Nomad Wars?

POST: Anarchy in Somalia

ARTICLE: In Somalia, Those Who Feed Off Anarchy Fuel It, By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN, New York Times, April 25, 2007

I find all the descriptions of clans in Somalia sort of confusing, because Somalia, according to every East African I've ever met, consists really of just one tribe.

In fact, my buddy from Kenya, BGen Ngewa Mukala, remarked that everyone assumes tribes are the source of clashes and yet here is the one country in East Africa that's all one tribe, and yet "look at the problems!"

So I'm assuming clans are just family groupings within proper tribes, yes?

The other causal expectation I've heard on Somalia's "5 stars" (the 3 regions of Somalia proper plus Ethiopia's Ogaden plus Djibouti) tension with its neighbors (the Somali flag still sports all 5) is that the real, old-school cause behind all its trouble with neighbors is that Somalis are serious nomad gatherers, so they've never adjusted to the whole border concept.

This story would fit that whole, we-don't-need-no-stinkin'-badges profile..

Thanks to Anton for sending this.

Comments

[antonymous]

Honored to have a post of mine up on here, even though it was very spur-of-the-moment and not quite proofread. I'd really be interested to know how other readers view the "lack of state legitimacy" issue.

I think it's a *major* obstacle to implementation of SysAdmin-style state building. Countries like Somalia survive without governments by utilizing local relationships for commerce, but can they connect to the global grid without the transparency that the modern financial system requires?

Not only that, but taking on a decentralized, non-unified "government" (as I loosely refer to Somali warlords) presents other problems - we blew our chance to build stability and infrastructure during the power vacuum in Iraq, how can we fill that void more quickly and effectively next time?

When we get our DoEE, can we please have a group dedicated to analysis of culture and lving conditions ON THE GROUND, rather than a one-size-fits-all? Establishing rule of law will be impossible otherwise...

Apologies for excessive length, Sean :)

[jjennings]

I echo the previous post. What kind of win win do you get in Somalia to bring in the 150k Russians, Chinese and Indians that was needed in Iraq?

[dipaolom]

antonymous,My view is that legitimacy is an essential prerequisite for building connectivity that endures. A convinicing description of the importance of legitimacy is in "Gray Area Phenomena" , edited by Max Manwaring, which was based on a series of studies commissioned by Gen John Galvin while he was SACEUR in the late 1980s (if I had more time I would describe the hilariously funny story of how I came to spend a week as Gen Galvin's guest at his chateau in Mons. The short version is that I was the world's most amusing invention--a newly commissioned Second Lieutenant--and I suppose he was curious what I would say or do. I think I did not dissapoint him.)

The book is actually an interesting precursor to PNM, exploring many of the same themes, and methodically defining the variables that lead to what he calls "Gray Area Phenomena." With eerie premonition, the acronym GAP is used to describe a change from a cold war mentality to what he calls a "New World Disorder." Forget about the cold war and start losing sleep about guerrilla insurgencies in ungoverned and unstable parts of the world...

The book (available in the Pentagon library, if nowhere else) was particularly interesting for 2 reasons:1) Although it explores some of the very same issues explored in PNM, it was written pre-9/11. It is interesting to see how those issues were handled before the dominating mental influence of 9/11.2) It highlights how very effective Dr Barnett has been in making that sort of thing not only interesting, but captivating. In my view, his greatest talent is as a synthesizer of disparate concepts--making associations that are not immediately obvious (until they're explained, and then they seem quite obvious) and painting a vivid picture to show the interconnectedness of events (how terrorism is linked by degrees to a need to facilitate immigration in the US, for example). That's why people that read his books usually express relief that they can finally put things into a larger context.

Anyway...legitimacy...must have it.

[Tom Barnett]

Somalia is a very hard argument on the SysAdmin, primarily because by any decent incentive measure, it falls to the bottom of the to-do list.

So the cruel answer is: wait your turn, asshole.

[Mark in Texas]

The Somali clans are family groupings, kind of like the Bonannos, the Columbos, the Genovese, the Gambinos and the Lucchese.

Like those families, the Somali clans are going to be opposed to any government that they are not running. Until all of Somalia's neighbors are a lot more connected to the Core, the best you can hope for in Somalia is what Ethiopia is doing now, i.e. pick a coalition of gangster clans to run things, massacre their enemies, return sniper fire with artillery bombardment and then leave.

Expect to be back every few years to do it again. The good news is that Somalia's neighbors are establishing some more connections with the Core in this process.

[Nathan Machula]

One of my Somali classmates just described their social structure in a class last week: Somalia has five different tribes, each originating in a different region of the country, and with slightly different dialects. Then each tribe consists of multiple clans. The Barre regime kept inter-tribal conflict down, but heavily favored one clan from one tribe (his own). Naturally, resentment built among the other tribes, until all hell broke loose when he was finally toppled. The fighting between tribal warlords caused people to return to their original homelands, and forced many into exile. Here in Minneapolis, there are over 30,000 Somali immigrants. Apparently, the tribal divisions have carried over, as they've settled in separate neighborhoods.