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Somalia: Examining the Many Shades of Gray

Posted by JEB KOOGLER in At TMV.
Apr 26th, 2007 | 14 responses

The ongoing conflict in Somalia is being portrayed in very black-and-white terms in both the American and much of the international press. The media really seems to be parroting the line of the Bush administration by painting it as a fight of good vs. evil, stability vs. chaos, moderates vs. radicals, etc..

The Islamists, cobbled together in an organization called the “Union of Islamic Courts,” have been criticized for their desire to establish an Islamic state, for their alleged links to terrorist groups, and for their (also alleged) human rights abuses. Meanwhile, the government of Somalia, albeit weak, is backed by the United Nations and is made up of more moderate political figures. So, the choice as we’ve seen it portrayed in the Western media has been quite clear: it’s either the moderate, UN-backed government that we should be aiding or the terrorist-supporting, human rights-abusing Islamic radicals. If phrased like that, of course, it seems quite clear which side deserves our help.

The problem with this picture, of course, is that the situation is way more complicated than that. For starters, the Islamists are the only force that has brought stability to the country in 16 years. Since the former Somali leader, Siad Barre, was ousted by rebels in 1991, the country has never had a central authority to establish the rule of law or end the anarchy. In fact, over that time, the only authority that has existed has been vested in the hands of a number of violent and self-interested warlords.

In contrast to the many attempts by the UN to establish a strong Somali government, when the Islamists took Mogadishu and much of the rest of the country in the summer of 2006, they brought law and order, something that Somalia hadn’t seen in years. Here’s what The Economist reported at the time:

There are fewer roadblocks. The port and airport have reopened. Prices in the markets have dropped. The streets are being cleaned. Divided neighbourhoods are being knitted back together. There has even been an attempt to limit the environmentally devastating charcoal trade, which previously enriched unscrupulous warlords. Kidnappings and murder have declined. Public executions have been few, at least so far. Loonier sentences have generally been overturned by the Islamist leadership. And school attendance is rising, particularly among girls. Which all goes to suggest that the Islamists may indeed be intent on bringing peace and prosperity to a country desperately in need of both.

The BBC filed a similar report:

For 15 years, Mayow Abdalla has been afraid to leave his house. Mr Abdalla, a Somali of Yemeni origin who lives in the old district of Hamar-weyne in Mogadishu, had his own electronics shop until the Siad Barre regime fell in 1991, and the warlords took over. “I am jobless but my brothers in Europe and Saudi Arabia send me money,” he says.

“Some of my money was going directly into the hands of a militiaman, who told me he was providing security for my house, my six children, my wife and myself – on his own initiative.”

“Now the guy has left, fearing that the Islamic courts would arrest him for his wrongdoings and I am planning to open a small shop outside my house.”

Since the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) seized control of Mogadishu on 5 June, life in Mogadishu is getting better, and business people are optimistic.

There are far fewer check-points, where gunmen used to extort money from passing motorists and commercial vehicles. The UIC gunmen do operate road blocks but they do not demand payment from civilians. As a result food prices have dropped. One kilogramme of rice used to cost 9,500 Somali shillings (65 US cents) but the price is now 3,500 shillings.

Camel meat has also fallen from 30,000 shillings per kilo, to 22,000. “We no longer hire security militia for our commodities and we don’t pay militia check-points – that is why the goods are still at their normal prices,” said businessman Abdikarin Abuka Fodare.

At what price did they bring such stability? This is a key question, of course. If the Islamists had committed widespread human rights abuses, then figuring out which side to support in the current conflict would be a lot less complicated. However, if you read the news reports from last year, you notice one striking thing: there were very few reports of any widespread human rights violations when the Islamists were in power.


Indeed, the Islamists are not uniformly extreme. There seems to be a fairly genuine struggle between moderate elements and radical elements. The Economist noted late last year that “some elements are abhorrent, ordering rough justice, summary execution of criminals and issuing severe religious decrees. But for the moment they are a minority.” In fact, some members of the Islamic Courts Union such as the prominent leader, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, have taken a much more pragmatic line, by expressing a desire to develop good relations with the West, for instance.

