By Faisal A Roble
The erasure of Somali history began with the downfall of Islamic powers and the triumph of Christianity following the end of the last Crusade in the 15th century. The Somali Peninsula was left without a major benefactor as the Ottoman Empire’s power waned in the 19th century, whilst the “Scramble for Africa” sponsored by Europeans began to empower Emperor Menelik of Abyssinia
The resultant geopolitical reconfiguration of the 1884-1885 Conference on the “Scramble for Africa” in Berlin left Somalis with unmitigated residual impacts that haunt them today. Whereas Western powers of the day rewarded Abyssinia with weapons and diplomatic cover, they gutted out the sanctum of the Somali Peninsula and divided it into unsustainable entities. Meanwhile, the process of state formation was corrupted to the detriment of both Abyssinia and the Somali Peninsula.
The Abyssinian highlands and the Somali Peninsula produced two independent yet parallel ancient city-states or forms of urban settlements where order, a system of governance, and commercial activities existed. The Abyssinian civilization was mainly concentrated in Axum and the Amhara highland regions. Conversely, Somalis produced multiple ancient city-states that specifically sprang up along the coastal communities of the Peninsula, including but not limited to Zaila, Berbera, Alula, Ras-Hafun, Mogadishu, Merca, Barawe (I.M. Lewis, 1959).
The Axumite history is often traced back to and benefited from the multiple mentions it received in the Bible. In the 7th BC, for example, the word “Ethiopia” appears in several documents, speeches, and even in Homer’s classic poems (Levin, D. 1959). However, Levin admits that Homer did not know where Ethiopia was. Neither did he know whether the term “Ethiopia” referred to Nubia. This mention was rightly or wrongly appropriated to Abyssinia without carefully weighing the records to back such a position.
One may think that the history cited in the Bible is antiquity. Indeed, it is. Nonetheless, in the history of the Horn of Africa, the Bible is a young document. Egyptian chronicles speak about trade between the Somali Peninsula and Egypt as far back as 2000 BC. Records show that a robust commercial community in Alula in “Punt Land”, or as the Egyptians called it, “the Land of God”, served as the center for trade.
The most sought-after products by Egyptians in that era, which Punt Land could offer, were myrrh, gum, and aromatic products. These products were needed for the day’s technology, including but not limited to, the mummification of the bodies of Pharaohs and the construction of Pyramids. In the Egypto-Somali connection, not only did Somalis absorb Egyptian influences, but they also imparted their own. For example, Egyptian records show that Somalis worked and have contributed to the construction of this heritage. Also, ancient Egyptians thought the people they met at Alula looked like them.
Some of the enduring chronicles about the Horn of Africa are the Greco-Roman records collected between the 2nd and 4th centuries. These accounts provide a rich history of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Suffice it to say that of the nine ports, the Greco-Roman travelers documented prominently the socioeconomic structures in the Somali Peninsula and those that existed in Adulis. Somali ports such as Malo (today’s Berbera port), Ras Gardaufui, Alula, and others played a pivotal role in the trade that connected the Horn of Africa, the Middle East/Southeast Asia, and Southern Europe.
Axumites in today’s Tigray region served as the link between the Eritrean coast of Adulis and the Abyssinian hinterland. It was the main pipeline for exporting slaves, rhino, and other animal products from the interior regions of Abyssinia. Equally, the Somali coast served as the point of export and emporium for myrrah, gums, and aromatic products found in Punt Land and northern Somalia.
The introduction of Christianity to Ethiopia from Alexandria in the 4th century A.D (during the reign of King Ezana) and the conversion and expansion of Somalis to Islam between the 1st and 4th Hijri-Islamic calendar, largely shaped the contours of future conflicts between Somalis and Abyssinians. The Abyssinian city-states were largely closed to outside groups. Rarely did non-Abysinian people participate in the process of state formation.
On the Somali side, however, Arabs and Indians were notable in the making of the Somali civilization. Muslim chronicles on Somalis are rich, and they tell the tale of thriving city-states. For example, Muslim emigres who rose into prominent positions in the city-states of Mogadishu, Merca, and Barawa came from as far as Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and other Middle Eastern regions. The cosmopolitan and mosaic population of Somalia’s coastal towns is a testimony to this historical diversity. South Somalia’s mosaic governments energized the Islamic but less powerful and less resourceful Dawaro and Ifat. With the power of the Somalis, these principalities would have entirely fallen prey to the new Abyssinian power in Gonder.
