Somali Spring : From Bullets to Ballots?

I wish to express my gratitude to all the Speakers at the Nairobi Forum “Somali Spring”, organized by Rift Valley Institute. Thanks for the insights and eye opening talks. May God see Somalia move from bullets to ballots, and may this indeed be a Somali Spring.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of attending a Forum titled ‘Somali Spring’. Well, I found that title quite catchy and that’s probably one of the reasons I attended the forum. Most of the speakers were fast to denounce the title though: they had not coined that term and most seem to have cautious optimism and were not sure if this was a ‘spring’ as such. A probable step in the right direction, but they did express their concerns and fears. Is Somalia headed for some sort of redemption, or will all these politics play out as they did before? Just in case you have no idea on what I’m talking about, let me get you up to speed.  Somalia has been surviving on Transitional governments since 2004. The Transitional Federal Governments are what the international community recognizes as the functioning government in Somalia. Up until 20 August 2012 when they had to elect MPs and subsequently a president. I won’t get into these now; I will speak about the 'Somali Spring'.

When I heard the title Somali Spring, the first thought that came to mind was Arab Spring. The dynamics are definitely different. The Arab spring was a popular uprising against one ruler and this was at the national level and inspired hope of better life, better systems and so on to civilians. In Somalia, it was a fight against multiple people. The power struggles in Somalia are nothing new. We have the warlords, the Islamic radicals and other people who all want to lead Somalia. To Somalis, this time round was still a replay of past events. How many times have they seen people handpicked to rule them (from outside the Country) and not deliver? [One speaker mentioned, on a light note, a newsletter in Somalia had the title: 'Presidential Candidates Leave the Country after Elections']. Since the fall of Siad Barre, they thought it would all get better. 20+ years have gone by and the situation only gets worse. I personally feel that the TFG were not doing anything to better the war ravaged, once beautiful Somalia. They squandered the money, most of which is unaccounted for to date. Most of the money was pocketed by the great leaders of Somalia and never for the development of the country of civilians. TFG in TFG out, they all did the same thing. No institutions, no functioning systems, no peace, just fear and miserable lives. And get this, each time the TFG mandate came to an end and another one came in, they had to start from SCRATCH.

The New man in Somalia this time is a ‘fresher’ so to speak. He has never been involved in politics, he is just an educated elite. A Clean man. Not a previous warlord. Never fired a gun in his life and he became the President of Somalia. Maybe this is a sign that Somalia now wants to move from bullets to ballot boxes. He will face challenges though, owing to the fact that he is a newbie, people do not know him as such and he has no prior experience in politics. There may also be a culture that is unforgiving and harsh in the country. The leader needs to deliver and deliver FAST, or the people will think this is another puppet regime. Poor guy. He gets into power, no institutions in place, has a huge mandate with little capacity. Expectations may be high this time around, maybe this time it’s the REAL liberation. Other challenges that may face this regime include: dispensation of liberation space. Ok, our dear KDF et al. (under AMISOM) are hot on Al-Shabaab’s tail. BIG QUESTION: Who governs the vacuum left after Al-Shabaab disperses? The local community, the new government or the AMISOM peacekeepers? They all have legitimate claims of wanting or needing to govern the particular areas. So what happens? There is also the land dispute problem that has gone unresolved for 3 decades. The question of federalism, piracy and so on. The positive thing here is most of these can be resolved, gradually. There is an interim constitution, will people this time air their grievances democratically and go to the ballots instead of using bullets? Will they use this opportunity to demand for a change of clauses in the constitution, or the whole document altogether? This is not going to be easy, especially since the way of life they have gotten accustomed to is via bullets, but it isn't impossible.

They need to get to the root causes of all these conflicts and fighting. It will take time, but this is a high risk moment which provides an important opportunity that every actor needs to seize. There is a lot of guarded and cautious optimism, but this is the one chance there is to make things right. There is also need to develop a culture of trust among the Somalis. They need to have a sense of ownership. After all, it is their country. The international community needs to have spectator status and clear space for Somalis to do this right. They need to see what solutions they have up their sleeves just this time and work with them. The International Community needs to get this right. Darn, we all need to get this right.

Somalia in essence needs 3 kinds of liberations:

1.  Liberation from Islamic Radicalism and extremism. These Somalis we all equate to radicals and extremists are also tired of the same. They are tired of the draconian punishment they have to put up with. The Al-shabaab problem may have gotten some fixing, their core business hub of Kismayu is now in the hands of AMISOM. But there is the possibility that this problem won’t go away. They may disperse across borders and gain some cognizance there. It is also important to mention that when Al-Shabaab started out, it was out of genuine grievances. There is need to watch out so that other similar groups don’t stem up from these same grievances.
2.  Liberation from the captive State. In Somalia, the politics has been an all or nothing kind of politics. Zero-sum game. Predatory. Corrupt. Some people deem this as being worse than the Islamic Radicalism and extremism.
3. Liberation from perpetual liberation. How many times have Somalis thought they were on the verge of liberation, only to be thrown back to the ground? How many times have they had crushed expectations? Is the transition really over this time?

With this said, all we can do is sit and watch as the NEW man attempts to build a failed state from scratch into something new. He needs all the support he can get from the international Community. This is an uphill task. He will need to take baby steps, with support of course, but it is not impossible. This is a chance for liberation, go Somalia GO!

