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- [SW Column]( Abdirizak A. Hassan) Professor Samatar
and The Politics of the Spleen :Posted on 9 May 2003
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Opinions expressed in this column
are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of SW.
Professor Samatar and
The Politics of the Spleen
By Abdirizak A. Hassan. Ottawa, Canada
email:ceaser24@hotmail.com
Related topics:
We finally did hear from him. Like many other Somali
academics teaching at various great seats of learning, the geography
professor A. I. Samatar, was disappointingly less vocal and indifferent
about the mammoth calamity that has be fallen upon Somalia. It is well
over a dozen of years now and the plight of Somalia appears to have
taken most of its toll but still lingers in a more diffused and
obstinate form. In the face of it, many of us took solace in one last
hope. Since the dynamics of our culture and our contemporary politicians
could not cope with the complex nature of our problems, it only follows
that we turn to our scholars to show the way out of the dark tunnel. We
expected a lot from them, and we regarded their long silence as a
conscious honorable choice by them in an effort to remain above the fry
of partisan politics and factionalism. We attached to them the
embodiment of much of the wisdom that eluded Somalia for so long. Only a
wise person, we reasoned, could have had the strength and foresight
necessary to resist against the powerful temptations of siding with any
of the factions of Somalia's civil war. Understandably, we attached a
meaning of our own to their mysterious enigma and temperance. They will
rise to the occasion, we fancied, when the appropriate conditions
present themselves. There are indications that these days of Somalia are
very encouraging in bringing about a condition in which the seizure of
the national political initiative is possible, in principle. Ideally,
this is when the Somali intellectual elites should assemble a solid
national forum that would speak with one transcendal voice and promote
the national cause. As a moral obligation and as dues they owe, the
educated minds of Somalia should be duty-bound in seizing this
opportunity. Of late, however, we have heard from some of them, and to
our dismay, they have an unpleasant surprise for us.
If the examples of professor Galleydh and Samatar are useful cues to go
by, and thus indicative of what to expect from the remaining Somali
educators abroad, chances are Somalia will not reverse its current
gloomy period anytime soon. This could mean that the political turmoil
of Somalia spared no minds untainted by the politics of segmentation
which is based on the radical localization of politics and heightened
phony grudges. In other words, this is when the spleens are allowed to
inform and shape the minds of the people. Unfortunately in this context,
the minds in question are supposedly the best minds of the nation.
Disregard Galley[dh] as a politician as opposed to an intellectual, who
pursues a personal political interest in most peculiar ways. But the
case of professor Samatar is very unfortunate. Let me walk you through
what the man had to say in occasional yelps of spleen venting.
Professor Samatar's critique on the piece by I. M. Lewis The UN's Paper
Clips for Somalia, is perhaps an excellent starting point in unraveling
what may constitute his political resentments towards some parts of
Somalia. Professor Lewis argued in his article that the UN's
representative to Somalia, David Stevens, is clearly mistaken in
throwing his weight behind the so called Transitional Government in
Mogadishu, headed by Abdiqassim Salad Hassan. This new faction contrived
by Mr.Stevens and Djibouti is not even representative of Mogadishu, let
alone the rest of the country. In this modern world, Lewis's argument
states, the old colonial ways of imposing foreign conceived solutions to
local peoples can no longer be justified, as they are outdated and would
not work on the ground. Instead, local achievements of both the
governments of Somaliland and Puntland should be supported as early
birds of a future federal restructuring of Somalia. This approach is a
local initiative and a national desire which is both fair and doable.
Contrary to Mr.Steven's claims, the Emeritus professor says, the good
news about somalia these days is not the formation of the Arta group,
but the emergence of Somaliland and Puntland as effective governments
that secured the peace in their local areas. In contrast, the Arta
faction could not provide security for themselves as they are holed up
in several hotels in Mogadishu. In addition, many characters in the
Transitional Government, including Abdiqassim himself, were members of
the old hated regime of Barre. Not only their credibility is in question
but they are involved in alleged crimes against humanity.
