Somalia: Creating Space for Fresh Approaches to Peacebuilding

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ashley lyn greene 38 Timeline: Cycle 1 Prospective Transactive Retrospective Table 1: Vertical and Horizontal Integration Processes In the activities to be generated, what is the level of participation and development of relationships in the targeted communities/initiatives? 1. Is there significant relationship vertically (between the grassroots and local/regional/national leadership)? 2. Is there significant relationship horizontally (across the perceived lines of conflict identities)? 3. Who seems to have the greatest potential to serve as agents of change in this setting? From direct experience so far: 1. What obstacles are there to achieving vertical/horizontal integration? 2. What steps have been proposed to overcome those obstacles? 3. Who, at this point, appears to have the greatest potential for change (significant people/ relationships)? Looking back across the cycle: 1. What obstacles are there in achieving vertical/horizontal integration? 2. What are proposed steps to overcome those obstacles? 3. Who, at this point, appears to have greatest potential for change (significant people/ relationships)? Mechanisms In the activities to be generated: 1. What are the projected mechanisms (institutions/ networks) that are to be created? 2. How are they designed to cut across vertical/horizontal levels? 3. What exists that functions well and what support does it need? What exists that does not function well and needs to be changed? What does not exist that should? From direct experience so far: 1. What mechanisms appear to be needed and possible? 2. What would be needed to sustain these mechanisms? Looking back across the cycle: 1. What mechanisms appear to be needed and possible? 2. What would be needed to sustain these mechanisms? 3. What exists, what needs changing, what needs creating? Source: John Paul Lederach, Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies (1997), p.143.
nationalism, state formation and peacebuilding in somalia Incorporating clans into state structures represents one of the more significant challenges for peacebuilders in Somalia. Clan kinship provides the framework and social functions by which Somalis structure their daily lives and interactions. They also serve as the main characteristic by which Somalis recognize each other, provide a sense of identity and belonging, and establish communal support systems. Additionally, they also provide politicians with means of mobilizing support and are used to determine political representation. 24 These functions, while in many ways positive, also present peacebuilders with substantial obstacles to national integration (See Table 1: Transactive Processes Question 1). Oppressive regimes have used clan identity to target specific segments of the population for political and economic exclusion and mass killing. Militias struggling for power and resources are organized around clan lines. A sense that one belongs to a certain clan often entails feelings of competition and animosity towards other clans and involves the inheritance of long-standing rivalries. In addition to providing positive collaboration for communal needs such as watering livestock, digging wells, assisting with weddings and funerals, and aiding poorer members, communal support systems take on the role of life insurance and retribution through the use of diya-paying groups. One of the most destructive results is the use of collective punishment. When a member of another clan is killed, the victim’s clan will kill someone from the criminal’s clan, regardless of whether or not they were responsible for the crime. Guilt is established by a person’s membership to the offending clan. Finally, politicians often abuse clan identity by manipulating real or perceived grievances for personal gain and to further exclusive political agendas. 25 The negative functions and abuses of clan identity present both immediate and long-term obstacles. Most imperative are those that interfere with the stability of state institutions. Violence between and within clans, whether carried out by militias or diya-paying groups, competes with the state’s monopoly on the use of force and its means of enforcing law and order. Issues of representation and political corruption are also critical. Long-term concerns are those that hinder the formation of a Somali national identity. One example is conceptions of territorial ownership. Typically, citizens should feel as though their rights, the ability to vote and compete for political positions, freedom of movement, etc., extend to every part of the country. As Somalia scholar Afyare Abdi Elmi notes, “The popular perception among Somalis is that each clan owns the traditional areas that it inhabits”. This perception has a negative impact when establishing a state wherein all groups share its ownership. 26 Obstacles such as this effect not only immediate issues such as freedom of movement but long-term goals of national cohesion as well. While there is some overlap between immediate and long-term obstacles, political corruption that favors one clan over another also impedes a sense of national unity. Separating immediate from long-term challenges can help peacebuilders distinguish between areas that require practical, immediate action from those that necessitate a gradual vision of change. Because nationalism must be 24 Elmi, A.A., Understanding the Somalia Conflagration, pp. 32-33. 25 Ibid., p. 34. 26 Ibid, p. 38. 39
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Page 4 and 5: Views expressed in this publication
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Page 10 and 11: john paul lederach 2 An emerging an
Page 12 and 13: john paul lederach 10 ings results
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Page 34 and 35: douglas ansel 32 foreseeable future
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Page 42 and 43: ashley lyn greene 27 Ibid., p. 39.
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