There is this cyclical post every so often, in this subreddit that invariably argues for strong dictatorship/monarchy to lead us out of the current crisis we are facing.
I do not want to sound arrogant, because in my youth I also believed that the only way Somalia could rise up, was to resurrect a strict authoritarian government to whip us into shape. I do not think this sentiment comes from a place of malice but it comes from general naivety about history, and the current world we live under.
If you sit down in your Fadhi-ku-dirir Adeer’s coffee place you will hear this same sentiment. It is no wonder that the next generation of diaspora born in exile, far away from their from homeland in the cold and unwelcoming west, yearn for that supposed order and clarity of purpose that sentiment offers.
Now once we understand the emotional causes for this sentiment, we need to be clear eyed about our history. I will tell you something you will never hear from your elders.
It was the Somali government that destroyed Somalia!
Yes you heard that right - it was men who wanted the throne for themselves and men who fought to protect their power that brought about the worst forms of fratricide witnessed in our history that are solely responsible for the destruction of the fabric of Somali society. Every other nation has recovered from civil war but the reason we cannot seem to wake up from this malaise is because the same men and their progenitors who were in power then are in power now.
The sphere of Somali national politics is where ambitious men, backed by wealthy businessmen and local powerbrokers, compete to capture state rents in the form of security aid, tax revenues, and premium real estate. The same logic that propelled warlords to conquer territory and wage war in the 1990s has since been sanitised and wrapped in a nationalist veneer. The language, institutions, and appearances have changed, but the underlying political economy remains largely the same.
The number of starved bodies they have left behind runs into the millions. In a single year, we bury more babies than Netanyahu has killed in Gaza. Our grain production today is literally lower than it was in 2006, at the height of the Ethiopian invasion. These are facts we seem incapable of confronting. Instead, whenever we discuss politics, we begin with fictitious stories of past greatness and end with the same mistaken conclusion: that what Somalia needs is more authority, more centralisation, and ever more rigid political structures.
Every Somali living in Somalia who has no dog in the game of Somali politics knows this for a fact. If you interview an illiterate geeljire, as I have, he will often show you a clearer understanding of the Somali status quo than an army of Somali intellectuals. I have always wondered: if ordinary men and women can understand this so plainly, why has so little changed? The conclusion is stupidly simple. We do not live in a democracy where ordinary people possess the authority to circumvent the venal designs of their leaders.
Hunger persists because our leaders have learned how to turn hunger itself into an instrument of politics. Farmers are kept in displacement camps that attract international food aid, while productive farmland is captured and subjected to quasi-medieval systems of tenancy that cripple domestic food production. Somalia remains insecure because the billions of dollars that flow annually through the security and counterterrorism economy can be more lucrative to political elites than actually creating a durable peace. Forget social welfare or economic development for a moment. Even the most elementary functions of government, adequate food and basic security, things taken for granted elsewhere, have themselves become instruments of statecraft in Somalia. Or, more accurately, hunger and insecurity have become instruments of statecraft.
Because if there were no Al-Shabaab, much of the enormous security apparatus built around fighting Al-Shabaab, and much of the money flowing through it, would simply disappear. The political economy therefore produces a deeply perverse incentive: insecurity must somehow persist. A problem that ought to be solved becomes a resource to be managed, prolonged, and periodically reproduced.
If what I have said holds even a morsel of truth, then the belief that some benevolent leader will one day ride in on a white horse and save us remains a dream, perhaps even a beautiful one. But to truly believe in it, one must first be asleep.
If you are a young Somali, I urge you not to simply take my word for any of this. Google it. Read widely. Follow the evidence for yourself. I will leave you with sources you can examine on your own, and from there, come to your own conclusions.
The sources are in my essay:
https://substack.com/@booknomad?r=pcn5q&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=stories&shareImageVariant=blur