Professor Samatar took the liberty to take on Lewis. In all irony, he
opted to argue not against the merits of the article but against
professor Lewis as a person. He is more concerned on the messenger than
the message itself. Samatar reacted rather mysteriously in the defense
of those who are accused of crimes against humanity in the days of Barre.
If individuals can be guilty by association, he teaches, then Lewis can
be found guilty of crimes against humanity by the virtue of his
association with atrocities committed by the British Colonial Foot
Soldiers in Somalia. But Samatar failed to cite the nature of those
atrocities and the role, if any, of Lewis's involvement in them.
Evidently, the only link that Samatar is alluding to is the fact that
Professor Lewis is from Great Britain; the country that colonized
Somalia. This is an argument so typical of what happens to the mind when
reason and rationality depart. If being a policy maker; a cabinet
member; and a beloved long-time minister of a brutal regime (as in the
case of Abdiqassim), could be termed as a mere association with the
regime, then professor Samatar's feel of the domain of International Law
is rather curious. A fresh review of the culpability criteria in Crimes
Against Humanity by a State would be helpful for the geographer. More
over, the word 'association' was not in Lewis's argument. Samatar
concocted it as a notorious spinning to introduce an alleged criminality
of Lewis in his coming to Somalia in the days of British involvement in
Somalia. He labels Lewis as an anthropologist brimming with colonial
attitudes, despite professor Lewis's advise to the UN against the
colonial ways of nation-building in this modern era of indigenous
grass-root approach to statehood. One can not help but wonder whether
professor Samatar actually read and grasped the thrust of Lewis's
argument. It all appears as though he wanted to defame Lewis in the eyes
of gullible Somalis by 'associating' him with the dreadful past: the
colonial era. Nice try, but it really was a crude attempt and a slight
of a hand by somebody with the stature of a professor.
If there is a colonial mentality, there always goes a colonized
mentality with it. Even if the colonial mind wants to alter its ways and
abandon the past as shameful and abhorable, it can not do so as the
colonized mind wants to grow and nourish the past to keep it alive. A
typical colonized mind is that of professor Samatar. First, he seldom
voiced an outrage about the Somali plight. In the last 12 years, what
Somalis did to other Somalis far outweigh the excesses of the colonial
powers. In addition, while colonialism could have taken place in his
younger tender age, the current crisis of Somalia are taking place in
his mature learned living. The two events can never be equally pressing
to him by any rational standards. It is ironic why it is of a prime
responsibility to professor Samatar in responding to the good intentions
of Lewis and never to the atrocities of Aideed and his likes. Second, he
seems to attach increased relevance in the words of professor Lewis. To
him, whatever Somalis say or do to each other are meaningless. Real
speech - and therefore, wisdom and meaning - are communicated only when
a whiteman talks. It is very clear that what Lewis said is his piece is
not just another point of view to the mind of Samatar. To him, something
tangible, novel and relevant is happening. Apparently, he regards
professor Lewis as an old hand and an authority whose ideas are capable
of giving direction. Perhaps he feels that once Lewis had spoken his
take on things would be respected and considered in international
circles and in Somalia. Federalism was not a meaningful debate for
Samatar as long as it was being argued among Somali regions and
politicians. Once professor Lewis spoke about it, however, Samatar seems
to have taken it seriously. It must be an occasion for him to take on
the old Britt. To my mind that is the only thing that could have
happened and I can not rationalize it without accusing professor Samatar
of a subdued colonized mentality, who despite arguing for the opposite,
still admire and harbor what the 'master' says to heart. To a liberal
mind, Lewis would be seen as another esteemed professor, whose views and
arguments are among many other ones out there. No one can not read into
his article more than what he had to say in it.
