The Politics Of The 1969 Somali Coup

NATIONALISM, TRIBALISM, AND THE REVOLUTION

The Supreme Revolutionary Council’s obsessive preoccupation with treachery and betrayal, and its growing reliance on harsh repressive sanctions, inevitably suggest that its leaders no longer enjoy the public confidence which they claimed when they seized power in October 1969. The strident, almost hysterical tone of the Leader’s repeated denunciation of tribalism’, which he seeks to link with colonialism and sinister ‘neo-colonial plots’, is also a measure of the frustration and desperation which those who seek to achieve dramatic changes in the socio­economic conditions of the country must feel when they consider the glar­ing discrepancy between their aims and what has actually been achieved.

Previous civilian governments also sought to replace poverty by prosperity and to eradicate tribalism’ and other sources of nepotism and injustice. These ambitions and slogans are not new, and dissatis­faction with the previous civilian leaders centered not on their aims, but on their failure to implement them effectively and sincerely.

Strong authoritarian rule and charismatic leadership, both of which General Siyad seeks to supply, raised the hopes of many by promising a new and more effective method of tackling old problems. But the most difficult and basic of these remain unresolved, and it is a revealing indication of the present Government’s concern to proceed cautiously on the most sensitive of issues that two years after seizing power it had still not settled the vexed question of deciding on and implementing an accept­able script for the Somali language.

There are recent indications that a new initiative may be about to be made to introduce written Somali, with appropriate teaching manuals, throughout the Republic. The issues involved here concern choosing between Roman, Arabic, or Osmaniya (invented by a Somali sheikh) transliteration for the Somali language. Each script has its supporters and their intense rivalry has deterred previous governments from attempting to impose a decision. Arabic tends to appeal to those Somalis who see their identity as essentially Muslim; Osmaniya to a section of ardently nationalist Somali opinion; and the Roman script finds adherents who see it as both orthographically appropriate and politically progressive.

At this point in time, it would be both premature and presumption to try to judge whether the authoritarian means adopted by the Supreme Revolutionary Council are justified by the ends to which they are directed. That is a matter which must be left to Somali historians of the future, who may have better evidence at their disposal than is now available. It suffices to note now that the regime’s mounting difficulties follow inevitably from the army’s assumption of power. Having assumed a political role the members of the S.R.C. have naturally become in­creasingly subject to political pressures, and the old civilian party leaders whom they have supplanted must view their plight with certain ironic satisfaction and even, perhaps, sympathy.

The very fact of ruling plunges them headlong into the uninviting maelstrom of clan and lineage rivalries with which, as we have seen, they wrestle valiantly — but not yet victoriously. The legitimacy and the stability of previous civilian governments depended essentially on the extent to which they were judged to be satisfactorily representative of the major lineage interests in the country at large. The only additional claim to legitimacy that the present military administration can make is that of reformist zeal; and as long as that remains very far from being fully realized intangible benefits for the whole population, the old yardstick of clan representativeness remains, as we have seen, a critical factor.

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