By Markus Virgil Hoehne
In an opinion piece published by E-InternationalRelations entitled “Is Somaliland Defying the Odds, or Are the Odds Based on a Flawed Premise?” Jamal Abdi attempts a new interpretation of Somaliland’s gestation. On the one hand, he distances himself from colonial anthropology, represented by the work of Ioan M. Lewis, which suggests that the main explanatory factor for Somali politics is “clan” (as a shorthand for all kinds of forms of collective belonging defined by patrilineal descent). On the other hand, Jamal Abdi tries to safe a bit of the classic account of Somali society by Lewis, who provided his initial account of Somali kinship, the role of elders and customary law based on ethnographic research in the north (today’s Somaliland) by stating that indeed, some cultural traits of Somalis have been preserved in the region, which lay the foundation for peace building there in the early 1990s. Moreover, Jamal Abdi suggests that there is some kind of perennial democratic tradition among northerners which explains the contemporary democratic success in Somaliland.
To develop these points, Jamal Abdi first lashes out on Lewis. Jamal Abdi writes:
Since the publication of his 1961 ethnographic study A Pastoral democracy, British anthropologist I.M. Lewis has profoundly shaped the outside world’s understanding of Somali society, culture, and history. Throughout his long career, Lewis maintained that Somali society is best understood through the lens of the segmentary clan system, in which corporate groups conflict, leading to endemic violence. This interpretation construes Somalis as a fundamentally warlike people, with loyalty to their clan taking precedence over all else. According to the Lewisian interpretation, this ultimately explains the root causes of the civil war and the subsequent disintegration of the central state in 1991. Although anthropologists have long argued that cultures, customs, and traditions constantly evolve and change, Lewis stubbornly denied the possibility that colonialism negatively impacted Somali culture and society.
It is correct that the old Lewis stubbornly stuck to the logics of the anthropological model of “segmentary lineage society” and indeed explained the Somali civil war simplistically through the lens of clan. Yet, the young Lewis was more nuanced, as already Lidwien Kapteijns (2010) found in her seminal critique of Lewis’ clan-paradigm. If one reads the early works of IM Lewis, especially his “A Pastoral Democracy” (1961), carefully, one can see that he conceptualizes Somali society as more complex, and “clan” is only one aspect of kinship, besides uterine and affinal ties. Moreover, clan is inherently dynamic and relative. Here are a few quotes from “A pastoral democracy” underlining this point.
Lewis observed that “[r]eal or putative uterine alliances are thus as much a feature of the Somali lineage system as is agnatic segmentation”(Lewis 1961: 156). Lewis (1961: 159) argues: “In principle, within the clan diya-paying groups oppose diya-paying groups, and within the clan-family clans oppose clans. But the simple model of agnatic segmentation with equipoised units at every level is distorted by the recognition of irregular growth and by the importance given to the uneven distribution of man-power and fighting potential.” Lewis also stresses that “the system of units which we have distinguished as clan-families, clans, primary lineage-groups and dia-paying groups suggests a more stable hierarchy of segmentation than actually exists” (Lewis 1961: 133). He continues: “What is most characteristic of the Somali system is its relativity and its flexibility” (ibid.).
So: relativity and flexibility characterize the Somali segmentary lineage society, according to the young Lewis (and those terms – “relativity” and “flexibility” – can still be productively used in analyses of Somali politics today). But Jamal Abdi and before him, renown critiques of (the later) Lewis like Catherine Besteman, Abdi Ismail Samatar, Lidwien Kapteijns and others are correct in the sense that Lewis did not really consider colonialism and structural changes in Somali society introduced through it. This is a blind spot, and it was replicated in later accounts of his. Additionally, his later accounts indeed reduced Somali society often to clan, which remains unconvincing.
Jamal Abdi continues in his essay by stating:
Even a cursory examination reveals that the existence of Somaliland, a centralized democratic state, is at odds with the principal assumptions of the Lewisian interpretation. According to the latter, an inclusive and democratic Somali state should not be possible as it would inevitably be corrupted by the pervasive and enduring clan system. Despite the recent local conflict in Somaliland’s eastern Sool region, it is widely recognized that Somaliland’s peace and state making process involved the voluntary participation of all communities. Self-led peace and state formation, achieved through voluntary cooperation between groups that had fought on opposing sides of a bloody civil war, is fundamentally irreconcilable with Lewis and his followers’ interpretations and characterizations of Somali society and culture.
This statement must be separated in two parts. Let us start with the second part: “…that Somaliland’s peace and state making process involved the voluntary participation of all communities. Self-led peace and state formation, achieved through voluntary cooperation between groups that had fought on opposing sides of a bloody civil war, is fundamentally irreconcilable with Lewis and his followers’ interpretations and characterizations of Somali society and culture.” Indeed, peacebuilding in Somaliland in the 1990s was highly successful. Who were the main actors involved? Mostly: Traditional leaders, military officers of the Somali National Movement (SNM) and other militias, some former politicians, businessmen and diaspora activists. Yet, what kind of structure connected all these diverse actors? It was belonging to particular patrilineal descent groups (e.g., as members of certain clans or lineages). The whole peace-building process in Somaliland was built on clan-belonging. Elders, officers, businessmen, diaspora activists etc. all acted on behalf of their respective patrilineal descent group first, and only second and third in other capacities (e.g., as former schoolmates, as members of certain religious congregations within Sunni Islam etc.).
Read more: From clan to clannism in Somaliland: A rejoinder to Jamal Abdi
Markus Virgil Hoehne
Email: markus.hoehne@uni-leipzig.de
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Markus Virgil Hoehne is studying Somali issues since 2001. He wrote his MA-thesis on strategies of peaceful conflict settlement in Somalia (published in German 2002) and subsequently did his PhD research in northern Somalia (Somaliland and Puntland). Since 2011 he has been conducting multiple research projects on Somali issues as senior researcher for universities and international organizations. He is the author of “Between Somaliland and Puntland: Marginalization, Militarization and Conflicting Political Visions” (Nairobi, 2015) and co-editor of several edited volumes including “Borders and borderlands as Resources in the Horn of Africa” (London, 2010) and “The State and the Paradox of Customary Law in Africa” (London, 2018).
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