- Title: [SW Column](Prof Abdi I.Samatar) I.M.
Lewis's Retired Ideas and Somalia
- Posted by/on:[AAJ][3 Feb 2001]
Opinions expressed in this column
are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of SW.
I.M.
Lewis's Retired Ideas and Somalia
Professor Abdi Ismail Samatar
Department of Geography
University of Minnesota
Dr. I. M. Lewis's recent (January 18, 2001) diatribe against the
United Nations (UN), David Stephen, its special representative to
Somalia, and Djibouti is another unfortunate signal of a retired
anthropologist who is unable to comprehend that the Somali world is
beyond his grasp. His praise for the European Union (EU) is
self-congratulatory note: he concocted an EU funded conference that
failed to attract Somali attention and support. As the Somali saying
goes " Nin is amaaney wa ri is nuugtay."
He criticizes the United Nations for not heeding what most Somalis
are saying and want. This statement is identical to one made over a
year ago by a former colonial officer regarding the Djibouti
initiative. Lewis pronounces that "All those who have the
interest of the Somali people at heart. should endeavor to understand
how much progress in Somaliland and Puntland has been achieved."
He adds "As every Somali knows Mr. Abdulqasim's government is
indeed so unwelcome in Mogadishu ." [The fact is that tens of
thousand of Mogadishu resident came out to receive Abdulqasim when he
arrived at Mogadishu airport, contrary to Lewis's illusions].
Further "Whatever the Italian
foreign office may image, in the wider Somali view." Careful
reading of these statements indicates that Lewis either represents
Somalis or knows all of us well or is in such an intimate touch with
the Somali public that he can make such unsubstantiated declarations.
Only an arrogant and
unreconstructed old fashioned anthropologist would be
blind enough to assume that he
could speak for the native in 2001.
This brief note engages Lewis's three main declarations and not
many of the
other more trivial statements in
his texts. First, he claims that "social service provision and of
representative government, though by no means perfect, far exceed what
was achieved under the repressive dictatorship of General Mohamed
Siyad Barre (in which the leaders of the Arta faction served) and are
to some extend superior even to that of earlier civilian regimes
(which I knew very well)." Lewis should realize that many of
those who run the so-called "Balayo-lands" served Siyaads'
regime. If people are guilty by association, then Lewis must be
culpable of the crimes committed by colonial foot soldiers. This is
not in defense of anyone in Transitional National Government (TNG) who
has committed crimes before and after 1991, but to show the flaw in
Lewis's logic. I can speak directly to the quality of services former
civilian governments provided. I was a schoolboy in Somalia under the
civilian governments maligned by the British colonial anthropologist.
The educational services those governments delivered with meager
resources were, almost, second to none. I wish the sectarian
entrepreneurs in Hargeisa and Garowe could match health, education,
post, public works, etc., of yesteryears. I still have in my
possession post delivered letters to my school dormitories in Gabileh
Intermediate and Amoud Secondary schools. No such services exist today
in the north and northeast.
The trouble with Lewis and his
acolytes is that they are so ungrounded in
the reality of these two regions.
Ironically, Egal is doing a better job today in Hargeisa than he did
in Mogadishu as Somalia's Prime Minister, if one is to believe Lewis's
claims! To think of the leaders of Hargeisa and Garowe as
representative democrats shows how far removed the retired professor
is from Somali plight.
Second, Lewis accuses the UN of imposing the Djibouti conference
and its
outcome on the Somali people
". Whatever may have been acceptable in the
colonial period, it is not the
business, of any UN official, to make Judgements which, in effect,
dictate to Somalis how they should identify or govern
themselves." Unless Lewis is a Somali citizen, I wonder what we
should make of his agenda for us? He certainly has the right to
criticizes the government of Djibouti for feeling our pain and
organizing the peace conference but it is illegitimate and smacks of
colonial smugness to be told that the UN did Arta for us. Lewis's
democratic heroes in Hargeisa and Garowe had every opportunity to
attend the conference and partake in the democratic debate, but
declined to participate because they were not given the power to craft
the conference agenda and veto its outcome. I wonder what Lewis makes
of the large number of people from the northeast and west that
participated in the conference? The professor of anthropology
apparently knows better!
Third, the old anthropologist attempts to discredit the Arta
conference by claiming that "the Arta process in Djibouti
embraced a wide range of participants including a number of notorious
warlords and even 'street boys' recruited from Djibouti town to swell
the numbers. Many genuine leaders and representatives, including those
in Somaliland and Puntland as well as the principal despotic warlords
in Mogadishu chose to boycott. " Lewis fails to grasp that the
process was open to all key organs of Somali civil society and their
leaders. It was not the Djibouti government that selected the
participants, but the communities they represented. The government's
meager resources were stretched to their limits to accommodate the
vast number of people who came to participate in the onference.
Consequently, the Djibouti government had no need to invent phantom
ghosts to pad the register. The purpose of letting all key (willing
and able) actors participate in the deliberations in Arta was to make
the project as inclusive as possible and bring communities and
contestants together. Lewis is apparently uninitiated in the area of
conflict resolution. He needs to update his scholarship on this front
if he expects to be taken seriously. It will serve him well to read
works that deal with the South African negotiations, but I am afraid
this might be a tall order for an
anthropologist marooned to the days of "British Somaliland."
Finally, Lewis failed the Somali people for forty plus years when
he was an active academic. Although Somalia provided him scholarly raw
material and
earned him a good living, his
legacy for our country and people is sterile and retired ideas. We
wish him well in his retirement and urge him to find something else to
occupy his remaining years. Somalia does not need more exhausted ideas
and advice as it has enough of its own.
Professor Abdi Ismail Samatar
[Column] |