Reconciliation and Human Security: Prospects of Somalia Unity.
“Human security can no longer be understood in purely military
terms. Rather, it must encompass economic development, social justice,
environmental protection, democratization, disarmament, and respect for
human rights and the rule of law” (Kofi Annan.)
Somali National Symbol and unity
by Farhia Ali Abdi Friday, March 07, 2014
Since the civil war in 1991, Somalia has undergone various ideology
experiments to unite the country again. However, none of them have
brought lasting stability. Somalia’s problems are many and complicated:
warlordism associated to clan rivalry and control underlies the broader
Somali culture; international and regional military intervention had
brought militarization and instability and not security or peace; and,
different religious ideologies that created extremism with the
subsequent war of terror that is in full force today. In addition, the
emergence of regionalism that sees other local African nations along
with some internal Somali interests is becoming more prevalent. This
regional politicking and interference is also divisive and makes it
difficult for Somalis to work for reconciliation
These have been the paralyzing factors that have contributed to the
derailment of any meaningful stabilization of the country. Although
such experiences are common in such a fragmented society, particularly
with the presence of international forces and aid, what is concerning in
the case of Somalia is the prolonged instability. The entrenchments
that these hindrances have pose a real and problematic scenario for the
country’s future stabilization. What I find to be an even more
profoundly complex issue is how to re- unite this country considering
its current intra-politics, external politics and interference, and lack
of social cohesion. My particular concern here is an attainment of a
human security, beyond the political and social wrangling.
Sustainability of a country lies in the strength of its human security,
which will lead to the country’s national security and
stabilization.
What is Human Security?
Human security was first defined by the United Nations Development
Programme’s (UNDP’s) Human Development Report 1994 as being free from
chronic threats such as hunger, disease and repression. It also linked
human security to the overall protection from sudden and hurtful
disruptions in the patterns of daily life – whether in homes, in jobs or
in communities, and it can exist at all levels of national income and
development. State security, on the other hand, was defined as a state
of being free from danger or threat or the safety of a state. Somalia is
one of the most underdeveloped countries in the world; therefore, human
security is critical in order to revive and sustain a social and
economic recovery.
In this new epoch, there is an ideology amongst Somali people to
focus on the country’s need both from the federal and regional levels.
Somalia has also been seen by the international community as being on
the verge of a comeback politically, evident by the endorsements
received from US, EU and other Arab and African countries. On the
ground, there is a hopeful sign as over the past few years that
Somalia's fragile security on the ground has improved slightly, with the
efforts of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and Somalia’s
national army. Although the involvement and the support of the
international community are viewed as necessary, it becomes problematic
when the country’s security, building of institutions and
decision-making continues to rest in the hands of foreign bodies. One
can argue that today, the country’s foreign agents have begun growing in
size, and their influence impedes the ability of Somalis to create a
reliable and accountable government of their own. Building institutions
and sustainable development require both political and economic change,
and the desire to embrace the concept of relying on foreign aid creates
distortion to the existing national development programs, thus, forcing
it to continually depend on donors for growth and survival.
Clearly Somalia is in dire need of good economic planning,
governance, effective institutions, and leadership, but it is not
positioned to exit fragility and secure human security with the current
dependency on the scrutinized international support. As Rwanda’s
President Paul Kagame simply puts, “the history of international support
to Africa has been a dead end.” President Kagame stated that the
international community disbursed $300 billion in aid to Africa since
1970, and it did not work, primarily because, it spent on creating and
sustaining client regimes of one type or another, with minimal regard to
economic growth and human development outcomes (see Dead Aid by Dambisa
Moyo). On October 10, 2013, President Kagame’s remark was echoed by Mr.
Naoyuki Shinohara, Deputy Managing Director of International Monetary
Fund who said the IMF’s past approaches were not implementing effective
policies in fragile states. He added the IMF is now adopting a new
approach to fragile states by looking at their economic conditions and
political reforms and the countries’ circumstances and focused on quick
wins. The late Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere once said that IMF was
not created for the ‘third world’ development, but rather to control
its policy and economy. As President Kagame pointed out and supported by
IMF’s own admission that the African aid approach taken by the
international community did not work for over forty years, and there is
very little evidence it will work in the case of Somalia.
That being said, Somalia will not achieve and enable human security,
and become a united nation unless it finds a way to detach itself from
such a clutch, and focus on its own internal solution. It’s true that
the country cannot function without stabilizing security force and at
the same time, foreign forces and aid cannot be the guarantors of
national or human security. Only the Somalia people themselves can do
that. As Dambisa Moyo puts it, “the result of foreign dependency is that
instead of having a functioning Africa, managed by Africans, for
Africans, what is left is one where outsiders attempt to map its destiny
and call the shots (Dead Aid). In the case of Somalia, foreign
influence does not attempt they do call the shots.
