The last chapter on the revolution in Somalia is far from concluded, but the trends seem to favor the hardliner Islamists. Sure the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) will go through the motions of dialogue with the hapless transitional government, but this is just a motion that the ascendants go to humor the fast-falling. A recent example in Africa is the Congo. Laurent Kabila, an arms dealer that was packaged by the Rwandans and Ugandans as a freedom fighter, had his Rwandan “allies” liberate half his country. The hand-wringers (“the international community”) arranged a meeting for him with Mobutu in South Africa. He took a photo op and scheduled a follow-up meeting. Then, he had his Rwandan fighters chased out all the Mobutu loyalists from the other half of the country and didn’t bother to show up for his follow-up meeting with Mobutu. Mobutu fled to Morocco and died—but only after living long enough to endure a name change of his beloved Zaire. Kabila succumbed a year later to the number one cause of death for Great Lakes leaders: a plane crash. (see also Burundi, Rwanda and South Sudan.) Correction: Kabila actually died from the #2 cause of death, bullet from a disgruntled former supporter.
Somalia seems to be following along the same trajectory. The UIC will humor the transitional government until it has total control of Somalia. The only wild cards are the United States (which witnesses Bush alternating between the Vigilent Warrior Against Terror and the Pragmatic Politician) and Meles, who is always itching for a defining war that will place him in the pantheon of Great Ethiopian Warriors.
No doubt, Ethiopia looks back at the prior Ethiopia vs Somalia confrontations (Ogaden War) to assert with confidence that it can defeat Somalia. This kind of overconfidence is common among people with selective recall: a confidence that should be tempered now that Cold War era documents have been declassified. If you want to go on memory lane, and revisit Cold War politics, the Wilson Center is your stop:
http://wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=va2.browse&sort=Collection&item=The%20Horn%20of%20Africa%20Crisis
Ethiopia & Somalia
Recall that on the eve of the Ogaden War, the Soviet Union used to arm both Somalia and Ethiopia. When the two nations went to war, Cold War logic dictated that the Soviets had to back one. How to choose? The declassified documents reveal the criteria used by the Soviet Union in determining who was genuinely Marxist-Leninist and who was a pretender: ruthless efficiency in murdering political opponents. The Soviets studied the behavior of Mengistu since he came to power and were very impressed by Castro’s description of him as “an intellectual personality who showed his wisdom on February 3.” Mengistu’s “wisdom on February 3” was to ambush his colleagues and murder them. They were similarly impressed by his November (1974 & 1977) wisdom (more ruthless massacres) and crowned him the genuine Marxist-Lenninst. Poor Siad Barre had nothing to match this; sure he killed a minister or two, but not by the dozens like Mengistu. The Soviets emptied out their entire weapons warehouse and shipped them to Ethiopia.
Now, Cold War logic would dictate that the United States would play chess and arm Somalia to the teeth but America foreign policy elite and the influential Ethiophiles never ever gave up on America’s “special relationship” with Ethiopia even as it was embracing Marxism Leninism. So Poor Somalia was left to rely on renegade communists, like Romania, for arms.
In addition to the weapons, particularly air power, advantage, Ethiopia also had Warsaw Pact advisors, commanders and infantry men. The declassified documents describe how the Cuban ambassador to Ethiopia, a certain Comrade Pepe, used to marvel at the Ethiopians’ categorical denial that the Cubans were fighting, when his countrymen, by the thousands, were leading the fight against the Somalis. (All the classic Zeraf, Zeraf Ethiopian war medley, like “we will teach them a lesson they will never forget”, “we will annihilate them”, etc are mentioned by Pepe in his reports.)
Emperor Haile Selasse got back the Ogaden from the Brits by using the “Christian island” argument in the 1950s. Comrade Mengistu Hailemariam maintained ownership of the Ogaden by winning the mantle of the genuine Marxist-Leninist in 1977. What will Mr Meles Zenawi use in 2006?
It seems like it is the magical WAT. Not the dish WeT, but WAT: War Against Terror. This is a depressing turn-around for the Meles Zenawi regime. When the Clinton administration was creating its version of the coalition-of-the-willing (Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda) to confront Sudan’s Turabi (as if that guy needed three nations to confront him), they were thrilled by Isaias Afwerki’s braggadocio language and his talk about the dangers of Islamic extremism and it had to be contained. But Meles Zenawi was more circumspect and the reason was explained by his then-spokesperson, Selome Taddesse: Ethiopia is half-Christian, half-Muslim and it cannot be seen to be overtly against the Islamists. But that was in the distant 1990s, before the Willing discovered the delicious gravy train known as WAT. (Of course, in keeping with the perfect reversal of roles Isaias and Meles like play, Isaias began to downplay the religious dimension of terrorism after giving up on courting the US (“Religion is not a new fact in our country; any party that stands up against peace is rejected by any religion," he told Pakistani journalists in his visit there in early 2005.
