Somalia should embrace communism

[globetrotter2]

Globetrotter,

Understand your history, or repeat it.

Our history contains

- Imperialism
-Colonialism
- Divide and rule
- Independence
- Democracy
- Military Junta
-Communism
-War
- attempt to emrace capitalism
- Warlordism
-Islamism
-TFGs

and ask any somali and he/she will tell you that the communism period was the best in every aspect.

But that is not an issue here. What is at stake is how best to ensure the creation of a viable nation. Gurey25 and some of the so called somalilanders think communism is why cities were bombed and why some regions were marginalised which is a wrong assertion.

You don't seem to get that.

At the onset I am not a big fun of communism but having analysed the dire situation of my people, it is worth exploring.

[Saraxnow]

MashAllah gurey, you really thought it out . Now how about we implement those ideas?


What I would like to see is a more deen and culture-oriented system whether in the local or central government. We should embrace what we already have from traditional Somali laws (xeer) that are parallel to shareeca and follow what suits us best as Somalis including taking in basic forms of Islamic Governance such as collecting Zakat tax money from the well-off and saving it in 'Bait-ul-Maal' for the poor,

avoid usury as not only is it haram but it increases the inequality gap between the poor and the rich and introduce Islamic banking (to avoid future bankruptcy as in the capitalist countries recently suffered) and many others.

If anything traditional and more Islamic roots is the way foward.

Yes tradition really works, its when we get confused and accept customs and laws that contradict islam that we have a problem.
Riba is our biggest challenge.
We already have a strong foundation in our strong family links and clans..
Why dont we use it..

We should have credit unions that provide credit to small businesses using islamic banking methods like musharaka and mudaraba. This could start a a super hagbad on a clan level but then develop into big financial enterprises that fill the role of banks..
This should be used in conjunction with complimentary community currencies to build the local economy.

These could be linked to form a strong base for the larger economy..

The central government will be forced to have interest loans from the IMF and World Bank , this way you can build an alternative
muslim economy independant from the central government, and this will later on save us from the effects of the excesses of modern kaafir capitalism.

just an idea.




by the way you will notice that i am an advocate for intrest free banking and financial systems, this and agriculture are my new pet interests these days..
I think i am a good judge because i used to trade in the stock market and currency market and made allot of money,
I also lost allot of money and was $300,000 in debt.
I have made that back and i am now broke , but owe nothing to no one and it is a blessing from allah.
This is why its my mission to campaign against riba.

Bless you, that must have been horrible. Debt-free is definitely

Exactly riba is basically the back-bone of capitalism which is all about making the interests of the corporation come first and basically is about consumerism with no interest in the moral framework the product comes in, as long as it sells its all good


You have other similar ideas to mine about the IMF and other world bank there and others too.


What about micro-banking in a poor place like Somaliland, I think this is what Baxsane used to do and I heard that it was a success. It could be implemented more generally by say, companies, but they would need to be more philantrophist or give it knowing they will get Ajr for their work.

[Saraxnow]

Globetrotter,

Understand your history, or repeat it.

and ask any somali and he/she will tell you that the communism period was the best in every aspect.

But that is not an issue here. What is at stake is how best to ensure the creation of a viable nation. Gurey25 and some of the so called somalilanders think communism is why cities were bombed and why some regions were marginalised which is a wrong assertion. You don't seem to get that.

At the onset I am not a big fun of communism but having analysed the dire situation of my people, it is worth exploring.

You sound ridiculously silly.

Communism is part of the problem, yes, but it did not bomb Somaliland cities.


Can you explain why you think Communism is the solution for Somalia apart from looking back at the ''best period in Somali history''?

[Saraxnow]

I will hopefully come back (after I finish my work) with the reasons why both Captialism on one extreme and Communism on the other extreme are not fit as ideologies or political systems to be embraced in a society such as the Somali one.

[Monk-of-Mogadishu]

Read your Marx,

Tribalism is a step in every peoples history, economic realities/relations are at the origin of tribalism! when economic relations change tribalism will disappear little by little!
for instance if majority somalis become farmers or factory workers, they no longer need tribe to survive and tribalism will diminish in intensity!

B.

I disagree. A lot of Somalis, including my family, picked up farming about a century ago but they still remained deeply tribalist, more so than their pastoralist counterparts. A lot of Harti and Isaaq left pastoralism in the late 1800s and early 1900s to become merchants, intellectuals and farmers - and their clan identity (the Harti certainly) became even stronger and more militant than their days of pastoralism.

[gurey25]

globetrotter i dont understand you obcession with communism..
you do not even sound like you have absorbed its tenets.
Marxs himself would argue that somalia is not yet in a capitalist stage and so it is not ripe for communism.

economics is also not a hard science apart from the basic fundamentals the majority of economic theories are akin to propaganda.
You have swallowed it whole without being critical..