So, I do think that the conflict is a good deal more complicated than it is seems. On the one hand, I completely sympathize with those that are advocating that the international community should back the UN-supported Somali government since it is more moderate, legitimate and democratic. There also does seem to be some good evidence that the Islamists are involved with terrorist organizations (although some analysts have argued that this can be mitigated with the right policies), something that is clearly a major concern.

In contrast, I also understand the views of those who are urging the international community to look at the Islamists in a more nuanced way. They did bring much-needed stability to large parts of the country with the support of a broad portion of the civilian population and they did so without engaging in widespread human rights abuses.

Furthermore, the Somali government has been extremely weak since it was reestablished several years ago and it has neither brought an end to the anarchy in the country nor gained widespread popular support. It does seem quite unlikely that despite all the combined efforts of Ethiopia, the US, and now the African Union (which has deployed about 1,500 peacekeeping troops, and plans to deploy about 6,500 more), we will be able to change that reality anytime in the near future.

What this all means in terms of policy, I’m not entirely sure. Which side should we support? How exactly should we be involved? These are difficult questions. What is clear to me, however, is that whenever I listen to the radio or read the newspaper (with the exception, perhaps, of The Economist and the BBC), I notice that this conflict is repeatedly being portrayed in a very black-and-white way. Yet the more I learn about Somalia and the current civil war, the more I realize that there are many shades of gray here which, unfortunately, are very rarely emphasized in the Western press.

(Cross-posted at Foreign Policy Watch)



14 Responses to “Somalia: Examining the Many Shades of Gray”

  1. White Agent says:
    April 26, 2007 at 11:55 am

    Its rather interesting that these bands of Islamists, and, third world nation soldiers under UN flag, are accomplishing what the “greatest military in the world” could NOT do. In fact, they were ordered away as an

  2. White Agent says:
    April 26, 2007 at 11:56 am

    You fill in the blank.

  3. Eric says:
    April 26, 2007 at 12:11 pm

    It’s not interesting it’s common sense. When you are willing to use brutal means then it’s easy.

  4. pacatrue says:
    April 26, 2007 at 12:25 pm

    This description reminds me in various ways of China in the late 40s, in between WWII and 1949 when the Communist Party won control. The way I remember this being taught to me when I was in school (80s) is of the good Democratic Chiang Kai-shek against the bad evil Mao Tse-Tung Commies. (Hard remembering the Wade-Giles romanization. Let’s just go with Mao Ze-Dong) Then you read of the actual history and discover that Chiang Kai-shek, while theoretically the heir of the first Democratic president of China, Sun Yat-sen, was in fact a military warlord who simply became the most powerful of all the military warlords that had ruled the country since the imperial government’s collapse. His Kuomintang party was largely ineffective, being completely unable to respond usefully to a Yellow River flood in the 30s that killed hundreds of thousands. The party was terrible corrupt, and it could not maintain order in large parts of the country.

    And then you had the communist party which was able to maintain order in the areas of the country in which it ruled, had far (at the time) less corruption, and generally made life better for the people in its area. The Communist Party was far more successful at even fighting the Japanese forces when they started invasions in the mid to late 30s.

    However, after 1949, we know what happened to the Communist Party. Utter mis-management of the country and its agriculture, causing famines which killed millions (North Korea is copying this lovely feature of 50s China), the cultural revolution, letting a hundred flowers bloom in which the party asked for the people to offer their opinion and then imprisoned or killed all those who offered the wrong opinion, modern-day corruption that seems unstoppable….

    I guess the question is what is the most likely course of the UIC in Somalia if it were to gain power? Would they establish a functioning society again in Somalia, albeit one following Quranic law, or will it move in a Taliban direction in which the nation and its people are shackled to the whims of a small minority operating under their extreme interpretations of Islamic law?

