By Dayib Sh. Ahmed

In the aftermath of a devastating war that has claimed countless lives, destroyed homes, scattered families, and shattered dreams, the people of Somalia have risen once more not in despair, but in determination; not in resignation, but with a spirit of resistance against humiliation and continued suffering. For decades, Somalia has endured conflict, poverty, displacement, political fragmentation, and institutional collapse. These realities provide important background to the question raised by Dr. Abdurahman Baadiyow in his article on WardheerNews, “Much Worship, Little Morality, What Is Wrong with Us?” His question invites us to look beyond the visible symptoms of Somalia’s crisis and examine the deeper moral, social, political, and institutional forces that have shaped the country’s prolonged tragedy.

The Question Is Not “What Is Wrong with Us?” It Is “What Happened to Us?” If Somalia is a deeply religious society, why have we remained trapped for more than three decades in conflict, poverty, political division, corruption, and weak governance? Perhaps we are asking the wrong question. Full mosques, fasting, prayer, Qur’an recitation, hijab, and Hajj and Umrah do not necessarily mean that Somalis have failed in their religion. They may instead reveal a critical distinction between personal faith and political institutions. Ordinary citizens do not control national Branches of Governments, appoint political leaders, command security forces, or manage state institutions. Those responsibilities belong primarily to political leaders and institutions. Consequently, when state actors breach the public trust, citizens absorb the psychological fallout of structural failure. This is where the work of psychiatrist and trauma expert Professor Bruce D. Perry at Yale University School of Medicine, and co-author of What Happened to You? offers an important way of thinking about Somalia’s experience.

Reflecting on his career studying trauma, Perry wrote, “Throughout my career, I have focused on understanding how stress and trauma alter the human experience behavior and emotional. When people have killed one another, taken each other’s property, and never confronted the past, expressed remorse, or sought redemption, deep behavioral and emotional wounds can develop. These unresolved experiences can produce suspicion, fear, resentment, and mistrust, making genuine reconciliation and the rebuilding of social trust extremely difficult.” His insight reminds us that prolonged violence, insecurity, displacement, poverty, and social breakdown can profoundly shape individuals and societies. Somalia has experienced generations of precisely these conditions. But understanding our wounds does not mean excusing our failures. The deeper question is therefore not simply, what is wrong with us? It is What happened to us? What happened to our institutions, and how to fixed, the public trust, justice, accountability, and political responsibility after state collapse, civil war, and decades of insecurity and poverty?

Somalia has also been politically divided for far too long. We have yet to achieve Meaningful national healing and a lasting political agreement. What Somalia urgently needs is real reconciliation not temporary political bargains, but an honest settlement that addresses historical grievances, political differences, federalism, power-sharing, and disputes over governance and national resources. Without reconciliation, consensus, and trust, Somalia risks repeating the same cycle of political confrontation and institutional crisis. Understanding what happened to us does not remove individual responsibility, rather, it helps us identify the deeper causes of our collective failure. Somalia needs both personal morality and public accountability, religious devotion and good governance, individual responsibility and institutional justice. If we truly want to rebuild Somalia, we must stop asking only what is wrong with Somalis. We must have the courage to ask what happened to us, why it happened, who bears responsibility, and what we must do differently. After more than three decades, the answer cannot simply be more politics as usual. Somalia needs reconciliation, a genuine political settlement, accountable institutions, justice, and leadership capable of rebuilding public trust. Only then can we begin to build the country we have spent decades struggling to recover.

In 1961, Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment to understand how ordinary people could participate in atrocities such as those committed during Nazi Germany. His research explored whether people would obey an authority figure even when instructed to harm another person. Participants were told they were administering electric shocks as part of a learning experiment. Although the “victims” were actors pretending to be shocked, the participants believed the suffering was real. Surprisingly, most continued administering increasingly severe shocks simply because they were instructed to do so by an authority figure. Milgram concluded that people can be remarkably receptive to authority and to new rules in unfamiliar settings. His findings suggested that ordinary individuals may commit harmful acts when they believe they are serving a legitimate purpose under the direction of authority. As Milgram later recalled, “I found so much obedience that I hardly saw the need for taking the experiment to Germany.”

