Somalia is a country in which citizens who laid the foundation for urban civilisation have their political and economic rights deprived through a consensus among armed clans.
Mogadishu (Comment) — According to President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud Somalia will conduct one person, one vote elections in 2027. “Parties will be involved in the elections. It is like a market where people buy goods” said President Mohamud, placing the political marketplace in the physical market. He qualified his statement by saying that “people will compete on ideas”.
President Mohamud reminded people of the importance of competitive party politics and the right to elect MPS directly. “Mogadishu once had a Mayor from the Fifth clan” he said. The Fifth Clan is a politically marginalising appellation imposed on an alliance of Somali clans including Banaadiri, to which the first Mayor of Mogadishu, Sharif Imaankey (aka Jamal Sharif Hussein) belonged. Jamal made history during the 1930s when he challenged the Fascist racist policy that barred Somalis from frequenting the same areas or drinking at the same cafes as Italians did. Jamal defiantly walked in a part of central Mogadishu — the pavement of della Croce del Sud. He was arrested by the Italian fascist police in Mogadishu for several years. Upon being elected the Mayor of Mogadishu, he said that ‘freedom was worth being tortured for’.
Deprivation of political rights begins with names imposed on citizens. The Fifth Clan (Beesha Shanaad) is an invented clan identity conceived at the Somali reconciliation conference sponsored by the Djibouti government and held Arta district in the year 2000. It was the first reconciliation conference in which Somali clans who suffered most during the civil war were punished again is Djibouti by relegating them to second-clan citizenship for not taking an active part in the civil war (for not having an armed and marauding clan militias).
How can Somalia conduct elections based on universal suffrage if burning injustices (the political and economic marginalisation of Somalis labelled the Fifth Clan) remain unaddressed? The position of the Fifth Clan in the clan politics – to use a phrase used by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in his doctoral dissertation – indicates the economic marginalisation (their traditional districts still bear the scars of the civil and are dominated by armed clan militias) and political invisibility (they have no discernible political representation in the Banadir Administration and the Federal Member States such as South West State — of which Marka and Baraawe, two Banadiri-founded districts, — are part) and Jubaland State.
In Somalia injustice has been upgraded to a belief system through which even an incumbent President with a background in civil society work feels not compelled to address the plight of marginalised citizens. Why did the President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud mention the names of illustrious Banadiri personalities who distinguished themselves in public life when he cannot urge Somalis to end the institutionalised marginalisation of Banadiri Somalis? Somalia is a country in which citizens who laid the foundation for urban civilisation have their political and economic rights deprived through a consensus among armed clans. That is not a social contract. It is a social degradation.
© Puntland Post, 2023
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