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Abstract
Somali society can be characterized as patriarchal ‘to the bone’. Despite tremendous political and economic changes in the 20th century, and from colonial to post-colonial rule, the situation of women changed only minimally. In fact, some authors argue that women enjoyed even less independence from male ‘wards’ during the democratic and later revolutionary governments from 1960 to 1991 that were promulgating modernization and gender equality, at least rhetorically. Paradoxically, the most substantial changes regarding gender relations that led to a considerable empowerment of women in the social, economic and political sphere were triggered by the tragedy of civil war and state collapse. Women had to bear the brunt of the fighting. But they also became actively involved in armed conflict as combatants, motivators of their men and also as peace-makers. Women also took over more economic responsibilities and fought their way into politics. This article traces the challenges and opportunities that the civil war and the collapse of the state provided for women, arguing that the Somali tragedy provided a blessing in disguise at least for some women who gained social, economic and political power. Still, what we are observing is not a revolution but at best an incidental ‘reform’. If this will eventually lead to more just gender relations in the long run remains to be seen.
Keywords:
Notes
1. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War; Gardner and El Bushra, Somalia: The Untold Story; Warsame, Queens Without Crowns; Asha-Kaha, Gumaadkii Muqdisho iyo Hargeysa.
2. Ahmed, “Finely Etched Chattel.”
3. Ali, “Women and Conflict Transformation,” 78.
4. Kapteijns, “Discourse on Moral Womanhood,” 118.
5. Kapteijns, “Making Memories of Mogadishu,” 69.
6. Turshen, “Women's War Stories,” 15; also Littlewood, “Military Rape,” 7–16.
7. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War; Gardner and El Bushra, Somalia: The Untold Story.
8. Raeymaekers et al., “State and Non-State Regulation,” 10.
9. Kapteijns, “Women and the Crisis of Communal Identity,” 217.
10. Kapteijns, “Women and the Crisis of Communal Identity,”, 217–224.
11. Abdurahman, “Women, Islamists and the Military Regime,” 14.
12. Kapteijns, “Women and the Crisis of Communal Identity,” 229.
13. Touati, Politik und Gesellschaft in Somalia, 145.
14. Abdurahman, “Women, Islamists and the Military Regime,”
15. Lewis, Blood and Bone, chs VII, VIII.
16. Kapteijns, “Women and the Crisis of Communal Identity,” 229.
17. Kapteijns, “Women and the Crisis of Communal Identity,” 229.
18. Bryden and Stein, Somalia between Peace and War, 39.
19. Turshen, “Women's War Stories,” 9.
20. For comprehensive studies on the causes of how Somalia descended into inter-clan ‘fractionalization’ and a protracted ‘civil’ war, see Ingiriis, “Making of the 1990 Manifesto”; Makinda, “Politics and Clan Rivalry in Somalia”; and Compagnon, “Political Decay in Somalia.”
21. Elmi et al., “Women's Roles in Peacebuilding,” 16.
22. Sheikh and Healy, Somalia's Missing Million.
23. Cockburn, The Space Between Us.
24. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War, 49–50; UN-INSTRAW, Women, Peace and Security, 21.
25. This term was coined by Lewis, Modern History of the Somali, 263.
26. Kapteijns, “Making Memories of Mogadishu,” 70.
27. The unprecedented atrocities which women have experienced during the fratricide war were briefly chronicled in Skjelsbaek and Smith, Gender, Peace and Conflict, 4.
28. Human Rights Watch, Welcome to Kenya.
29. Halperin, “Physical Security of Refugees,” 10–13.
30. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War, 49.
31. For example, see the Social Institutions and Gender Index. Accessed September 13, 2012. http://genderindex.org/country/somalia/.
32. Hoehne has been serving as an expert in Somali asylum cases since 2005. He has worked through several hundred cases, many of which highlighted sexual violence, rape, or sexual enslavement of female claimants or female relatives of male claimants between 1991 and 2012. Ingiriis has worked with rape victims in healthcare settings as well as at Help Somalia Foundation in London between 2009–2011.
33. UN Secretary General. Report on the Situation in Somalia, para. 68.
34. UN Secretary General. Report on the Situation in Somalia, para. 70.
35. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War, 45–46.
36. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War, 41; Gardner and El-Bushra, “Introduction,” 14–15; Sørensen, Women and Post-Conflict Reconstruction, iii.
37. Luling, “Come Back Somalia?,” 297.
38. For the role of poetry in socio-political and cultural transformation, see Ahmed, Daybreak is Near; Andrzejewski and Lewis, Somali Poetry; and Johnson, “Orality, Literacy and Somali Oral Poetry,” 119–136.
39. Kapteijns, “Making Memories of Mogadishu,” 33.
40. Accessed February 2, 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dae00I_qtQ&playnext=1&list=PLB96B732318779BA4&feature=results_main/. Between min 2:45 and 5:50 Halima Sofe recites a poem of the type buraambur to encourage General Morgan and his militia to fight with the forces of the United Somali Congress which expelled them from Mogadishu in January 1991.
41. For a poem in which a Somali man simultaneously describes and advises his ‘ideal wife’, who has to be clean, obedient, sensitive, and always ready to accommodate his relatives and uphold the honour of his clan, see Touati, Politik und Gesellschaft in Somalia, 139–140.
