Somali Epochal Events

According to Prof. Samatar, Back in the 60s Somalia was a beacon and a champion of democracy in Africa. Power was democratically transferred. It took 26 years for the next African nation, Zambia, to achieve that goal. The first present of Somali, was the first person in African to transfer power when lost election. His legacy taught every Somalis a lot. Now the Nation of poets known us different name such as Anarchy nation due of the absent of the government. There are many causes that lead to nation to be in this conflict. The cause of the war in first war was to remove the Said bare regime which was great historic movement for all Somalia’s. These historic changes have been associated with more epochal events today.


One of the major of that event was the outset of the last regime which created many movements that didn’t share same ideology. All of them shared one vision to remove said bare regime, but all those leaders didn’t had the nationalist motivation that late President Said Bare posed. Said Bare was for greater Somali dream to unite all the land that belonged to Somali, but losing the war in 1997 caused Somalia a shock and still until today we talked about it. During the rule of Said Bare regime most of the mistakes relayed on inflexible ideology such as using several clans as a tool to obtain political power. Those leaders for all Somali movements lacked Pan-Somalism motives, and they introduced mainly the ideology of Pan-Clanism. Pan-Clanism is idea that emerged in Somali for the last 18 years, and there is little written about it. Ironically is in the mind of every self claimed leaders and as well some of the people. I could be wrong, but the reality is that Clanism replaced nationalism in Somali. Those leaders wanted a political gain in Somali. So, they used Clan as a tool to gain power. The histrionic moment changed brought destruction, killing, injustice and lawnless in Somali. The worst change was the absence of the peace in Somali for some long time until the UIC resorted peace and stability in South Somali. It was another major change, but lasted for short time. The TFG didn’t agree with them since he was hungry for power and claimed to be the president of Somali since the people didn’t vote for him which he was elected in the country that see thereat Strong Somali GOV. Now he brought failures and won’t even agree with qualified prime minster that he worked for the Somali civil society before accepting the post of the Prime minster. Now the self claimed president at the lower self is greedy, after his own friend the Ethiopians could not agree with him anymore and rejected the withdraw of Ethiopian troops. Mr Abdullahi Yusuf, you should been taught how to be content.

Yes, Somalia is failed state, but at the same time it proved to everybody that Somalia can be the only country in world to live without a government. I believe Somalia is the sole responsible for these 16 years of Civil Strife because our people one way or another chose dump, criminal leaders, unworthily dedicated to self-interest only, to speak for all of us. There is no public sector in Somalia, but the private sector took care of that. Sectors like telecoms and IT have been developed in Somalia faster than in several other African countries that live in peace. As a matter of fact, the absence of regulation and licensing has allowed the private Somali telecoms companies to flourish, while free market competition forces operators to keep prices low. Telecoms in Somalia offer the lowest international call rates allover the world. Staying connected with the rest of the world is crucial, because remittances from the Somali Diaspora run in millions of dollars.

The problem in Somalia is that there are few people who are currently diffusing the ideology of Salafism and Wahhabism, through the vehicle of the UIC. They have done a great job in bringing peace to southern Somalia, but they should stay in the capital, and draft a Constitution for the city to draw respect for the Law and the Elder. Unfortunately, they deiced to use gun rather than pen, and they paid a heavy price for this. We are having a problem with Salafism and Wahhabi extremism in Somalia, due to Saudi money flow aimed at promoting this ideology; however, I am confident that this attempt will not work in Somalia. This ideology is a threat against Somalia, it should be and will be rejected.

Al-Shabaab need to understand the propose of Islamic state, the establishment of an Islamic state in Somalia needs to be agreed by all the Somalis, and even more importantly, it must promote the correct teaching of Islam. However, if some Somalis want to impose Wahhabist ideas, they should know in advance that this will not work. The reason is that only extremely few Somalis would agree with their ideas, while the rest would reject it. This already happened in 2006 - 2007 and the UIC paid the price for it. At this point, I want to add that another mistake of the UIC government was that they wanted to ban Sufism in Somalia and this would contravene ages old traditions deeply embedded in the Somali culture. Quite interestingly, most of the UIC leaders were Sufi, before they adhered to Salafism and the Wahhabist ideology. Personally, I believe that, as Islam is a way of life, the government – any government I mean – should not interfere, let alone enforce a strict interpretation of Islamic laws. It is not up to a government to instruct citizens how to follow religious rules and practices; on the contrary, it is up to an individual to decide on how to follow the Islamic code, because Allah will judge the individual behavior and how a certain individual interprets Islamic values to him/herself.

I do believe Islamic laws will bring stability to Somalia because most citizens will follow these laws. Opposite to what I envision, the Islamic Courts of Justice did not legislate and stipulate the correct Islamic laws as most of the Judges did not have a specific degree on the subject. As they had not been trained on how to enforce the Islamic law, and rather contributed to confusion, and I think there lies the danger. Furthermore, most Judges stipulated Islamic laws of dubious content and purpose. How different is the History of Islamic Law, and how differently was the Law interpreted in the Golden Age of Islam! To sum up, right now the Somali society is far from having a chance to properly achieve an Islamic state, due to different ideas that have flowed to Somalia.

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Couldn't agree more. Al-Shabab work for the interest of other nations not Somalia. Money and guns talk louder in Somalia. And the Saudis are using that to influence our people. Diidnaay.