Somalia in 1992 #incrediblehistory

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Published on October 16, 2024 4:00:58 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO2CuNsbMKk

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The events that led to the 1992 intervention in Somalia began in 1991, when the Somali dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in a military coup staged by a coalition of opposition warlords. The two most powerful warlords—Cali Mahdi Maxamed (Ali Mahdi Muhammad) and Muhammed Farah Aydid —soon began fighting among themselves.
Somalia is not a 'country' like any other. And in many ways, it is neither 'African' nor 'Arab', although it is located on the African continent and has often been considered 'Arab' in some ways. In 1974, Somalia joined the Arab League of which it is still formally a member. The Somali people, or the Somali nation, is an unquestionable reality. But the Somali state is a much more ambiguous notion which has for the time being receded into the gray zone of a legal abstraction, probably for a good many years to come. This situation is all the more puzzling since at the time of its independence in 1960 Somalia was described as one of the few mono-ethnic states in Africa, one with a common language, a common culture and a single religion, Islam. While this was probably an exaggeration, it was substantially true in any case, the challenge to the existence of the Somali state did not come from the non-Somali people of the South, but from the very core of the mainstream Somali-speaking society, that is the very society which had hitherto been described as one of the most homogeneous on the continent. This phenomenon obviously begs for an explanation. And the explanation is not too complicated, since it lies in the very nature of Somali society itself.

Somali society, like many nomadic societies of arid and semi-arid lands, is largely a product of its geographical and climatic environment. The land is very dry, and it generally does not permit sedentary agriculture, except in the South, between the Juba and Wabi Shebelle rivers. Hence the social differences between 'pure' Somali and the Southern Peoples. As a result, people move, with their herds of camels, goats and sheep, forever in search of good pastures and water. Such a world is not conducive to any form of economic surplus or economic accumulation. Without economic accumulation, there are no possibilities of permanent settlements, of cities and of the distinct political structures we have called 'the state'. In such societies, politics are diffused throughout the whole social body and not separated, specialised so to speak, in a 'state' form, since people are forever moving. And since their movements imply frequent frictions in the competition over the control of pastures and wells, several consequences arise:

Firstly - blood ties are the only connections a man is sure of. One's kin group makes the only tangible social reality which explains the enormous, overpowering importance of genealogy and the lineage system.

Secondly - armed conflicts between roving groups, usually representing distinct kinship groups, are frequent.

Thirdly - since the 'state' per se does not exist, some sort of mechanism has to be found so that the conflicts do not degenerate to the point where they would be threatening the very survival of the kin groups. The only basis for such a mechanism is the lineage system itself. In Somali, these group-conflict rules are called xeer, and their supporting genealogical network jiffo.

Nomadic groups move and they fight. After a while the groups stop, meet and hold a shir (palaver), they agree on compensation and the payment of blood-price (mag). They may remain at peace for some time or ally with another kin-based related segment against other enemies. And life goes on. It is that 'classical' society we find so well described in the works of Professor Lewis