Since the summer of 2011, there has been a crisis that the world’s media has not been reporting upon with the urgency that it deserves. The Horn of Africa, comprising Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia, is facing another famine that the constituent countries are unable to deal with. The online resource, Famine Early Warning System (www.fews.net) claims that at least two large areas of Southern Somalia are facing catastrophic conditions. Those fleeing the effects of the famine have made their way to the eastern part of Kenya, where according to conservative estimates, there are more than 3 million people living in makeshift relief camps. Geographers and social scientists are calling this the worst famine that has been visited upon the people of the Horn of Africa in over 60 years.
The main causes for the famine are actually a combination of climatic and political factors. According to Swiss political scientist, Dr. Tobias Hagmann, who is based at the University of California at Berkeley, the price increase in staple crops like sorghum and rice, as well as debilitating droughts in the region, have merged to create famine conditions. What compounds matters, he says, is the erroneous media assumption that pastoralist depredations and the absence of a strong centralised state have added to the crisis. As a matter of fact, Hagmann and his clutch of colleagues who work on east Africa and Horn of Africa related conflicts, opine that the collapse of the state is only one aspect of the issue. They also feel that the anti-pastoral discourse is flawed, for it remains a major source of livelihood for many Somalis and to abandon it, as experts are wont to suggest would mean the end of their culture and economy.
International aid agencies and the western media are of the opinion that part of the problem is related to the ongoing conflict between a weak transitional state and the militant group, (that owes allegiance to the Islamic Courts Union) Al Shabaab. The United States of America lists the latter as a terrorist organisation. Hence any agency that seeks to deal with the organisation, risks running foul of the nebulous Material Support (for Terrorism) Statute in the US. This is difficult to ignore, since Al Shabaab actually controls a significant portion of territory in Somalia and has also exhibited the ability to retain its authority over the area that it controls. The organisation has, until recently, banned the entry of foreign aid agencies that it considers to be working on behalf of the US State department.
Somalia’s conflicts have its roots in the European scramble for empire in the 19th century, when Somali peoples were divided into different territorial units without their consent. Ethiopia, a predominantly Christian country, with a long tradition of monarchical rule, was seen as a natural, though subservient mirror by European colonizers such as the Italians. As a result, they began to divide Somali territory, leaving much of it in Ethiopia’s adverse control. In addition to this, in the 1970s the Soviet-supported Somali state transferred large numbers of its mobile, pastoral population (from the north) to the riverine areas of the south in the hope that they would begin to cultivate the land and grow more food. This combination of social and political engineering rendered the population vulnerable to external threats, including drought-induced famines.
The current view that Somalia needs an infusion of famine relief in the short run and achieves food security in the long run, is perhaps misplaced. For one, the current transitional government in Mogadishu is not representative of the entire country; leave alone the dispersed Somali nation. Its authority and control do not extend beyond the capital city and there is every possibility that it will not be able to deal with the disbursement of famine relief. An interlocutor, acceptable to both Al-Shabaab and the western countries that support the transitional government, will have to be found for the short-term famine relief strategy to work. In addition, Somalia’s food security is dependent upon restoring sovereign rights to the dispersed Somali nation, whose territory has been arbitrarily divided.
Sanjay (Xonzoi) Barbora
xonzoi.barbora@gmail.com
The main causes for the famine are actually a combination of climatic and political factors. According to Swiss political scientist, Dr. Tobias Hagmann, who is based at the University of California at Berkeley, the price increase in staple crops like sorghum and rice, as well as debilitating droughts in the region, have merged to create famine conditions. What compounds matters, he says, is the erroneous media assumption that pastoralist depredations and the absence of a strong centralised state have added to the crisis. As a matter of fact, Hagmann and his clutch of colleagues who work on east Africa and Horn of Africa related conflicts, opine that the collapse of the state is only one aspect of the issue. They also feel that the anti-pastoral discourse is flawed, for it remains a major source of livelihood for many Somalis and to abandon it, as experts are wont to suggest would mean the end of their culture and economy.
International aid agencies and the western media are of the opinion that part of the problem is related to the ongoing conflict between a weak transitional state and the militant group, (that owes allegiance to the Islamic Courts Union) Al Shabaab. The United States of America lists the latter as a terrorist organisation. Hence any agency that seeks to deal with the organisation, risks running foul of the nebulous Material Support (for Terrorism) Statute in the US. This is difficult to ignore, since Al Shabaab actually controls a significant portion of territory in Somalia and has also exhibited the ability to retain its authority over the area that it controls. The organisation has, until recently, banned the entry of foreign aid agencies that it considers to be working on behalf of the US State department.
Somalia’s conflicts have its roots in the European scramble for empire in the 19th century, when Somali peoples were divided into different territorial units without their consent. Ethiopia, a predominantly Christian country, with a long tradition of monarchical rule, was seen as a natural, though subservient mirror by European colonizers such as the Italians. As a result, they began to divide Somali territory, leaving much of it in Ethiopia’s adverse control. In addition to this, in the 1970s the Soviet-supported Somali state transferred large numbers of its mobile, pastoral population (from the north) to the riverine areas of the south in the hope that they would begin to cultivate the land and grow more food. This combination of social and political engineering rendered the population vulnerable to external threats, including drought-induced famines.
The current view that Somalia needs an infusion of famine relief in the short run and achieves food security in the long run, is perhaps misplaced. For one, the current transitional government in Mogadishu is not representative of the entire country; leave alone the dispersed Somali nation. Its authority and control do not extend beyond the capital city and there is every possibility that it will not be able to deal with the disbursement of famine relief. An interlocutor, acceptable to both Al-Shabaab and the western countries that support the transitional government, will have to be found for the short-term famine relief strategy to work. In addition, Somalia’s food security is dependent upon restoring sovereign rights to the dispersed Somali nation, whose territory has been arbitrarily divided.
Sanjay (Xonzoi) Barbora
xonzoi.barbora@gmail.com
