Balkanization & the ghost of Greater Somalia
By Ahmed M.I. Egal*
10 April 2006 — Firstly, I have to commend Mr. Ali H. Abdulla on the rational and reasoned tone of his piece “The Hidden Conspiracy to Balkanize Somalia” which recently appeared on various Somali websites. In the main, the supporters of ?Greater Somalia’ tend towards a virulence of language that often descends to name-calling and/or a crude tribalism that negates any form of rational argument and reasonable discourse. Thus, Mr. Abdulla deserves to be commended for rising above these shallow appeals to base emotions in the tone of his piece.
However, if the tone of his missive is thoughtful and reasoned, I regret to say that the logic and thrust of his argument is not only facile and artificial, but actually devoid of any merit. Mr. Abdulla engages in the age old artifice of the propagandist – build a straw hut in order to demolish it and in the process while “exposing” its flimsy nature. He posits the success of Somaliland in building a free, democratic country governed by the rule of law and the suffering of the people of the north under the Afweyne dictatorship as the two principal reasons for Somaliland’s recovery of its sovereignty. Having created this straw hut, he then proceeds to blow it down by dismissing these reasons as insufficient justification for the people of Somaliland to recover their sovereignty from Somalia, by citing examples of other peoples, e.g. the Kurds, who have had similar experiences without seceding.
Mr. Abdulla chooses to completely ignore the critical and defining facts underlying Somaliland’s case for nationhood. Firstly, there was no national entity called Somalia or Somaliland prior to the advent of colonialism in the Horn of Africa. The Somali people inhabited a region extending from the northern edge of the Rift Valley in Kenya to the south, to Harrar in eastern Ethiopia to the west, to the Afar mountains in the north, and extending along the Red Sea/Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean coastlines as far south as the mouth of the Tana River in northern Kenya. The Somali people were organised along clan and tribal lines and did not adhere to any Pan-Somali socio-political structure that can be equated with the modern nation state. Rather, when the European scramble for Africa took place at the end of the 19th century, Britain entered into a Treaty of Protection with the Somali tribes along the Gulf of Aden coast in order to protect the southern gateway to the Suez Canal, while the French established colonial suzerainty over the Territory of the Afar & Issa and the Italians established suzerainty over the territory north of the British colony of Kenya and southeast of the Abyssinian Empire. Thus, were the geographic borders of the Somali territories established by treaties between the respective colonial powers, i.e. Britain, Italy, France and Abyssinia, without any Somali input.
Secondly, the Somalia that Mr. Abdulla fears is being balkanised never existed as a nation state until it was created by the union of the ex-British Protectorate of Somaliland and the ex-UN Trust Territory of Somalia to its south. This union between two, independent states was never legally ratified since the people of Somaliland rejected the Union Constitution when it was put to a national referendum in 1961, although the people of Somalia ratified it with a large majority. Thus, the legal basis for the existence of the Somali Republic under international law is itself suspect and open to dispute. Mr. Abdulla, whether you and your fellow Greater Somalists like it or not, the fact of the matter is that Somaliland was established as a nation state on 26th June 1960 and so pre-dates, as a nation state, the Somalia to which you are so beholden. It is also a matter of cold, hard fact, unpalatable to you though it may be, that the people of Somaliland never gave their consent to the union with Somalia on the terms proposed to them in the Union Constitution of 1961. Thus, their decision to re-establish their sovereignty in 1991, after ejecting the genocidal, Afweyne dictatorship from their country, is not only soundly based upon international law, but actually gives belated effect to their rejection of the union with Somalia evidenced by their rejection of the 1961 constitution.
The vibrant and functioning democracy that the people of Somaliland have established in their country is a reflection of their political maturity and their deep commitment to liberty, representative government and the pursuit of human advancement through peace and development. It is not the reason they have recovered their national sovereignty, but rather the living proof of their claim to self determination and nationhood. The skewed terms of the 1960 union with Somalia under which Somaliland was marginalised, leading eventually to the campaign of genocide instituted by the Afweyne dictatorship was the final impetus that drove the people of Somaliland to take up arms and forcibly rid themselves of that evil regime, and in so doing recover their sovereignty, their liberty and their dignity. Somaliland’s claim to nationhood does not rest upon the fact that it was persecuted by Afweyne and his junta, however, that persecution brought home to its people that recovering their sovereignty required, in effect, the toppling of that evil regime. Indeed, the people of Somalia owe Somaliland a debt of gratitude for initiating the demise of the Afweyne cabal.
Mr. Abdulla, permit me to enlighten you regarding Professor Ali Mazrui’s interview with Sagal Radio as per your request. In the section of this interview, quoted in your piece, which you were unable to fathom, he is discussing the non-state, socio-political structure of many African societies, including Somali society. He is making the point that many African societies had, and still have, strong rules governing their socio-political and economic organisation of society, but little or no central authority or government. This is certainly true in much of Somali society, where there is no tradition of strong, centralised rulers, but a largely egalitarian and democratic system of debate and consensus among all adult clan members, with traditional elders and ?sultans’ exercising power and authority through the veracity of their argument, the depth of their wisdom and the force of their personality, rather than through formal state structures. From your comments on Professor Mazrui’s statements, it is clear that you do not understand the important point he is making concerning alternative socio-political structures which is part of the global, academic debate about the contribution of non-European societies to human social, political and economic development. This is not the appropriate forum to enter this debate, but your perception that the good Professor’s comments portray “…us as a nation that is way behind other Africans…” indicates that your education in political theory, social anthropology and African history has a long way to go.
Finally, it is necessary to raise a point of language here. The term ?balkanization’ as used in political discourse has a distinct and specific meaning which arises from the historical genesis of the term. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Balkans (as the territory in southern Europe from Albania through erstwhile Yugoslavia and Slovenia was called) was carved up by the Great Powers, comprising the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Russia, Germany, France and Great Britain. This imperial carve-up and the competition it induced lead directly to the First World War, and this is where the term derived from, along with its pejorative connotation. In essence, therefore, the term ?balkanization’ has come to refer to the process whereby stronger powers carve up weaker nations and states among themselves.
In the case of the erstwhile Somalia, what has transpired is the collapse of a state whose raison d’être, i.e. the irredentist dream of Greater Somalia, had vanished. Somaliland’s recovery of its nationhood cannot be termed ?balkanization’ since it is the will of its people and not the externally imposed imperative of a foreign power. In passing, it is interesting and noteworthy that Mr. Abdulla never identifies the foreign powers which are conspiring to balkanize Somalia, although he is quick to accuse all and sundry of beings agents of this conspiracy. Perhaps he thinks the foreign powers which are conspiring to balkanize Somalia are Iqbal Jhazbhay and Ian Lewis!
I choose not to comment on the rest of Mr. Abdulla’s missive, since it is mainly confined to a rather mean spirited character assassination of Professors Iqbal Jhazbhay and Ian Lewis which does not merit discussion. I will only state that while the achievements and credentials of these two renowned academics are a matter of public record, Mr. Abdulla’s lack of comprehension of the substance of the subject he chooses to discuss as well as the terminology in which he frames it is now also a matter of public record.
* Ahmed M.I. Egal is based in the United Arab Emirates, he can be reached at [email protected]