The Invention of Somalia

[Safferz]

OdaySomali;989115 wrote:

http://www.africaworldpressbooks.com/servlet/Detail?no=742

The thread title was a nod to the book There are several on these topics now, and I'd imagine more on their way.

[OdaySomali]

Safferz,

 

Yes to Qs 1, 2, 3. But I don't think that answering yes to those questions logically leads to a yes as an answer to your very last question, with which you closed your post.

 

Will respond more when I get a chance, Inshallah.

[OdaySomali]

Safferz;989116 wrote:

The thread title was a nod to the book

There are several on these topics now, and I'd imagine more on their way.

Strangely enough I was looking at that book just yesterday

[cadnaan1]

40 languages??????

 

luuqadahaasi hadiiba ay jiraan magacyadooda bal inoo sheega.

[Tallaabo]

Haatu;989107 wrote:

I have been waiting with eager anticipation

 

First of all, I agree with you on some things and I disagree with you on others. I agree that the political entity called Somalia with its currently internationally recognised borders is an invention of the 1960s. It is arbitrary and unnatural.

 

But let me go on a tangent here. First let me answer the question "What is the Somali nation and what is it based on?". Firstly, a Somali is a member of a homogeneous ethnic group native to East Africa. Genetic evidence has confirmed this and I don't need to go into detail. (Note that I don't include the "Somali Bantu" in this. To me they are Somali nationals, but they are not Somalis ethnically and historically, they are a different people which God has decided for them to live among us today). This Somali is a member of a group by default handed down to him by his/her father. A collection of people who ascribe to this same group (whether or not they share a common ancestor) are the clan. The clan controls the territory the majority of its members live upon (some may live elsewhere). The clan has both political dominion and economic monopoly on this land. The collection of these clans make up the Somali nation and the collection of the clan territories make up the Somali homeland. To simplify, in my opinion a Somali is an individual who belongs to the Somali ethnic group and is part of the clan structure. To sum up, ethnically speaking the Somali are a homogeneous entity.

 

Moving on to the cultural and linguistic aspect. You claim Somalis have different cultures. I like to look at it as

variations

within ONE culture. For example, the pastoralist Somalis may have some practices unique to them which they do not share with the nomad, but the similarities are such that the nomad will not view it as completely alien. These variations as I term them arose due to as you mentioned different economic activities, farmers and pastoralists. However all this means is that some section of the group adapted to their climate in one way to survive and the other group in another way. Also, you said there around 40 dialects (and what you hastily termed languages) spoken in the Somali homeland. From the little I know, the vast majority of these dialects are mutually intelligible and all have a common ancestor of which the Maay Maay is the purest survivor of. This natural variation in language cannot be extrapolated to mean the Somalis lack homogeneity, but rather all it suggests at is the natural evolution of language which is something not unique to the Somali language.

 

Finally, if I turn my attention to why the Somali Republic collapsed, I disagree with you that the reason was our supposed "differences" but rather a wrong basis for the nation we inherited from the colonisers (it was afterall an entity they carved out). If we look back into history, we will notice that for the majority of Somali history the clan states have been by and large politically independent of each other to some degrees (fiefdoms if you like). These fiefdoms were led by traditionally elected leaders we knew as Garaads, Boqors, Suldaans, Iimaams etc who exercised political sovereignty. Most Somalis were and still are loyal firstly to themselves and secondly to these clan fiefdoms. For most, loyalty to the Somali Republic of 1960 comes in third or fourth place. When the colonisers came, these fiefdoms were rendered obsolete and their political independence dismantled. In its place a European appointed governor came to rule. When independence was achieved, the "founding fathers" followed in the footsteps of the Europeans and sought to create a European style nation-state. What they neglected was the traditional role of the clan fiefdoms and the loyalty its citizenry had for them. The consequence of this was all the political power that was traditionally decentralized across the whole Somali homeland was centralized in one entity known as the Government seated in Muqdisho. In a poor country where little to no economic prospects exist, the Government became the sole conduit for economic development and hence survival for the clans. To become rich and overpower traditional rivals, the clan had to dominate the Government by all means necessary. Fast forward 30 years from 1 July 1960 and the invented Somali Republic collapsed. It did not collapse because its citizens had unbridgeable differences or were mutually exclusive to one another, but rather because an alien form of government was given to a people ill-suited to adapt to its requirements which led to its inevitable collapse. What we see today in Somaliland, Puntland, Jubbaland, Galmudug etc. is the Somalis slowly returning to their "natural" way of governance and any methods initiated by the IC to subterfuge this process will result in inevitable disaster. It is upon those very clan fiefdoms the Somali Republic should have been based upon with power and wealth equally decentralized among them. It is my belief had that been done, not only would have the Somali Republic still be in place today, Jabuuti and S/Galbeed would have joined it also (and maybe NFD).

