http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3872
The Future of Political Islam in Somalia
Michael Shank | January 5, 2007
Editor: John Feffer, IRC
Foreign Policy In Focus
www.fpif.org
The United States, fearing a new Taliban had come to power in Somalia,
recently did what many expected it would do: invade Somalia. Not
directly though. In the final weeks of 2006, Ethiopian forces that were
trained, financed, and outfitted by the United States pounded Somalia's
capital and port cities with air attacks, routing the poorly equipped
militias of the Islamic leadership.
Since the early 1990s, Somalia lacked any semblance of a strong,
populist government. After the government collapsed in 1991,
Shari'ah-oriented Islamic courts emerged, managing the judiciary system,
acting as local police by preventing robberies and drug-dealing, and
offering other services such as education and health care. These
regionally dispersed Islamic courts enjoyed wide public support and, in
1999, began to assert their authority. Seven years later, in the summer
of 2006, the regional system of Islamic courts banded together to form a
rival government---the Islamic Courts Union (ICU)---to compete with the
U.S.- and UN-aligned Transitional Federal Government (TFG).
For the last seven months, political Islam was the primary governing
structure for most of Somalia. The only area of Somalia that remained
explicitly secular was the west, where the weak TFG controlled the town
of Baidoa. This was too much for Ethiopia and the United States. In
early December, Somalia's surge toward theocracy inspired a weakly
justified commissioning of UN peacekeeping forces. Now, as a result of
the U.S.-sponsored invasion and aided heavily by armed Ethiopian troops,
the TFG is regaining control of the Islamic leadership's previous
strongholds in Mogadishu, Kismayo, and outlying cities and towns.
Islam's popularity as a mechanism for governance in the country derives
not simply from the fact that Somalia is the only country in the African
continent whose population is virtually all Muslim. Nor can the
country's proclivity for theocracy be understood as the result of a
growing Taliban or al-Qaida regime, as some in the West would prefer to
think. The Taliban adhered to a stricter school of Islam, frequently
used executions and killings to enforce Shari'ah law, prohibited women
and girls from employment, barred women from access to health care, and
required women to wear the full burqa in public. The ICU exhibited none
of these characteristics.
Instead, political Islam met the needs of a substantial portion of the
Somalia population. And whether in militant form or simply as a latent
desire to apply Shari'ah law to a nation-state, political Islam is far
from dead in Somalia today.
Political Islam as External Defense
Replete with clans and nomads, Somalia has found it difficult to unite
under one political umbrella. All attempts to institute a clan
government have failed miserably, with devastating consequences for all
who tried. Clans do not identify themselves in opposition to other
clans, and there is no clan hierarchy based on bloodline. This
egalitarianism prevented the emergence of a centralized government. For
centuries, Somalia remained a "state of chiefdom where central political
authority meant nothing,"1 despite more recent attempts by ruling
dictators in the latter half of the twentieth century to control the
populace.
Inter-clan and intra-clan alignment did occur however. The old Bedouin
adage "I against my brothers; my brothers and I against our cousins;
brothers, cousins, and I against the world" came into play when threats
arose. It comes as little surprise then, that Somalis formed a wide
network of brothers and cousins to face external threats like
neighboring Ethiopia and the omnipresent United States. The
Ethiopian-armed TFG, the U.S.-armed Ethiopian troops, and the
U.S.-backed warlords all contributed to a growing fear of a possible
attack on the Somali people, a fear realized with Ethiopia's December
invasion. This network united on the basis not of clan but of religion.
Somalis perceived Ethiopian and U.S. threats, due to the explicit
Christian orientation of both nations, as a threat to Somalia's Muslim
population.
Political Islam, as the shield behind which disparate clans find refuge,
thrived in the culture of "brothers, cousins, and I." The shield offered
by Islam is Asghar jihad, the lesser of the two jihads. Asghar jihad
allows Muslims to protect themselves from external threats: "to fight
[the enemy] until there is no persecution"2 and to "protect Islam and
Muslims from harm."3
Until the perceived threat significantly diminishes---for instance, if and
when Ethiopia withdraws its troops---political Islam will remain fueled by
the Asghar jihadist desire to protect Somali's Muslim majority.
Moreover, as long as anti-Islamic sentiment is expressed and felt
globally, political Islam will remain the unifying mechanism for
previously disparate clans and sub-clans within Somalia.