One wonders what made the professor so exposed and sparky like a Chinese
fire cracker. Perhaps, there is something in Lewis's article that
affected him intimately and made him angry and snappy as to blow up in
blinding rages and meaningless mumbles. Lewis is the author of many
works about Somalia, it is people and culture. Here is a man who knew
Somalia since colonialism. Arguably, the best book ever written about
Somalia, The History of Modern Somalia, is by I. M. Lewis. In this
article above, Lewis says that the good news about Somalia these days is
the emergence of Puntland and Somaliland. In stark contrast, Samatar
calls both places as the "Balaayolands". Evidently then, here
is where the problem lies. Samatar politically opposes the noisy
rhetoric of Somaliland as a new breakaway republic from the rest of
Somalia. In addition, he is under the misconception that the emergence
of Puntland further weakens the Somali unity and inversely helps the
injudicious cause of Somaliland. He could not grasp the
counter-intuitive role of Puntland and mistakenly paints both Somaliland
and Puntland with the same brush. As a result, both entities are to his
mind, pioneers of evil deeds "Blaayolands". As mentioned in
his article, Samatar is from Somaliland and he is against it. He is
doing that out of his Somali nationalism right? Wrong! The professor is
playing here a classical example of the politics of segmentation. This
politics does not view Somalia as a nation but as a collection of
competing clans for power and dominance. Under this light, Somaliland
would be seen as an Isaaq dominated outfit and none-Isaaqs should not be
expected to readily embrace it. Professor Samatar opposes the notion of
Somaliland statehood because he is too wary of possible Isaaq dominance
over his clan. By praising Somaliland, Lewis's article was in effect
endorsing that dominance and that is what prompted Samatar's whole
fiasco and tantrum.
Two basic streaks of his attitude are very troubling. First, he is in
the view that geography is a better discipline in developing a high
sense of political acumen than anthropology. While geography can help
you locate Borame on a topographical map, anthropology documents human
evolution, polity and culture. Second, he seems to argue that he knows
what is good for Somaliland and Puntland; more so than the people of
both places. Claiming to know what is
good for others more than they know of, is one of the attributes of a
fascist thinking
Things came to a head when someone asked the professor about the
existence of a university in Bosaso, the commercial port city of
Puntland. Samatar said without blushing and with straight face,
"no, there is no university in Bosaso, err...well....I sense there
is some jealousy on their part, ever since Amoud University was
established, but nothing more than that." Here is a man who denies
the existence of Puntland let alone a university inside Puntland. Here
is a man who
rejects Somaliland. Here is a man who finds something meaningful in what
Mogadishu warlords are doing. Samater denies any crimes against humanity
that may have taken place during Barre's rule in Somalia. It reminds me
of Mohamed Al-Sahaf, Iraq's Minister of Information, in his defiance of
accepting reality by vehemently rejecting the presence of American
military forces in Baghdad.
I personally think there is a university of some kind in Bosaso, however
it is debatable whether it is as big and well established as that of
Amoud. But even if he is correct and there is no any trace of a
university in Puntland, why would the professor introduce the word
"jealousy" into the discourse? Is the professor tacitly saying
"we the people of Amoud are the only clan capable of establishing a
university"?
This abundantly documents that the politics of the professor stem from
his radical local (clan) views and not from an elevated national view of
Somalia. His views are understandably full of resentments and underdog
activism that mould his being. However well educated one is, one can not
surmount over his being as it is a given cast and all too overbearing.
If your ideological super-structure is the clan, the local and the
immediate, be prepared to lead a slave life. That means every rational
person, every free soul, every master and every piece of aesthetics will
make you resentful. It is the faculty of the free being to be reasonable
and less fearsome. In this regard, an old wisdom says that God has given
the world to the industrious and the rational and not to the contentious
and the quarrelsome. In the absence of reason and rationality, one
thinks within the confines of his worst fears and not within the
boundlessness of his best hopes. That is why the politics of Samatar are
not different in kind than that of the warlords. He shares their
irrationality, their quarrel and contentions. One asks, what is the
difference between the Qanyarite low cunnings in Mogadishu and Samatar's
spleen-venting slanders in Minnesota?
By any stretch of imagination, if the professor has the habit of talking
about Somali politics only when he is drunk; my apologies, I didn't know
that. Otherwise, he is better off in his golden silence.
[Column]