By Abdi Farah Laqan

In August 1920, in the aftermath of the 1^st World War, the victorious allied nations met in Sevres, just outside Paris, to sign a treaty that dictated the partition of Anatolia (present day Turkey), which had been the seat of the defeated Othman empire.  To make things worse, large chunks of the Turkish homeland were given to historical enemies of Turkey. A region in the west was to become part of Greece. Eastern provinces would become a new Armenian state. A region in the south would be given to the Kurds. Russia, Italy, France, and Britain grabbed the most productive parts of the land for themselves. What was left for the Turks was a rocky expanse in central Anatolia with no access to the Aegean or the Mediterranean seas.

This was not to be. What the allied nations failed to grasp was the resolve of the Turkish people in general and the man who emerged as their leader in particular.

Enter Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Mustafa Kemal first emerged as a military hero in 1915 in the protracted battle of the Gallipoli Peninsula. The British, who considered the Turks incapable of resistance, undertook a massive marine landing at the beaches of Gallipoli in order to capture Istanbul. Nearly eight months later the Allied troops (Britain, Australia, and New Zealand) retreated after suffering massive casualties. Forty-four thousand Allied troops died in the failed attempt to capture Gallipoli. Twice that number of Turks died defending it. Mustafa Kemal came out of the war a national hero.

But what made Mustafa Kemal a legend was his dogged determination to stop the planned dismemberment of his country. Using the Sevres Treaty as a rallying cry, he organized and led a rebellion against the occupying powers. And against all odds, Mustafa Kemal and his clique of guerrillas managed to kick all foreign troops out of Turkey. After this huge triumph, the historic title of “Qazi” (reserved for great warriors and defenders of the faith) was bestowed on Mustafa Kemal. For the rest of his life Mustafa Kemal was known as “Qazi Pasha” or simply the Qazi.

Today, it’s Somalia that is in danger of being dismembered. There are so many regions (of Somalia) that claim to be either autonomous or independent, so much so that I lost count.

The demise of united Somalia is evident in the emergence of multiple mini-states, each one of them being the creation of a dominant clan in a geographical area. To survive, these clan fiefdoms stumble over each other seeking protection, as puppet mini-states, from Somalia’s neighboring countries, two of which (Ethiopia and Kenya), I suspect, have sinister motives in Somalia. It’s significant to note that these two countries have a long-standing mutual defense pact dating back to 1964 and renewed twice in 1980 and 1987. Perhaps it’s because of this defense pact that both maintain troops in certain regions of Somalia. It’s not far-fetched to surmise that, at best, they want to keep Somalia weak and divided or, at worst, annex parts of it.

At this juncture, there is no central authority that has the moral capacity or the fortitude to lead and govern a united Somalia. The so-called Federal Government controls (with the help of foreign troops) no more than few blocks in Mogadishu. The current leadership is no different than those who came before them. Like their predecessors, they are nothing more than kleptocrats, eager to loot the meager sums of aid money donated by the international community to sustain the Somali people. After they stash enough cash in international banks they leave office, move out of the country and settle in foreign countries, leaving behind destitute citizenry.

In Somalia, things are so broken that even those who have a shred of integrity left in them are swept in a clannish tide that never seems to recede. We’re continuously fighting among ourselves – clan against clan, sub-clan against sub-clan – that we seem not to know what it means to be a citizen of a country, any country.

Even those of us who lead successful lives in North America and Europe, with college education and professional jobs are not immune to the toxicity of parochial views disseminated by clan propaganda machines. We seem to be always in the grip of clan sectarianism from which we can’t untangle ourselves, regardless of how hard we try. Even the best-intentioned of us, who may be inclined to believe in the sacrosanctity of united Somalia, find it almost impossible to shake this curse. Think about it, every time a new government is installed in Muqdisho, Hargeysa, Garowe, or any of the other autonomous entities, the first thing that every Somali, anywhere in the world, wants to find out is the clan composition of the new government.

It appears that at every step of the way, clan loyalty trumps nationhood. Sure, we all claim that we belong to the nation of Somalia. But, seriously, who are we kidding? We all know that we’re hardwired to pledge allegiance to our respective clans first and foremost, with the idea of nationhood relegated to a distant second. So I ask you, what is the sense of having a national flag if no one is willing to fight for it? Why assemble a national army if the soldier who is supposed to defend the homeland would rather die fighting in a clan war. Why pretend to form a national government knowing that it’s based on a diabolical formula – the wicked 4.5 principle – which continually divides the Somali people into clans and sub-clans.

The truth is we cannot be a viable nation while holding on to the misguided notion that clan lineage is paramount to the basic idea of nationhood. Yet that is exactly what is happening. Every (so-called) government constituted in Somalia in the last two decades has been formulated on clan basis. The problem is that there are far too many clans and subclans to share the limited number of senior positions, and every clan or subclan expects to be represented in the government. This, of course, is impossible since there is only one president, one prime minister, and a handful of ministerial positions. It’s only natural, given the limited supply of positions, that some clans will go empty-handed.

Not being able to meet the political expectations of every clan is a problem that has no solution. As long as there are clans or sub-clans who feel that they have not received their equitable representation in the government, the stability of the government, any government in Somalia, will remain an unattainable dream. Perhaps that is why we have tens of thousands of foreign troops stationed in the country to prop up the clannish (and weak) government in Mogadishu. It is unfortunate that President Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud fails to understand the futility of trying to pacify the population by military force, and a foreign one at that. That didn’t work for Sheikh Sharif or Abdullahi Yusuf either.

Given the succession of bad leaders that Somalia had over the last twenty-some years, it is easy to conclude that the country is beyond repair; that the people are too polarized to find common ground; and that the genie of tribalism is out of the bottle and cannot be recaptured. That is all true to some extent, but it is wrong to assume that the situation is irreversible. The question is whether Somalia has the good fortunes to produce someone (among its sons and daughters) who can do for Somalia what Mustafa Kemal had done for Turkey.
Let us hope so.

Abdi Farah Laqan
Virginia, USA
Email:aflaqan@gmail.com