In Support for Clan-federalisation of Somalia

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In Support for Clan-federalisation of Somalia

Saturday 16 August 2014
The Somali people are highly segmented people and deeply divided. That is the truth. Firstly, their culture, heritage (oral genealogy – the Abtiris), the oral traditions and the way Somali perceives politics is based on clans, genealogy affiliations and clan-families.

Practising politics in Somalia, representation and constituency always are based on the “clan” and the related territory.  This proves that a clan is a political unit. That is a fact not arguable; and we all Somalis know that. Furthermore, the social fabric is knit in such a way that clan plays a major role in their social life.

Again, that means a clan is also a social unit. Clan distribution also means a geographical territory  (region/regions) in which a clan believes to have lived in the past centuries as their “land” or homeland. Thus a clan is a geographical unit, too. 

If a designer is asked to create a Federal Member State for Somalia, the designer has to consider the basics of the society and consider a criteria. The criteria for the building-blocks must be mainly cultural and based on the Somali heritage. The first thing to pop out is the clan-family system (political, social and territorial) in order to come up with the most agreeable system: political, social and geographical all combined in one entity – the Federal Member State. 

To ignore the traits and the characteristics of the Somali society is like making concrete from sand, aggregates, water and cement without following the mix design. How to build a Federal Member State requires the proper knowledge of the Somali clan system, their geographic distribution for the state boundaries and the willingness of certain clans to come together and establish self-governments.

The outcome in such a design must be culture-friendly and contribute to help stabilise Somalia in centuries to come. A design with those ingredients and considerations will definitely bind Somalia together and glue it strongly. This is how we model out of the diverse and highly segmented nation, we can derive up a strong cohesive united Somalia. 

The above three principles are the founding parameters (the criteria) that makes the basics of the Somali Nation. This is why the designers or clan communities have chosen clan-federalism as the best option over the other possible and potential options to consider for Somalia.

Clan federalism is simply practical on the ground; understandable by the grassroots of the society and readily acceptable to the traditional and political leaders. That is why the Federal Member States constituting the Federal Republic of Somalia reflect mainly the clan-families, its traditions, the oral genealogy and subsequent heritage.



By Abdulkadir Abiikar Hussein; qaadir.abiikar@hotmail.co.uk;
Mogadishu, Somalia; 14th August, 2014
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