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“The tragedy of the commons”, a term coined almost half a century ago by the late Garrett Hardin, a controversial ecologist from Texas, became an appealing scholarly argument and a metaphor widely used in a variety of academic disciplines, including intellectual property rights, evolutionary biology and public policy. Although Hardin’s argument has some structural and moral flaws that has been rightly criticized (not the matter of this article), his central argument of what can happen in groups when individuals act in their own perceived self interests, and ignore what is the best for the whole group still is a relevant argument that continues to shape environmental resource management issues, and sadly is very much in play in the contemporary Somali crisis.
Central to the tragedy of the commons allegory, is the limits placed on finite resources such as fisheries, grazing land, and the atmosphere, and the inevitable destruction destiny caused by the action of the ill-advised few who try to maximize their return which imposes externalities upon the whole group who has a greater stake in the resources. Mr. Hardin puts forward the example of pasture open to all (the commons) where every herdsman is allowed to keep as many livestock as he has on the commons. Each herdsman looks to maximize his gain by asking himself “what is the utility to me of adding one more animal to my herd?” The herdsman receives all of the profits from the additional animal, while the pasture is slightly degraded by each additional animal, and ultimately not only hurts the larger group by diminishing a shared resource, but leads to a situation of self destruction for the herdsman who initially attempted to maximize his gain. A similar parallel drawn from evolutionary biology, is where contending parasites acting selfishly, ultimately obliterate their common host. Among other “common pool resource” issues, the tragedy of the commons parable has been applied to the subject of overfishing, which has not only brought Somalia to the brink of environmental tragedy, but also deprived many of their livelihoods and made future of our seas more uncertain. First, a pristine open fishing ground becomes the target of fishing activities where fishermen behave predictably irrational, when faced with open access to resources. Second, this prospect of gold rush in the newly found virgin fishing grounds attracts more fishermen that cloud the fishery. Finally, the overcrowded fishery becomes unsustainable, the fishing stock collapses, and the fishermen are impoverished in the process. In such conditions individual and societal needs diverge, individual fisherman benefits from short-term gain while the society at-large bears the cost of unsustainable fishing practices and environmental degradation. So, what does the tragedy of the commons have to do with the contemporary Somali crisis? Saving the commons (Somalia) and the herdsman (“Ina Jicimbir”)*from themselves and their mutually imposed destruction provides a paternalistic justification and an analysis framework for discussion. The contemporary Somali calamity is filled with endless chapters of megalomaniac “elites” cruelly competing for personal/group dominance and wealth at the expense of the society at large. These cruel “elites” prey on their own people and victimize them by siphoning the state treasury (the commons), while the spirit of the state’s responsibility to maximize the well being of the entire nation is triumphed over by the few ruling “elites.” The case in point is the obsession for self-indulgence in the amassing of wealth, and poor management of resources that was the trademark of about 158 individuals that ruled Somalia most of the time during the first thirty years of self-governance (1960-1990) according to “Politics of Cain One Hundred Years of Crises in Somali Politics and Society” by Hussein A. Bulhan. These entrenched political “elites” capitalized on scarce national resources to build personal followers and created a political disorder of epic proportion that ruined an entire proud nation. Karl Marx said, “history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce”, the new breed of Somali “elites” in the post-state collapse era are no exception to their predecessors in their quest for maximizing their gain, either on a personal or clan based calculus, and their predatory practices continues to exasperate the tragedy of the commons. As one would imagine, “Ina Jicimbir” neither reads world history, nor does he take counsel from our own rich culture that said once “Ninku mas qaniinay baa mulac ka baqa.” The mere “geographical expression” of Somalia will last well beyond the cruelty of the few, but its current capacity as a functioning state with the ability to provide for its citizens has been willfully gutted by no other than our own “Ina-Jicimbir.” As this ill-fated nation tries to recover from the devastation of poorly managed resources to say the least, historic Somali pastoral policies/norms that advocated for informal collaboration and reciprocal arrangements over natural resources exploitation might offer a missing framework in Somali conflict resolution, and the time-and-again failed clanship analysis of the contemporary Somali crisis might not be the whole story. Researchers from Somalia in collaboration with a British think tank-Overseas Development Institute (ODI) answered Mr. Hardin more than twenty years ago in a piece titled “The Reality of the Commons: Answering Hardin from Somalia” where they argued “the real tragedy comes when the commons are thrown open and unrestricted exploitation allowed.” The premise here is unless Somalia is treated as a commons by various contending groups, a shared resource that adds a value to the whole, and not a mere resource that is rivalrous for consumption with the ugly notion of “Maqaar sagaaro iiga kac mooyee, iga durug ma leh”, then, any attempt to reconcile differences, and put this nation back on track will have a familiar end, that is, a reconciliation failure of ten plus foreign led top-down state building approaches since the collapse of the state. The author is associated with Harvard University and University of Massachusetts Lowell where he works and researches on environmental, health and safety issues. The author is also appointed Commissioner with City of Lowell Green Building Commission. ___________________________________________________________________________________ We welcome the submission of all articles for possible publication on WardheerNews.com |