So look for Ethiopia to go in to Somalia, while denying it every step of the way, and losing the transitional government whatever vestige of support it has in Somalia. Who will win the fight? The Somalis will fight for their national sovereignty; their right to be oppressed by their own countryman. What will the Ethiopians fight for? Even the mighty US had to invent a story to go to Vietnam because most nations just don’t like it when you go invade a country just because you don’t like the government. What will Ethiopia’s excuse to invade Somalia be?
Meles Zenawi can make a case that a Somalia ruled by the Islamic Court poses a danger to Ethiopia, as it will be arming and supporting secessionist movements in Ethiopia. He could also say that the Islamic Court harbors expansionist views. He could also tap into the Ethiopia’s image of itself, that of a nation minding its own business but having to reluctantly fight and then defeat an assortment of Muslims, Arabs, Italians, Egyptians, Mahdists and other ferenji. A fine stew. But Meles’s first instinct is always to speak not to Ethiopians but the diplomatic mission in Addis, so he had to go for WAT.
Somalia & UIC
Is the rise of the Islamists inevitable? Which bloc within the UIC will win, the moderates or the hardliners? Here is another generalization: in any authoritarian state, the hardliners triumph over the moderates.
When was the last time the moderates won? Whether it is the Mensheviks in their loss to the Bolsheviks of Russia or Aman Andom to Mengistu in Ethiopia, the moderates always lose. This is because the hardliners are willing to do whatever it takes— every day is a February 3 and every day they show their "wisdom". The moderates are always balancing various considerations. The poor moderates are always hoping that there are mitigating circumstances that would make the rise of hardliners impossible in their land. The German moderates used to laugh at Hitler and predict with absolute certainty that a kook like him would never come to power in a sophisticated, literate society like Germany. And some Somali intellectuals were arguing that hardliners would never prevail in Somalia because Somalis are different: Suffi, clan-based, entrepreneurs, etc, etc. Let's hope they are right.
But if the hardliner Islamists triumph over the moderates, it will be catastrophic disaster for the Somalis. How catastrophic? As hard to imagine as it is right now, I would say Somalis will be worse off than they were under the warlords, worse off than they would have been under the transitional government. Why?
C.S. Lewis, a man who probably never heard of Somalia, answered that four decades ago. Now, now, before you send me excerpts of the collected works of CS Lewis, I should let you know that I don’t agree with all his postulations, particularly, as a correspondent reminded me recently, his assessment of mankind as a “fallen man.” Lewis advocated democracy not on the basis that people are good, have wisdom and common sense, but because of the opposite: they are so fallen, that it is best that power be diffused and temporary: the definition democracy.
But I think he was exactly right when he said:
Theocracy is the worst of all governments. If we must have a tyrant, a robber barron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point may be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely more because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations. And since Theocracy is the worst, the nearer any government approaches to Theocracy the worse it will be. A metaphysic held by the rulers with the force of a religion, is a bad sign. It forbids them, like the inquisitor, to admit any grain of truth or good in their opponents, it abrogates the ordinary rules of morality, and it gives a seemingly high, super-personal sanction to all the very ordinary human passions by which, like other men, the rulers will frequently be actuated. In a word, it forbids wholesome doubt. A political programme can never in reality be more than probably right. We never know all the facts about the present and we can only guess the future. To attach to a party programme -- whose highest claim is to reasonable prudence -- the sort of assent which we should reserve for demonstrable theorems, is a kind of intoxication.
If the radical Islamists take power, the Somalis will soon learn that they are worse than “robber barrons,”--the kleptocratic warlords--and the hapless “government.” All have the same tyrannical instincts, but this is the key distinction: there is some hope, however faint, that the warlord may see the error of his ways. There is also hope, however dim, that the foreign-installed official will recognize that his rule is tenuous. But the theocrat will never, ever consider that perhaps he is wrong, and he will treat any suggestions to reform as the whispers of the devil himself. Since his words are those of God, all contrary views must be those of Satan.
In his book Speaking In God’s Name, Khaled Abou El Fadi explains this tendency in an argument as compelling but less dramatic than C.S. Lewis's:
The authoritative will invariably gravitate towards the authoritarian unless there is a conscientious and active effort to resist this tendency by the interpreting and the receiving agent.
