Opinion – Is Somaliland Defying the Odds, or Are Opportunities Based on a Flawed Structure?

Since Somaliland was declared independent in May 1991, the unknown country has established a record of democracy that few developing countries can match. On November 13, 2024, the people of Somaliland voted in two thousand polling stations across the country. Wadani, the main opposition party led by Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi (Cirro), won a clear victory with 63.92 percent of the votes, while the incumbent president got 34.81 percent. Shortly after Somaliland’s National Electoral Commission (NEC) called Cirro’s election, President Muse Bihi Abdi conceded defeat, calling for national unity and expressing his determination to ensure a smooth transition of power. On December 12, 2024, the outgoing and incoming presidents arrived symbolically together, laughing, at the inauguration of Cirro, marking yet another smooth and peaceful transfer of power following the democratic elections in Somaliland. Since 1991, Somaliland has held four multi-party national elections, all of which have been described as free and fair by international observers. Recently, international observers described the recent elections as “free, fair, and credible, despite the constraints of Somaliland’s financial resources and institutions”. Why then, that democracy has worked in Somaliland?

Since the publication of his ethnographic study in 1961 Pastoral democracyBritish anthropologist IM Lewis profoundly shaped the outside world’s understanding of Somali society, culture, and history. Throughout his long career, Lewis insisted that Somali society is best understood through the lens of a segmentary clan system, where clan groups clash, leading to violence. This definition describes Somalis as warlike people, whose loyalty to their family takes precedence over everything else. According to Lewisian interpretation, this ultimately explains the causes of the civil war and the subsequent disintegration of the central region in 1991. Although anthropologists have long argued that cultures, traditions, and customs are constantly evolving and changing, Lewis vehemently denied that this could be the case. colonialism had a negative impact on Somali culture and society.

Despite the obvious flaws in Lewisian interpretation, Lewis’s influence cannot be overstated, as his framework has profoundly shaped mainstream scholarship on Somaliland. Michael Walls, for example, asserts “in some other way ‘we are all Lewisites now’, we will start with families”. Festschrift tributes to IM Lewis, Markus Hoehne and the late Virginia Lulling continue. According to them, the ‘task problem’—that is, “the problem of how to contribute something to Somali studies that Lewis never touched on”—remains a constant problem. In direct response to this, Ali Jimale Ahmed writes,

to describe intellectual, disciplinary and procedural disagreements as a ‘career problem’, is simply madness…to argue as if nothing has changed over the years in the configuration and definition of family identity is to ignore the true nature of language.

Even a cursory examination reveals that the existence of Somaliland, a middle-class democracy, does not conform to the main assumptions of the Lewisian explanation. According to the latter, an inclusive and democratic Somali state must not happen as it will inevitably be undermined by a pervasive and permanent clan system. Despite the recent territorial conflict in Somaliland’s eastern Sool region, it is widely known that the peace and state-building process in Somaliland involves the voluntary participation of all communities. Self-directed peace and state formation, achieved by voluntary cooperation between groups fighting on opposite sides of a bloody civil war, are in fact incompatible with Lewis and his followers’ interpretations and symbols of Somali society and culture.

As noted above, Lewis’s critics highlight the negative impact of colonialism, arguing that it radically changed society and politicized cultural identity (relatives). As Abdi and Ahmed Ismail Samatar, the leading critics of Lewis, have recently put it: “In fact, the old cultural and human relations have nothing to do with the economic and social context of the people and have been reorganized into a new system that is completely at odds with the principle of self-government. trust, justice, and equality”. Although Lewis’s critique, which emphasizes the impact of colonialism, provides important insights, it is not without limitations. Given its basic assertion that colonial rule completely eradicated pre-colonial cultural practices, it offers little in terms of explaining successful self-led peacebuilding in Somaliland.

Recently, Abdi Ismail Samatar, rejecting the idea that the traditional administrative institutions are better preserved in Somaliland than in south-central Somalia due to the indirect rule of the British in the former period as opposed to the direct Italian rule in the end, partially attributed the success of Somaliland to intelligence. of its second president, Mohamed Hagi Ibrahim Egal. Firstly, peace and state building in Somaliland involved a number of actors and stakeholders, including traditional elders, businessmen, intellectuals, women’s groups, religious leaders, ordinary citizens etc. Second, Egal was not in politics until before the Borama conference. 1993. Thirdly, the intelligence of any individual or group cannot explain the powerful interaction that makes peace and state formation possible without foreign aid. help. Consider the following example: when conflicts broke out in 1995, a group of Somaliland emigrants organized themselves voluntarily, left their comfortable lives in Europe and North America, returned to Somaliland, and played a major role in resolving the conflict.

In the following article, I propose a third explanation that integrates competing perspectives in Somali studies. In doing so, the article rejects the notion that Somaliland remained ungoverned for almost eighty years of indirect British rule, while also reserving the contention that colonialism led to the complete collapse of pre-colonial culture, if properly considered – the documented use of culturally specific practices in the process of peace-building. from Somaliland. Following this line of thinking, peacebuilders in Somaliland have benefited from the remnants of cultural factors that have historically encouraged community support.

Given the situation of Somaliland as de jure an unrecognized situation, it is tempting to conclude that we have strategically adopted democracy to meet external general needs. Furthering this argument, Rebecca Richards writes “gaining state recognition has become the government’s main goal in the region, with democracy building at the heart of Somaliland’s strategy”. A thorough study of Somaliland’s history, however, reveals a lack of causality between democratic rule and the continued desire for recognition. Shortly after its formation in 1981, the Somali National Movement (SNM), which fought against the dictatorship of Maxamed Ziad Barre from 1982 to 1991, published a political document entitled. Another Better Way. This document proposed that “the traditional administrative institutions of the government be included in the bicameral legislature and the upper house of elders”. The current hybrid state of Somaliland, officially established in 1993, was first established in 1981. Until the declaration of independence in 1991, the SNM maintained that its main objective was to free Somalia from the dictatorship of Maxamed Ziad Barre and restore democracy. In 1986, for example, the SNM stated, “the main goal of the SNM…is to remove Siad Barre’s dictatorial, collapsing and destructive regime from Somalia and to restore the principles of a democratic government.” Even in May 1991, the leadership of the SNM opposed the declaration of independence but they were eventually defeated by the elders who represented all the communities of Somaliland.

In short, political secession from Somalia was not seriously considered until 1991, when democracy was indeed part of the plan from the beginning. There is no evidence to suggest that Somaliland, during its peace and state building, complied with the demands of foreign policy. On the contrary, it deliberately deviated from the Weberian state model by creating a bicameral parliament with an upper house of elders (gurti). The main reason why democracy works in Somaliland is that it is not an imposed or unknown system of governance. It is important to note that Somaliland was governed by democratic principles long before the arrival of colonial powers. In the post-1991 period, the people of Somaliland built a democracy that suited their culture and social structures, rather than seeking to appease foreign audiences. Although Somaliland apparently emphasizes its democratic achievements in promotion de jure recognition of sovereignty, it is clear that the explanatory power of this ongoing quest is limited in understanding the structure and function of the Somaliland state and society.

Further Studies in E-International Relations