US/Ethiopian coalition in Somalia fails, Islamists advance

Somalia, yet again, is in turmoil. This time, the Islamists are advancing against Somalia's weak central government, the Transition Federal Government. And far from being a complicated and inexplicable basket case, the story of Somalia actually holds some pretty simple and important lessons: foreign governments cause problems and terrible regimes, while the international community's neglect allows capitalism to bring Somalis' living standards up.

The TFG was created in the mid-2000s as a response to Ethiopia's fear of any coherent state at all in Somalia, and the West's fear of radical Islam. At the time, the Islamic Courts Union was sweeping through the southern half of the country, and damn near took over the parts that hadn't already seceded. (Somaliland and Putland are de facto independent governments, and aren't at risk of collapse from the ICU, though they aren't the most stable regimes.) Ethiopia was understandably worried about Somali revanchism, as it won the Ogaden region from Somalia in a war of that same name in the late '70s, along with the four million Somalis on it that didn't flee into Somalia proper. The West had its own well-being in mind: it was afraid of Somalia becoming a hub for al-Qaeda and Islamic terrorism.

So as a result, the corrupt and ineffective TFG came into being. From what I understand, by now it doesn't have power at all outside of Mogadishu, and the Islamists are currently preparing for a battle there. The general objection to the Islamists is their strictness: the NYT cites the example of a teenager being stoned to death for adultery for reporting a rape. But this rigid interpretation of sharia is alien to most Somalis, especially the vast population of pastoralists who have very tight family and clan-based governance structures. Given the Somalis' distaste for non-autochthonous government (Michael van Notten wrote a fascinating book about the indigenous Somali law system), and the foreignness of Wahhabi Islam, it's unlikely that the Islamists could stay in power long without adapting. But anyway, we'll see now how long the Islamists last, as it looks like the Ethiopian- and American-backed TFG is about to crumble. It just would have been nicer if this were allowed to happen years ago, so that we could have avoided the intervening war.

This pattern of foreign intervention trying to create a state begetting horrific results in Somalia is not limited to the last decade. As early as the colonial period, the imperialists had a very difficult time getting Somalis to register and interact with the state, as their isolated pastoral culture kept them out of coastal towns for the most part. The brief democratic post-colonial period was a failure, because even though it was Somali in its conception, it was the conception of the Westernized Somali diaspora and elite, not of the prevailing Somali culture. The descent into dictatorship and the horrific experiment with Siad Barre's "scientific socialism" again can be seen as a result of foreign powers interfering, with Somalia being a pawn in the proxy war between America and the Soviet Union. First by the USSR, and then to some extent by the US (though not really), Siad Barre was allowed to go on with his destructive domestic policy. Luckily, détente eroded his power and the collapse of the Soviet Union ended the nightmare, as the government collapsed for good. A brutal civil war broke out, and when Barre was finally deposed, a power vacuum led to a nasty competition over who would be heir to the Somali state. The US and international community got involved in 1992 but failed miserably, and only prolonged the civil war. This conflict was rooted in Barre's discriminatory policy towards other clans – it was a war that was destined to be fought.

From then up until the early 2000s, vast expanses of Somalia were more or less stateless. And yet, in many ways its people fared better than those in neighboring African states that had governments, as well as doing better than during the Barre state. The best thing for the West to do right now would be to vow not to interfere anymore in Somalia, and promise to stand by idly if the country is broken up into even smaller factions. Dictators and would-be governments are only egged on by the prevailing nation state norm, and know that if they can establish themselves in power, the international community will help them stay there. But the West should make sure to get out of the mindset that a stable central government is necessary for peace and economic development in Somalia.

Possible false flag operations in Somalia

The NYT today has a story about Somalia and the recent spate of violence against aid workers, both foreign and domestic. At least twenty have been killed this year alone, something that is apparently unprecedented in the two decades since the collapse of the Siad Barre regime. But the funny thing about the killings is that no one can quite figure out who's behind them. Though the attacks are apparently committed by radical Islamists, the groups claiming responsibility are little known. The government maintains that the Islamists are behind it, though they have a good reason to present that picture: the current federal government was put into place on the back of an American-backed, Ethiopian-led invasion of the country that drove the Islamic Courts Union out of power in 2006. But not everyone buys it:

Some Western security analysts theorize that in the violent murkiness that has overtaken the country, unsavory elements within the Somali government may be killing aid workers to discredit Islamist opposition groups and draw in United Nations peacekeepers, who may be the government’s last hope for survival.

