THT-Somalia’s controversial and long overdue elections have finally been concluded, both the chairmen of the higher and lower houses have been elected as well as the president of the Federal Republic of Somalia Mr. Hasan Sh. Mohamoud, And the International Communities’ Representatives in Mogadishu appreciated and approved. The timely question however, stands as always, where Somalia is heading to, and whether this round of elections would possibly end the crisis that led to the failure of state, continuation of the political stalemate, social disintegration and ruin of terrorism.
If the question is proper and legitimate, then where to go from here needs to be answered. My point however, is whether there is a need to change conceptions and not only faces. The critical failure of Somalia resides in the lack of the right concepts and approaches. For example, when Copernicus discovered his astrophysical theory which declared that the Centre of the Universe is not the Earth but the Sun, he was condemned and criminalized by the religious authorities, it took centuries until most people realized that he was right. That concept had changed man’s world outlook about life in the universe, and constituted a leap for mankind’s progress.
Unfortunately, Somalia’s political elite have failed to cope with the changes occurring around them and disconnected with the realities on earth because of lack of conceptual understanding of the essence of these changes and the kind of responses that are needed with regard to these changes. It is therefore time to think about the necessity for Somalia to change conceptions regarding a wide range of issues that constituted the root-cause of the state failure and continuation of Somalia’s crisis.
One of the most serious and urgent need for the Somalia politicians to consider is to entirely discard the traditional form of Great Somalia understanding (as there is no greatness where there is no peace, stability and democracy) and instead acknowledge the need to replacing this concept with contemporary thought which could stand as basis for building a new Somalia State, which ought to negate Siyadism (Radical Irredentism) with the aim to substitute it with democratic form of state hood. Positive changes usually emerge out of appearance of extraordinary leadership with visionary scientific based agenda.
Such an event constitutes a Leap forward and opens up a broad prospect of progress. Obviously, all great steps taken by humanity had changed man’s viewpoint and attitude on life in the universe. Today, Somalia is in a bad need to changing conceptions rather than faces. That is to abandon the current misperception created by Great Somalia idea, and to establish a new concept that can reflect the images of peaceful and Democratic Somalia.
Such a Conceptual Change would open the way to prospects of building democratic founded Somali State which can be seen as a clear divergence of the positions of Siyadism, which represented the radical aspect of Somali-Irredentism, and replacement of a human-centered sort of thought and compatible modern Statehood. Current Somalian politicians need to be fully aware of the fact that any call for Somali Unity under the raison-deter would be seen by the Somaliland side as an attempt to reestablishing another dictatorship, as it is a reminder of accumulation of experiences of injustice, unfairness, prejudices, inequality, destruction of Cities and Ethnic-Cleansing of the Issaqi clans. Forget about Hargeisa coming back to unity-trap, but Kenyan Somalis, Djiboutians, Ethiopian Somalis would think against to associating themselves with Mogadishu and to be part of situation of absolute anarchy. The Urgent task for Somalia’s Politicians is to put their house in order first, and make Mogadishu peaceful, fascinating and capitative.
Moreover, it is certainly the right time for the entire reasonable intelligentsia in the Horn of Africa, and the most advanced sections of thinkers in particular to realize the historical necessity to doing two things simultaneously: To create a trend of thinking for establishing a democratic concept of Statehood and to start moving towards integration of the Horn countries, in
a none-violent and gradual manner. Somali nationality which is the most scattered and disorderly people in the Horn Region would benefit from such a Greater Horn of African Society.
By Adam Muse Jibril