This insight can also be connected to Jared Diamond’s argument in his Book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Diamond argues that societies are shaped not only by the crises they face, but also by the choices they make in responding to those crises. He identifies two crucial factors: “long-term planning” and “willingness to reconsider core values.” Somalia’s tragedy, therefore, should not be understood simply by asking, what is wrong with us? We must also ask, what happened to us? We are not the only society to have experienced civil war, but we are among those that have yet to achieve genuine truth and reconciliation or establish meaningful criminal accountability. The deeper challenge is not simply that we have suffered conflict, but that we have failed to fully confront the crimes, acknowledge the harm, and hold those responsible accountable. Without truth, justice, and reconciliation, the wounds of the past remain open, and the cycle of mistrust, impunity, and political division continues.

History offers a powerful example of how societies can reach a point where crisis demands fundamental change. On the eve of the French Revolution, France, Europe’s most powerful land power, was facing a severe financial crisis. Much of its debt had accumulated from the enormous costs of supporting the American Revolution against Britain. At the same time, an extravagant and increasingly corrupt ruling elite had become disconnected from the realities of society, while a growing middle class, excluded from meaningful political influence, demanded greater representation and reform. Meanwhile, workers and peasants struggled with poverty, rising prices, and hunger. New Enlightenment ideas were also transforming political thinking, emphasizing individual rights, political representation, and new forms of government. Yet the French monarchy and its privileged court failed to recognize how deep public anger had become. They believed their wealth, status, and political power were secure. They were profoundly mistaken. The monarchy eventually collapsed, giving way to a turbulent and violent republic, and within a decade, Napoleon Bonaparte had emerged as emperor.

The French experience does not provide a direct blueprint for Somalia, but it offers an important lesson, societies cannot preserve failing political arrangements indefinitely simply because those arrangements have existed for a long time. When leaders refuse to recognize legitimate grievances, reconsider outdated assumptions, or reform institutions, the consequences can become far more destructive than the reforms they sought to avoid. Somalia’s future depends on whether its leaders and citizens are willing to learn from history, confront the past honestly, and make the difficult choices that genuine reconciliation and institutional renewal require. The question is not whether Somalia has suffered enough, but whether we are finally prepared to choose a different future.

Public Office Is an Amanah, Not, a Personal Privilege

The challenge, therefore, is not simply to ask who should hold power, but how power itself can be structured so that it attracts responsible leaders and restrains those who would abuse it. As Brian Klaas, author of Corruptible and Professor of Global Politics at University College London, argues in his book, “If corruptible people want power more, are better at getting power, and some good people are corrupted by wielding it, how can we invert those dynamics? What can be done to fix it? It’s time to figure out how to make sure that more good people seek power, get it, and stay good once they’re in charge.” This question has particular relevance to Somalia, where public office is too often treated as a source of personal wealth, political reward, or patronage rather than as a responsibility to the public. Islam teaches that power is an Amanah a trust and a responsibility. Public wealth is not the private property of the person sitting in a government office; it belongs to the people and must be protected. Leadership is not merely obtaining a title, winning an election, securing an appointment, or occupying a ministerial chair. Leadership means accepting responsibility for results. A minister who spends years in office but leaves behind no meaningful institution must be questioned.

A President and Prime minister, who controls public resources without transparent accounting must be questioned. A parliamentarian who remains silent while public money is misused must be questioned. A senior official who repeatedly fails to perform his duties must be questioned. And political leaders who surround themselves with incompetent or unaccountable officials must also answer to the public. Position without performance is not leadership. Power without accountability is not governance. Religious language without ethical conduct is not enough. We must stop treating government positions as personal investments or rewards for political loyalty. Public office should be earned through integrity, proficiency, and service not through clan connections, wealth, favoritism, or the ability to manipulate political networks.

Ending the Culture of Impunity and Political Double Standards

Human beings have been fascinated by power for thousands of years, but the modern study of power became increasingly systematic after World War II, as scholars sought to understand how ordinary people could participate in extraordinary acts of cruelty. The Milgram experiments demonstrated how readily individuals could obey authority even when doing so could cause serious harm, while Hannah Arendt’s concept of the “banality of evil” raised the disturbing possibility that terrible acts can be committed not only by monsters, but also by ordinary people operating within systems of authority. Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment further contributed to debates about how roles, institutions, and environments can influence human behavior. These studies offer an important lens through which to examine Somalia’s experience, where decades of war, political violence, displacement, unresolved grievances, and the abuse of authority have left lasting effects long after the fighting stops. Such experiences can shape attitudes toward power, trust, responsibility, and other communities.

