Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 21:47:07 +0100
Al-Shabab: Guardians of Somali identity?
What are the reasons behind Al-Shabab survival in Somali politics?
Last updated: 18 March 2014 09:40
Abdullahi Boru Halakhe
Abdullahi Boru Halakhe
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Abdullahi Boru Halakhe is a Horn of Africa security analyst.
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Inside Story - Al-Shabab: A war of vengeance?
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Al-Shabab considers khat 'haraam' and has banned the use of the stimulant
[AP]
British Channel 4 journalist Jamal Osman had an exclusive on al-Shabab that
included a training and graduation ceremony. The picture that emerged was
that al-Shabab is a sophisticated group which, more than others, grasped the
duality of the state; one of brutal efficiency in employing force and in the
second order, the ability to undertake state's benign "soft" function:
collecting garbage and ensuring pharmacies stock unexpired drugs.
In popular state formation theories what distinguishes or indeed makes a
state a state, is its ability to project the use of force. By being the
prominent purveyor of violence, the state increases the cost to anyone who
wants to challenge it, and also provides an incentive for a group(s) to
accept to be part of the state. Since its collapse, Somalia's ability to
function as a state and project the use of force has been outsourced to
external actors. As a result - nature abhors a vacuum - al-Shabab or
previously, warlords, filled in.
The group's overarching understanding that the centre of gravity- for its
survival- rests with the citizens, and not the state or external actors,
explains their durability. As long as they can provide security - because
they are the biggest source of violence anyway - and garbage is collected in
areas that they control, it buys them legitimacy, albeit through fear.
While all external actors crave to be loved, al-Shabab thrives on fear. In
understanding Somalis, one has to struggle with the paradox of being at once
pastoral democrats - ready to negotiate some issues - and an unflinching
republican, some relations like family are non-negotiable. Al-Shabab
concentrated on the latter part. While Somalis can trenchantly disagree over
their clan politics, however, when it comes to their sovereignty, both
personal and collectively, they will never negotiate. They are unrepentant
nationalists, and in the absence of a state, rhetorically and sometimes
symbolically, al-Shabab acts as the vanguard and the only reliable guardian
of Somali nationalism and identity.
This is further entrenched by the fact that the majority of the post-1991
governments have not been organically constituted - they have been
externally midwifed, making al-Shabab a formidable custodian of the Somali
identity.
While al-Shabab has that luxury, monopoly really, the Somali government has
to juggle many contradicting and often competing interests - the Turks who
would want to show Somalia as the testing ground for international Islamic
brotherhood through a humanitarian lens, the Europeans and the Americans who
have a mortal fear of the radicalisation of Somali youth immigrants, and the
African Union that wants to prove the dictum African solutions to Africa's
problem.
Without any leverage, the Somali president/prime minister is left at the
mercy of all these and many actors. All the while al-Shabab is capable of
being run like a well-oiled machine. The Western countries have, by default,
reduced their footprints and focus on counterterrorism. This is guided by
rational calculations; limited footprint means limited domestic political
consequences, inoculating themselves against accusation of invaders. But
this singular focus on terrorism by the West is akin to attempting to
address the symptoms rather than the cause of Somalia's crisis - a classic
Band-Aid solution.
African countries are enamoured by an African solution to Africa's problems,
but they suffer from naively thinking that since we are fellow Africans,
Somalis will welcome us with flowers at the gates of Mogadishu. Just like
any other modern intervention, the window between an intervention as
liberation and invasion is small. In the case of the
<http://www.somalicurrent.com/2013/12/16/amisom-force-commander-hand-over/>
AMISOM, they need to grasp that reality urgently, otherwise, their genuine
effort of winning over Afro-pessimists could be undone. In all, everyone is
in Somalia for their own interests rather than the Somalis', and that
explains why al-Shabab succeeds where others fail.
Another group that most external actors could learn from is the khat
distributors in Somalia. Since the collapse of the state in 1991, khat, also
known as miraa - a mild stimulant popular in East Africa and grown in the
Eastern part of Kenya - has been exported to Somalia during war and peace.
It is distributed more efficiently than any food aid. This efficiency beats
what any economist envisages when they speak about the virtues of the unseen
hand of the market. This is despite al-Shabab banning khat as haraam -
forbidden.
The group that has survived al-Shabab has an enduring lesson for all. Khat
distribution networks and their resiliency is a case study on how to operate
in a hostile environment. Maybe it is about time we undertake an unbiased
study of al-Shabab and khat distributors on how to establish a state and an
efficient distribution network of economic and public goods - the key
prerequisites of a state.
Abdullahi Boru Halakhe is a security analyst on the Horn of Africa
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