 

Haddal badan haan ma buuxhsee baa la yiriye haddaan soo koobo, although natural variations and differences exist among them,

Soomaali waa mid, waa ul iyo meyrax, mataano weeyoo, meel bey ka wada dhasheen.

 

Wa billaahi towfiiq

Mr Haatu ethnicity and the Somali style clan are two different things. The only requirement to becoming a member of a Somali clan is that one's father is also a member of that said clan. Female linage don't count in our clan system. So the notion that a man with a white mother and a Somali father is ethnically Somali but the one who has a Somali mother and a white father is non-Somali is absurd. In the real genetic world both those men are only half-Somali in equal measure.

[Xaaji Xunjuf]

The Somali identity existed before the Somali statehood the Somaali knew who he was but the Somali nationhood or nationalism is a very knew invention mainly in the 1940s Somalis started forming the idea that all Somalis should be unified under one Mega republic.The Somali culture is though defined by the pastoralist Somalis through poetry proverbs and other traditions of chieftains. The Somalis share 2 concrete things which is the language and the religion of islam, culture can be divided into sub cultures different Folklore dances.

 

During the wind of decolonization of Africa the Somalis chanted we have the same culture the same religion same language same ethnicity, this was repeated so many times in order to construct a pan Somali nationalist struggle. The founding fathers of the modern Somali republic in 1960 SNL USP NUF SYL Xisbullah had a very difficult dilemma to construct a past existence for the Somalis which bonds them together under unified nation state colonized by different European states. And knowing the Tribal nature of the Somali nomads. The founding fathers agreed to use 2 historic figures as the founding historic mythology of the nation. One was ina abdilla hassan the Ustaad and the other was imam Ahmed Gurey of Adal a mid evil Kingdom of Somaliland and parts of Ethiopia and Djibouti. And since the Ethiopians occupied large swats of Somali territory Ahmed Guray was given the role of a Somali nationalist when in reality he was more of an islamist, who also had various of other ethnics under his kingdom. And the other one was Ina abdillah hassan a Mullah who waged war against the Brits and to some extension the Abyssinians but his story also has two tales also his struggle was an islamic one and the Mullah never spoke about a Somali state not once in his poems. And the Mullah led only 3 incursions in Italian Somalia one was against the Boqor of bari and the other 2 were short incursions in south western italian Somalia and hiiraan, for the most part the Mullah was in today's Somaliland 85% of his raids were in today's Somaliland. So creating a Somali nation state was very difficult for our founding fathers more than 70 years ago, thats why the fragile nature of Somali nationalism was easily undermined by Somalis themselves.

[Safferz]

Haatu (I was kidding about "destroying" your arguments but a few thoughts) --

 

Haatu;989107 wrote:

But let me go on a tangent here. First let me answer the question "What is the Somali nation and what is it based on?". Firstly, a Somali is a member of a homogeneous ethnic group native to East Africa. Genetic evidence has confirmed this and I don't need to go into detail. (Note that I don't include the "Somali Bantu" in this. To me they are Somali nationals, but they are not Somalis ethnically and historically, they are a different people which God has decided for them to live among us today). This Somali is a member of a group by default handed down to him by his/her father. A collection of people who ascribe to this same group (whether or not they share a common ancestor) are the clan. The clan controls the territory the majority of its members live upon (some may live elsewhere). The clan has both political dominion and economic monopoly on this land. The collection of these clans make up the Somali nation and the collection of the clan territories make up the Somali homeland. To simplify, in my opinion a Somali is an individual who belongs to the Somali ethnic group and is part of the clan structure. To sum up, ethnically speaking the Somali are a homogeneous entity.