When violence becomes normalized and accountability remains absent, individuals and institutions can develop patterns of behavior that reproduce fear, suspicion, domination, and political division. Understanding the relationship between power, human behavior, and institutions therefore helps us ask a deeper question about Somalia. What happened to us, and how did decades of conflict transform the way we understand power, responsibility, and one another? for decades, Somalis have witnessed individuals move from one political position to another without meaningful accountability for previous failures. People can participate in failed administrations, controversial decisions, corruption allegations, institutional destruction, or political crises and later reappear in another powerful position as though nothing happened. That culture of impunity must end.

We cannot continue rewarding failure with another appointment or confusing political loyalty with competence. At the same time, citizens must examine their own behavior.  We must stop defending corruption simply because the corrupt person belongs to our clan, family, political faction, or social network. If we condemn corruption when our opponents commit it but defend it when our own people benefit, then we become part of the problem. We cannot demand justice for ourselves while accepting injustice against others, nor can we condemn corruption in one administration while celebrating or excusing it in another. That is not justice; it is political tribalism disguised as principle. Somalia needs citizens courageous enough to ask: Where did the public money go? What was accomplished? Who benefited? Who was responsible? Where are the audits? Why was the official not investigated? And what happens when those entrusted with public power violate the law?

furthermore, Somalia’s transformation requires both moral renewal and institutional accountability. Religion should produce honesty, justice, compassion, discipline, and responsibility, but those values must also be translated into functioning institutions. We need independent courts, transparent public finances, professional civil services, effective parliaments, credible oversight mechanisms, accountable security institutions, free media, and political systems in which citizens can reward performance and punish failure. A functioning state cannot depend on whether the individual occupying an office happens to be a good person. Institutions must be strong enough to constrain a bad leader and empower a good one. Citizens must also understand that questioning government is not disrespect, demanding transparency is not rebellion, investigating public expenditure is not hostility, and holding a president or minister accountable is not hatred of the nation. Accountability is patriotism. Somalia does not need citizens who blindly praise whoever occupies the presidential palace. It needs citizens who understand their rights, demand transparency, reject corruption regardless of who commits it, and recognize that public officials are servants of the people not masters of the people.

 How Small Compromises Normalize Extremism and Why Power Must Be Held Accountable

Professor Timothy Snyder, a Yale University historian and author of On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, describes how professors, students, and intellectuals in Romania gradually became members of the Iron Guard. Their transformation often began with small compromises and the normalization of extremist ideas. His observation reminds us that authoritarianism grows not only through the ambitions of leaders, but also through the gradual surrender of principles by those who believe they can accommodate extremism without becoming part of it. rise of fascism in Romania, one witness recalled how university professors, students, and intellectuals were “turning Nazi, becoming Iron Guards, one after the other.” At first, many were not Nazis. They gathered to debate and oppose the movement, but gradually some began making small concessions admitting that they agreed with certain arguments. One by one, they became caught in what the witness called “the mechanism” and eventually accepted everything. In the end, only a few continued to resist.

This historical experience offers a powerful lesson about the nature of power, political influence, and moral responsibility. People do not always abandon their principles in one dramatic moment. Sometimes the transformation begins with small compromises, silence, rationalization, or the acceptance of behavior that they once opposed. Over time, these compromises can become normalized, and what was once unacceptable can begin to appear ordinary.

Ultimately, the real measure of leadership is not how frequently a person speaks about religion, how often they attend the mosque, or how convincingly they speak about patriotism. The real measure is what happens to society while that person is entrusted with power. Did poverty decrease? Did justice improve? Did corruption decline? Did institutions become stronger? Did citizens become safer? Did public resources benefit the public? Did the leader create opportunities for young people? Did the government provide basic services? Did the leader leave behind institutions stronger than those they inherited? These are the questions history will ask.

Somalia needs leaders who fear Allah, but it also needs institutions capable of investigating and holding them accountable. It needs leaders with good character, but also laws capable of preventing the abuse of power. It needs citizens who pray, but also citizens who understand their rights and responsibilities. It needs reconciliation, but reconciliation without justice can preserve impunity. It needs elections, but elections without accountability can simply replace one failed leadership with another. It needs constitutions, but constitutions without enforcement are merely pieces of paper.

Somalia’s future will not be secured by religious appearances alone. It will be secured when faith produces character, character produces responsibility, responsibility produces accountability, accountability produces competent institutions, and competent institutions produce a state that serves its citizens. The time has come to educate our people that government is not a private inheritance, public office is not personal property, and national resources are not political spoils. They belong to the people, and anyone entrusted with them must be prepared to account for every decision, every expenditure, every achievement, and every failure.  

Dayib Sh. Ahmed
Email: Dayib0658@gmail.com
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Dayib is a writer, political analyst and WardheerNews contributor