<
http://www.africaresearchinstitute.org/publications/counterpoints/statebuil
ding-somali-horn/> Publication: Statebuilding in the Somali Horn Compromise,
Competition and Representation
By Micheal Walls
05.12.2014
Analysis
The achievements of successive Somaliland governments in building legitimacy
and conducting elections have attracted widespread praise. While the near
future will present substantial challenges to the durability of past
successes, a close analysis shows that Somaliland offers a great many useful
lessons about how to build a Somali nation state.
An established, discursive system of consensus-based political participation
is as important as democratisation through elections. This system is
inevitably imperfect, but it has played a key role in securing broad, though
qualified, acceptance of state institutions.
A resurgence of optimism in southern Somalia has diverted attention from
more sustained, if less spectacular, political accommodations negotiated in
Somaliland and elsewhere in the Somali Horn of Africa.
Mundane lessons learned in these territories have once again been relegated
to the margins. International participants and elite partners in Mogadishu,
Nairobi, Washington and London are absorbed by Somali realpolitik and the
apparent progress of a grand technocratic exercise in state-building. It is
imperative that those wishing to support continued political development in
Somaliland and the region pay greater heed to the historical and cultural
context in which it is occurring.
Michael Walls is a senior lecturer at the Development Planning Unit at
University College London. He co-organised international election
observation missions in Somaliland in 2005, 2010 and 2012 and has written
extensively about Somaliland, Puntland and Somalia.
North and south, success and disillusionment
Increasing numbers of non-Somalis are taking notice of Somaliland. In part,
this has come about through involvement with, or awareness of, events such
as the International Book Fair in Hargeysa, capital of the internationally
unrecognised republic. An essential ingredient has been the support of
businesses and non-Somali donors for one of the most vibrant cultural events
in East Africa.
Their contributions make it possible to stage the festival annually - and
for free. Huge crowds are drawn, none more so than for the recitals of the
renowned Somali poet Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame "Hadraawi". The Somali Horn of
Africa is one of the few places where a poet is able to attain the cultural
status elsewhere reserved for rock stars and footballers.
The festival and a new Somali Cultural Centre in Hargeysa are not simply
indications of cultural tolerance and vibrancy. In the eyes of many
Somalilanders and visitors their success is representative of the dynamic
and stable political environment in Somaliland.
International perceptions of Somaliland are usually influenced by - or
contrasted with - the ebbs and flows of political dysfunction in southern
Somalia. Since the start of 2014, two major military offensives from AMISOM,
the African Union force in Somalia, have pushed militant Islamist group
al-Shabaab out of all major towns in the south.
A US drone attack on September 1st killed the group's leader, Ahmed Abdi
"Godane". These events have fuelled hope that the government in Muqdisho
(Mogadishu) can consolidate its position and start to build the legitimacy
its predecessors in the past two decades so sorely lacked. The political
challenges remain daunting - and changeable. Military advances do not easily
translate into social or political stability.
Amongst those who do retain an interest in the northern Somali Horn, there
is a strong temptation to romanticise Somaliland's stability - built, as it
has been for more than two decades, on a deep popular commitment to the
avoidance of violence. This narrative glosses over numerous difficulties and
shortcomings. Somaliland's relative success is not unalloyed.
Politics is as riven by clan patronage and division as it has ever been.
Major challenges lie ahead in registering voters, holding parliamentary and
presidential elections, and determining an electoral system for the upper
house or Guurti. Women and minority groups are excluded from most formal
political participation apart from voting, and some Somalilanders are
growing increasingly disillusioned with a secessionist "project" that
remains incomplete and fragile.
Democracy, a messy business
No society can sustain the high hopes of those who prefer to see only the
positive. One of the key failings of many observers, both Somali and
foreign, has been a cavalier willingness to adopt rhetoric that embraces
only those aspects of Somali history and culture that either add
conveniently to a narrative of unique success and stability, or are
seemingly evidence of the binary opposite - chaos and disorder.