Building human security, good governance and economic development?
Productivity growth, structural transformation and improvements in
the distribution of income may not happen without an effective
government, and strong social movements. An economic change can trigger
political changes, although one can argue that this could be the
reasons why some within and outside of the country are resistant to
promote an economic change as they are comfortable with the current
political climate. Yet we still tend to pay relatively little attention
to the way the political and economic arenas interact over time, either
reinforcing or contradicting each other. The question of whether we need
a new vision, to take us out of dependency and forever relying handout
is one of degree. As I was preparing this article, I was struck by the
considerable gap between modern concepts of government and those that
held sway in the past. As a result, I became more concerned about the
growing gap between the reality of the country we are all so desperate
to create and the theory that, in principle, is there to guide it.
Somalia’s economic recovery continues to be hampered by the
challenging security situations, poor infrastructure and limited
financial resources in the country. The Somali economy remains heavily
dependent on high levels of aid and remittances. According to UN
sources, humanitarian and development aid in 2012 to Somalia was US$
750million, which on a per-capita basis is one of the highest in the
world (African Development Bank Group, 2013). As it was estimated
between US$ 1-1.5bilion per year, remittances are the single largest
contributor to national capital inflows and wealth of the country
(2013). In the past, Somalia relied mostly on its own resources,
whether from its land or sea before looking outward. For example, the
1974 famine was an awakening period of the country psychic, and Somalia
showed its determination by focusing on land cultivation for food
security and economic development. It appears that realization and
innovation is now lost within our Somali culture, and the international
engineered aid dependence became the only focus for survival. Focusing
on the provision of food and water, law and order, human rights, and, so
forth will have a great impact on human security. The country’s safety
and development programs must be adapted to the actual local situation.
This means that the government should create and direct its support,
according to local engagement and local determination of needs and
long-term capacity building. By defining the problems and the solutions
locally, people can have a genuine interest in actively participating in
and solving the problems and in creating the kinds of communities of
which they want to be a part.
Prioritizing an area of development and
support will depend on the specific context of the issue, and it
requires a good understanding of local leadership, capacity, situations,
and conditions.
Government’s role is then to find ways to generate income within the
country’s resources and business and inject that into the hands of the
public. For instance, investing in public and private sectors are great
ways to create jobs, and collect taxes. In this regard, priority
should be directed to youth and women, who constitute more than half of
the Somali population, and who in the case of women, are often
responsible for the day-to-day providence for family and broader social
networks. The problems that youth and women face are the problems of
society as a whole, and in so doing, changes the economic, political and
social situations. Specific programs should be created to promote real
opportunities for women, and youth so that they can fully exercise their
rights, autonomy, and inclusion; and, to help them to build their own
capacity to overcome situations of vulnerability, instability, and
dependency. There are many displaced refugees within Somalia, about 1,
373,080 (possibly more today) in Mogadishu alone, according to the
UNHCR’s 2013 Country Operations Report, this means the need is great and
the resources are scarce, but with proper allocation and planning it’s
possible to create a human security. When people are free from fear,
hunger, and their basic rights are met; they tend to live with dignity
and in harmony with one another, building a culture of sustainability.
Challenges, opportunities and way forward:
Many countries may not have gone through security and instability
issues like Somalia has, but there are many other underdeveloped regions
that are unable to achieve and sustain high economic growth. The
reasons are many, but they include differences in the sequencing of
reform policies, lack of proper development of physical and social
infrastructure, structural weaknesses, including roads in remote
locations, limited natural resources and being landlocked. Somalia is a
pastoral society and is well known for its livestock, agriculture,
forestry, and fisheries; therefore, it needs to explore its resources
coupled with smart policies in order to ensure an equitable distribution
of gains from the country’s resources. The International Monetary Fund
pointed out in 2013 that “Somalia’s economy, which primarily relies on
subsistence agriculture and fishing, is still held back in its
development by the fractured nature of the country and the poorly
developed infrastructure." Somalia is a country with unexploited
potential with energy and other natural resources, and external
companies are attracted to these resources.
