Somalia: Time to Pay Attention
The United States has contributed to the mess in Somalia by failing to grasp the nuances of the Muslim world.
By Frankie Martin
While the world looks elsewhere, Somalia is in flames. The nation just topped a list of the world’s most unstable countries by Foreign Policy magazine, and the United Nations has declared the humanitarian situation there “worse than Darfur.”
In the next three months the number of people requiring immediate food aid will reach 3.5 million. Over one million refugees have fled their homes. Due to a raging insurgency against the current transitional government – which has support from both the West and Ethiopia – Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, has earned the nickname, “Baghdad on the sea.”
In Somalia, there are no diplomatic superstars like Condoleezza Rice or Kofi Annan, who rushed to Kenya to settle its election crisis; there are no celebrities like Mia Farrow or Jim Carrey to urge international action and awareness as they did in Sudan and Burma.
Instead, Somalia’s crisis has elicited a collective yawn of indifference. Just mentioning the country’s name is enough to cause even the most dedicated diplomat or aid worker to throw up their hands in desperation.
Ironically, unlike the above conflicts, the current crisis in Somalia has developed in part due to America’s “war on terror” and failure to grasp some of the nuances of Islam.
The Muslim world is not a monolith; there is an ongoing struggle among Muslims with differing interpretations of the religion. Somalia is a traditionally Sufi country – the mystic, open form of Islam distinct from more conservative interpretations as those seen in places like Saudi Arabia.
But in Somalia, a more conservative movement developed under the secular dictatorship of President Siad Barre and during the anarchy that followed his ouster in 1991. The resulting Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) implemented Shari’a law, and although its stricter tenants were opposed by many Somalis, the grassroots movement gained strength because people sought order and justice in a country marred by starvation, warlord violence, and tribal conflict.
Despite internal differences in the interpretation of Islam, the UIC created a state of relative stability that led to the return of Somali businesses, united conflicting tribes and ended piracy off Somalia’s perilous shores.
But the ascension of the UIC worried the United States, which believed the group was sheltering Al-Qaeda members seeking a safe haven in Somalia. The United States intervened by backing secular warlords – reportedly some of the same individuals it had fought during 1993’s “Black Hawk Down” incident – against the UIC, strengthening, rather than isolating, extremism in Somalia. Despite their ample firepower, the warlords were defeated by the UIC in mid-2006.
In December 2006, UIC extremists threatened Somalia’s traditional archrival Ethiopia, which they accused of intervening in Somali affairs. Already concerned the UIC would support a domestic ethnic Somali insurgency, Ethiopia invaded. The United States backed Ethiopia’s invasion and its ensuing occupation with intelligence, air strikes, Special Forces, and rendition of terror suspects to Guantanamo Bay.
An Iraq-style insurgency soon began inside Somalia, mainly drawn from UIC elements but also members of the Hawiye clan, the tribal base of the UIC. These tribesmen believe the United States and Ethiopians are attacking them by supporting the Somali transitional government, run largely by tribal rivals the Daarood. Because they are Muslim, they believe Islam is under attack and seek to defend it.
Somalia faces many profound challenges, but a recent ceasefire – which calls for an end to the insurgency ahead of an eventual Ethiopian troop withdrawal in favor of U.N. troops – has brought some hope.
The recent momentum in Somalia for a shift to religious conservatism – and sometimes militant extremism – mirrors similar shifts around the Muslim world. However, with quick and responsible action, the United States can still help shift it back.
The United States should first pressure Ethiopia to withdraw and bring all Somali factions to the negotiating table.
It can also work within traditional tribal structures to reach out to Somalia’s people, effect political change and distribute aid. By reaching out to Somali moderates who would be happy to challenge the extremists themselves, and funding development programs that show a renewed respect for local customs and religion, the United States can help swing the pendulum away from extremists who preach that Islam is under attack from the West.
To do this, the United States must immediately change a failed policy. Instead of effectively fighting those individuals who wish America harm, it has taken on the Somali people. The United States should learn from its disasters in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan that using force to myopically crush “terrorists” at the expense of entire populations only strengthens extremists.
These days any attention given to Somalia is encouraging. But to create a stable society that would alleviate the suffering of Somalis and address Western security concerns, something more is required: a true understanding of what has gone wrong and the will to effect positive change.
Frankie Martin is Ibn Khaldun Chair Research Fellow at American University’s School of International Service in Washington, DC. He did field work among Somalis in Kenya for the book Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization by Akbar Ahmed (Brookings, 2007). This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).
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Comments (8)
Dave:
religious extremism is not the source of the problem in Somalia. even a rookie knows that! Arab fundamentalists usually exploit local somali greivances to create political islam. So THE QUESTION WE SHOULD ASK SHOULD BE WHAT IS THE MAIN ISSUE AMONG SOMALIS???
THE BIG ONE IS CLAN POLITICS!!! Those folks HATE each other like crazy! the clan and sub-sub clan can go even deeper on the ground. they are all Somalis ethnically but the clans and sub-clans hate eachother.
To solve this hate somali government have used 2 methods.
1.
The old method was somali leaders preaching Somali supremacy and the creation of GREATER SOMALIA, a ONE-ETHNIC COUNTRY…which became a source of national unity that hid the clan hatred. to achieve this goal, they invaded ethiopia and kenya in 1970s because ethiopia and kenya had territories inhabited by ethnic somalis. as expected, GREATER SOMALIA failed. but the plan still exists.
