The Politics Of The 1969 Somali Coup

Certainly little has so far occurred to diminish the strength of these traditional imperatives which, as with tribalism elsewhere, thrive on the increasing competition for scant resources, whether these are of traditional or modern origin. Where, after independence, the Government was still the main em­ployer, but no general pension scheme existed and material conditions were generally precarious, clansmen naturally continued to regard their traditional kinship ties as their ultimate safeguard and protection.

Consequently, despite the existence of an unusually well-trained and effective police force, fights and feuds in the rural areas remained a characteristic if the commonplace feature of life and towns were not immune from their politically polarizing consequences. Only the rich could sometimes afford to disregard these lineage bonds, and more typically sought to employ them selectively to advance their own personal interests. Here, however, they had to be prepared to come to terms with the claims which would inevitably be made on their re­sources by their less successful clansmen.

The principle that irrespective of education or ability, kinship ties should be recognized and honored permeated all aspects of life. It affected the composition and working of political parties and intruded forcibly into every government department and private enterprise. It also cut completely across the largely nominal division between urban and rural society. Hence, before the recent coup, cabinet ministers and wealthy urban merchants were still strongly bound to their rural cousins who looked to them for employment and preferment. The former in turn benefited from this rural support in situations — such as elections when they needed it.

Equally, although it had become fashionable to invest in banana plantations, rich and powerful men often continued to maintain profitable livestock interests (and therefore viable social and political connexions) in the rural economy. The wealthy townsman was frequently not only a nomad at heart but also in the pocket, and in urban life, itself kinship continued to play an important role.

So, for instance, in the absence of any general system of comprehensive motor insurance, the traditional (dia-paying group) procedure of life insurance was extended in the towns to cover traffic accidents. In this and many other respects, the continuities between town and country were more binding and significant than the discontinuities.

The enduring appeal of these traditional imperatives posed serious problems for those who sought to overcome their divisive implications and to replace them by a. steady attachment to the transcendent nation.

A revealing issue here concerned the necessity to find a formula to elicit and express clan identity which was both compatible with modern nationalist aspirations and, at the same time, in tune with the realities of clanship. Where members of the elite maintained that clanship was as dead as the dodo, it was clearly impossible to employ the old brusque expression `What is your clan?’ in order to establish a person’s most basic political affiliation. This difficulty was tackled with typical Somali ingenuity.

Clanship was kept at arm’s length by consigning it to the past: and so in the heady days prior to independence it became fashion­able to speak of a man’s ex-clan’, the English word ‘ex’ being even adopted into the Somali language expressly for this purpose! Nationalist solidarity had become a facon de parler if nothing else.

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