A Rejoinder to “Much Worship, Little Morality” and “The Problem Is Not a Lack of Worship—It Is the Absence of Accountability”
By Aweys O. Mohamoud, PhD
The recent exchange between Dr Abdurahman Baadiyow and Dayib Sh. Ahmed raises one of the most consequential questions Somalis can ask themselves after more than three decades of state collapse, conflict, fragmentation and repeated attempts at reconstruction: why, after everything we have endured and everything we have tried, do we continue returning to substantially the same political difficulties? Baadiyow begins with a disturbing paradox. Somalia is an overwhelmingly Muslim society in which religious observance remains highly visible, yet the moral consequences one might reasonably expect from that devotion—honesty, justice, compassion, restraint, trustworthiness and concern for the common good—are frequently difficult to discern in public and political life. His question, “What is wrong with us?”, therefore directs attention towards the gulf between worship and moral character. Somalia, he argues, requires leaders whose faith produces morality, whose morality produces integrity, whose integrity produces trust, and whose trust ultimately helps build functioning institutions.
Dayib Ahmed’s rejoinder moves the discussion in another important direction. Perhaps, he suggests, the question should not merely be “What is wrong with us?” but “What happened to us?” Decades of violence, displacement, institutional collapse, unresolved grievances and impunity cannot simply be removed from the explanation of contemporary Somali behaviour. Nor can the country’s difficulties be reduced to deficiencies of individual morality. Somalia requires accountability, reconciliation, enforceable laws and institutions capable of restraining the abuse of power. A functioning state cannot depend upon the fortunate accident that whoever occupies public office happens to be a good person. Dayib therefore moves the argument from personal morality towards the structures surrounding power: how leaders are chosen, what constrains them, what consequences follow misconduct, and how institutions can prevent the weaknesses of individuals from becoming weaknesses of the state.
There is considerable truth in both arguments, and I see little reason to choose between them. But perhaps there is another question sitting somewhere between Baadiyow’s concern with character and Dayib’s concern with accountability and institutions. What if Somalia’s prolonged catastrophe has produced a political environment that does not merely tolerate destructive human traits but, in important respects, selects for, rewards and reproduces them? What if part of our difficulty is not simply that destructive people sometimes reach positions of authority, but that the rules—formal and informal—governing our competition for power have gradually made certain destructive characteristics politically advantageous? If that possibility has merit, then the Somali predicament may involve something deeper than either individual moral failure or institutional weakness considered separately. It may involve a relationship between character, political selection and institutions, each continuously reinforcing the others.
What Has Our History Been Rewarding?
I would hesitate to conclude that there is something inherently wrong with Somalis. Greed, arrogance, envy, hatred, dishonesty, prejudice, fear, insecurity and lust for power are not Somali inventions. They belong to the human condition. Every society contains people capable of generosity and greed, humility and arrogance, compassion and cruelty, honesty and deceit, restraint and domination. The useful comparative question is therefore not whether these destructive characteristics exist among Somalis—they obviously do, just as they exist everywhere else—but what our historical and political environment has done with them. Which characteristics have helped people survive, accumulate influence, capture resources, defeat competitors and acquire political office? Conversely, what has happened to those exhibiting restraint, fairness, humility, tolerance and an unwillingness to manipulate communal identities for political advantage?
Somalia’s recent history has exposed successive generations to dictatorship, state collapse, civil war, displacement, militia rule, violent extremism, poverty, institutional weakness, political fragmentation and fierce competition over resources and public office. It would be extraordinary if decades of such experiences had left political behaviour untouched. Under prolonged conditions of insecurity, behaviours that are socially destructive over the long term may nevertheless become individually rational over the short term. Suspicion may appear safer than trust. Kinship solidarity may offer greater immediate protection than abstract citizenship. Political aggression may outperform compromise. Patronage may secure loyalty more rapidly than impartial administration. Ruthlessness may defeat restraint. Manipulation may defeat honesty. Accumulating power may appear safer than surrendering it. What begins as adaptation to insecurity can gradually become habit; what becomes habitual can acquire social legitimacy; and what acquires legitimacy can eventually become embedded in political practice. At that point we are confronting something more complicated than individual moral failure. We are confronting a selection problem.
Every political system selects. It determines, formally and informally, what kinds of people are attracted to public office, which behaviours help them reach it, which behaviours enable them to remain there, and what happens to people who refuse to play according to those rules.
Suppose a political marketplace disproportionately rewards lust for power, domination, unrestrained ambition, corruption, exploitation, narcissism, contempt, vindictiveness, deceit, tribal mobilisation and intolerance. What kinds of personalities will gradually become overrepresented within that marketplace? And what happens to someone displaying the opposite characteristics—service-mindedness, respect for autonomy, disciplined ambition, integrity, fairness, humility, empathy, mercy, truthfulness, solidarity and tolerance? The uncomfortable possibility is that the second person may be morally better equipped to govern Somalia while being politically less equipped to capture power within the system Somalia has created. This is what I would describe as adverse political selection.
The danger is that such selection can become self-reinforcing. Weak institutions encourage destructive political competition; destructive political competition rewards those most capable of succeeding within it; those who succeed may then manipulate or further weaken institutions to preserve their advantage; weakened institutions deepen insecurity and distrust; insecurity increases dependence upon clan, factional and personal networks; and those networks further obstruct the development of impartial institutions. Around the circle we go. Greed becomes the accumulation of public resources. Lust for power becomes an inability to imagine political life outside office. Domination becomes exclusion. Unrestrained ambition becomes willingness to bend institutions towards personal survival. Corruption becomes patronage. Tribalism becomes a technology of political mobilisation. Suspicion becomes strategy. Dishonesty becomes tactical communication. Vindictiveness becomes the punishment of opponents. These are no longer merely private defects of character. Once combined with political authority, they become institutional forces.
This is why political character matters so profoundly. Power is a multiplier of character. The arrogance of a private citizen may damage a handful of relationships; the arrogance of a president may affect appointments, constitutional arrangements, security policy and national reconciliation. An ordinary person’s greed has limited reach; the greed of someone controlling substantial public resources can impoverish thousands. A citizen’s prejudice is morally objectionable; the prejudice of somebody controlling the machinery of government can reshape the state itself. Consequently, the question of character cannot simply be dismissed as moral sermonising. Nor, however, can character substitute for institutions. The challenge is to understand how the two interact.
Why Leadership Must Be the Immediate Point of Intervention
If destructive tendencies have become widespread across society, there is very little that can realistically be done to transform an entire population in the short term. Moral and cultural transformation is generational work. Somalia cannot postpone state-building until millions of citizens have undergone some collective moral reformation. The immediate intervention must therefore occur where individual behaviour has the greatest multiplier effect: among the political elite and those entrusted with public authority. This does not absolve ordinary citizens.
Dr. Aweys Omar Mohamoud
Email: aweys6@aol.com
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