Political Islam as Internal Defense
Prior to the national amalgamation effort by the ICU to consolidate
power, Somali citizens considered as legitimate neither the local
warlords in Mogadishu nor the TFG leadership. Most Somalis regarded the
local warlords, ruling quasi-officially, as unmistakably corrupt. It was
widely known that the warlords received U.S. funds---theoretically
intended for community security and welfare---and that this money
consistently remained in warlord coffers. Moreover, the TFG, established
in 2000 by the UN following nearly a decade of warlord rule and civil
war, was painfully inept and corrupt. Situated in Baidoa, inconveniently
distant from Mogadishu, the TFG was unable to bring order to the chaos
of the capital city.
Consequently, and not surprisingly, political Islam emerged as an answer
to corrupt local and inept federal governance. The ICU appealed to the
greater of the two forms of jihad, known as Akbar jihad, which promotes
"the constant struggle within the self against evil impulses that must
be overcome to lead a pious life."4 Unlike the warlords or government
leadership, the ICU encouraged Somalis to be victorious in this battle
for individual and civic virtue.
When the ICU took control, in 2006, of Mogadishu and the southern and
northern parts of Somalia, the principles of Akbar jihad remained at the
fore of their political messaging and maneuvering. Some examples
included the banning of entertainment---movie houses, television---perceived
as threats to the internal struggle for pious thoughts. At the same
time, the ICU strove to maintain legitimacy as non-corrupt leaders by
attending to citizens' needs, something the warlords and the brutal
dictators never managed. The airport opened after 11 years of closure,
shipping ports and seaports were secured to ensure safe transport of
food and products, law and order returned to Mogadishu, education and
health care remained a top priority, environmental regulations were
instituted (e.g. ban on deforestation, charcoal burning, killing rare
animals and plants, etc.), and crime diminished significantly.
Somalia's socio-political shift toward a more pious religious system of
governance that encouraged the individual's jihadist struggle against
evils mirrored similar developments in Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Turkey,
Malaysia, and Indonesia. Co-religionists in these secular countries have
been furious at the absence of state-provided services such as
education, health care, environmental protection, and transportation.
They argue that the secular regimes, by hoarding and failing to
distribute public funds via public services, have failed in their
internal jihadist struggle against evils facing the self (in this case,
greed). In each of these countries, Somalia included, political Islamic
movements thus became known for the opposite. They demonstrated their
pious behavior through good works by establishing the very social
services that the political authorities either didn't provide or
provided poorly.
This internal jihad explains in part political Islam's success in
Somalia. As long as political Islam outperforms the secular regimes in
meeting the needs of ordinary people, as was the case in Somalia,
political Islam will remain popular.
Next Steps in Dealing with Somalia
It would behoove government officials, whether at the U.S. State
Department or the Pentagon, to closely examine the roots of political
Islam and to understand, not fear, its continued popularity in Somalia.
In this vein, by better understanding the numerous shades of Islam, CIA
analysts have come to realize that a radical Islamic movement, for
example, is not inherently violent or immutable (see, for example, the
ziggurat of zealotry). This hierarchy of radicalization is fluid, and
thoughtful, non-provocative interventions can disrupt the process by
which moderates become zealots. For example, far from a manifestation of
the more extreme and radical Taliban or al-Qaida movements, political
Islam in Somalia actually met the physical, psychological, and spiritual
needs of Somalis. Acknowledging and supporting this comparatively benign
form of political Islam is critical.
Consequently, interested countries and institutions---particularly
Ethiopia, the United States, and the UN---should avoid pushing political
Islam toward militancy in Somalia. The U.S.-supported Ethiopian troops
should withdraw from the country. The TFG should reach out to supporters
of the ICU. The United States and the international community should use
their influence and aid to ensure accountable mechanisms, bolster civil
society, and provide training in good governance. As long as Somalia
feels threatened, externally or internally, political Islam will only
enjoy more political and popular support. Additional attacks, like the
recent U.S.-sponsored Ethiopian invasion, will only push political Islam
toward exclusivity and intolerance.
End Notes
1. Ali Abdirahman Hersi, "The Arab Factor in Somali History: The
Origins and the Development of Arab Enterprise and Cultural Influence in
the Somali Peninsula," Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los
Angeles, 1977, p. 177.
2. Qur'an 2:193.
3. See: Rudolph Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam
(Princeton: Markus Wiener, 1996), pp. 103-48.
4. Graham Fuller, The Future of Political Islam, (New York: Palgrave
MacMillan, 2003), p. 150.
Michael Shank is in the Ph.D program at the Institute for Conflict
Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University.
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