Those stoking Somalia’s conflict must stop their nefarious activities. The question though is: do they have the will and good sense to do so? Who are these calculating actors and brazen mischief-makers? Let’s examine the known behavior of the Arabs, Ethiopians, Kenyans, Eritreans, AU member states and the West, including the US. 

The Arab Factor 

Soaring petrodollar revenues padding the already bulging purses of various Sheikhdoms not withstanding, the Arabs are politically emasculated, and they know this in their bones. Their tribal-centered culture condemns them to hopeless division and atrophy in regards to progressive ideas that could move their far-flung societies forward. Unable or unwilling to face that reality, they had, some years ago, latched on to using sloppy if dangerous tactics to challenge their geopolitical nemesis- the West, in particular the United States, for empowering their archenemy: Israel. Still, the Arabs are in no mood to confront the US, Israel or the West directly for a number of reasons: economic interdependence, the lopsided military imbalance favoring America and her allies, and Arab states’ historic, chronic disunity, to name but a few. Hence, the emergence in the Middle East of a new brand of politics based on a specious interpretation of Islam whereby the ‘end justifies the means.’ 

Some of the wealthier Sheikhs officially maintain “normal” relations with ideological foes in the West, while influential members of their societies secretly sponsor fanatical, religiously-oriented movements that battle Western influence in various Muslim lands. They do this to set up geopolitical bush fires in faraway corners as the linchpin for the war of attrition that they hope would in the long-run damage US interests, both politically and economically. They think that with the US weakened, the West will be set on a course of slow, irreversible decline. 

The fundamental feature of this quest for conquest and control is indoctrination and financing of certain expendable, fringe forces that have been designated to do the Sheikhs’ dirty work. The forces are recruited throughout the Muslim world, including poor and disenfranchised communities within the Arabian Peninsula, South Asia, North Africa and the Horn of Africa—in places where, due to economic challenges, there are no shortages of willing recruits. Add to the indoctrination an amble supply of petrodollars and you have a combustible situation. Meanwhile, the low-level ringleaders and the foot soldiers for this remote-controlled struggle are—motivated by that uncompromising form of perverse ‘liberation theology’—on a steady death-march.  

What has this to do with Somalia’s political problems in Africa’s Horn? 

In the case of Oil Sheikhdoms, for example tiny Qatar—by no means the only one—Somalia is nothing more than a theatre for testing and perfecting their strange brand of deceptive struggle, which they wage stealthily under the banner of religiosity. The Sheikhs in such municipalities are closely allied with the US (and the West) on two issues of critical importance to their fiefdoms: 1) economic and developmental projects, in particular the exploitation of their vast fossil-fuel energy resources; and, 2) containment of the expansion of Iranian Shia’ fundamentalism in the region. But by their own other subterranean actions, the Sheikhs hold the US and the West as their ultimate ideological rivals in what they perceive as long-term struggle between civilizations: theirs and that of the West—rather than promoting human civilization in accordance with percepts of The Book and Wisdom as taught by Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).

The above wrongheaded policy is precisely why certain sheikhdoms bankroll the fanatical extremists that are wreaking havoc in ‘holy terror’ in places like Mogadishu, where people and property are blown up on a regular basis. And, in the process, women, children, the elderly and the infirm are obliterated to smithereens as the cost of waging their shadowy struggle—a sort of collateral damage that strangely enough resonates with their counterparts in the West. As a result, countless innocent Somalis are being killed, mutilated and rendered homeless by those types of immoral, ideologically driven wanton actions by religious fanatics. And so it will go on for the foreseeable future: some Arabs doing what they can in this postmodern, geopolitical war of attrition—directing and financing dirty wars from remote palaces of their idle rich, while incidentally working doubly hard to be seem as reliable business partners of the West. The French philosopher Blaise Bascal was right when said, “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” 

Egypt 

Another leg of this two-legged stool concerns Egypt, the dean of the Arab League club and the home base of the radical Islamic theology. In the modern era, Egypt has had the dubious distinction of being an under-handed meddler extraordinaire in Somali affairs. Since the days of their leader, Jamal Abdulnasir in the 1960s, Egyptian operatives have been ankle-deep in Somali politics in a thinly disguised effort to set the country on collision course with the neighboring state of Ethiopia, with whom they expect to engage in a deadly contest over the waters of the Nile, in the not-too-distant-future. Such Egyptian interference in Somali affairs will not go away anytime soon. 

Ethiopia 

Somalia’s neighbor to the west, Ethiopia is an artificial, amalgamation of disparate nationalities that are held together by a religious and ethnic minority on the basis of brute force. The ruling Tigray/Amhara grouping views all things Somali through jaundiced lenses. The primary reason for their abiding enmity has to do with the bloody history of struggle between the two societies that goes back hundreds of years. To date, due to infamous concessions made to Abyssinia (Ethiopia) by European colonialists, that country colonizes the Ogadenia (Western Somalia) region. They hold the Somali citizens there in appalling conditions that recall the Apartheid period in South Africa. 

