By Abdishakur Jowhar
“A sheep” says a Somali adage “sees the sky only when it is being slaughtered”. The proverb has anticipated the fate of the Somali people… The butcher has arrived. The knife is sharpened. The Somali is about to see the sky for the first time. This paper is about epiphanies the Somali will behold at the moment of truth, at the edge of the event horizon from which nothing ever returns, just before the riding whip of slavery bites his naked backside. It is a near-funeral situation; we should ponder what follows in a sombre manner, with thoughtfulness and grief.
The Epiphanies I: The objective of those who fund the Somali wars is not to rescue Somalis. It was, and remains to be, about limiting Alshabaab’s freedom of action, degrading its capacity and containing it progressively to smaller and smaller territory. The era of America’s great wars is over.
This is the diktat of contracting economics of the time. Wars will now have to be fought cheaper and smarter; with the help of allies, with predator drones in the sky and expendable proxies on the ground. The strategy has succeeded beyond expectations in the Somali theatre. That the Somali people have become victims of a permanent war in the process is the collateral damage and truly unfortunate in the eyes of the funders. But it is neither here nor there. War is ugly.
The weak perish in it.
II: the Principle of IGAD in Somalia is not to recreate a Somali state (even a weak one, like the TFG); it is to prolong the state of disorder and chaos, to allow for the ripening of unclaimed real estate. IGAD’s ultimate purpose is not driven by the benevolence of a neighbour but by the base and more powerful human drives of greed and lust. I call a spade a spade: IGAD is primarily and almost exclusively driven by unstated yet obvious and macabre agenda of Kenya and Ethiopia. In this light Mogadishu is but a diversion and the TFG a sucker, a cover story, at best a patsy. To behold the stark reality as it stands on the ground look beyond Mogadishu.
III: Ethiopia and Kenya have finally stumbled upon and mastered the most important lesson about the Somali people; a lesson that the British, French and Italians found extremely handy in the Scramble for Africa a couple of centuries ago. Somalia is not a nation in crisis but a group of desperate wild tribes each entirely focused in a life and death struggle against the neighbouring tribe. The maxims that determine the life and death of any Somali tribes-man (read every Somali) are the evolutionary psychopathological products of a nomadic society where water and grazing lands are the raw materials in the struggle for survival. These rules set every tribe against its neighbour, divide every tribe into multiple subunits each fighting against one and all. Nowhere in human society are the blind forces of Darwin and the raw evidence of the destructive potential of the selfish gene more evident than in tribal society. 15% of all tribal societies routinely die of the effects of permanent tribal wars (compare this to 3% of the affected societies that died in World War I and World War II) . The tribe is a ferocious and primitive construct that has lived in the past of every human society as the archaeology of the dead tells us. Most unfortunately the tribe remains alive as a vestigial form of social organization in Somali society and it continue to reap a heavy harvest in death and destruction. And Ethiopia and Kenya finally got it.
IV: Truth of Partition: Partition of Somalia is no longer a fear, a theory but a reality that can be demonstrated on the ground.Ethiopian and Kenyan states have mastered the Maxims that govern Somalia’s tribal society and they put it to effective use in the service of their strategic and national interest. These same maxims have been used by aid agencies to ensure their own safety in troubled spaces and it lead to the era of Somalia’s Warlords that peaked with Blackhawk down and Ethiopia’s 1st invasion of Somalia. The mafia, mercenaries and private contractors have all used the tribal maxims to get their way with the Somali people in pursuit of their own interest.
Ethiopia and Kenya governments have taken their exploitation of the Somali tribe to an altogether different order of magnitude. So in the last 3-4 years the two countries have been busy scrambling for parts of the dead nation creating spheres of influences that will function as buffer zones now and as the seedlings for territorial exploitation or outright annexation when the time ripens. A sphere of influence is a form of imperial rule in which one nation claims parts of another less powerful nation as being vital to its interest and enforces its “rights” through the use of force, corruption, intimidation and other tools of extreme persuasion. The Sphere of influence as the reincarnation of imperialism in Somalia has the following characteristics:
1) The creation of a series of subservient “state-lets” (Ximin iyo Xeeb, Dooxada, Cagaaran, Mareeg, Dhexe, Ceelbur, Galmudug, Azania) or shady movements (Raskambooni, Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama) based essentially on a local tribe headed by a cooperative native (Somali) who profits from the relationship; a state/movement that cannot exist without the open or hidden support of either Ethiopia or Kenya, that is independent even inimical to the Somalia state and that can act as vessel of legitimacy for the Tribal Armed Militia
2) Armed Militia composed exclusively of members of one tribe. This is the central element of the spheres of influence that Kenya and Ethiopia have set up in Somalia. The reason d’être of this force is the survival of the tribe and the defeat of the enemy tribe. It is independent of the Somali state armed forces, controlled by Kenya or Ethiopia and absolutely essential for the continuation of the Somali chaos. Some people, in their extreme ignorance call thiese militias bottom up building blocks. In reality the name building blocks is nothing but the Orwellian language Ethiopia and Kenya use in securing funding from the UNPOS for their respective spheres of influence.
