Buur-gaaban

   Bosaso City

Xaaji Xuseen Gacayte iyo
shirkii Nabadaynta Puntland

                Biyo Kulule

              Togga Laag

     Shir lagu qabtay Waaciye 

                 Buur-gaaban

      Geed Xiji ah(Maydi)

     Geed Xiji ah (Beeyo)

Much Thunder and Little Rain
By The Roobdoon Forum
[email protected] 

According to Parkinson, if there is one important idea to emerge from the history of political thought, it is “the idea that the government is to be judged by results.”  And a good government, as Rousseau suggested, is that which improves the quality of life of its people.  Its legitimacy and the people’s sense of identification with the political order are likely to be enhanced by good performance in this regard.  The present crisis of the state in Africa, or its declining capacity for stability and development, is related to its failure to satisfy the needs and aspirations of ordinary people.[1]
                        Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, a scholar-activist and observer

Looking back from so clear contrasting perspectives, many forms of appraisal are legitimate in Somali political thought.  One approach is the approach beloved of clan armed-faction politicians and supporters – exaggeration.  It is true that so much has occurred during the last two turbulent decades, in which many different clan-political thinking would be possible.  Some clans could trace their history and nation-state political entity to that crafted by the European colonial regimes.  Others have approached their geo-political entity by abandoning all forms of colonial drawings and arranged pre-colonial period entities – i.e. traditional ancestral homelands.  To examine these competing and often conflicting euphoric and clannish worldviews, we have to assess the high and low points of exaggerations that are endemic in Somali politics.  This paper would limit itself to focus on a somewhat different exaggeration, less obvious, but perhaps more revealing approach to the contemporary politics of Puntland Regional State.  It might also have some relevance to other new forming regions in southern Somalia (Hiiraanland, Banaadirland, Jubbaland, Southwestland, etc).

Differences in Historical Perception
Clans in Puntland tend to live in many almost totally distinct perceptual worlds.  There is a vast spectrum, for example, of historical narrations (esp. local history) in all sides; but I am not certain that they will ever meet, even somewhere in the middle.  Those who are “moderate” may sometimes admit that they have questionable narrative about their past; but even then, they tend to see very different picture of their historical “reality”.

Those who are “extremists” on one side, of course, believe that the others are kooyte (recent arrivals) or their subjects, as well as the cause of the problem.  These groups feel that their clans have been too lenient with the trouble-makers for too long.  According to those holding this perception, until the colonial European invasion, almost all of what is now Puntland had always been completely under one ruler.  They believe that it is the right time to reclaim that old glory and establish a Regional State under their supervision.  As soon as the Kooyte experience that, what do they have as a choice, run to the south and westbound?  Given all of the cumulative historical perception of the region, mistrust among its clans, and mutual suspicions, one must wonder if it will ever be possible for Puntlanders to live together in mutual respect, in one Regional State Administration – especially an administration that might participate in sub-clan conflicts.  Nevertheless, in 1998, these antagonistic clans gathered and established a regional state called Puntland.                           

The emergence of a “bubbling cauldron” State
The Puntland Regional State can be described as a “bubbling cauldron” of clans.  It is less surprising that the struggle to appropriate “a fair share” of the new state’s resources have suddenly assumed a sub-clan distinctiveness/coloration.  From the inception of the State, as we know it, the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF) veterans have expressed a strong feeling of marginalization directed towards their sub-clans during the long period of Siyaad Barre’s regime.  The initial reaction of the other non-SSDF clans in the region was to curb the SSDF veterans’ fear and allowed them to handle the new State’s helm, as a compensatory gesture to draw popular unification.   The clan elders assumed the veterans as unitary actors, but their goodwill met a phenomenon which scholar Arend Lijphart dubbed as “outflanking”.[2]  The elders’ effort was frustrated by the rivalry emerging from the various flanks within the SSDF veterans.  Unfortunately, this gesture compounded the already strained inter-clan relations within the SSDF top officials, rival flanks repudiating each other on the grounds that the other do not represent the faction.  Soon the new State of Puntland became the turf to exact old wounds.  The compensatory gesture turned into bitterness which generated administrative sub-clan demarcation.       

 Although it is not an appropriate time for retrospection and appraisal, the revelation of the viability of Regional State in northeastern Somalia seems exaggerated.  Zealot Puntlanders pronounce this first decade of Puntland as the “Great Leap Forward”[3], climaxing its founder, Cabdullahi Yusuf, to attain the Presidency of the Federal Somali State.  For them, this period underlined Puntlanders’ ability to discover a sure-fire method of political ascendancy and economic development.  

