Not surprisingly, the countryside is abuzz with activity as well. Plows work the land as food stockpiles overflow with their life-giving bounty — all of it lubricated by the perfect and inviolable Somali clan system. This futuristic governance has all but eliminated the need for traditional state governments. Here, every person’s need is met, and society and production continue at a steady clip, uninterrupted by the clan infighting and power grabs that have dogged Somalia’s African neighbors.

It seems you cannot walk two feet in any direction in Somalia without bumping into a plump, smiling face. Yes, whether traveling on the gem of a country’s mint-condition roads, relaxing on its sparkling beaches, or exploring its high-tech cities, there is little doubt Somalia is a nation … on the GROW!

If you lost your own government and its 50 percent or whatever tax rate, does it mean that you will be forced to live in a mud hut and ride a camel everywhere? I doubt it.

This is maybe the funniest thing I’ve read all year, and I’m a little sad that I’m only finding it now. Please, Ms. Kim, please please please tell me you now read this with a mixture of chagrin and embarrassment.

Or, better yet, why don’t you head off to Somalia to start up your own company? I hear the telecom sector’s absolutely thriving there…

Are you being sarcastic? “Less” regulation being the problem is baloney. The Federal Register has over 80K pages of regulations in it and that number is increasing steadily every day.

I would recommend reading, in full, a few good books on Austrian, truly free-market economics. /Economics in One Lesson/ is a good starter. Then I’d recommend picking up a Rothbard work… you can find them free here on Mises.org, as I’m sure you know.

What Has Government Done to Our Money, Man, Economy, and State, America’s Great Depression, The Case Against the Fed… all must reads.

Back then I almost bought into the arguments proposed in the article.

In hindsight I see libertarianism as hopelessly naive. I don’t see how anyone would rationally look to Somalia as a role model for anything.

Nevermind that in our own country we’ve recently witnessed supposed free-market worshippers begging for financial bailouts from the government, all because of situations that were created by LESS regulation.

Unfortunately, the area that van Notten settled in, and primarily wrote about, was Somaliland, specifically Awdal–you know, that territory with one provisional government that you so despite. In Somaliland, outside the major cities, people are mostly free to practice traditional clan life.

According to people who live there, even Somaliland is nowhere near as rosy as van Notten paints it. And note that it has a much lower per capital GNP than any of the neighboring countries.

In the areas controlled by warlords things are much worse, and even more so in many uncontrolled areas, where people continue to die of civil war, gang violence, and banditry. It’s no good appealing to your clan judge for a settlement against a member of a clan that’s at war with yours, or an outlaw former colonel with a private army.

You might also want to look into how Somali free enterprise actually works before praising it. For example, the vaunted telecommunications industry relies on an industry assocation in Dubai, paid for by the UN, the ITU, and a handful of multinationals like Sprint and Telenor, governed and insured under UAE laws. This type of “importing governance” is common, as is this type of foreign subsidy. For another example, the much-praised University is paid for by international Islamic charities, not by private enterprise.

So much for the anarcho-capitalist miracle.

With all due respect, I do not think Yumi Kim was trying to argue that Somalia is anything close to an ideal of anarchy, but simply points out that the jlib IS an example of a process of self-governance that explains the violence attending the attempt to form a centralized government. The jlib is also a method of social organization different from our western conception of democracy that, for all its flaws, shows some definite advantages over our alleged democracies, particularly the way it retains government close to the people instead of enshrining it behind bulletproof glass, metal detectors, dirty money, and shady elections.

This lands me on the so-called “efficient anarchy” or put mildly, the now ubiquitous mantra of “self-enforcing exchange” of pre-colonial Africa. I do not know from whence isolated cases here and there have come to be the basis of scientific induction. The Africa in question doesn’t correspond to the one I as an African, have known by history and experience. Most of the African societies cited as examples of stateless societies where individuals traded and bartered on the basis of self-enforcing exchange relations were also societies that condoned slavery. Is slavery not fundamentally antithetical to the efficient anarchy hypothesis?

Somalia might be stateless from the point of view of an outsider – much as Japan is religionless from outside (this, in spite of the fact that every Japanese house enclose a family shrine and their technologies embody diverse elements of their traditional religious beliefs)- but to a Somali, who understands the language and intuitions of his culture, nothing could be further from the truth.

Economists and journalists should confine their analysis to what their methodologies are good for: analysis of data as quantum. When they begin to pretend to be anthropologists and philosophers, they sound simply, silly.

http://developmentsociety.blogspot.com/

This lands me on the so-called “efficient anarchy” or put mildly, the now ubiquitous mantra of “self-enforcing exchange” of pre-colonial Africa. I do not know from whence isolated cases here and there have come to be the basis of scientific induction. The Africa in question doesn’t correspond to the one I as an African, have known by history and experience. Most of the African societies cited as examples of stateless societies where individuals traded and bartered on the basis of self-enforcing exchange relations were also societies that condoned slavery. Is slavery not fundamentally antithetical to the efficient anarchy hypothesis?