If we are to offer effective support to Somalis committed to building a
reasonably inclusive and prosperous future in the Horn, it is vital that we
recognise both the challenges and the foundations on which such success is
built.
Politics is always a messy business, but it remains essential despite its
persistent failure to satisfy idealistic - or simply unrealistic -
yearnings. Building on success tends to be slow, painstaking, erratic and
unpredictable.
Of these characteristics, only the last two are applicable to the charged
dynamism and breakneck speed of political change in southern Somalia. In
Somaliland's case, there is a tendency to depict the territory's political
trajectory as having started in earnest in 1991.
This reading takes the fall of General Mohamed Siyaad Barre's government in
Muqdisho as the starting point, with that regime's egregious abuse of human
rights, and most particularly the wholesale destruction of Somaliland's two
biggest cities, as the prima facie justification for the unilateral
restoration of the sovereignty that Somaliland enjoyed for five days in
1960.
While each of these facts about Somaliland is correct, and the brutality of
the Siyaad Barre regime genuinely horrific, collectively they tell only half
the story. Importantly, selective and simplistic historicising does not
fundamentally challenge one of the key tropes used to describe Somali
political development: that of a people "addicted to congenital egalitarian
anarchy".1
In leaving that presumption somehow unchallenged, Somaliland is presented as
exceptional rather than as the latest example of Somali political stability
grounded in compromise, conflict and accommodation in the context of a
complex set of socio-cultural institutions.
For adherents to this incomplete narrative, Somaliland is remarkable as the
first Somali territory to establish a state that is widely accepted as
providing, in principle and practice, approximately legitimate democratic
government evidenced, in particular, by periodic and largely successful
elections.
Conversely, sceptics castigate the territory for failing to meet the
exacting standards of the perfectly representative state. Dissatisfaction
amongst some regarding its legitimacy is advanced as proof of the argument.
Somaliland's progress has been impressive in many ways. Successive
governments in Hargeysa have had to build legitimacy through a series of
clan-based conferences held since late 1990.
Those governments gradually consolidated their hold on power, but remained
sufficiently weak that each needed to secure the support of a substantial
portion of the population in order to remain in office.
Elections for local councils have been held twice (in 2002 and 2012), as has
a popular vote for the president (in 2003 and 2010) and for parliamentary
seats (in 2005). One of the presidential elections which resulted in defeat
for the incumbent by the narrowest of margins was followed by a peaceful
handover of power within the constitutionally stipulated timeframe.2
There were snags with some of these elections. The local council election in
2012, for example, was accompanied by widespread multiple and underage
voting.3 But each achieved the objective of providing a mechanism for
political contestation in an environment that was largely peaceful.
That is a major achievement by any standard. The shortcoming of the
exceptionalist narrative is not that Somaliland's progress is disputed. It
lies in misapprehensions about the political process itself and the common
inclination to equate the term "democratisation" with elections.
Transition, not exceptionalism
Somali society is conspicuously democratic. Adult Somali males are used to a
consensus-based system that allows them full participation in
decision-making on all key issues. That system is both highly inclusive -
for men - and slow and cumbersome. It is not dissimilar to the type of
discursive democracy practised in the city states of ancient Athens.
While this form of political participation is rightly criticised for
excluding women, and for being crisis driven - it takes a crisis to get
everyone together and focused on the problem at hand - it cannot reasonably
be described as undemocratic. Unless, of course, our definition of democracy
is so idealised as to apply only when all problems of exclusion have first
been resolved.
In fact, Somaliland's laudable success is not one of democratisation at all.
It is one in which most adult males are being asked to relinquish some of
their traditional right to participate in decision-making to allow for a
system of representation that permits greater responsiveness and speed,
while also holding out the possibility of meaningful inclusion of women and
of clan groups who have customarily been excluded. This process is not
unnecessary or undesirable.
If Somalis are to operate effectively in a globally connected world of
nation states, multinational corporations and powerful international lobbies
and agencies, they need a system of representative politics that confers the
agility and strength to negotiate and participate effectively.