However, the ascendancy of Cabdullahi Yusuf, in the current Federal Somali State, has involved a maximum of tensions with almost every region in Somalia.  There is also some “facts-on-the-ground” that indicate the increasing deterioration of clan-tensions within Puntland itself.  Some zealot Puntlanders even argue that those who pushed their hero, Cabdullahi Yusuf, to upstairs into a position in which he would be an “honoured’ President of a Somali Federal State – but without the real power to work his will as he did in Puntland – had ulterior motives.

Factionalism in Puntland
Puntland witnessed the fractionalization of the hitherto cohesive SSDF political lobbyists.  Consequently, Puntland clans disintegrated into jiffo fiefdoms; each jiffo demanding an administration that favours their top brass into its cabinet and high posts.  Almost every jiffo reflected their fear of being a minority in their unwillingness of allowing a one sub-clan to be at the helm for so long – i.e. resisting being part of an entity that comprises one sub-clan control.  The feeling of one sub-clan-hegemony in Puntland also resuscitated the age-long jiffo rivalry between Puntlanders, as they expressed in their unwillingness to accept Siyaad Barre’s regime.

 The opposition of certain clans, especially among the non-SSDF groups, to the new Regional State is remarkable in a number of ways.  Firstly, it is their contention that Puntland, as a political entity, has no benefits to them, and shared no common goals to its ruling sub-clan.  They fear that as a marginalized group, they will perpetually remain subservient to the ruling sub-clan.  For example, the presidential post, which serves as a yardstick to measure equitable power-sharing, is in the hands of one sub-clan.

Aside from the presidential post, the marginalized clans’ resentment to the Administration arose from what they perceived as their political incompatibility with the ruling clan.  The “zero-sum” nature of Puntland Administration is such that bestow an opposition little or nothing in terms of top government posts and resource allocation.  The current Administration is based on “winner-take-all”; the ruler has absolute power over dispensation of patronage and government resources.  It seems that Siyaad Barre’s “zero-sum” game is borrowed by the SSDF veterans.  This state of affairs encourages the ruling clan to cling on to power forever; and they presume that they have everything to lose by giving up top government posts including even mayoral and governorship positions.

 Furthermore, the ruling sub-clan seems get emotionally identified with Puntland, which they consider as their personal property.  They believe that their elites should rule Puntland – and if possible, should rule even if the single major phenomenon awaited, the Somali Weyn, is materialized.  Not even “ballot-boxes” can dislodge them from Presidential office!!!  Due to such defective political system in Puntland, many politicians from opposition clans are in fact swimming against the current – may I say a tragedy of good intentions.

 Clearly, Puntland, as a building block structure, is not awakening of all clans to self-consciousness; it simply invented sub-clan hegemony where it did not exist before.  Also, the drawback to this huge Regional formulation is that marginalized clans is so anxious to show that the new Regional State masquerades under false pretenses that they describe its “electoral systems” as “rigged and fabrication procedures” rather than “transparency and fair”.  In this way, these marginalized clans imply that “true” Administration exist that can be advantageously juxtaposed to the current one.  Whatever the real motives of Puntland founders were, the belief was widespread among many opposition clans that there had been a SSDF plot.  This perspective was encouraged both by the failure of Puntland State to steer its helm by non other than SSDF veterans, and by the advancement of these veterans’ sub-clan members to senior and strategic positions in the army and the administration.  The dismissal of prominent figures from other clans (of not SSDF participants) became the norm.

 Concluding Remarks
While recognizing that Puntland’s lack of good administration can in some measure be attributed to a variety of factors including exogenous forces as well as peoples’ differences in historical perception, it has been my contention that certain contemporary clannish (emerging from SSDF flanks) in the administrative structure has also played a significant role in generating and perpetuating clan clash possibilities.  I am also skeptical about the ability of the Puntland leadership to maintain good governance and to defuse social fragmentation.  So far, Puntland has for the most part failed to satisfy people’s expectations; it serves primarily the sub-clan interests of those who are in charge of it.

The dilemma that Puntland is facing can be concluded by the expressions of the prominent Kenyan scholar, Ali Mazrui, whose reflection of the hierarchical and authoritarian nature of Somali clans and their strong clan loyalties described as a challenge to navigate between extremes: in the political sphere between tyranny (Somalia under Siyaad Barre) and anarchy (the present Mogadishu situation).[4]  Should we say: we are stuck in the stage of much thunder and little rain!

The Roobdoon Forum
[email protected]