming american presidential election,people won't talk about how bush destroyed the economy but how Obama couldn't fix it cos he is here now...get the gist

there may be no stray bombs and gun trotting bandits in shabab held area but they the bandits.How you forgot all that suicide bombings that blew up children,women,teachers,students & many more innocent people.There is no peace among those who live in shabab territories ..what's life is like is known to all of us.

 

I can't figure what one would achieve by comparing war lords & shabab...it's like 2 deadly venomous snakes.

[Wadani]

^ U missed the crux of the authors argument. He's saying that warlords are still around, yet have been exhonerated of their crimes because all attention has been shifted to the menace that is al-Shabaab. Bush is no longer a player in American politics, but the same cannot be said of Somali warlords, who have reinvented themselves as 'honest' politicians with the blessings of the Somali population. Can u fathom Ina Godane getting the same chance at redemption like his predeccesors in crime? I think not.

[burahadeer]

^^^ none of the warlords r players or have any significance today.Agree If he is saying they should be tried when time permits but absolutely they out of the equation.Yalaxo,qanyare,ali mhdi etc are not around.What the only problem is today is Shabab and the somali people & the world should focus on that not a retired warlord who has neither influence nor power.They will be dealt with again If they resurface or others tumble into the field.

Warlord era had passed away.

[Wadani]

Those warlords u mentioned may have become irrelevent, but clan politics is more alive than ever, and the threat of clan wars constantly looms over the Somali peninsula. The authors central point remains true, and that is Somali problems will not magically disappear once Shabaab is defeated, and its foolishly naive to think otherwise.

[burahadeer]

clan politics & few skirmishes will be there for a while and we no different from any otha black african country,to say othawise is very shortsighted to say the least but what I'm emphasizing is so far the shabab idealogues are the biggest threat of anything we have seen in our history...there is great chance if that's taken care of .I'm counting on somali people weary & tired of this endless conflict plus attention shown by big powers regarding the wealth underground in terms of oil & minerals.There be less conflict when masses become aware where they get their nxt meal and this euphoria about the wealth is sweeping the whole country,people have their ears on airwaves.One thing I found out is sometimes it's all about money...gov't & power is seen as tool out of poverty and that creates most frictions.

[Wadani]

I see what ur saying. Just look at the gulf states. A generation ago they were also nations composed of warring clans, but the oil money changed all that. Now their the most averse people to violence, among other things (lazy populations, allergic to any sort of work). This is because they have so much to lose (pun intended, cuz a lot of em are fat slobs lol). So if its possible for Arabs, then Somalis can do it too and in much better style.

[burahadeer]

I'm really very optimistic & had my dreams of instant wealth:D