If the benefits of engagement with the institutions and representatives of
international trade and finance are to be shared reasonably equitably, then
it is also vital that inclusive politics provides opportunities for Somali
citizens to select their representatives - and remove those who are
ineffective.
While elections are therefore instrumentally important, so is an
understanding of the established, discursive system of democracy. This helps
to explain why it has been very hard to find a way for Somali women, so
vigorously active in business and all other spheres of Somali life, to
participate fully in politics.
It also explains why Somalilanders, no less than other Somalis, are quick to
become disillusioned with their politicians. People whom they would once
have called to account frequently are now installed in office for five years
at a time - or longer when inevitable electoral extensions occur.
In one of the key Somaliland peace conferences - that held in Booraame
(Borama) town in 1993 - the chair was noted for urging delegates that
"voting is fighting; let's opt for consensus".4
For many Somalis, consensus-based politics remains the baseline that informs
often unspoken understandings of the ideal nature of democracy. It is
unsurprising that the representative politics of the nation state -
internationally recognised or not - frequently falls far short of that
standard.
A history of Somali state-building
A highly selective application of history is also deployed by sceptics to
justify the view that Somalis are ill equipped to operate within the
confines set by a system of state.
Somaliland has achieved a great deal in consolidating governmental
institutions that enjoy broad, if qualified, support. Yet it is not the
first successful Somali state, and it is incorrect to view Somali society as
naturally inclined to anarchy or chaos.
Throughout the past millennium, the Somali Horn of Africa has had vibrant
trading ports that periodically spawned or supported systems of government.
By the mid-14th century, there were a number of successful and stable
trading cities on the long Somali coast, marking the start of a period of at
least 200 years of considerable prosperity. One account identifies at least
20 such towns on the Gulf of Aden coast and in the immediate northern
hinterland alone.5
Several notable empires were founded on the wealth of coastal trading
centres. In the north, the Walashma dynasty built the powerful and
long-lived Adal Sultanate, with Seylac its commercial heart and a settlement
close to Harar, in today's eastern Ethiopia, its political centre.
Although the sultanate was identified primarily as a Muslim rather than a
Somali empire, there is little doubt that Somalis comprised a significant
proportion of its population. The 16th-century Adal military leader Ahmed
Ibrahim al-Ghazi "Gurey" is still revered amongst many Somalis as the first
great Somali nationalist.
It is certain, despite a dearth of authoritative documentation of the
period, that the Adal Sultanate enjoyed great wealth and considerable
territorial control for at least three centuries. Initially it lived at
peace with its highland Ethiopian neighbours, with whom it enjoyed extensive
trading links, but the relationship grew tense as both sides developed
aggressive territorial ambitions.
A long period of intermittent trade links and conflict saw huge territorial
fluctuations as the Adal Sultanate seized or lost ground to successive
highland rulers.
Only when the Ethiopian emperor Galawdewos secured the support of the
Portuguese, as "fellow Christians", against Ahmed Gury, who received some
backing from the Ottoman empire in what was explicitly framed by both sides
as a struggle between Islamic and Christian armies, did the balance of power
alter decisively. The Adal forces were roundly defeated on the shores of
Lake Tana in 1542, forcing the sultanate into a period of terminal decline.
The Adal Sultanate was one of the most famous of early Somali states, but by
no means the only one. The Ajuuraan and Geledi Sultanates in southern
Somalia are other prominent examples of distinctively or predominantly
Somali governance enduring over long periods of time.
Somaliland, a Somali nation state
Somaliland enjoys neither the territorial expanse nor the longevity of most
of the earlier Somali states. Its uniqueness therefore lies not in its
novelty as a resilient Somali state, nor in its democracy, but in its
success in building a durable and broadly representative system of
government within the borders of a contemporary nation state.
During the colonial era in the 20th century, Somali "states" did not allow
the involvement of Somalis in governance. Colonial territories could not by
any stretch be described as Somali nation states.
