The book’s strong points lie in its analyses of international affairs in the context of the collapse of civil government in Somalia in 1992, Somali mythology, history and post-colonial trajectory of conflict and attempts at nation building. The writer contrasts the response by the US-led international community to the setbacks experienced by the UN mission in Somalia (UNOSOM) following the collapse of civil government in January 1992 to its reaction to the situation in Kosovo during the same historical time period. He points out the glaring disparities as the UN exhibited a readiness to abandon Somalia to internal strife while, across the Mediterranean Sea in eastern Europe, NATO was throwing lots of money and military power at the Kosovo mission. The disparity in the UN-led missions to Somalia and Kosovo is cited as instance of racism on display by the US-dominated international community. In the book’s Preface, we learn that the author worked for the United Nations mission in Mogadishu in the 1990s. It is from first-hand experience that he comments about the corruption and self-serving character of the international aid industry.
A major theoretical highlight of the book is its evaluation of the debates between anthropologists (most of whom are non-Somali in origin) and their (Somali) detractors concerning the contribution of clan-based systems to Somalia’s multiple post-colonial crises. Unlike the anthropologists who, it is claimed, have presented clannism as a primordial and largely destructive force in Somalia’s national life, the writer understands clannism to be an ambivalent force that can serve either positive or negative ends depending on the uses to which it is applied. The interactions between central bureaucracies in African countries and the general population remains a topical issue for social scientific research. What role is played by the clan in the preceding relationship? The book succeeds in enriching the debate about the contribution of Africa’s pre-colonial systems of social and economic organization to the modern life of the continent’s peoples. The writer rightly celebrates Somali resilience, ingenuity and creativity in the face of several decades of dis-function of State institutions resulting in abortive national renewal.
The late 19th century period remains a consequential period in Africa’s history. The book highlights the negative consequences of the 1897 Rodd Treaty between Britain and Ethiopia whereby, the Ogaden region was brought under Ethiopia’s sovereignty without recourse to the wishes of its majority Somali inhabitants. The Rodd Treaty is a reminder of the arbitrary and self-serving manner attending the creation of Africa’s present-day national boundaries.
One point of controversy in the book is its undisguised approval of Somalia’s 1977 invasion of the Ogaden region of Ethiopia. It pays glowing tribute to Somali forces for the dramatic capture of several Ethiopian towns during their campaign. The author advances the claim that Somalia’s invasion of the Ogaden was a question of self-determination for the majority Somali peoples of that region. He calls for a re-appraisal of Somalia’s role in the Ogaden war; contending that Somalia was a liberator rather than as an aggressor against neighbouring Ethiopia. Owing to his support for Somalia’s role in the “Ogaden Debacle”, the writer does not criticize Somalia itself as the originator of that particular misadventure. Rather, blame is placed on foreign intervention represented by a multinational force backed by the Soviet Union which compelled Somalia to withdraw from Ethiopia resulting in national shame, crises and disintegration. The book’s sub-title points to the main argument of the study. From the author’s assessment, the multinational army, financed and equipped by the Soviet Union and Cuban troops playing a decisive role forced Somalia to withdraw from Ethiopia; a country easily invaded, occupied, and unable to dislodge Somalia’s troops from its Ogaden region until the arrival of the multinational army. He concludes that Somalia’s humiliating withdrawal from the Ogaden following defeat by the Soviet-led multinational force, not clannism, is the pivotal event responsible for the country’s subsequent collapse of civil government and descent into clan-based warring fiefdoms.
That Somalia was home to one of the best equipped armies in sub-Saharan Africa at the start of the Ogaden war largely due to Soviet intervention does not attract the writer’s censure. Obviously, the support benefited his home country. On the other hand, Soviet and Cuban support for Ethiopia following Somalia’s invasion is the target of endless criticism in the book which is written from a strongly pan-Somali perspective. The author does not espouse pan-Africanist ideals and although he cites the OAU (AU) doctrine of inviolability of colonial borders and the international law principles of respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of member countries, which Somalia violated in invading Ethiopia, he fails to examine the meaning of those doctrines and principles in light of the push for “greater Somalia”. Virtually all African countries have artificial borders as a consequence of European colonial rule; Somalia, is not exceptional in that regard. It is not reasonable to expect those not sharing the writer’s desire for a “greater Somalia” which entails taking away territory from Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya to regard the Ogaden war as a liberation struggle, spearheaded by the republic of Somalia.
The work is mostly historical and sociological rather than an ethnographic study. The history of the Horn of Africa region during the 16th century is revisited, particularly, the wars between Abyssinia supported by Portugal, against several Islamic domains located in present-day Somalia which turned to the Ottoman empire for assistance. It emerges that foreign involvement in African conflicts is a long-running feature of African history.
Another contentious issue appears towards the middle of the text where the secession of Somaliland from Somalia is cited as evidence of the foresight in Siyad Barre’s claim that the Issaq clan only wished to secede from Somalia and was not a genuine opposition movement to his government. Siyad Barre’s government’s brutality in putting down the rebellion rooted in the northern part of the republic of Somalia is adjudged as not particularly vicious or exceptional compared to the likely responses by any other government to internal threats to its territorial integrity. The writer would seem to justify the atrocities committed by Siyad Barre’s regime in northern Somalia in 1988 on the grounds that Issaq leaders of the breakaway territory of Somaliland perpetrated similar violations of human rights during the early 1990s. The claim that leaders in Somaliland region deployed the tactics of the Siyad Barre dictatorship to quell dissent among their fellow-Issaq people in the 1990s cannot legitimize the decision by the dictatorship in 1988 to deploy brutal military force against the same civilians. Human rights violations committed by state actors are no less harmful or destructive because the perpetrators share or do not share the ethnicity of their victims.
One takeaway is that since independence in 1960, the State apparatus in Somalia has been operated on a clan-basis, as exemplified by Siad Barre’s regime (1969–91) which was dominated by both his and his son-in-law’s clansmen. The entrenchment of clan-based political rule by successive regimes in Somalia, as detailed in the book, is a major point of concern in terms of the protection of universal human rights in the country. The author has presented a compelling account about the misuse of official security organs by those wielding political power in Somalia to cause grave violations of human rights including murder, rape, and torture to their opponents from a different clan or sub-clan.