3) An essential feature of the Somali Spheres of influence is the necessity of maintaining a weak, corrupt, divided, Somali state. Such an ineffectual state is necessary because it can be forced to change policy and personalities that conflict with the spheres of influence. It can be forced to cede territorial waters and to make other concessions. And most important such weakling of a state can provide an international cover of legitimacy as the Somali people are gradually stripped of their resources, their seas and finally their lands. The Road Map of Somalia (that has been created by IGAD) is essentially for the purpose of creating such a vassal state
V: the United Nations Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS) is not a friend of the Somali people and it is not the enemy of the Somali people either. It is a disinterested third party, populated as it is with interchangeable faceless bureaucrats, whose quintessence is self preservation through the process of writing voluminous reports, organizing empowering workshops and arranging Orwellian celebration days with illustrious titles (international Labour Day, mother’s day, anti oppression, anti-racism, anti sexism days ad ifinitum). Whatever harm or benefit that comes to the Somali people from the mechanizations of these gentlemen is secondary to its Kafkaesque process. The life and death of the leaders and foot soldiers of this organization is not dependent on developments in Somalia only their livelihoods do and that they guard like a lioness guards its cubs. The UNPOS is the senior and perfect partners to the globetrotting Somali speaking, Foreign Passport holding parasitic entity known as Diaspora Somalis. The two sides have produced the most corrupt set of circumstances known to man.
VI: the TFG is one of those mass delusions Somalis are prone to, for there remains many who, against all common sense and evidence, maintain there is a Somali government of some kind or the other working in this godforsaken hotel room or the other, paid for by the suitor of the day like any working girl in Craig’s List.
VII: Somaliland Walaalkii loo xiiryow soo qoyso adiguna
(jowharabdi@gmail.com)
Source: The Somaliland Press
“A sheep” says a Somali adage “sees the sky only when it is being slaughtered”. The proverb has anticipated the fate of the Somali people… The butcher has arrived. The knife is sharpened. The Somali is about to see the sky for the first time. This paper is about epiphanies the Somali will behold at the moment of truth, at the edge of the event horizon from which nothing ever returns, just before the riding whip of slavery bites his naked backside. It is a near-funeral situation; we should ponder what follows in a sombre manner, with thoughtfulness and grief.
The Epiphanies I: The objective of those who fund the Somali wars is not to rescue Somalis. It was, and remains to be, about limiting Alshabaab’s freedom of action, degrading its capacity and containing it progressively to smaller and smaller territory. The era of America’s great wars is over.
This is the diktat of contracting economics of the time. Wars will now have to be fought cheaper and smarter; with the help of allies, with predator drones in the sky and expendable proxies on the ground. The strategy has succeeded beyond expectations in the Somali theatre. That the Somali people have become victims of a permanent war in the process is the collateral damage and truly unfortunate in the eyes of the funders. But it is neither here nor there. War is ugly.
The weak perish in it.
II: the Principle of IGAD in Somalia is not to recreate a Somali state (even a weak one, like the TFG); it is to prolong the state of disorder and chaos, to allow for the ripening of unclaimed real estate. IGAD’s ultimate purpose is not driven by the benevolence of a neighbour but by the base and more powerful human drives of greed and lust. I call a spade a spade: IGAD is primarily and almost exclusively driven by unstated yet obvious and macabre agenda of Kenya and Ethiopia. In this light Mogadishu is but a diversion and the TFG a sucker, a cover story, at best a patsy. To behold the stark reality as it stands on the ground look beyond Mogadishu.
