For some Neighbor States like Ethiopia and Kenya it is a Strategy for defeating the Pan-Somalia Dream. "The smaller pieces of a pie are easier to eat it"
Many historians of Somalia are convinced that Tribal community political ideologies
only developed in contact with the European ‘thinking about tribes’
which the missionaries and colonial officers brought to Somalia.
Early 19Th
Century Colonialism drew borders which did not exist and threw together
Somali people who would ordinarily have lived together into one Somali
nation and nationality. During the colonial era, the Europeans used
various approaches to dominate the Somali tribes. In varying degrees,
the French, British and Italians tried to transform the Somalis into
five colonial regions in Horn of Africa (NFD, Ogadenia, French Djibouti, British Colonial and Italian Colonial).
Like any cultural group that was arbitrarily divided at the Scramble
for Africa, Somalis will not stop with the dream of reunification of all
their population into a greater Somalia.
To begin with, as the Dervishes Liberation era dawned in the late 1910s and SYLs, SNL and USP early 40s, the West realized the great threat posed to its hegemony by an independent and unified Somalia in Horn of Africa. Nowhere is the neo-colonial thumbprint more evident than in Somalia.
Defining
back the relation between colonialism and tribal states, you have to
know the distinction in between two phases of colonialism; that is, active and passive colonialism.
The former refers to the conquest of a people followed by the direct
control (or domination) of the same by the conquerors using a
combination of measures such as military coercion and dominance of major
internal institutions such as the polity. The latter, on the other
hand, represents what is commonly referred to as neo-colonialism or the
extension of especially economic domination of a people beyond the
attainment of self-rule. The second phase of colonization is associated
with practices, policies and structures inherited from the first phase.
These constitute a colonial legacy that, in our view, impacts on the
extent of corruption in independent Somali nation.
Recently the passive colonialists
had organized group of Somali tribal leaders to select the members of
the Somalia’s future legislatures (4.5 tribal systems). Remember to
collect taxes; the colonial governments mostly relied on local Somali
tribal leaders and especially chiefs. Where chiefs did not exist or were
uncooperative, new ones were appointed by the colonial powers. Above
all, to motivate chiefs to generate as much tax revenue as possible, and
do so with zeal, the colonial administrations allowed them to retain a
part of it.
To
understand the association between corruption and the practice of
divide and rule one must reflect on some of the methods utilized to
sustain it. Those tribal state warlords groups such as Somaliland and Puntland
are enjoying a privileged status in the ex-colonial administration were
rewarded with easy access to western aid donations and political
assistance's.
The
modernization of tribal war and politics have paved the way for an
aggressive build-up of illegal high powered firearms in Somalia posing a
serious threat to development, progress and freedom. All public
properties, including schools, seaports, airports and aid posts, in
Somalia are subject to possession by Tribal States such as Puntland and Somaliland.
Today
Somalia is at the mercy of Western political interference propaganda
and media conglomerates which relentlessly paint the country as one
beset by poverty, piracy, terrorists crime, diseases and endless wars
which has to be rescued by foreign aid workers and sanctimonious
celebrities at Nairobi and Addis Ababa...Because of those UN Envoys, Aid donors, and foreign NGO’s Somalis have lost their way, culturally, politically and economically.
Contemporary
forms of Tribalism in Somalia are growing in magnitude and incessantly
adopting violent forms. It is a barrier to peace, violates the dignity
of human race across social and tribal boundaries, and holds back
victims development. The Current Somali man/woman will think of himself
as a Hawiye, Darod, Digil-Mirifle or an Isaaq rather than, say, a Somali. This is because the tribal states
that exist in Somalia now did not exist before the civil war. Today,
the influences of the tribes, tribal beliefs, and tribal chiefs are
increasing. Loyalty to the Somali Nation is gradually being replaced by
loyalty to a Tribal State, and tribal conflicts become strong and have resulted in civil wars and monumental slaughter of peoples. The expectation that you can develop a Tribal state in Somalia exclusively is just too wishful thinking.
The thinking that you can hate a tribe or a group of people and expect
to build a prosperous and for the Tribal State itself survive is quite
myopic. The problem in governing Somalia squarely lies with tribalism, a
shakily United Nations NGOs, greed, external interests, poverty, and
skewed allocation of resources dating from many years in the past and so
on.
Recently the Hope of Somalis has been cheated out of the corrupted legislatures (parliamentarians) members and their owners of so called "UNSOM, USAID, UNDP, Qatar, and AMISOM”
using voting manipulations they sought are indisputable. What is
reprehensible is the cynical manner in which the Somali people’s genuine
anger has been orchestrated into ‘tribal states conflict.’ That is the
danger that Somalia faces-unscrupulous leaders backed by foreign
interests dividing their people in order to cling to power. These are
leaders without vision, traitors to Pan-Somali ideals, squandering the
sacrifices of heroes who gave their lives for the dream of a free United
Pan-Somalia.
My Fellow Somalis, Tribalism
is pervasive, and it controls a lot of our actions, readily overriding
reason. Think of the inhuman things we do in the name of tribal unity
and tribal mini-states. Wars are essentially, and often quite
specifically, tribalism. Genocides are tribalism – wipe out the other
group to keep our group safe – taken to madness.
My
fellow Somali citizens before a year is over we require no less than an
imaginative, intelligent and broadly accepted constitution and elected
anti-corruption and anti-tribalism leaders like Mrs. Yussur Abrar .
Otherwise we are not out of the woods yet.
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