Making sense of Somalia

If “impossible” is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools as remarked by Napoleon Bonaparte, the world may see the Somali Islamist fighters of the Union of Islamic Courts in Mogadishu reversing the trend of history by turning tables on advocates of the clash of civilisations, by inventing a new meaning for the concept of Islamism and by becoming alien contenders for the Nobel peace prize.

A bizarre idea you may say, and I would agree with you as long as you and I are normal people living under normal circumstances. But imagine if you lived for 15 years in a state of lawlessness where your day starts with death and ends with death; where your only hope in life is to return safely to your family from the shortest trip to the bakery; where you live in constant fear of an imminent rape for the womenfolk of your household; where an hour without seeing a bullet riddled corpse at your doorstep is heaven’s gift; where your children’s lullaby is the sound of mortar explosions; and where their games are to compete with each other figuring out which sound belonged to which gun.

Imagine if you lived in a city that has been destroyed beyond recognition; where 90 per cent of your neighbourhood have either been killed or have left without any hope of returning; where ruthless warlords coerce you and rob you of anything of value that you own; where your relatives, your friends, your childhood classmates have either been murdered, crippled or have died on the high seas while seeking a safer place. Imagine you live in a city where the only familiar sound you hear, reminding you of the good old days and giving you hope for the future, is the prayer call coming from your neighbourhood mosque.

This situation is the life that millions of Somalis have led since 1991 when the late military dictator Mohammed Siyad Barre was driven out of power by a coalition of clan militias in 1991. Ever since, Somalia has fallen into the hands of feuding warlords who have divided the country into fiefdoms and blocked 14 attempts by the international community to restore peace and stability. Spreading a culture of gangsterism, big warlords have subcontracted lesser cronies, turning Mogadishu into the largest arms market in the Horn of Africa and a hiding place for terrorism. The warlords also made lucrative business by piracy and by making deals with international mafia companies that dumped all kinds of hazardous waste in Somalia and coastal areas.

It is amid this background that Islamic clerics have stepped in to establish Islamic sharia courts with the aim of protecting their neighbourhoods against the marauding militias of the various warlords. Tired of lawlessness, and false hopes on stillborn transitional governments formed in foreign capitals - first in 2000 in Djibouti and in 2004 in Nairobi - the Somali people have found the idea of finding safety in their own neighbourhoods. They have set up their own bakeries and grocery shops; they send their children to school albeit in madrassas; and are building their lives in small steps.

They are concentrating on more practical and attainable goals rather than building up hope of a return to central government and restoration of peace and stability to a country that has been fragmentised beyond reparation.

This is how local imams, preaching peace and brotherhood in the familiar language of Islam, have won hearts and minds despite the stigma from terrorism hanging over them like Damocles’ sword.

As the warlords, who had held the country hostage for more than 15 years, found themselves cornered they cried wolf and succeeded in exploiting Washington’s paranoia of Islamic extremism in the region.

The jubilation of the Somali people at the fall of the warlords was no less than the sense of liberation and freedom felt by the people of Romania at the ousting and execution of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu: a feeling that the US administration needs to note.

The rise of the Islamists in Mogadishu, however, has sent fears through the region, drawing comparisons to the march of the Taliban against the warlords in Afghanistan.

These fears are not unfounded. The Islamic Courts Union (ICU) is not a monolithic entity: it includes a kaleidoscopic mixture of Islamic movements, such as Al Ittihad Al Islami, Al Takfiir Wal Hijra, Al Islah and Al Tabligh.

The Al Ittihad Al Islami, an organisation suspected by Washington of having links with Al-Qaida, was found to be behind killings of foreign aid workers in Somaliland, the self-declared state overlooking the Gulf of Aden. Armed militants arrested in Hargeisa confessed that they had been taking orders from Ahmed Hashi Ayro, an Afghan-trained militant and a senior commander of the ICU forces. Ayro is also accused of being behind the digging up of the old Italian cemetery in Mogadishu and dumping the human remains in garbage pits.

Another senior ICU commander, Shaikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who is on Washington’s wanted list, is also former leader of the Al Ittihad Al Islami. His election as the new chairman of the courts, replacing the moderate Shaikh Sherif Sheikh Ahmed, may play into Washington’s fears of radicals taking control.

There are also concerns that the ICU may whip up Islamic dissent in the hitherto peaceful and stable states of Puntland and Somaliland as well as in neighbouring Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya. Suspicion is also building up that the ICU may re-ignite the old Somali irredentism, so inciting the sizable Somali populations in Ethiopia and Kenya to take up arms against their governments to realise the dream of greater Somalia.

Riding on popular support, however, the ICU seems to be unfazed by all these concerns. Securing its grip on the capital, it has swooped on the remaining strongholds of the warlords bringing almost all strategic towns under its control and closing up on Baidoa, the seat of the beleaguered TFG government, in an apparent attempt to pressure the TFG to accept its terms - if not to storm the town and disband the parliament altogether.

Until now, Somalians may have admired the ICU victories, thanking it for ending the reign of the warlords, but ICU forces will run into their first serious hurdle if they try to cross into Puntland or show signs of interfering with the internal affairs of Somaliland. People of these regions enjoy peace and stability under elected governments and parliaments.

Press reports about ICU curbing freedoms, banning music and not allowing people to watch the World Cup, indicates a shallow understanding of the epoch-making change it has brought and could turn leaders into religious warlords. But if the ICU hands over the power to an elected government and returns to the pulpits it may earn the clerics world admiration and could even make them serious candidates for a Nobel Peace Prize.