The challenge is that the growing interest of the international
community in the country is seen as solely aimed at protecting their
investments and asserting their control over any decision making. It’s
important that the country explores its agrarian and self suitability
needs. In this case, the country will be in a more productive position
from which it can develop other resources in the public interest. The
actions of the international community have so far been directed at
stopping or slowing down this evolutionary process by proposing
unworkable political solutions to the successive crises. Many efforts
have been devoted to the application of the wrong medicine, and very
little to understanding the real problems. The terrible tug of war
affairs in Somalia has impacted negatively on national development; and
it’s important the country reconciles its internal social conflict.
Unity through reconciliation:
The impairment caused by civil wars are more harmful than other
external wars because it takes place within the territory of a single
state and contributes to weaken its institutions and infrastructure, as
well as having a terrible impact on the people through a loss of lives
and through the establishment of fear and distrust amongst the people.
In this regard, social cohesion can remain irreparably damaged because
societies, neighbors and even families are often divided by war. Somalis
are very proud and resilient society; however, their political strength
also lies with kinship. As the British anthropologist, I.M. Lewis
reminded us in his Pastoral Democracy, the “Somali political philosophy
is an evolution of agnatic connections." Professor, Lewis further added
that though the Somali society lacked a central government, the people
are not without government or political institutions. This is true today
as it was when he wrote those words in 1960. Some suggest that Somalia
is more of a pluralism society than a state dating back to its
pre-colonial days. Pluralism is a conceptual model that argues that the
best form of a political system is one in which recognition is given to a
large number of competing interest groups. In this context, the Somalia
constitution, as it is written today, states that the Federal
Government is responsible for guaranteeing the peace, security and
national sovereignty of the country through its security forces, namely
the armed forces, the intelligence service, the police force, and the
prison force – Article 126. However, in order to achieve peace,
security, and unity in the country, there needs to be consent from its
entire territories with their own localized autonomies as bestowed by
the constitution.
The foreseeable challenges and the obstacle that is confronting the
creation of a strong, united Somalia is how well the government (present
and future) is willing to convince the regional governments that a
national unity is in the best interest of all Somalis, in spite of the
current high level of intra-political conflict between the regions and
federal government.
The inter-clan animosity and mistrust mostly
emanated from the country’s 1991 civil war makes this realization
difficult; however, to start a process of healing, Somali governments
must take the opportunity to initiate the process of creating a proper
reconciliation. In order to do that, there needs to be an absolute
peaceful political and community reconciliation, and secure local
solutions to local problems. This cultural pluralism is the elephant in
the room that is ignored by every government, and the negotiation of
that premises is hindering the country’s genuine success of achieving
unity. The regions of the country are clan institutionalized and are
able to function better with a weak central government that can’t impose
its will upon them. Even though local decision-making is very
important, lack of national unity poses a real problem for an
achievement of a pluralistic although united federal Somali state. If
various regions adopt self-reliant approaches to the solution of
national unity and socioeconomic problems, then boundary conflicts are
likely to arise, with the history of cultural clan lineages, it is not
impossible to foresee conflicts of regionalism and inter-clan
hostilities. Regions of the country, mainly Puntland, Somaliland, and
now Jubaland, have all developed their own security forces, including
military and police forces. If these regions and others like them do not
buy into a national unity with the absence of an appropriate
reconciliation, it makes it difficult for the central federal government
to create a Somali national unity or identity. Thus, in this context,
reconciliation should be a priority on the government’s planning to
achieve a coherent national unity based on respect and working with
regional differences as well as negotiating, creating, and upholding
common state goals and affinity.
Somalia’s crises were conceived with inherent weakness and
old-fashioned clan mentalities; therefore, building and restructuring of
the Somalia governance and leadership are best accomplished on the
basis of a broad national consensus with recommence of its roots, rather
than the internationally engineered solution. The internal issues and
conflicts threaten the present and future security of the country. It
is a time to share peaceful negotiation with the regions of the country
according to their respective needs, to have a shared national interest
and to build a strong and coherent national unity. The international
community should try to put the Somali issue in its proper historical
perspective to understand the under-lying root causes of the Somali
crises. Any international involvement has to be one in partnership and
negotiation driven by what the Somalis perceive as a solution. The
Neoliberal approaches to politics and mediation exercised by the
international community, and the government is unlikely to succeed
without full regional support, and unlikely to allow any government of
Somalia to fulfill its mandate as a guarantor for national unity and
sovereignty. It was said intervention inevitability is always the final
traditional justification for failing ideologies. Although, the concept
of unity may have shifted today, it is important to create a climate of
respect, collaboration, and negotiation to stabilize and unite the
country, and not lose a sight of the inherent ideology that brought this
country's statehood.
Farhia Ali Abdi
guure@rogers.com
guure@rogers.com
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