Back to Mogadishu:Memoirs of a Somali Pastor: A BOOK REVIEW

Book: Back to Mogadishu

Author: Mohamed Aden Sheikh
Published :Independently published 
Pages: 389

Publication date: ‎2021

Mohamed Aden Sheikh was a surgeon by profession and educated in Italy. He served a long time as Minister of Health and later for a brief stint as Minister of culture and information for The Military regime . He was a reformist and modernist who wanted to transform Somalia into a modern country along Socialist lines, but his good intention was to no avail for he was finally put in jail for 6 years. His memoir “Back to Mogadishu” chronicles his life and ambition in Somalia, which ended in catastrophe and tragedy of epic proportions.

He was a leftist ideologue and interlocutor of the Military and the civilian secretaries. He became a leftist while studying in Italy since their ideals of social justice and freedom resonated with him, and they supported the rights of the colonized people for self-determination. “The fact that I was an African whose ideal was the liberation of Somalia and the decolonization of the entire continent meant that I almost automatically saw eye to eye with the culture of the left,” he notes.

He got in trouble with right-wing groups while touring Italy to educate them on the negative impact of colonialism, especially the Italians, on the colonized people. The right-wing reported him for “offending the national pride” and “defamation of the Italian state.” He was put on trial and vindicated by the court for not committing acts that may constitute a crime. 

Contrary to popular belief, Mohamed argues that there was “no international plot behind the coup,” and the Military was planning to stage the coup in January but postponed it when the news was leaked. Siad Barre wanted to act, Mohamed states, since Egal wanted him to remove from his job, send him abroad and appoint his position to a northerner, Ainanshe Guled.

Mohamed mentions that General Aidid was nominated to “liaison between the Military and Young technocrats who were asked to draft a rough development project for Somalia. “The technocrats from different backgrounds (doctors, engineers, agronomists, economists, and jurists) teamed up. According to Aden, they presented a project that was instrumental to the achievements of the regime’s early years. He claims they suggested socialistic choices even though they didn’t use the term “Socialism.”

He was an idealist who believed western domination was the reason for the backwardness and that socialism was the only path to rapid social and economic development. He notes that the civilian and military working in tandem was rare in third-world countries.

The nine civil secretaries agreed to work with the military, and their role was merely “technical and administrative,” and their plans were contingent upon their approval. The military retained legislative power, and the civilians were cognizant of their preeminence since they were instigators of the coup. Mohamed thought it was in the country’s best interest if power was concentrated in a few “safe hands.” In the process, he admits, they aided and abetted Siad Barre to become an absolute dictator who, with his unfettered power, led to the country’s demise.

He was of the opinion that continuity and political stability were paramount to reform, thus, the coups must be avoided at any cost.

In 1973, Mohamed argues he and his friend Weyrah, the Minister of Finance, informed the president of the need for a constitution, a parliament, and a political party. He claims their relationship with the Military deteriorated when Somalia joined the Arab league. He argues the decision was shrouded in secrecy, and the military did not consult them; thus, he tendered his resignation. He contends Somalia would be better served as an ally, not as a member of a League who was characterized by constant division and bickering among themselves.

Mohamed Aden argues, quite strangely, that civilians did not know until 1973 of the effects of the draconian laws enacted by the military and that a lot of people were suffering dreadfully in prisons since they were distracted to “improve the life of the entire population.” However, he acknowledges that they didn’t prioritize freedom and individual rights.

Mohamed continued to infuriate the dictator by constantly demanding reform on many occasions. He always believed there was room for reform. When the party was established in 1976, he expected, as promised, the legislative and presidential elections would take place, but nothing has changed, and the regime became ruthless and brutal. Several times he tendered his resignation to Siad Barre, as he claims, and requested not to be re-appointed, and if he did, he would resign publicly. He lost his ministry in a cabinet reshuffle in 1982 but retained his parliamentary job and the party. He drew up an institutional reform with his group of reformers, Gacaliye, Ali Khalif, Warsame Juquf, Dhigic Dhigic, and Ahmed Ashkir Botan. They suggested, among other things, a program to deal with the economic crisis, redefine foreign policy, and create a prime ministerial position. Siad Barre rejected their proposal outrightly. He met with Siad Barre a few days before he was arrested and told him the country needed “drastic measures.” Still, Siad was infuriated by his stubbornness and accused him of “spreading poisonous” and encouraging the young intellectuals to become “disenchanted with the regime.”