  5. domajot says:
    April 26, 2007 at 12:26 pm

    Somalia is, indeed, a very complex situation. I just hope that Washington realizes that before committing to radical actions,

  6. pacatrue says:
    April 26, 2007 at 12:27 pm

    Eric, what Jeb was saying is that it isn’t clear the Islamic courts are using brutal means in a widespread manner. If they are, then the question is easy. But are they? The answer may be yes, but the newspaper accounts haven’t made the answer all that clear yet.

  7. OutOfContext says:
    April 26, 2007 at 12:47 pm

    The ICU had a lot of questionable ties, it’s true, but it did bring order to that chaotic country for a while. How long it would have lasted and to what degree Sharia would have taken hold is definitely not clear. It could easily have turned bad with religious fundamentalism ruling it’s people with fear and violence.
    What is clear is that Somalia is practically an occupied country, with Ethiopia attempting to impose order by force and re-establish the UN backed interim government, which was ousted practically without violence last year by the ICU. An insurgency is coalescing and the violence is being ratcheted up as the Ethiopians try to crack down while the await the arrival of African Union troops, which have been promised but don’t seem to be coming. Ethiopia may have their own little Iraq on their hands and terrorism may have found another training ground.
    I do occasional roundups about Somalia on my haphazard blog, which have the sole redeeming quality of linking to some fine, often African, sources. If you’re interested, you can find them here.

  8. White Agent says:
    April 26, 2007 at 2:32 pm

    Eric- Our military’s complaint in Somalia, was that they were not allowed heavy armor. I would like to point out that these forces have no heavy armor either. Besides, how non-brutal can you be with tanks? No, we have simply over estimated our military’s ability for a long time. Its sad, but at some point one has to face the facts.

  9. DLS says:
    April 26, 2007 at 2:42 pm

    Wasn’t “stability” a reason the Taliban in Afghanistan were, and who knows, may again, be lauded?

  10. White Agent says:
    April 26, 2007 at 2:46 pm

    OutOfContext- I spent years in and out of Somalia. Before, during, and, after our military was there. After Said Barre left, Somalia has just been a total mess. Its anarchy with the control fought over by well armed gangs. Thieves, thugs, whatever you want to call them, they are not government by any stretch of the imagination.

    Mind you I haven’t been there since 1996, but friends of mine working the region tell me it has not changed much, until the Islamic gang took over. That event, (it is my impression), was the only reason the U.S. took interest in funding/training surrogates to fight in Somalia.

  11. White Agent says:
    April 26, 2007 at 2:48 pm

    pacatrue- Somalia is nothing like China. Any comparison IMO is futile. The Chinese have WAY more on the ball than the Somali.

  12. Vigilante says:
    April 27, 2007 at 7:10 am

    I woke this morning to a BBC account of the devastation in Somalia. The reporter concluded that the short six-months (before December ’06) Somalis enjoyed under the decentralized, eclectic, and UNAGGRESSIVE Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) will be looked back upon as a “kind of Golden Age.” That was before the unnecessary and unprovoked invasion by Ethiopia, with backing from the usual suspects.

    If we are to be saddled with the misnomer of “Islamofascism” which I would contest, then we should also contemplate an equally dubious notion of Christofascism. But whatever nomenclature we designate to describe these two versions of intolerance, both need to be combatted and defeated.

  13. OutOfContext says:
    April 27, 2007 at 7:31 am

    And I awoke to this Washington Post article calling Somalia Ethiopia’s Iraq. The article also has some disturbing allegations about secret prisons and the presence of 200 CIA and FBI agents in Mogadishu.

  14. White Agent says:
    April 27, 2007 at 8:06 am

    Vigilante- I don’t know man. I have mixed feelings. Seems you have to kill Somalis to get their attention. They chew to much of that “ghat” crap. Brains are off in planet zoom zoom somewhere.

    OutOfContext- Specialists in interrogation no doubt.

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