The government admits that it desperately needs peacekeepers. But it denies that it is attacking aid workers to get them.

“It’s obvious who’s doing this,” said Abdi Awaleh Jama, a Somali ambassador at large. “It’s hard-liner Islamists who hate the West. They are forces of darkness, not forces of light.”

Considering that foreign intervention in Somalia is always a not-too-distant possibility, and that the current regime was installed by fiat, this theory isn't as crazy as it seems. The scepter of al-Qaeda led the Americans and Ethiopians to invade and expel the ICU two years ago, so hey, maybe it will work again.

Here's the archive of my posts about Somalia, everyone's favorite failed state, which includes a pretty long post I wrote taking the media to task for their uncritical look at how Somalia's fared since it descended into statelessness twenty years ago.

Whither, Somalia?

In continuing with my favorite topic, Somalia, I noticed a story on the nytimes.com about Somalia. Normally stories about Somalia are about some failed initiative or outbreak of violence between government/non-government troops, but they don't really do justice to the smallness of the the power of the "government." This story does – it says that the government lives on $19 million per annum (the rest siphoned away from corruption). And it alludes to the fact that the Transitional Federal Government doesn't control much land, but doesn't do justice to the situation by stating that "in many ways, Somalia is not a state at all, but more a lawless space between its neighbors and the sea." That's a gross simplification – much of the land (especially the produce urban areas) are under the control of governments, just not the federal government. Nomadic Somalis follow the xeer, the same code they've followed since before the Europeans. Northern Somalia is divided among the governments of Somaliland and Puntland, with weak albeit present reach. They are much less violent than the south, and for the most part have been since the start of anarchy around 1990. And anyway, the conflict is not among the traditional nomads of Somalia, but rather between invading forces and their reactions, the Islamists.

Correctly, the Times points out the failed policies of American intervention, UN intervention, and American-backed Ethiopian intervention (the current demon). However, it's reflecting only its own ignorance when it declares that "[t]he looming failure is making many people here and abroad question the strategy of installing the transitional government by force." The implication is that there was some doubt in Somalis' minds as to what any form of government, imposed by locals or foreigners, would be like for them. Somali businessmen don't have ideological commitments and consistently side with whoever will protect their business, and would be impossible to capture in the form of a permanent tax base. Somalis haven't supported the colonial powers, diaspora-backed political democracy, American-backed dictatorship, Soviet-backed dictatorship, UN-backed political democracy, or American/Ethiopian-backed political democracy. At the moment the Islamists have sway, but that seems to be a reaction to the Ethiopian invasion. Given the history and the relative mildness of Somali Islam, the Somalis would likely chafe under the Islamists if the Ethiopians withdrew.

Finally, the Times makes the eternal Somali gaffe, when it implies that anarchy in Somalia has been brutally worse than under Siad Barre and scientific socialism in the decades before: "Sometimes it seems that if anything binds this country together, it is scar tissue." This is nonsense – the Somalis have an incredibly rich culture and civilization, with a functioning and unique justice system and generally growing wealth. According to a paper called "Better off Stateless" by Peter Leeson published in 2006, key indicators of welfare in Somali have largely risen in the period since the collapse of Siad Barre's state. Infant mortality is down, underweight births per capita declined 80%, extreme poverty is down more than 15 percentage points, and access to sanitation and healthcare is up significantly. Somalia has cheap, accessible, and competitive internet and mobile phone markets as well as competitive private low-cost air carriers. Education is relatively well-provisioned by the private market, and Somalia now has a higher university enrollment than under the Barre regime.

The Times and the media in general must emerge from their paradigmatic shell of always looking to governments for indicators of society. While this might work okay in Western countries where much of the civil and social discourse is in some way filtered through government, the model breaks down for countries like Somalia where foreign and non-governmental entities and institutions are much more important to ordinary Somalis than the supposed central government.