Who are political minorities in Somalia?

Mogadishu (Commentary) — Only after 1990 did the phrase political minorities come to be adopted as a category for certain Somali social groups (clans). Under the current categorisation Jareer weyn is wrongly classed as a minority clan despite constituting more than 30% of populations in Lower Shabelle, Middle Shabelle, Middle Jubba, Lower Jubba. In other regions in southern Somalia Jareer Weyn members make up no less than 15% of the population. They are political minorities whose status was diabolically decided in Djibouti in 2000 where the infamous 4.5 system was unveiled.

Thirty years ago Digil & Mirifle was classed as a political minority due to the man-made famine after General Aideed’s militias looted relief supplies sent to the victims of the famine. President George H. W. Bush said he was sending the Marines to ensure relief supplies reached the areas affected by the famine. There were no armed clan militias loyal to Digil & Mirifle warlords. Only after 1998 was Rahanweyn Resistance Army formed to liberate Baydhabo from Hussein Aideed’s militias. At the Djibouti reconciliation conference in 2000, Digil & Mirifle’s status was upgraded from political minority to political majority (one of the 4 clans that regard the rest of clans as second class citizens).

Before 1991 the Banadiri clan members predominantly inhabited Hamarweyne, Shibbis, Shangaani and Hamarjajab, in addition to Marka, Baraawe and Kismaayo. 34 years ago a thirty year old man in Mogadishu would not have described the status of a Banadiri person as a member of a minority clan because most of Banadiri members were comparatively well-off (they owned prime real estate in Mogadishu; their areas were in central Mogadishu), to mention some of their past economic prominence. Today Hamarweyne and Shangani still bear the signs of the destruction wrought on them during the three-month long war between General Aideed and Ali Mahdi forces 31 years ago. Banadiris, like Jareer Weyn, are political minorities whose properties and areas of origin have been taken over by clan militias that claim Mogadishu to be their clan’s stronghold.

The 4.5 system is a victory for the proponents of United Somali Congress legacy. In his PhD dissertation (it can be read at the library of his alma mater but cannot not be quoted for 10 years in line with his request to the dissertation committee), President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud absolves politicians of Human rights violations during 1990s but terms it inter-clan power struggles.

Before 1991 Mogadishu was a multi-clan capital city. Today, it is Hawiye stronghold: school buildings were taken over by clan militias; dominant subclans turned public gardens into retail outlets. Mogadishu fairgrounds (fiera) are illegally occupied by families of the militias who captured the area. It is not ordinary clan members who made the decision to dispossess fellow citizens or occupy public properties illegally; it is political leaders who oversaw the destruction of Mogadishu after they began to consider the capital city to be their clan’s stronghold. By only looking at the present-day Mogadishu and comparing it to its pre-1991 status can one understand how political minorities came into existence as a concept. It is a concept premised on dispossession and marginalisation fellow citizens.

In his 1992 essay Destruction of State and Society in Somalia: Beyond the Tribal Convention, Professor Abdi Samatar argued that USC militias had captured Mogadishu to “liberate” people from their possessions.

No Somali clan thinks it is outnumbered by another clan. That makes conducting a census a Herculean, if not a Sisyphean, task. Can Mogadishu, a capital city still unable to deal with the legacy of dispossession by politically dominant clan militias, host institutions charged with collecting data or conducting census? A clan member can claim to be a political majority on the basis of where his felllow clansmen outnumber members from other clans. Since the idea of minority in Somalia is a political imposition institutionalised at so-called reconciliation conferences, it is fair to recognise any person who claims to belong to a politically majority clan as a looter who, like an armed clan militia member, insists on being entitled to deprive other citizens of private or public assets. In the Somali vernacular that type of entitlement is known as unukaa leh.