The representative democracy ushered in by independence in 1960 and the
exuberance of reunification of the British Somaliland Protectorate and
Somalia Italiana was lively and vital. It was also chaotic and riven by clan
division and dispute. The first attempted coup occurred 18 months later.
A mere nine years on, Siyaad Barre's coup was greeted with relief by a
population already disillusioned by the winner-takes-all nature of elections
and representative politics.
Siyaad Barre's government began with a surge of reforming zeal. Clans were
symbolically abolished and women were encouraged to play a full part in
politics. Again, dissatisfaction followed in short order and, in an effort
to retain power, the general was forced to exploit the very clan
affiliations he had denounced.
Desperate to keep his government in place, in 1977-8 he used a war against
Ethiopia to rally his population. Defeat left him with few other options,
and he steadily lost power even as he resorted to increasingly brutal
repression in an effort to retain it. The insurrection that finally ended
his rule started not in Somaliland, but amongst the Majerteen of what is now
Puntland.
This series of events underscores the point that while Somaliland is not the
first successful Somali state, and did not introduce democratisation to the
region, it is the first successfully to combine electoral democracy with
nation state government. That is no mean feat, albeit neither the
unqualified success nor unacceptable imposition of centralised and
clan-based hegemony that are the dichotomous opposites frequently suggested
by observers.
The establishment of any nation state is inevitably accompanied by debate
and dissatisfaction over critical issues such as citizenship. Not all who
reside within a state's borders will be happy to be regarded as citizens.
In some areas of what was once British Somaliland, particularly the
easternmost, a significant proportion of the population is emphatically
unwilling to be classified as Somaliland citizens. This is certainly not a
trivial objection, and it remains to be seen how it will be resolved. But it
barely detracts from the importance of Somaliland's success in other
respects.
Often derided by critics as a one-clan state, Somaliland is in fact far from
that. Although dominated by the large Isaaq clan, this is a clan grouping
rather than a single, united lineage.
The socio-political system requires support from a number of non-Isaaq
clans: for example to bolster constituencies within the divided Isaaq group.
Indeed, it was when the Isaaq clans started fighting each other in the early
1990s, once the unifying spectre of the Muqdisho autocracy had vanished,
that many other clans gained confidence that Somaliland would not turn out
to be an Isaaq hegemony.
Federalism, autonomy and the prospects for representative transition
If Somaliland's transition is not one of democratisation, then, but of
progression from a patriarchal, discursive democracy to a more inclusive,
representative one, that is a transition which could usefully be replicated
elsewhere in the region. It is precisely what is currently being negotiated
in Puntland, albeit with less success to date. Southern Somalis too are
being urged in a similar direction by a heavily invested group of
international donors, diplomats and major NGOs.
There is little hope that Puntland will achieve a planned return to
electoral politics, following the cancellation of its first popular election
- for local council representatives - in mid-2013, unless there is a greater
understanding of precisely the transition that is required.
There is even less prospect that the ambitious roadmap for the south, which
anticipates a constitutional referendum in 2015 followed by full elections
in 2016, will succeed in the absence of a more nuanced understanding.
Many Somali observers have for years been calling for a return to the sort
of local peace-building that worked so well in Somaliland. That process does
not necessarily need to replace completely the Muqdisho-centred efforts that
have dominated for some time.
But the ejection of al-Shabaab from most southern Somali towns and villages
provides a real opportunity to transfer some of the ample investment in
top-down federal reconstruction to a more localised reconciliation process
that allows Somalis throughout Somalia to make the critical decisions about
their political future. If the rhetoric from donors about providing support
for "Somali-led solutions" is to carry any meaning, it is in precisely this
kind of shift.
The difficulty is that this approach will be slow and the results
unpredictable - as has been the case in Somaliland. However, without the
kinds of local agreements generated by such a process, there is little hope
that the always heated and often hysterical debates on federalism and
elections will lead to the establishment of durable political systems.
