It’s not just fair to lambast Somalians like everyone else. So I share facts that are mostly ignored or masked, that are very consequential to the Somalians and state of Somalia.
- There are generally 3 Bantu groups in Somalia.
a) The shidle/shidlle
They are pre Somali agriculturists bantu riverine groups that settled in Somalia even before arrival of Somalis.
Somali oral stories describe them as ‘people of the forest’ whom they found there.
They were in Somalia long before somalis slaves and Omanis among other early visitors
b) Shabelle river bantu farmers
They include groups such gendershe, rer Shabelle etc
They were in Somalia long before somalis,slaves and Omanis among other early visitors.
c) Bantu descendants from the slave trade(gosha/mushunguli)
They are descendants of slaves brought in from Mozambique, Tanzania,Malawi etc
They later formed settlements along areas where agriculture was feasible.
All this 3 Bantu groups were forced to blend with the somalis by intermarriage,adopting Islam, fixing their groups under Somali clan structure in order to survive and be protected. So they paid some form of rent to somalis.
Because of being black, somalis mocked them as jareer. And that contributed to most of them not being enthusiastic about their true origins but preferring to be identified as Somali.
The consequence is, you now hear Somalia is 100% Somali. I think it’s also the reason Somalis are unable to live in diversity but will do everything to somalisize anything.
These bantus were the first beneficiaries of 3rd country resettlement. Wealthy western nations like the US and UK, agreed to take them. Little about them had been known previously,it’s when NGOs started dealing with the crisis in Somalia that their plight was highlted.
This resettlement programs quickly started getting abused by Somalis and they are what they are today. You can Google and read about court cases and fraud investigations on non Somali bantus pretending to be Somali bantus.
- Somalia used to have a Christian politician called Michael Mariano,independence period.
a) He warned Somalia is one nation in name but many nations in clan reality.
b) He said Somalia had relied on aid since colonial days,no worthy income earning activity had been successfully created. He concluded that without foreign aid the country would collapse.
c) He argued Somalia needed to protect minority groups (like Somali bantus) and stop forcing them to be Somalis. He also argued religious freedom should be allowed. Without Christianity the country would fail.
d) He said, ’ a nation cannot stand on livestock alone’. The nation lacked a diversified economy.
e) He argued Somalia lacked the needed elite to run the country. There were too few educated somalis competent to run anything. The country looked set to fail
- Somalia was once under UN trusteeship. It’s not surprising even today it’s always under some sort of caretaker arrangements.
a) The UN warned that the livestock economy would collapse under drought, the country needed 30- 40 more years under colonialism/trusteeship to develop necessary manpower and structures as it lacked the needed structures to support a state.
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Somalia chased away christian missionaries, societies and organizations. Churches were converted to mosques . The end result was lack of a capable elite to lead the independent nation. The missionaries ran to Kenya for safety.
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Most early politicians and independence political parties were offshoots or influenced by what are today called extremists.
a) Salihiya Revivalism influenced by Sudanese Mahdist ideas shaped Somalia’s Sayid Mohammed Abdille.
b) Sudanese and Egyptian modernism movements were active in Somalia trying to compete with Italy and Ethiopia who were Christians in winning converts.
c) pan Islamic and pan Arabic nationalism by Egypt.
Scholarships were offered,preachers and teachers, politicians were baptized in ideologies propagated by these movements. And when they returned to Somalia, they pushed the agenda that led to formation of clubs,that transformed into parties, then chased away christian missionaries, led to establishment of a nation based on sharia supremacy.
So political parties became religious ideological instead of national, religious ideology competition intensified clan rivalries and division. This hardened clan ideologies and led to polarization. Polarization made assassinations and coups more likely. The clash between Islamic reformists and socialist reformists led to the creation of the current many groups like Alshaabab etc.
I can go on and on and on. But you can read for yourself and understand why a people seem to be so polarizing everywhere they go.