Mohamed’s reformist friends left the country one by one, but he decided, as he claims to stay in the country, to confront the dictator and take the risk. Perhaps, he was thinking he would not be arrested since he was a clansman of the dictator. He was arrested along with Omar Haji Masale while visiting Baidoa. Ismail Ali Abokar, Omar Arte, and Osman Jeelle were also arrested in Mogadishu. Mohamed claims he thought the special prisons were “propaganda against the regime” until he was locked for 6 years in Labaatan Jirow maximum prison–one of the many infamous prisons. He felt betrayed by the government he served for 12 years and was jailed for no apparent reason. He was in solitude, anguishing for 6 years, and was even refused books let alone seeing his family. He was released after a farce trial but was put under house arrest until October 1988. 

Mohamed had an ambition and believed there was an opportunity to transform Somalia into a modern state. With the birth of one-party system, he thought they could fight within the party and push their reformist agenda, but their plans and ambitions were foiled and squandered by a myopic military.

He fled to Italy in 1989 after observing the country he was working on his transformation was turned into a family affair and beyond redemption.

The book was translated into Somali by a young progressive leftist, Abdiaziz Aw-Guudcadde, who translated Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth and Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Hiil Press will publish the book, and it will come out in 2023.

It’s a memoir of an idealist who had grand ideas and dreams to modernize his country but ended in disappointment and failure. 

It’s a good read for the young generation interested in their history recorded by one of the actors who witnessed the evil of colonization, the birth of nationalism, and the struggle for independence, parliamentary democracy, military dictatorship, and civil war.

FRAMING SOMALIA BEYOND AFRICA’S MERCHANTS OF MISERY: BOOK REVIEW

Abdi Samatar’s new book Framing Somalia Beyond Africa’s Merchants of Misery is another well-reasoned and researched takedown on the status quo of his country, Somalia. Professor Samatar displayed through the pages of this well-timed book, his age-long abhorrence towards the rent-seeking ruling elites of his country whose only aim and competence seems to be and was to fleece the country. According to him, the elites be it political elites, business people or the clergy are capable of only one thing: to enrich themselves at the expenses of the ordinary masses. Once again, Professor Samatar was not shy from deploying another unsparing salvo of searing criticism at the foot of those corrupt elites who are the primary sponsors of the mess that the country is in right now and speaking truth to power. It's a continuation of his relentless critique of bad state of affairs of his country ,the lords of development and corrupt political elite who partnered with them to perpetuate permanent misery of their helpless people. Professor Samatar is one of the few intellectuals who have been speaking and amplifying the voice for the voiceless. You can disagree with his cynicism but he speaks the feeling of millions of Somalis who have no voice .

At the preamble, he briefly touches on his intellectual journey that begets his radical dissent. As a young undergraduate student, he read Alex Haley’s book on Malcolm X. The book was not as he said on Somalia but offered a critical analysis of racialized US society. He claimed that Haley’s book “prompted him” to think differently about the materials published by non-Somalis on Somalia. He then read radical development theories and discovered the Dependency Theory.

At the University of California, Berkeley, where he was doing his PhD , he took course on recent development in African’s political economy and read the works of the likes of Mamdani, Walter, Samir Amin. The course gave him the tools to understand how the Somali studies is detached from the African Studies debates and dynamics of colonial and postcolonial power relationship. Abdi Samatar thereafter started to challenge the dominant framing of Somalis by the orientalist.

He narrates several encounters he had with westerners who set the Somali agenda and saw first-hand of asymmetrical power relationship between them and Somalis. The NGO trade the misery of Somalis while getting hefty salaries and hardship allowance at their comfort zone in Nairobi . Their business depends of the status quo and permanent statelessness. They don’t hire critical Somalis; they only hire those who toe their line. The corrupt political elite support their agenda without questioning while they get their share at the expense of humiliation and suffering of their people.

The framing of Somalis is based on early anthropological works in the north by the British Social anthropologist I.M Lewis. Samatar engaged head to head with Lewis, who contend the identify of Somalis is determined by birth and only way you can understand them is through their clan ,while Samatar disputed and argued that there is no single variable. Lewis who was an indisputable authority and guru of Somali Studies for many years surprised his audacity and label him as “westernized elite”.

Chapter 1, He provides thorough analysis of the dominant school of Somali Studies led by Lewis who offer clan as the single variable analysis of Somali problem, an alternative framework that demonstrates politicized clan as responsible for Somali tragedy. Lewis fails to take stock, professor argues, the impact of colonial rule, commercialization of the livestock, urbanization and emerging of political and economic class in his analysis. He analysis and rebutted some of the works by the Lewis disciples (Mainly Caddaan) who framed social , political and cultural problems along his perspective. Postcolonial leaders failed, professor underscores, to reform colonial institutions and to make identity that transcend tribe and make the state work for all the people.