42. Interview with Mukhtar Maxamed Bulbul, Hargeysa, July 16, 2004.
43. Ingiriis, “Between Struggle and Survival,” 20–23.
44. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War, 45.
45. Telephone interview with Faduma Ahmed Alim ‘Ureeji’, May 6, 2011.
46. Telephone interview with Maryan Hussein Awreeye, September 1, 2011.
47. See, for instance, this report on her in The Guardian, “Somali doctor.”
48. Ingiriis visited the town of Merka in December 2001, April 2002 and September 2002.
49. Starlin was survived by her family and her fiancé, Roland Marchal, a French expert on Somalia, who wrote in her obituary: “She never much considered her own future; she only thought of her country.” For more on her relief work, see The Guardian, “Starlin Abdi Arush.”
50. For these organizations, see Graney, “Women's Rights in Somalia.”
51. Bradbury, Becoming Somaliland, 98.
52. Hoehne, “Not Born as a De Facto State.”
53. Jamhuuriya Newspaper, 3, no. 175 (August 25–31, 2001), cited in Renders, Consider Somaliland, 210.
54. Warsame, Queens Without Crowns; Dini, “Women Building Peace,” 33–34.
55. Personal communication with Asha Haji Elmi, February 11, 2011.
56. Luling, “Come Back Somalia?,” 297; personal communication with Asha Haji Elmi, London, November 2009.
57. Kapteijns, “Women and the Crisis of Communal Identity,” 217.
58. Elmi et al., “Women's Roles in Peacemaking,” 133.
59. Interview with Mariam Ja'eyl, London, May 7, 2011.
60. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War, 42.
61. Somali nomad proverbs are heavily gender-informed, with men's proverbs not only differing from women's, but also showing a sense of hegemony; for example, see Warsame, Maah-Maah Waliba Madasheedey Leedahay, 50–58.
62. Little, Somalia: Economy Without State, 153.
63. Elmi et al., “Women's Roles in Peacemaking,” 123.
64. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War, 65.
65. Personal communication with Nurta Haji Hassan, May 6, 2011.
66. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War, 58. Somali women's peace-building approach is not parallel with a state-building mechanism; Goetze and Guzina, “Peacebuilding, Statebuilding, Nationbuilding,” 319–347.
67. Ingiriis, “State and Society in Somalia,” 27–28.
68. She is also the wife of the current prime minister, Abdi Farah Shirdoon.
69. Jama, “Somali Women and Peace-Building.”
70. Accessed February 3, 2013. http://www.insightonconflict.org/conflicts/somalia/peacebuilding-organisations/nagaad/.
71. Ali, “Women and Conflict Transformation,” 72.
72. Kapteijns, “Women and the Crisis of Communal Identity.”
73. IRIN, SOMALIA interview with Maryam Arif Qasim, a member of Somalia's transitional parliament. Accessed February 3, 2013. http://www.irinnews.org/printreport.aspx?reportid=72082/.
74. For detailed accounts on the ‘Sixth Clan’ concept, see Timmons, “Sixth Clan.”
75. King, “What Difference Does It Make?,” 38.
76. Walls, “Emergence of a Somali State,” 377.
77. It is worth noting here that the number of ‘big clans’ in Somali society is somewhat contested. While many argue that Isaaq is part of Dir, the strength and independent political stance of Isaaq in the northwest (Somaliland) make them appear like an independent entity of Dir. Moreover, Digil and Merifle are often combined as Rahanweyn.
78. Quoted in King, “What Difference Does It Make?,” 38–39.
79. SOSCENSA, “Young Educated Women's Dialogue On: ‘Realization of 30% Women Quota in the National Constituency Assembly and Parliament.’” May 28, 2012. Accessed February 27, 2013. http://www.soscensa.org/Files/Young_Educated_Somali_Women%27s_Dialogue___May_2012.pdf/.
80. DW, “Woman Foreign Minister in Somali Cabinet.” November 5, 2012. http://www.dw.de/woman-foreign-minister-in-somali-cabinet/a-16356475/.
81. Interview with Fowsia Yusuf Haji Adan, Hargeysa, April 19, 2012.
82. Barkhad Dahir, “Somaliland Lawmakers Oppose Parliament Quota for Women and Minorities.” September 6, 2012. Accessed January 18, 2013. http://sabahionline.com/en_GB/articles/hoa/articles/features/2012/09/06/feature-02/.
83. Koskenmaki, “Legal Implications Resulting from State Failure,” 2.
84. Ezekiel, “Khat in the Horn of Africa”; Hansen, “Ambiguity of Khat in Somaliland”; Vouin-Bigot, “Le khat en Somalie.”
85. Somali women in Ethiopia sometimes chew.
86. Observation of Hoehne in Somaliland and Puntland, 2003–2004.
87. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War, 49.
88. Lindley, Early Morning Phone Call.
89. Little, Somalia: Economy Without State, 61.
90. Sørensen, Women and Post-Conflict Reconstruction. Somali women's contribution to community buildings dates to the 11th century, when they ‘supported the construction of mosques in the oldest sections of the town [Mogadishu]’; Reese, Renewers of the Age, 118.
91. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Human Development Report, 59.
92. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War, 59.
93. Raeymaekers et al., “State and Non-State Regulation,” 10.
94. Jama, “Somali Women and Peace-Building.”
95. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War, 40. For a comparative analysis on Somali women's economic power, see Ahmed, “Finely Etched Chattel,” 154–165.