2.
the other method is creating an imaginary anti-islam enemy of somalia. This was easy job because ethiopia is ruled by christians. so somali leaders (like the current ICU) used anti-ethiopia propaganda and muslim unity music to unite somalis. some ICU members seeked taliban assistance. This was stupid because doing this in BUSH era of “War on terror” is suicide and more stupid because population wise Ethiopia has 20 million more Muslims than Somalia. in general, this also failed.
Now some somali leaders are using both islam and Greater Somalia idea to unite somalis. this will fail but it is not failing fast enough. The only solution is to make this fail faster. America and UN should cut apart Somalia into small countries. there is already a region called Somaliland that is seeking to separate from Somalia. the UN should recognize it.
In general, clan politics is the source of the problem and the second big issue is GREATER SOMALIA ambition. In that part of Africa, ONLY Somalia wants to make a country that is ONE-ETHNIC. All other african countries have almost 100 ethnicities in them, including somalis. Almost all countries in the region are multi-ethnic. The ambition of ICU and other somalis to create ONE-ETHNIC country called GREATER SOMALIA by taking territory of other countries is a top source of problem. Unless UN wants the rest of Africa to burn and to divide into ethnic-countries, the UN should quickly break apart Somalia and end its ambition to create the only one-ethnic country in the region.
EASY STEPS TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM
1- recognize Somaliland
2- cut apart the rest of somalia more
3- Give aid and Help Establish democracy in Djibouti,Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Puntland and SOmaliland and whatever it left of SOmalia.
Steve, Livonia, MI:
The failure of US foreign policy in many of the islamic countries is not surprising when one considers that the end of the cold war has not resulted in a careful reassessment of US interests. The same cadre who fought the Soviet monolith was left in charge. As problems arose, such as our refusal to remove our forces from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait at the end of the first Gulf War, our leaders - left over from the cold war - viewed all of the problems as emanating from a central plan. Accordingly, cold war tactics were used to fight the “offenders”. That meant that the old maxim that our enemies’ enemy is our friend governed. Nothing could have more incited resistance by diverse groups to our objectives than such a self-defeating approach. We need a complete and realistic reassessment of our objectives in the world. We do not have much time!
Arese:
You are the most inept group of people who i have had the displeasure to read your unwanted comments and i don’t think you even have a right to give any opinion regarding Somalia.Yes Somalia was volatile before Americans brought their sorry asses into the picture and completely intensify what was already happenning.
I as a Somalia would have appreciated if the American Government would have not tried to give us their “HELP” and more importantly to hear American talk about Somalia as if they grew up there or know anything apart from what they know is happenning in their own “STATE”.Please keep your comments to yourself and lead by your stupid President, if a country can elect unintelligent President it just reflect how stupid the Nation is.
Alan Dean Foster:
In 1983, I once asked a friend of mine who had spent a lifetime working as an expat for various foreign aid agencies where was the worst place he had ever had to live and work. He didn’t hesitate.
“Somalia”, he said. “We’d go around in jeeps to hand out help, and people and kids would line up on the side of the road to throw rocks at us. Didn’t matter who was in the jeep or what it represented…U.N., U.S., Russians, Danes, Chinese, French. The Somalis hate everybody and everybody in Africa thinks Somalia is a nation of bandits”.
This from a dedicated family man who lived and worked three years in the vacation spot of Pakistan and another three in (then) communist Tanzania, among other locales.
Did we create the Somalia problem? I think not.
Gasmonkey:
No, “we” did not! Somalians who refuse to stop breeding nonstop created Somalia’s mess. When is the world going to realize that wealthy countries are not responsible for the fact that poor countries breed beyond their ability to sustain the population. Responsible people don’t have kids that they cannot feed.
Harry:
As one who was part of the US Diplomatic team in 1992 who opened a Liaison office in Mogadishu I can say with some certainty that the problem wasn’t new when we arrived. Somalia hasn’t had a working government since 1989 and still doesn’t. But it is simplictic to say that we should bring everyone to the table, that will entail a mighty big table with the various Clans, sub-clans, and sub-sub-clans leaders to be accomodated. UNISOM I which started in 1992 and ended in 1993 was a success, the food convoys were getting through, thanks to the US troops providing escorts. And the two main warlords Mohammed Farah Aideed, and Mohammed Ali Mahdi were sitting down at the same table and talking. There was still violence in the country but at a much reduced level. Enter UNISOM II and the UN assuming control of a much reduced military force, one of the first acts was to declare General Aideed an outlaw and order US troops to capture him. The result, a loss of American lives and a Hollywood movie “Blackhawk Down”. The first order of business should be the supression of violence, this will require a heavily armed multi-national force. Only then can rational people assemble at a table no matter how large it takes to return the country to the 21st Century.
Ricardo:
I say we concentrate on the Western Hemisphere…..in Central and South America there are unlimited resources that can be intelligently exploited, now that we have learned our lesson in the hazards of indiscriminate exploitation of our envoronment….there are at least Three natural gas and petro giants along with cultures very similar to ours….let’s get away from the toxicity of middle east and african cultures….and let’s bring the show home….we are the hemisphere of the ex-colonies…let the Old world figure out the mess THEY are in…we are here and everything we need is here…we might have differences with certain nations in this hemisphere but you would be hard pressed to find a Chilean or a Venezuelan willing to strap on explosives to blow you up simply because you drew a caricature of WHOMEVER…..let’s bring it on home gentlemen and Gentle ladies…..as for the Israelis….do what you think is right.
Ivan, Washington, DC:
We already have far too many foreign adventures going on. We should allow this one to pass. If it helps, we should think of this as a Somali internal matter.
On the other hand, Somali pirate ships should be sunk on sight and Somali pirates should be shown the yard arm with a drumhead trial at best.
Source: Washington Post