  

The Intervention :Kenya - Somalia Nexus

The mention of an attack along Moi Avenue, Nairobi (Kenya) and the impulsive thought of blaming Al-Shaabab inspired this post. Thanks to all the people and institutions who give me insight on what's happening, and the news too. The views here are totally personal.

Somalia has been anarchy for like Forever. To me it seems forever coz since I was a child, Somalia has been synonymous with conflict, refugees, war and all those derogatory words. Civil war broke out in 1991 when the former despotic leader of Somalia, Siad Barre was ousted. Somalia seems like a hopeless case and why does it seem so? It is at war with itself, with the region and the international community. Well, the Somalia history and the wars and proxy wars involved it would cost me the whole post so I’ll get into the dynamics another day.

image courtesy of area254.com

The TFG, according to the people, has been imposed on them by the International actors and they are corrupt and useless – If I am allowed to use that term. Al-shabaab was born out of grievances by the people due to economic mismanagement and poor governance. They saw the TFG as a ‘puppet’ regime and the Ethiopian backers as ‘invaders’. The insurrection group has espoused vicious patterns of violence buttressed by spiritual tactics. 

In the news, we heard that Kenya was intervening in Somalia because of the kidnapping of foreigners at the Coast by Al-shabaab. Well, how could it take about 1-2 weeks to prepare for a war of that magnitude? The abductions may have been just but a trigger but definitely not the main reason the otherwise meek Kenyan military could have ventured into the Somali territory. Kenya’s hard power had been a cause for speculation for far too long (even Museveni doubted the Kenyan army could fight) and they were proving their military might by going into Somalia to save it and chase Al Shabaab away, right? Well, It had more to do with protecting Kenya’s interests, mostly economic. The Port of Lamu is a major project to be undertaken but the problem comes in when you think about the proximity to Somalia and the pirates. For any chance of success, Somalia needs to be stable. So probably the government of Kenya had thought of ways they could get into Somalia, have support of the Kenyans and international actors as well and not have questions risen. I mean, we have IDPs languishing in camps and the government wanted to spend money on war, they needed a good excuse. So they went in, with so much pomp and excitement. Kenyans too were excited. All TV stations had live reports on the intervention. Then came the media blackout. All of a sudden, as fast as they had started, they stopped. Was Kenya biting off more than they could chew? Had they really thought this through?

 Kenya was going strong up until they got about 100kms into Somalia. Now they had to maintain the captured towns or else Al-Shabaab would recapture them and they also had to move on. How? They had obviously not thought this through. Kismayu is known to be the economic power of Al-Shabaab. If the intention was to weaken them, they could have gotten there but they haven’t.  Alshabaab are very deceptive and very smart. They can camouflage, they can fit in. They can just adorn themselves with a buibui and niqaab and act like women – only with a gun, a grenade or some sort of weapon beneath the buibui. You can’t tell them apart from their Somali counterparts. War is also very expensive and Kenya has its own economic problems. This war is just not sustainable. They had not set a time period for when they would leave. So they re-hatted and joined the AMISOM forces which would create a source of funds and also some sort of redemption for the Kenyan forces. They were not quitting, they had joined AMISOM. They were trying to tell us that they weren’t defeated but in actual sense, to me, that’s exactly the message I got. The vast support they had started to diminish and this may probably be because of the body bags that started finding its way into the country. Some also speculate that Kenya wants to get rid of Dadaab refugee camp though this is a problem that’s not spoken of too loudly. If the soldiers manage to save Somalia, the Somali inhabitants will make their way back home and Kenya won’t be home to one of the largest refugee camps.  I wait for that to happen.

So now Kenya is stuck between a rock and a hard place. They can’t just up and leave Somalia, after all they wanted to demonstrate their military might. On the other hand, Kenya continues to be seen as an enemy to Al-Shabaab and chances are they will not stop attacking us until we pack up and leave their country. I wait to see what happens.

God protect us!

Proud to be BLACK

I am Black and I am proud.

Just because I am Black, no one should put me down

That is how God wanted me to be.

I am Black and I am proud.

Just because I am Black, people should not exterminate me

I am an equal occupant of this world.

The only thing that makes the world better is diversity. If I have a different skin color,

If I have a different view and opinion, if I practice a different religion, If I think you don’t govern well and I speak out, that still does not give you a right to want exterminate me.

I am suffering. My children are being killed, my wife, mother and sisters are gang raped in front of me then brutally killed. My sons are abducted, and even killed, right in front of my eyes. But Still I stand to tell you, I shall not give up without a fight.

I live in fear, with my family and friends, but still we shall not give up. I hide in caves and mountains, feed on wild plants and fruits, all this spurred by your brutality and heartlessness.  I shall still stand up for what I believe in. I might not be able to change the circumstances, yet. I may not be able to stop you, yet. But I shall not give up.

As you stand by and watch, as you wait for my demise, I am keen to tell you that NO, you cannot finish us all. They tried that in Rwanda, they did not succeed. They tried it in Darfur, they did not succeed. So even now I tell you, you shall not succeed. You cannot finish us all. And among those remaining I stand to tell you that I will fight for our cause.