One should approach economic development like an engineer, and think how do i get from a to b and do it
through investigation and maybe even some good old fashioned trial and error.

fiddle with it and see if it works is better than , reading from the bible of your colonialists and believing its dogma.

Lets leave islam out of this and lets imagine we are both non muslims arguing about economic development..
It would seem from your writting that you are a believer in ideology , this will not get you anywhere.
The world is full of disaster stories about leaders who were believers in an ideology, and also full of success stories about leaders who threw ideology out the window.

Are you familiar with Lee kwan yu of singapore? He was a communist growing up but he was a pragmatic man when in power and
you must admit Singapore is a success story.
Mahatir Mohamed of malaysia had zero ideology, he just wanted malaysia to get from A to B and he would do anything to get there..
Park chung chee was another one who had no interest in ideology, and look at where he took south korea.

there are more examples but these stand out..

You do not need communism or capitalism or any ism..
you need to approach this critically, how do i get from A to B.

One clue is to do the opposite of what the IMF/World Bank and your western friends tell you to do for your own good,
and do exactly what they did when they were developing.
http://www.paecon.net/PAEtexts/Chang1.htm

[FarhanYare]

no communism

[bareento]

Read your Marx,

Tribalism is a step in every peoples history, economic realities/relations are at the origin of tribalism! when economic relations change tribalism will disappear little by little!
for instance if majority somalis become farmers or factory workers, they no longer need tribe to survive and tribalism will diminish in intensity!

B.

I disagree. A lot of Somalis, including my family, picked up farming about a century ago but they still remained deeply tribalist, more so than their pastoralist counterparts. A lot of Harti and Isaaq left pastoralism in the late 1800s and early 1900s to become merchants, intellectuals and farmers - and their clan identity (the Harti certainly) became even stronger and more militant than their days of pastoralism.

Monk,
did these somali,s u are refering to, became farmers themselves or did they became farm owners?
Intellectuals use tribalism for their own purpose they wont be the first to leave tribalism. The same is true for the merchants.

B.

[Grant]

Globetrotter,

How far back does your "Imperialism" go ? Do you include the Habash, Ottomans, Egyptians and Omanis? I assume by "colonial" you mean the British and Italians.....

While some Somali clans were involved with Adal in fighting the Habash and Portuguese, most foreign influences remained peripheral to the Somali experience until about 1880. Even then, most governance was internal to the clans and local administrations in settled areas. If you pick 1880 as your starting point, you are only talking about a little over two hundred years and you have already missed the best parts.

Qabiil and Heer evolved over millenia. They are the great strengths and glory of the Somali people. Four and five generations later the descendants of the Somali sailors in the UK are still Isaaq, and there is a reason for that: qabiil works!

Jews are tribal. Mormons are tribal. The Amish are tribal. Catholics are tribal. Protestants are tribal. The Shia and Alawites are tribal. The various tribes are able to form governments and unite in common projects by recognizing a common good and goals that can only be achieved by working together. The tribes stay tribes, and you don't try to eliminate them or reduce their power.

As nomads, Somalis have always been able to walk away from an obnoxious neighbor, and I believe this colors the clear Somali reluctance to compromise. The big population move from miyi into Hamar did not occur until the late Sixties and Seventies, so that it was essentially a single generation that made the move into the pressure cooker. Looking back, I don't think we should be all that surprised at the results.

But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Heer, shir and qabiil have brought the people a long way, much further than through Imperialism or the colonial period. They will need adaptation to current circumstances, but have got to be better for the Somali people than any outside ideology. Especially any of the extremes.

In my opinion, qabiil is not the problem: It's corruption, nepotism, and a lack of focus on goals, common problems in many unified societies. Deal with them with checks and balances the way other societies have.

[globetrotter2]

First and foremost, I knew I will offend some people. As soon as you don't agree with their perspective you are either a traitor or silly. I repeat under communism Somalia was peaceful. It was the collapse of communism which created an atmosphere of hatred and allowed tribalism to flourish.

Gurey, I am pretty sure that I am an authority on Marx (please note that there is a difference between Marxian philosphy and Marxism). Communism at its best form is utopia.

It is fair to assume from your rants on interest rates that your knowledge of the field is limited. You are like a typical somali who does not differentiate between usery and interest (cost of capital).

Grant,
I meant all of them not only the neocolonial powers.

You fail to understand that tribalism à somali is like a cult system; you are a prison intellectually and cannot reason. Corruption, nepotism and other social ills are the the symbols of this maligma. t has become the invisible god; with the current momentum even so called intellectuals cannot express their views without consulting this god.