That there's an ethnic group known as the Somali, one that's ethnically homogenous and spilling over nation-state boundaries, is not what's being called into question. What is being critiqued here is the concept that the ethnic Somali is itself an undifferentiated, homogenous identity, and whether that undifferentiated category of Somali can be used as a "national" identity - the Somali citizen - as it has throughout our modern history by the architects of Somali nationalism. There's an uneasy tension between Somali ethnicity and Somali political identity/nationality (what I'm calling Soomaalinimo/Somaliness in this thread), because there are people from other ethnicities who belong to the Somali state or do not belong to Somali clans. But ethnicity is just one level of differentiation I brought up -- there are also significant differences between ethnic Somalis that have to be taken into question, and one must ask how those differences are erased and obscured when post-WWII Somali nationalism emerged with its own discourse, historical references and cultural symbols.

 

Xaaji brings up an interesting example with the adoption of Ahmed Gurey and Sayyid Mohamed as the "fathers" of Somali nationalism (something Siyaad Barre is responsible for, btw), which is an ahistorical understanding of African nationalism broadly because those who resisted the imposition of colonial rule spoke a very different political language than the modern nationalists and nationalist movements for independence (for Sayyid Mohamed, the language was Islam/Islamic brotherhood). Why Sayyid Mohamed, and not Nassib Bunda, who led the Gosha Rebellion (1890-1907) against Italian colonialism years before Sayyid Mohamed's Daraawiish? Why not Abdi Abikar Gaafle's war and the Benaadir resistance which fought Italy's attempts to take over southern Somalia from 1890 to 1924? How about Shaykh Uways and the Uwaysiya?

 

How and why do certain 'narratives' of the Somali nation become dominant? And why should they?

 

Haatu;989107 wrote:

Moving on to the cultural and linguistic aspect. You claim Somalis have different cultures.

I like to look at it as

variations

within ONE culture.

For example, the pastoralist Somalis may have some practices unique to them which they do not share with the nomad, but the similarities are such that the nomad will not view it as completely alien. These variations as I term them arose due to as you mentioned different economic activities, farmers and pastoralists. However all this means is that some section of the group adapted to their climate in one way to survive and the other group in another way. Also, you said there around 40 dialects (and what you hastily termed languages) spoken in the Somali homeland. From the little I know, the vast majority of these dialects are mutually intelligible and all have a common ancestor of which the Maay Maay is the purest survivor of. This natural variation in language cannot be extrapolated to mean the Somalis lack homogeneity, but rather all it suggests at is the natural evolution of language which is something not unique to the Somali language.

Fair enough, I don't agree with you but even anthropologists have different definitions for what constitutes a culture and where to draw its boundaries. I just don't think what you're describing is tenable because culture by necessity is integrated and cohesive, and there are enough differences between Somalis to be able to identify *many* local and regional cultures, something that goes beyond simply variants of a single culture.

 

With all that said, how do you legitimize the hegemony of one Somali culture (or variant of Somali culture, in your words) over others, with that being used to then define Soomaalinimo, the Somali nation? That's the question at stake here.

 

Haatu;989107 wrote:

Finally, if I turn my attention to why the Somali Republic collapsed, I disagree with you that the reason was our supposed "differences" but rather a wrong basis for the nation we inherited from the colonisers (it was afterall an entity they carved out). If we look back into history, we will notice that for the majority of Somali history the clan states have been by and large politically independent of each other to some degrees (fiefdoms if you like). These fiefdoms were led by traditionally elected leaders we knew as Garaads, Boqors, Suldaans, Iimaams etc who exercised political sovereignty. Most Somalis were and still are loyal firstly to themselves and secondly to these clan fiefdoms. For most, loyalty to the Somali Republic of 1960 comes in third or fourth place. When the colonisers came, these fiefdoms were rendered obsolete and their political independence dismantled. In its place a European appointed governor came to rule. When independence was achieved, the "founding fathers" followed in the footsteps of the Europeans and sought to create a European style nation-state. What they neglected was the traditional role of the clan fiefdoms and the loyalty its citizenry had for them. The consequence of this was all the political power that was traditionally decentralized across the whole Somali homeland was centralized in one entity known as the Government seated in Muqdisho. In a poor country where little to no economic prospects exist, the Government became the sole conduit for economic development and hence survival for the clans. To become rich and overpower traditional rivals, the clan had to dominate the Government by all means necessary. Fast forward 30 years from 1 July 1960 and the invented Somali Republic collapsed. It did not collapse because its citizens had unbridgeable differences or were mutually exclusive to one another, but rather because an alien form of government was given to a people ill-suited to adapt to its requirements which led to its inevitable collapse. What we see today in Somaliland, Puntland, Jubbaland, Galmudug etc. is the Somalis slowly returning to their "natural" way of governance and any methods initiated by the IC to subterfuge this process will result in inevitable disaster. It is upon those very clan fiefdoms the Somali Republic should have been based upon with power and wealth equally decentralized among them. It is my belief had that been done, not only would have the Somali Republic still be in place today, Jabuuti and S/Galbeed would have joined it also (and maybe NFD).

Agree with most of this, but I did mention resource/economic competition as one fault line of many in Somali society that contributed to the collapse. "Difference" goes beyond simply ethnicity, and egalitarianism is part of the Somali myth -- as I.M. Lewis famously described us, we are understood to be "a pastoral democracy" *eyeroll*

[Safferz]

Khadafi;989086 wrote:

Saferz you wrote a interesting essay., I see that nation state has no "muqadissnimo" for you as you chop it down in your marxist analysis, a good thing though is that your not ruled by "dogmas". I have to commend for that. As for the thread I do believe that "somali-ness" is a religious-ethnic identity. Why on earth should we abandon or dismantle one of the most precious things that our parents gave us--- mainly IDENTITY. Even the Xaaji Xunjuf, the afro-hashemite does not deny somali-ness.

 

As for politics, that's another topic, Somalia as a nation state was not invented, remember that Somalis existed before the arrival of the whites. History did not begin when the

whites came or when the whites gave us our hard fought freedom,

therefore per logic "Somalia" was not invented. The same could be said about Britain, the days when queens and kings ruled in Britain can not be compared to these days when men/women from working class are shaping the countries future

. Does this mean that Britain became invented? We needs to read Edward Said

We have yet freed ourselves from the chains of orientalism.

 

Anyways that's what I could muster to refute! Ogowna waad iga xanaaqsiisi

d. Soomaliya xaaladeeda waad u jeeda,

soomalinimadana hadaa CHOP CHOP la gareeya maxaa soo haray lol!

 

 

But I do agree with you on one thing,

Somalia is a nation mixed in it's different life-styles,

Orientalists as I. Lewis have contributed to the false idea of Somalis only compromising of pastoral nomads. Their is unique mixture of a sedimentary-pastoral life style in southern Somalia. The cultural exchange and influence between these very different lifestyles has given Somalis a unique culture. Maybe we need further information how these inter-cultural influence is making itself present today`? The Only Somali intellectual that has smashed this false history must be the savannah based Professor Mukhtar Omar Mukhtar. His influence is being felt today and I belive many more will understand him in the future.

Thanks Khadafi Mukhtar Omar Mukhtar is someone I've been reading quite a bit of lately, which is part of why I've been thinking about this. I wasn't suggesting that we do away with Somali identity altogether (that would be impossible), rather I wanted to make the provocation (one made by many others, like Dr. Mukhtar) that we reimagine a more inclusive Somali 'national' identity, one that doesn't privilege one subset of the Somali cultural and historical experience. The Somali nation-state and Somali nationalism were both produced by colonialism, but certainly there have always been variously organized peoples of ethnic Somali origin inhabiting the Horn of Africa and who were able to recognize each other as Somalis. Ha igu xanaaqin dee

 

And yes, I would contend that European nation-states are inventions too. Most people forget that European nation-states in their current form are actually quite new. After the wars of Italian unification were over in the mid-19th century, the statesman Massimo d'Azeglio famously said: "Italy has been made. Now we must make Italians"