Somalia somehow became a sort of career for the white men development and state building theoreticians and analysts while there is a visible absence of Somali voices in the debate. The reason for the absence of forceful Somali voices for the future of their country in development debates were many. However, one notable reason was and still is that Somali Students primarily focus on technical skills for gainful employment and don’t learn the critical courses in Social Science that create the possibility of social transformations. He points out the scarcity of libraries, and seasonal scholars who can act as role models is hampering and impending knowledge production that challenges the dominant orthodox. He call the Somalis youth to set up scholarly and political platforms and own their narrative and destiny.

Chapter 2 is an excerpt from his book Africa’s First Democrats. The author divided the Somali ruling elites before the coup into two camps. He argues that one group had a civic agenda and driven by national interest and democratic values. This group led by the first Somali president, Aden Abdille and his second prime minster Abdirizak H. Hussein, have undertaken serious public sector reforms and organized a clean election that they lost and gracefully accepted its outcome. The other group he called sectarian who have been driven by personal interest and consolidation of power that finally led to the military takeover. Lewis interpreted the contestation of the democratic era as a genealogical contest between the two dominant clans: Darood and Hawiye clans. Professor Samatar rebuked this argument forwarded by the renowned British anthropoglot I. M. Lewis and argued, convincingly, that the contestation of the two groups had nothing to do with genealogy but rather competing visions of two groups for the country.

Chapter 3 provides a historical background of the role of Islam in the precolonial, colonial and post-colonial eras of the country. Historically, the Somali ulama were guardians of the Islamic religion. They were the vanguards of the Somali people’s struggle to preserve their religion and sovereignty. They led the way and started the jihad to resist the colonial aggressors. Notable among these ulema that led armed resistance was Sayyid Mohammed Abdille Hassan and his well-known Darvish movement. After the country gained independence in 1960, SYL-led civilian government leaders, professor Samatar claims, were cognizant of not using Islam as a political tool. The Military dictatorship has taken a hostile posture toward Islam by embracing Socialism and subsequent killing of religious leaders who criticized the family law introduced by the regime in 1975. Somalis hitherto were known to practice tolerant Sufism-tinged Islam. But that peaceful and tolerant Islam that the country was known for ever since Islam came to the shores ofMore than a millennia ago, Somalia was fundamentally altered at the advent of radical Wahhabi-oriented Islam imported from Saudi Arabia after the central state collapsed in 1991. These radical militant Islamists who came to the scene after the collapse had cleverly exploited the governance vacuum and established themselves. The role of Islam in public life is changed overnight into something sinister by the emergence of these radical groups who exploited the religion to attain power.

Professor Samatar touches on the fall and rise of Political Islam in Somalia and the US and western plunder by green lighting the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in 2006 after the moderate Islamic Courts Union chased the notorious warlords from the capital city and much of the southern parts of the country. Ethiopia committed war crimes in Somalia after it invaded the country and got away with it because the West, who encouraged her to invade Somalia in the first place, looked the other way and didn’t want their culpability in the crime to be exposed. He misspells the common perception the West held toward Islam informed by their war on terror and strategic interests.

Chapter 4, Interestingly, he links the piracy problem to state failure debates. He states that the civic and sectarian groups contested in the democratic era, and sectarian groups triumphed, which led to a military coup that eventually facilitated the collapse of the state. The demise of the central Somali state and the ensuing civil war has paved the way for the emergency of many unsavoury players, such as the notorious warlords and Islamist/ terrorist groups that the country is dealing with right now, piracy. He argues that the only effective way to tackle these perennial issues is to rebuild a strong, democratic national government.

Finally, professor Samatar calls to liberate Somali Studies from the dominant school, which is foreign-driven with a little bit of colonial legacy perspective. His take on this is part of his overall criticism of the status quo, whether it is the country's dismal political and social realities as well as the studies of the pressing issues through the lens of the old and stale Somali Studies. He calls a new paradigm to bypass the conventional wisdom that has long constrained fresh thinking and new ideas in the Somali Studies arena.

The current studies of Somali Studies are no longer productive, nor is it adding any meaningful contribution to the debate of how to solve the stubborn and age-old governance problems or otherwise that the country is facing right now. The old barren debate is no longer tenable or useful. According to him, the situation needs a fresh and localized perspective and a new way of thinking and doing things. Professor Samatar emphasizes the importance of re-defining our story in our own terms. It is high time to own our story.

The book is a good read for anyone interested in the debates on Somali Studies. It serves as an Introductory book for Somali Students of social science. It also serves as a repository of hard-earned wisdom from someone who was in the trenches for a long time - for posterity.

Review by: Abdirahman Issa

and Farhan Ashkir