True, many nations were tribal but that belongs to history.

My guess is that you are not aware of this devil; you sound like a foreigner who has been fed by a tribalistic somali on the pros.

You have unfortunately, a wide defination of tribalism; in the somali context, we have been led to blv that it is genetic. I don't have a problem with a sufi tribe, a wahabi tribe, Mudug Tribe etc.

[bareento]

Globe,
I havent read the whole thread but if I may u described one of the past somali regimes as communism in one of your posts.
I beg to differ. That regime can best described as a regime pursuing a non-capitalist way of developpement and in no way a communism.

Communism is the result of class struggle in a capitalistic societies; the proletariat takes the power and leads the society by establishing what is called in leftist jargon "the dictatorship of the proletariat".
In countries where the proletariate is inexistent, speaking of communisms is difficult...in fact it is the petty bourgeoisie who uses the leftist phraseology to ride the power; when the leftist phraseology went out fashion or is no more profitable, the very same petty bourgeoisie switches to clanism!
Clanism as ideology is what the ruling class uses to take power and justify his power! its an ideology!

The question is why it took such a sharp version in Somalia; that can be explained by the objective economic condition/relation of the somali state.
Its very interesting to see the somali state's relations with international money powers, they practically brought to its knees the somali state, this further exacerbated the internal contradiction in the somali society that led to further radicalization of clan elites etc...
One can read somali tragedy through economic reality/relations...

B.

[globetrotter2]

Dear Barento,
True, Communism is based on class struggle. It is an emancipation of an oppressed folk. and that is why the struggle against tribalism comes in. The proletariat=masses.

The key argument that I am trying to pursue in this thread is that it is the only form of governance that has functioned in somalia. As a political path it is not a bad phenomenon; at its best communism - if practised accordingly- is not that horrible. Unfortunately, it has been given a bad name.

Back to somalia's contemporary history; the best period of stability has been between 1970-1978 and this was a time of communism. It is when somalis abandoned it that our path to destruction was embarked upon.

We could debate for decades as to the cause of our trauma; but communism was not a cause.

Somalia's problem is about institutions (weak) in which tribalism and a culture of passiveness, nepotism, corruption flourishes. At the centre stage of this weak institution is tribalism as a form of organisation. We need to leave this primitive god and embrace a system that works and there is where communism- albeit for a short term comes into the picture; for a starter, communism could be used as a rallying power; organise, mobilise; it can be a substitute to tribalism. Communism is better than capitalism in that the latter is often about efficiency.

[bareento]

Global,
I think I now see your point...to be honest I had and still have the same appreciation of wat people refer to as communism.
ie not per se refering to the ideology and its long term philosophical speculation but rather focussing on its organizational techniques , on the enthusiasm that it inspires to the masses and the popular energy that it liberate...I agree that these can overcome tribalism, give the mass a goal and help advance in the road of developpement!

Once the masses are identified to the proletariate, and clanism to the ideology to be combatted we have to find who is the class enemy
We can say we fight for the mass using the leftist ideology agains the clanist ideology but whom would we fight?
we have to identify the class enemy?

Conceretely who is the enemy? That is the question my friend.

B.

[gurey25]

i still dont understand how communism gets into the picture here?
There was no mass party, not even a vangaurd party, there wasnt even much of a revolution.
There was a coup, a re-alignment with the Soviets against the west and the adoption of the Marxist-Lenininst language without anything concrete
established .

and 8 years is not even near enough for any revolution to have results.


and plus you are overlooking the disaster that was done to somali agriculture, through attempted collectivisation..
Ok the government took over mostly Italian owned commercial farms, but then turned them from profit making enterprises to loss making ones quickly..

Others in this forum with direct experience can provide examples...

I do not understand your translation of European social conditions into somalia?
What class struggle? there are no classes there are nomadic clans and sedentary clans, there are lower class clans that are oppressed but they make up less than 10% of the population.

apples and oranges..

There was zero communism in somalia, i suggest you focus your attention on Ethiopia and Eritrea where there were genuine revolutions and a real class struggle
with the peasants and petty bourgeois overturning the Land holders and church..

[globetrotter2]

Dear Barento,
The enemy of course is the god; tribalism. This invisible god can only go in hibernation if there is an organisational form that can mobilise the masses.

Please note that I am talking about the short term. To make sure that there is a momentum. Trully, my friend, almost all somalis are communists; note the nostalgic approach of many somalis (pictures of somalia, its army, how good it was etc).

The so called 4,5 which many armchair somalis love and which is viewed as good by foreigners is a horrible form of organisation. It mutates and before you know it we have 4, 5, 100,9 etc.