"Federalism" means so many wildly divergent things to Somalis and
non-Somalis alike that it is in effect a meaningless term. Puntland's
leaders argue for a version that accords so much autonomy to the constituent
parts of the Somali state they hope even Somaliland might be tempted back
into the fold.6
Their federal Somalia would look more like a multi-state free trade zone
than a single nation. President Hassan Sheikh, meanwhile, has modified his
centralising inclinations only slightly, still preferring a far stronger
Muqdisho government than many outside the capital are willing to
countenance.
Future Somaliland
If it is to be peaceable and to consolidate progress, Somaliland's own
future will require agreement on some deeply contentious issues.
Parliamentary elections are five years late, and now scheduled to be held in
the middle of 2015 - at which stage a presidential election is also due.
Before any elections can take place, a much delayed process of registering
voters must be completed in tandem with a civil registration. The last
attempt at voter registration, in 2008-9, was so deeply divisive that it
brought the country to the brink of conflict.7
If we bear in mind the transition that Somaliland is making, it is not
surprising that it has proved extremely difficult to count voters. The last
Somali census was conducted in the final years of Siyaad Barre's regime, and
so threatened to upset the balance of clan power that the results were never
released.
The Somaliland count carried the same risk of endangering established
agreements on clan representation, and it is inevitable that a new effort at
registration will be fraught with similar dangers.
It is possible that the experience of the 2012 local elections - which
prompted widespread recognition that the lack of an electoral register was a
key factor in enabling multiple voting on a massive scale - has focused
minds in a way that will permit the exercise to be conducted without
provoking a crisis this time round. But caution, patience and sensitivity
aplenty will be required.
The situation in the east of Somaliland also seems to be heading steadily
towards some sort of denouement. In the areas around Buuhoodle town and
throughout most of Sool region, the competition between Somaliland, Puntland
and the nascent, Dhulbahante-based regional state, Khaatumo, is becoming
increasingly intense.
To date, a systematised ambiguity has operated in which each of the
interested parties has simultaneously laid claim to the area and operated
more or less as though that claim had substance. It is not inconceivable
that this ambiguity could be maintained, but it seems less and less likely.
For one thing, there are hopes that commercial quantities of oil will be
found in the Nugaal Valley, which runs through Sool. Everyone wants to lay
unambiguous claim to that.
It is imperative that those wishing to support continued political
development in Somaliland and throughout the region take full cognisance of
looming threats as well as past successes.
An appreciation of the historical and cultural context in which recent
political development has occurred is equally essential. This, of course,
applies just as much to non-Somalis in diplomatic, donor and development
communities as it does to diaspora Somalis and those in the Somali Horn.
NOTES
1 Samatar, Said S., "Genius as Madness: King Tewodros of Ethiopia and Sayyid
Muhammad of Somalia in Comparative Perspective", Northeast African Studies
10, No. 3 (2003), p. 29.
2 Walls, M. and Kibble, S., "Somaliland: Change and Continuity", Report by
International Election Observers on the June 2010 presidential elections in
Somaliland, Progressio, London, 2011.
3 Kibble, S. and Walls, M., "Swerves on the Road", Report by International
Election Observers on the 2012 local elections in Somaliland, Progressio,
London, 2013.
4 Walls, M., A Somali Nation-State: History, Culture and Somaliland's
Political Transition, Ponte Invisibile/ redsea-online.com, Pisa, 2014, p.
178.
5 Lewis, I.M., A Modern History of the Somali: Nation and State in the Horn
of Africa, James Currey, Oxford, 4th edition, 2002, p.27.
6 Ali, Abdiweli M., "Solidifying the Somali State: Puntland's Position and
Key Priorities", talk at Chatham House (Royal Institute of International
Affairs), London, 24 October 2014.
7 Farah, Mohamed, "A Constitutional Solution to the Political Crisis in
Somaliland", unpublished paper, Academy for Peace and Development, Hargeysa,
2009.
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Received on Fri Dec 05 2014 - 16:57:14 EST