The SSC wars: In defence of the facts

By Osman Hassan
March 12, 2011

Dr Abdishakur Jowhar's article in Wardheernews on the subject of the "SSC wars" is an unabashed misrepresentation of the struggle of the SSC people to liberate themselves from Somaliland's heinous occupation and subjugation. His seven pages sermon boils down to an elaborate dressing up of his specious, preconceived position on the SSC wars.

As to be expected from an archetypal secessionist, he rules predictably that Somaliland, the real aggressor, the invader and occupier, is the victim of the SSC wars, while the true victims, be it the SSC people or their  representative organisations, are the aggressors for having the temerity to defy the legitimacy and will of his "Somaliland" - an entity seen by the international community as renegades who are otherwise legally part of Somalia despite their preposterous claim to sovereignty. Serving us this kind of blatant perversion of the reality is clearly an insult to our intelligence and knowledge.

Tribal Homelands

The conceptual framework underpinning Abdishakur's presentation revolves around the contention that the SSC, whether as people or organisation in their name, are" driven by a “prehistoric and primitive” urge to forge for themselves a “tribal homeland” which belongs to them alone to the "exclusion of all others". This "tribal homeland" sought by the SSC, he argues, represents "a complete and total negation of statehood”. In this regard, the State and "tribal homelands", he contends, are incompatible and hence one or the other has to give way. Between the two, of course, he singles out the SSC "tribal homeland" for elimination.

Taking Abdishakur's argument to its logical conclusion, Siyad Barre was not only right to eliminate the SNM but also justified to destroy Hargeisa and overall "Isaaq Tribal land" because of the support they were providing to SNM? Or that the rulers of the enclave were right to occupy the Awdalites in the first place or to eliminate them next time when they rise against their new colonisers?

Abdishakur'es demonisation of "tribal homelands" has gone overboard. The fact remains that they have always been the basis of Somali society throughout our history, during the colonial times and since independence and they have been largely what sustained them in the harsh environment they live in. Admittedly, conflicts arise now and then over scare resources. But these are managed thanks to their time-honoured system of conflict resolution and reconciliation. If anything, their usefulness has increased in the absence of a functioning Somali government. Keeping the peace within the clan and with their neighbours has now devolved to them by default. Countless people would have not survived without the help they receive from their fellow clan members. The demons, thus, are not "tribal homelands" per se but unprincipled politicians or unscrupulous leaders who use their clan and stoke clan conflict as instruments for achieving their ends as is now happening in Kalshaale.

The SSC people/clans or their leaders do not happily belong to this mould. All the same, one has to ask why Abdishakur's  has to apply his ruling exclusively to the SSC and not also his own Somaliland which is after all nothing more than a "tribal homeland", or to others masquerading as regional administrations?

Is the SSC anti State?

Abdishakur's critique of the SSC resistance to Somaliland's occupation and hegemony is that they are anti State, anti-communal and clannish. This is ludicrous. One has to ask which state is he talking about? If he has the Somali State in mind, in which the SSC is part and parcel, he needs no reminding that their record of pan-Somalism is second to none. No other Somali clan has historically sacrificed so much for the Somali cause, nationalism and Greater Somalia as the SSC people did.

Far from being doggedly and myopically wedded to their "tribal homelands" in the negative way Abdishakur portrayed, the SSC people recognise that the Somali State to which they belong is the sovereign authority over all Somalia's territory. As unionists and patriots, they have never challenged nor rose up against the Somali State unlike other clans in the rest of Somalia-north and south.

I can not think of any thing better that encapsulates their perception of their country or their expectation from their government than President Kennedy famous call to his country on his inauguration:" Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country". And so, the SSC have remained true to this motto, despite the fact that they had been the most marginalised, neglected regions in Somalia in terms of development through successive Somali governments since independence.

Contrast this with the secessionist enclave whose persistent grievances since independence has been that they had lost to the union their pre-independence dominance in the north, a sentiment  which nourished their secession and ultimately led to their insurrection and the eventual collapse of the Somali State. So, if the SSC have not been anti Somali State, what other State is Abdishakur talking about? Continued