Ethiopia’s current involvement in Somali “reconciliation” conferences and subsequently as the guarantor of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Mogadishu have proven to be a Trojan horse designed to penetrate Somalia to be able gain control the entire country under the guise of providing “peace keepers”. By all indications it appears that this hare-brained scheme is doomed to failure. As a result of that country’s longstanding failed Somalia policy, the ruling Junta is currently behaving as though in a panic mode. 

Eritrea 

Eritrea is another poor little country that  is ruled by a dictator deeply involved in shenanigans that complicate the situation in Somalia. The tiny country is on war footing with all its neighbors, especially with their estranged ethnic and religious kinfolk—the ruling clique in Ethiopia. It is that terminal conflict with the rulers of Ethiopia that drives Eritrea’s untoward involvement in Somalia’s political ‘theater of the absurd’. If they could manage to settle with their neighbor to the south, Eritreans should have no issues with Somalia. Their present interference is nothing more lame pursuit of the adage: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” 

Kenya  

Kenya is of two minds when it comes to helping settle Somalia’s political fiasco. They know that they can derive huge economic benefits from a stable Somalia at its northern flank. But Kenyan politicians are also afraid that their country’s negligence and mistreatment of their Somali region—the Northern Frontier Province—might catch up with them sooner rather than later in terms of (imaginary) reprisals, when Somalia gets back on its feet. 

African Union  

The African Union member countries constitute a ‘poor man’s club’. They can neither marshal the resources nor the political wherewithal to get sufficiently engaged to help solve the intractable political crises such as that of Somalia, without relying wholly or in part on Western largess and logistical support. Thus their ability to sustain even a skeletal peacekeeping force is often circumscribed. So, while largely harmless, they are not much of a help, either. 

The West’s Corrosive Influence 

The West, especially the US, has a ‘God complex.’ They foist destructive fiscal and economic policies on developing countries, particularly in Africa in order to remake them in their own image. Their powerful institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have over a number of decades been putting in place policies inimical to the interests of developing countries. They were specially conceived and developed to perform economic and fiscal interference tasks that have failed to provide appreciable benefits in social development, but instead led to more underdevelopment. The policies of these two powerful institutions, however, had been prescribing to African countries such as Somalia (before the onset of civil war in 1991) succeeded only in creating high inflation, fiscal imbalance and chronic indebtedness.  

In the case of Somalia, economic failure came before the collapse of the political superstructure. The disastrous 1977-78 war with Ethiopia and the splintering of the opposition along clan lines were contributing factors. But at the macro level the country was being smothered by the consequences of a widely-held belief in many quarters within the Western circles that “they know what is best for developing countries”, and so they proceeded to dictate to these countries on how they should run their affairs, irrespective of what the empirical data showed.  

Democracy and human rights are the tools of choice that are readily wielded against any leader of a ‘developing country’ who does not willingly become a supplicant and a lackey. Anyone who resists this direction will at best find a torrent of highly placed articles and news reports denouncing him/her as the worse human being that has ever lived; and, someone who makes Adolph Hitler look like a mere school yard bully. 

The infamous NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) are then let loose to do their multifaceted dirty game, including siphoning the so-called foreign-aid money and spreading half-truths and outright fabricated stories to discredit a target country’s leaders and governance. They then go on the national news of their respective, “donor” country with flimsy accusations; publish phony articles; and make themselves available for high level interviews and briefings to make the case that such and such a government does not comport with “civilized behavior” and therefore it does not deserve to be in power. During these staged events, they often beg US lawmakers and senior government officials “to do something about the situation for the sake of humanitarianism, before it is too late,” all the while seeming to shed crocodile tears to mask their own misdeeds and rampant corruption. 

In the meantime, no one calls these decidedly “bad Samaritans” to account for fomenting the untold mischief that they create in the target countries. It is widely known by the people of these “developing” countries that the NGOs create fully or in part the very awful conditions, which they so decry in the glare of the mass media. As always, they are quick to justify their known corrupt practices such as creating their own mercenary forces, dealing with the criminal elements in the country, spreading unfounded and negative stories through a sophisticated network of highly efficient propaganda machines. Their standard answer to any query is: “We are doing all we can in order to deliver critical supplies to people made destitute by instability borne of government inaction or bad faith, or both”. Yet they expropriate much of the aid in question on broad daylight because they know that there would simply be no consequence for such malfeasance on their part. 

All these plus other forms of subterranean spy activities provide countless ‘body blows’, against a sitting government so as to make way for the final knock out with the arrival of foreign troops that are almost always waiting in the wings. If that does not work, then the country is left to stew in its own juices (ala Somalia after the “Black Hawk Down” incident) for a long while, until it is fully cooked and done to stick the knife in, without the anxiety of having to face serious repercussions. Or, so the scenario goes!

Ali A. Fatah

[email protected]

Next week, Ali Fatah examines the missing Somali Solution.