The Somali-Abyssinian conflict first surfaced in the 13th and 14th centuries as the Somali city-state became centralised and powerful during the reign of Sad’ ad Din. On the Abyssinian side was Amde Seyon. By the 16th century, Ahmed Gurey (Ahmed AlGazi) conquered almost all of Abyssinia and sought to establish one of the largest empires in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Somali army was so powerful and sweeping that Dr. Libiso argued that such power and organizational skills could not have come from the “nomadic Somalis” that he knew. But if the troops of Ahmed Gurey consisted of Somali clans, including Geri, Mareehaan, Harla, Hawiye, Issaq (Haber Magaad), Harti of Maid, Bartire and Gurgure- only mentioning these clan names for histroical referencew) who does Dr. Labiso think these people are? The limits to historical distortions can only be challenged with an alternative and enlightened research scholarship.
Not many contacts or conflicts existed between the two neighbors during the 16th and up to and including most of the 19th centuries. For example, the travelers that preceded the multinational East Indian Company speak less about Abyssinian and Somali conflicts. Sir Richard Burton, who at about 1850 traveled from Zaila to Harar via the prairiland of Tuli Guuleed, which is located on the outskirts of Jigjiga, did not find any Abyssinian presence in the region east of Shoa.
Sir Burton met only Somalis and their affiliated Muslim communities, such as Harari citizens. In those days, Harar was part of an East African Islamic network with Somalis as the anchor and the force holding it together and defending it.
The process of state formation in the region, both in Abyssinia and in the Somali Peninsula, has been greatly influenced by competing religions. Such a difference impacts contemporary politics of the region. Until the 1974 Derg revolution or “rapture”, as some would like to call it, the official religion of the Ethiopian imperial state was the Orthodox Church. Muslims were not considered full citizens. Somalis and other Southern Cushitic groups were conquered because they were not considered “children of the Bible.” In particular, Menelik referred to Somalis as “pagans.” It was indeed a conquest for the expansion of Christianity.
Abyssinian expeditions to the Somali Peninsula began in earnest after Menelik amassed weapons provided by Western powers. These Western powers were all competing to grab a slice of the Somali coast. In the conquest of Somalia, Ras Mekonnen, cousin of Emperor Menelik and father of Emperor Haile Selassie, did most of the damage against the Somalis. By the 1900s, the western part of the Somali Peninsula was obliterated. In their land, Somalis were reduced to what Mohamoud Mamdani calls “a permanent minority,” whereas other Cushitic groups became “serfs.”
Three historical things happened to Somalis as a result of conquest by Abyssinia. First, a massive pillage of their cattle and other belongings was carried out by Ras Mekonen’s army around the 1890s. A famine that devastated the livelihood of Abyssinia had compelled Ras Mekonnen to pillage Somali resources. Second, rape, massive killings, and burning of villages took place massively, a crime that even perplexed European supporters of Emperor Menilik. Third, Menelik’s conquest of Somalis distorted the natural state formation process of the Somali Peninsula, which to this day makes their objective of “people in search of a nation-state” difficult to attain.
Western [Christian] “scholars”, who deliberately appropriated all of the Horn of Africa’s history to Abyssinia, benefited Emperor Menelik. Richard Punkurist, in particular, who had a socialist and internationalist orientation, came to Ethiopia in the early 1930s, and made a lifetime profession centering and accentuating a history of “pax-Ethiopiana”. The Pankhurst family and others like them did a historical injustice to Somalis and other communities by promoting a single narrative in the Horn of Africa.
Of course, the 1884-85 Berlin Conference and the scramble for Africa ended up denying Sayyid Mohammed Abdulle Hassan to achieve his people’s cherished goals – protecting his country from outsiders stalled or stunted the natural progression of state formation in the Somali Peninsula. On the reverse, they enabled and armed Emperor Menelik to the detriment of the Somali Peninsula. The follow-up treaties at the end of WWII between Abyssinia and Great Britain, Abyssinia and Italy, or Abyssinia and France further marginalized Somalis.
Abyssinia, whose name was rebranded as “Ethiopia” following WWII, has emerged as the lone African state that collaborated with and played a subsidiary yet pivotal role in the colonization of the Somali Peninsula.
Despite the rich history of the Horn of Africa region, we are saddled with two kinds of state formations. One is the post-colonial states, such as those pursued by Somalia, Djibouti, and Eritrea. In their cases. The other is the Ethiopian state, which sought for long to be a stable Empire (Markakis, John, 2010). However, its process has been hampered by the groups in the periphery regions who hang onto what Political Theory calls “the right to revolt”. Unlike what revisionists in Ethiopia would like to argue, the “right to revolt” did not come from the 1970s student movement. Alas, the Somali revolt against Abyssinia never let up since the 1920s.
The Horn of Africa region may remain in a quagmire unless a viable regional approach to a fair and inclusive state construction is deliberated.
By Faisal Roble
Email: faisalroble19@gmail.com
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Faisal Roble, a prominent essayist and public intellectual, is writing a book on state formation in the region. His past writings have appeared on WardheerNews, where he served as Chief Editor, as well as in The Ethiopian Review and The Horn of Africa Journal, where he was a contributing editor.