Hello, and welcome to my new blog! In these pages, you'll find a sporadic partial chronicle of the current trend toward anarchy that began in Somalia in 1991 with the overthrow of the Siad Barre regime and appears likely to spread far and wide.

It is quite often written that the fall of the Barre regime ushered in an era of anarchy. That's partially true. But I think it would be more accurate to call it an era of warlordism-or-anarchy-depending-on-
where-you-happen-to-be. If a warlord's hired guns extort money from the population, then it's not anarchy but a form of coercive government.

Somalia has been called hyper-complex, with a

...dizzying array of clans and sub-clans that ally with and fall out with one another...Overlaid on the clan structure are warlords and their business associates who control regions and localities, and also league with and oppose one another depending on their perceived interests at the moment. Continually jockeying for position, they opportunistically take advantage of support from external powers, which sometimes play several sides at once.

The author of the article quoted above goes on to say that

when a single clan or alliance of clans predominates in a region -- as in the breakaway mini-states of Somaliland and Puntland -- relative political integration and stability ensues; elsewhere -- particularly in Mogadishu -- the situation is more fluid and tense, and fragmentation and conflict are the order of the day.

Well, everyone knows that political integration promotes stability, right? Wait, not so fast. If that's true, then one world government would be the optimal arrangement. This reminds me of a thought experiment that occurred to me once about what would be the optimal number of countries in the world. I started a thread with a poll about it on the Free Talk Live BBS. The point of this blog is to argue that the opposite is true -- that political disintegration is a good thing.

So, what to make of the Islamic Courts Union, the group that routed the troublesome Mogadishu warlords in June? Are they rebels, a government, or what?

They are certainly not rebels, since there is no government to rebel against now that the mini-governments of the Mogadishu warlords have been toppled. There is a so-called "Transitional Federal Government" in Baidoa, but it's purely a foreign construct and doesn't even have a firm hold on that city. Sorry folks, no power, no government! Does foreign support translate into legitimacy? That's a new one on me.

Are they a government? Well, let's let Chairman Sheikh Sherif Sheikh Ahmed speak for himself. Here's an interview with Sheikh Sherif Sheikh Ahmed, Chairman of the Islamic Courts Union. He's clearly a libertarian of the anarchist variety with a remarkable talent for speaking truthfully while avoiding rhetorical traps, whether deliberately set or not.

Highlights:

- (speaking about the routing of the Mogadishu ARPCT warlords) "What happened is a public uprising. It belongs to the people. We are ready to handover the issue to the people as soon as they are ready."
- "Land is not our priority. Our priority is the people's peace, dignity and that they could live in liberty, that they could decide their own fate."
- "...all the fighters are volunteers...they are known people and they are the people who established the Islamic courts."
- "The support comes from the people who established these courts"
- "People are Muslims but no one forces them to do anything. It is a personal obligation and the person has to adhere to it by his own."

When the interviewer tries to force him into a statist paradigm by asking whether a woman could ever be a hypothetical future president of Somalia, he says, "I don't like to answer hypothetical questions."

More highlights:

- "We are not an organization. We are a popular uprising."

and the clincher:

- "...we believe that no one should make an aggression on others"

His group doesn't have taxing power because they don't control the guns. But what about...the roads? He says:

- "I urge all Somali people, particularly those in the diaspora to send assistance to the people suffering in Mogadishu and other parts of the country; to work towards the peace and beauty of the city; to remove the garbage, to open hospitals and to build roads."

He even rejects a central justification for tax-levying government--wealth redistribution.

- "I want to tell you also that the people of the Islamic Courts are nothing to be afraid of. They are normal persons who couldn't tolerate the daily and endless suffering of the people. They are the poorest and weakest people of the community. Some of them cannot even find the daily subsistence of their families and yet they don't like to use public funds. You have to know that so many sons have died, so many sons have been injured, and so many sons have lost their properties. In fact, it is an enormous task and to have brought it to a Somali level is itself a great achievement."

How many politicians talk like this?

I don't want to paint this as an issue of personality. A person like Sheikh Ahmed would not become a political (I use the term very loosely) figure if not for the anarchic situation in Mogadishu. The city is awash with guns, and if Robert Heinlein is correct in saying that an armed society is a polite society, then it seems that as more and more people arm themselves, the society becomes less and less tolerant of aggression, and taxation is aggression.

There is a very interesting interview (real media file and transcript) that occurred after the routing of the ARPCT warlords. According to Professor Abdi Samatar, the people "holding down the fort" in Mogadishu are 1) The Islamic Courts, 2) the "huge number of very successful businesspeople who have tremendous amounts of weaponry, and 3) a very widely distributed civil society movement.

