Calm between the storms? Patterns of political violence in Somalia, 1950–1980

Abstract

This article explores the uses of organized violence in Somali politics from the late colonial period up to 1980, an era that – on the surface, at least – appears relatively free of political violence compared to both previous and ensuing decades. After considering critical historical and contextual background, the analysis proposes a typology of political violence in Somalia. It then maps the trends in political violence from 1950 to 1980, looking for patterns of continuity and change, and offering possible explanations for these patterns.

Keywords:

• Somalia
• political violence
• social contract
• customary law

Notes

1. One exception is Abbink, “Dervishes, Mooryaan, and Freedom Fighters.”

2. See World Bank, World Development Report 2011, for a synthesis of this literature.

3. George and Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences.

4. For the purposes of this article, the terms organized violence, political violence, and armed violence are used interchangeably. The study uses the World Bank's broad definition of organized violence: “the use or threat of physical force by groups. Includes state actions against other states or against civilians, civil wars, electoral violence between opposing sides, communal conflicts based on regional, ethnic, religious or other group identities or competing economic interests, gang-based violence and organized crime and international nonstate armed movements with ideological aims.” (World Development Report 2011, xi)

5. UNDP, Governing for Peace, 18. UNDP has incorporated these concepts into a theory of change guiding its governance and peacebuilding programming.

6. North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance.

7. Lindemann, “Do Inclusive Elite Bargains Matter?”

8. Kapteijns, Clan Cleansing in Somalia.

9. Here again a seemingly innocuous historical fact actually carries considerable political freight. The year 1991 is usually cited as the beginning of the period of war and state collapse, as that is when the Barre regime fell, the capital and countryside was sacked by pillaging clan militias, a famine spread, and a million Somali refugees fled the country. But for Somalilanders, 1988 marks the beginning of the period of war and collapse, as it was in that year that the Somali Government bombed and destroyed the northern capital Hargeisa, prompting the flight of hundreds of thousands of northerners from the Isaaq clan to flee to Ethiopia. For them, to site 1991 as the beginning of the crisis entirely ignores the calamity in the north of the country. One's choice of date on the beginning of the era of war and collapse thus involves a much more political decision than meets the eye.

10. Prunier, “Segmentarité et violence,” 379.

11. Menkhaus, “Traditional Conflict Management.”

12. See Lewis, Modern History; Gundel, The Predicament of the ‘Oday’; LeSage, Stateless Justice in Somalia; and Fox, Political Culture in Somalia.

13. See for instance Hoehne, “Political Identity,” 399.

14. Hoehne, Traditional Authorities; Renders, Consider Somaliland, 42–3; and Prunier, “Benign Neglect.”

15. Prunier, “Benign Neglect.”

16. See Schlee, “Customary Law and the Joys of Statelessness.”

17. Menkhaus, “Governance without Government.”

18. Samatar, “Destruction of State and Society.”

19. Schlee, Islam and Ethnicity, 19–37.

20. International Committee of the Red Cross, Spared from the Spear.

21. Clan elders were not, however, always able to prevent lineages from employing violence. Their power of persuasion and influence varied according to context and their personal prestige.

22. Others could be added to the list: the Egyptians engaged in a brief period of adventurism along the northern Somali coast in the late nineteenth century, and the Sultanate of Zanzibar established nominal authority over trade settlements along the coast – including Kismayo, Goobweyn, Brava, Merka, Mogadishu, and Warsheikh, in some cases sending askaris to protect the cluster of Arab and Indian traders based there. Lewis, Modern History, 53.

23. Hoehne, “An Appraisal of the ‘Dervish State.’”

24. Hess, Italian Colonialism in Somalia, 63; and Mukhtar, “Somali Response to Colonial Occupation,” 76–8.

25. Menkhaus, “Rural Transformation.”

26. Metz, Somalia: A Country Study, ch. 13.

27. See for instance Menkhaus, Somalia: State Collapse.

28. Sir G. H. Summers, “Memorandum on Political Affairs in Somaliland,” University of Oxford, Rhodes House Library, Mss Afr.s.905 (1925), 2, cited in Slight, “British and Somali Views.” See also Sheikh-Abdi, Divine Madness.

29. Samatar, Oral Poetry and Somali Nationalism, 199–200.

30. Castagno, “Somali Republic,” 534.

31. Menkhaus, “Rural Transformation.”

32. Lewis, Modern History, 147–48.

33. Samatar and Samatar, “Somalis as Africa's First Democrats,” 25.

34. Samatar and Samatar, “Somalis as Africa's First Democrats,”, 28.

35. Lewis, Modern History, 204.

36. Lewis, Modern History, 126–27.

37. Metz, Somalia: A Country Study.

38. Lewis, Modern History, 173.

39. Laitin and Samatar, Somalia: Nation in Search of a State.

40. Samatar and Samatar, “Somalis as Africa's First Democrats,” 37.

41. Laitin, “The Political Economy of Military Rule.”

42. Lewis, Modern History, 250.

43. Lewis, Modern History, 212.

44. Lewis, Modern History, 245.

45. Human Rights Watch, Somalia: A Government at War.

46. Italian sensitivity to avoid accusations of abuse extended into its trusteeship development projects, which were designed to avoid dislocation or disruption of Somali livelihoods, so much so that they came under criticism from development economist Mark Karp. See Karp, The Economics of Trusteeship in Somalia.

47. Samatar and Samatar, “Somalis as Africa's First Democrats.”

48. Bakonyi, “Moral Economies of Mass Violence,” 437.

49. The “inclusive enough” criteria for social compacts to keep the peace was articulated in the World Bank, World Development Report 2011, glossary.

50. Samatar and Samatar, “Somalis as Africa's First Democrats.”

51. Samatar and Samatar, “Somalis as Africa's First Democrats.”

52. Farah, Hussein, and Lind, “Deegan, Politics, and War in Somalia,” 321.