III: Ethiopia and Kenya have finally stumbled upon and mastered the most important lesson about the Somali people; a lesson that the British, French and Italians found extremely handy in the Scramble for Africa a couple of centuries ago. Somalia is not a nation in crisis but a group of desperate wild tribes each entirely focused in a life and death struggle against the neighbouring tribe. The maxims that determine the life and death of any Somali tribes-man (read every Somali) are the evolutionary psychopathological products of a nomadic society where water and grazing lands are the raw materials in the struggle for survival. These rules set every tribe against its neighbour, divide every tribe into multiple subunits each fighting against one and all. Nowhere in human society are the blind forces of Darwin and the raw evidence of the destructive potential of the selfish gene more evident than in tribal society. 15% of all tribal societies routinely die of the effects of permanent tribal wars (compare this to 3% of the affected societies that died in World War I and World War II) . The tribe is a ferocious and primitive construct that has lived in the past of every human society as the archaeology of the dead tells us. Most unfortunately the tribe remains alive as a vestigial form of social organization in Somali society and it continue to reap a heavy harvest in death and destruction. And Ethiopia and Kenya finally got it.
IV: Truth of Partition: Partition of Somalia is no longer a fear, a theory but a reality that can be demonstrated on the ground.Ethiopian and Kenyan states have mastered the Maxims that govern Somalia’s tribal society and they put it to effective use in the service of their strategic and national interest. These same maxims have been used by aid agencies to ensure their own safety in troubled spaces and it lead to the era of Somalia’s Warlords that peaked with Blackhawk down and Ethiopia’s 1st invasion of Somalia. The mafia, mercenaries and private contractors have all used the tribal maxims to get their way with the Somali people in pursuit of their own interest.
Ethiopia and Kenya governments have taken their exploitation of the Somali tribe to an altogether different order of magnitude. So in the last 3-4 years the two countries have been busy scrambling for parts of the dead nation creating spheres of influences that will function as buffer zones now and as the seedlings for territorial exploitation or outright annexation when the time ripens. A sphere of influence is a form of imperial rule in which one nation claims parts of another less powerful nation as being vital to its interest and enforces its “rights” through the use of force, corruption, intimidation and other tools of extreme persuasion. The Sphere of influence as the reincarnation of imperialism in Somalia has the following characteristics:
1) The creation of a series of subservient “state-lets” (Ximin iyo Xeeb, Dooxada, Cagaaran, Mareeg, Dhexe, Ceelbur, Galmudug, Azania) or shady movements (Raskambooni, Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama) based essentially on a local tribe headed by a cooperative native (Somali) who profits from the relationship; a state/movement that cannot exist without the open or hidden support of either Ethiopia or Kenya, that is independent even inimical to the Somalia state and that can act as vessel of legitimacy for the Tribal Armed Militia
2) Armed Militia composed exclusively of members of one tribe. This is the central element of the spheres of influence that Kenya and Ethiopia have set up in Somalia. The reason d’être of this force is the survival of the tribe and the defeat of the enemy tribe. It is independent of the Somali state armed forces, controlled by Kenya or Ethiopia and absolutely essential for the continuation of the Somali chaos. Some people, in their extreme ignorance call thiese militias bottom up building blocks. In reality the name building blocks is nothing but the Orwellian language Ethiopia and Kenya use in securing funding from the UNPOS for their respective spheres of influence.
3) An essential feature of the Somali Spheres of influence is the necessity of maintaining a weak, corrupt, divided, Somali state. Such an ineffectual state is necessary because it can be forced to change policy and personalities that conflict with the spheres of influence. It can be forced to cede territorial waters and to make other concessions. And most important such weakling of a state can provide an international cover of legitimacy as the Somali people are gradually stripped of their resources, their seas and finally their lands. The Road Map of Somalia (that has been created by IGAD) is essentially for the purpose of creating such a vassal state
V: the United Nations Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS) is not a friend of the Somali people and it is not the enemy of the Somali people either. It is a disinterested third party, populated as it is with interchangeable faceless bureaucrats, whose quintessence is self preservation through the process of writing voluminous reports, organizing empowering workshops and arranging Orwellian celebration days with illustrious titles (international Labour Day, mother’s day, anti oppression, anti-racism, anti sexism days ad ifinitum). Whatever harm or benefit that comes to the Somali people from the mechanizations of these gentlemen is secondary to its Kafkaesque process. The life and death of the leaders and foot soldiers of this organization is not dependent on developments in Somalia only their livelihoods do and that they guard like a lioness guards its cubs. The UNPOS is the senior and perfect partners to the globetrotting Somali speaking, Foreign Passport holding parasitic entity known as Diaspora Somalis. The two sides have produced the most corrupt set of circumstances known to man.
VI: the TFG is one of those mass delusions Somalis are prone to, for there remains many who, against all common sense and evidence, maintain there is a Somali government of some kind or the other working in this godforsaken hotel room or the other, paid for by the suitor of the day like any working girl in Craig’s List.
VII: Somaliland Walaalkii loo xiiryow soo qoyso adiguna
(jowharabdi@gmail.com)
Source: The Somaliland Press
No comments:
Post a Comment