He says

I think Somalis have always been moderate practitioners of Islam and very, very free people. The same gentleman, Sheikh Sharif, also noted today that they are not interested in becoming ministers or government themselves -- that's the Islamic courts -- and that they will be using the Sharia law until such a time when a constitutional government is formed.

I'm not too concerned that they will be able to impose the kind of draconian rules that the Taliban's or anybody of that ilk have done to their people.

What's relatively very refreshing about this group is the fact that they have committed themselves to say that they are not interested in becoming ministers; they are not interested in becoming government, but what they want to do is create the conditions in which the Somali people, and particularly the people of Mogadishu and the Banadir region, could be able to have determination as to which way they want to go.

That's quite refreshing. We have not seen that in any group of movement who have taken over a city anywhere in the world, whether they are religious or secular.

The uprising came as a surprise precisely because the Islamic courts are not powerful as a political group, but are utterly dependent on voluntary support from ordinary people. In a stateless society that is awash with guns, this is the only kind of force that could have succeeded against the tax-levying warlords. So the upshot is that the courts can't tax because they can't control the guns, and they can't control the guns because they can't tax.

Now what about reports that the courts are banning this, that and the other thing, and the ridiculous story about them supposedly killing people for watching the World Cup? Here's an article that contradicts them.

Omar Aden Qadi is a journalist and a member of the civil society group that has been in contact with the Islamic courts. He told Voice of America English to Africa reporter Douglas Mpuga that the Union of Islamic Courts derives their strength from the people of Somalia, who appreciate the stability and peace in the areas controlled by the courts.

“People are actually welcoming the development, it is coming from the people, they are requesting that the courts go to their area.” He said the Transitional National government is confined to Baidoa and is very weak and inefficient but the Islamic courts are giving them a chance to organize.

Qadi said rumors that the Islamic courts had banned videos and closed movie theaters are untrue and are attempts at anti-Islamist propaganda. He said some courts that make up the consortium of the Union of Islamic courts had closed some movie theatres but the central command of the Islamic courts overruled them. “It wont be an extreme form of Sharia law, it will fail if it becomes so because it is not in the nature of Somalis to be controlled strongly and the courts know that.”

He added that the Union of Islamic Courts hesitates to be regarded as similar to the Taliban or extremists. Qadi said the Union of Islamic courts has promised to expand the ruling council to include civil society groups in two months. He said the courts would like to involve civil society as a way of forging unity and ensuring stability.

I think this is enough to bring you up to speed on the status of anarchy in Somalia. For more details, I would recommend somalianarchy.com.

Comments from others on my old blog

From Flavian Bergström:

Still the Islamic Courts have forbidden people to carry guns in the public. Only special militia sanctioned by the courts have the right to carry guns in the public.

My reply:
Good point. I think I've read that too. If it's true, I just hope it's in accordance with popular sentiment and not a step towards the creation of a state. The impression I get is that perhaps anyone who has a reputation for handling a gun responsibly and meets a certain standard of Muslim behavior, including attending daily prayers, can be a member of the militia. If so, then there would be a strong incentive to join up. Ideally, court-and-militia groups in an anarchic society would not discriminate on the basis of religion or behavior unless the behavior hurts someone else. Maybe the current Islamo-anarchy is an intermediate step towards that. I mean that it might either evolve in that direction on its own or inspire non-Muslims to create their own court-and-militia groups that don't have religious requirements.

Elsewhere Flavian says:

Please have a look at my propertarian, traditionalistic, non-anarchistic weblog and learn some swedish:

http://flavianopolis.blogspot.com

africanmessiah said...Thanks Steve for the good comment on my blog........i just first would like to support your blog because we are both on the same page.......your focus is Somalia and i am focused with Africa in general. Yes, you are right when you said that the problem might be self-determination among the africans (especially Somalia and other countries in wars).....but do you want to tell me that those people can have self determination after being through decades of war activities and other violation of human rights?...........they have tried so much to make things better and failed.......i believe as an individual there things in your life that you have tried to accomplish a couple of times and couldn't and you decided to give up..........but they can be done if you get someone who knows how to do it !!........this is exactly the situation with Somalia.......they definitely need help from someone who can actually clear their heads from the past by showing them the light (new possibilities for their future).......in other words, give them new hope that they can change things even though the reality looks against them. And whoever is going to do that should not come from western countries......because the natives will just say "He/she doesn't know how we do things here in Somalia".......which may be true!......it is better to have somebody from within Africa or Somalia itself that has more exposure,education, knowledge and all things needed !!!.....we still have great peace makers in Africa such as Nelson Mandela, Tutu etc.....these people can actually change things.......the whole world listens to these people........that is my thought for today........keep the blog going......i love it

My reply:

Yes, I'm in favor of non-Somalis showing Somalis new possibilities for the future, and vice versa.