By the interpreting agent, Khaled Abou El Fadi means the religious leader and the receiving agent is the lay person. He defines the conscientious effort as a five-part test: honesty, self-restraint, diligence, comprehensiveness and reasonableness:
In the Islamic context, I believe that authoritarianism is an act of ultimate lack of self-restraint that involves a fraudulent claim whose natural effect is to usurp the Divine Will….The Will of the Principal and the speech of the agent become one and the same, as the agent superimposes his or her own determinations upon the instructions of the Principal.
God help the Somalis from their self-declared Men of God.
UIC & Eritrea
In the last issue of alnahda, its author had wondered aloud whether Isaias Afwerki was a true believer or somebody who exercised flexibility when required. No sooner had the news of Somalia and Isaias' role in it broken out, when my mailbox received its first note: “does this answer your question, you [deleted]?”
Well, not really. Let’s review the Three Principles of Isaias’s foreign policy.
The First Principle (“Cohesive Nation”) is based on anachronistic concepts of nation building: until such time that a national identity is formed, a nation requires a strong man with an iron fist to rule it. The rule can be a benevolent dictatorship, if possible, and malevolent dictatorship, if necessary, but under all circumstances a dictatorship. How long does nation building take? Coincidentally, it is exactly the life span of the dictator. This is why Yemen’s Ali Abdella Saleh, a man who lectured the Arabs that they better step down from power voluntarily lest they be brought down forcefully, (“groom your hair before somebody shaves it,” is how he put it) was congratulated by Isaias Afwerki for changing his mind about term limits and running again. (Musevini must be hurt he didn’t get the same phone call.)
The Second Principle (“You Owe Me”) is Isaias Afwerki wanting his due respect as the enabler and the Wise Man of the region. Chavez may offer cheap oil, Castro may offer cheap doctors, and the Saudis may give hard cash; Isaias gives guns. Of course, we don’t manufacture it: Eritrea just happens to be ranked first in the world (the whole world!) in conventional arms imports per GDP. If he is duly recognized and paid homage, then he may forgive that the strong man next door is not being equally ruthless and is favoring one region over the other (Meles Zenawi, favoring Tigray was forgiven in 1991-1997; Omar Albashir, favoring the Arab North June 2006 to present is being treated with sufficient sympathy.) If, on the other hand, the strong man refuses to pay homage, then Isaias Afwerki has a duty to remind the citizens of the strong man that their king is discriminating against them (Omar Albeshir: 1991-2005; Meles Zenawi: 1998-present.) It is just the right thing to do.
The Third Principle (“Exclusivity”) is Isaias Afwerki insisting on a monogamous relationship with his fellow dictators. No US, no UN, no EU, no AU: let the people decide their own fates and make their own choices, except on matters dealing with the minor issue of whether they should be ruled by a dictator. Witness how assertive Bashir has gotten in his rejection of the UN since he became new pals with Isaias Afwerki. Isaias Afwerki is willing to make minor amendments to the Third Principle, but only if it is the US and only if the US is establishing a military base in Massawa (“You need outside powers to keep order here. It sounds colonialist, but I am only being realistic.” – Isaias Afwerki, 2003)
With all of the above in mind, let’s review the potential of the UIC-Isaias Afwerki relationship.
The UIC are adherents of the “cohesive nation through strong fist” philosophy. You can’t get a stronger fist, the better to hold a big rock, when you have a law that says penalty for adulterers is to be stoned to death. And by stoned, they don’t mean using mind altering substances, possession of which is also punishable by death. They are not only for One Somalia but Greater Somalia. They are isolationists and they share Isaias Afwerki’s contempt for the “international community” which allowed their country to be the playground of warlords for a decade and half. And, most appealing of all, they are promising to transcend clan membership and extend equal opportunity of oppression. And they hate Ethiopia. All music to Isaias's ears.
Well, yeah, in their hearts, and their hardliner interpretation of the Quran, they are convinced that Isaias Afwerki will go straight to hell when he dies. (As will all of the Somalis who don’t pray five times a day, as one of them reminded us recently.) But that doesn’t bother Isaias Afwerki because he knows he won’t die. In the unlikely event that he does, he knows there is no heavenly kingdom, so who cares?
And there you have it: the makings of a long and beautiful relationship. Play it again, Wariya.
Our side of the Horn of Africa has experimented with British-imitation monarchy (Ethiopia), Soviet Marxism-Leninsm (Ethiopia again), Chinese communism (Somalia, after Barre was dumped by the Soviets), permanent colony (Djibouti), anarchy (Somalia again), North Korean style police state (Eritrea), ethnic federalism under a supra party (Ethiopia), Islamism (Sudan, now Somalia.) But it is not time to try liberal democracy because it is not organic. Unlike all the other systems tried which are so home grown, don't you know?
salyounis@gmail.com