Somalia might be stateless from the point of view of an outsider – much as Japan is religionless from outside (this, in spite of the fact that every Japanese house enclose a family shrine and their technologies embody diverse elements of their traditional religious beliefs)- but to a Somali, who understands the language and intuitions of his culture, nothing could be further from the truth.

Economists and journalists should confine their analysis to what their methodologies are good for: analysis of data as quantum. When they begin to pretend to be anthropologists and philosophers, they sound simply, silly.

http://developmentsociety.blogspot.com/

I respond to your comments which I am afraid are not based on the facts like that of Yumi Kim.

1. Foreign held peace conferences

The reason peace conferences are held on foreign soil like the latest one held in Kenya (2002 to 2004) is the need to find a neutral ground where warring factions can talk without a threat of being attacked. This happens in all wars from the ancient to the modern. It is the same reason why the Israelis and Palestinians held their talks in Madrid, Washington and Oslo and the same is with the current negotiations in Geneva between the Tamil Tigers rebels and the Sri Lankan government. The only time negotiations can happen inside the country and between the factions is when certain level of security and trust is attained. I myself would have prefered and work for negotiation to be held in Somalia but I realize it is close to impractical.

The Nairobi peace talks was sponsored by IGAD which Somalia is a founding member therefore it expected and it owes to this organizaiton. Also, IGAD member states are doing it for continued lawlessness in Somalia affects their own security and for other national interests. Finacial help came from some African, Arab, European countries and China who have interests in Somalia. Somalia expects help from friends at this hour of its need (and it will repay it in the future) as itself helped many countries in the past whether it was in situations of humanitarian, conflicts of arms and fights against colonialism. So please do not put it as Somalis were beggers down on their knees in Nairobi peace talks. I myself during my participation in Nairobi negotiations for a period of 15 months have paid from my pocket.

I wonder what you mean self-determination. Do you mean Somalia to be dissembered along clan lines and each clan given the opportunity to secede from Somalia. Would self-determination be based on individual level and not at clan level, needs clarification? To me this is an evil policy which works for the destruction of Somalia and we will not accept that whoever it may come from whether enemy countries like Ethiopia or former occupying colonialists, mafia like NGOs or war profiteers. You are contradicting yourself for you want to impose this clan law you have packaged in your own interest onto the Somalis. Don’t you think if the Somali people wanted this so-called clan law they will have adopted it long ago?

If you mean self-determination elections for the people to decide their faith then there is yet no conducive environment for that to happen. For your reminder peace talks do not impose permanent solutions. Their purpose is of three fold: institute cease fire, reconcile and build a transitional governance structures. After this transitional period where security, governance and rebuilding is restored then the people are asked to vote on a permanent constitution. This is self-determination. If you are saying people are asked to vote in this anarchy now without a transitional period then I think your believe in your libertarianism is self-defeating for it is impractical. Any ideology or believe system must be practical in the real world not only in books or theory.

The current peace talks has failed not because of lack of self-determination but not sticking with the three fold purpsoe of peace talks which I have mentioned above. Of couse countries will like to see their interest get the upper hand in Somalia especially in this time of our weakest moment. I am sure Kenya and Ethiopia who are our historical foes have tried to get their way in Somalia but non will and can impose their will on the Somalis. If any country could have imposed on the Somalis then they would have done it in the past 15 years. The UN and the USA run away from Somalia in 1993. I think Black Hawk Down is a reminder to all. So I do not see this idea of imposition you are talking about. Anyone can try but they will lose.

2. Living in Somalia, adoption by marriage, somali indepent spirit and the issue of ” Somalialand”

You have said you have lived in Somalia. Which part? I think you have lived in the Northern parts of Somalia which have escaped most of the fighting and is relatively save now. I say relatively because even in those parts sometimes situation can get out of hand though not freguent. The fact is the peace in those Northern parts is not maintained by clan structures but local governments. I remind you Somalia is not only the pockets in the north and are not strategic in terms of the current civil war situation whether political, military, economical or population wise. This areas you have lived are far from the fightings areas for over 1000 km and cannot be true for the situation in most parts of the country. In any war situation there is always peaceful enclaves for whatever reasons they have acheived that.

I again invite you and Yumi Kim to come to the Central to Southern parts of the country where the majority of the Somali population are and to live like an ordinary person without hiring gangs of drug induced under-aged militias armed with technicals. If you survive which I doubt you will then this blog will be eagerly waiting to hear your experience.

In Somali order of things there is no adoption into clan through marriage. In marriage women maintain their original names so she will not use the surname of her husband. Through marriage women maintain their individual indentity whether name, family or clan. There is no even the word adoption in the Somali language in the sense used for in the English language. So you are born into the clan you are. But there is this concept of sheegasho which means claiming to be a different clan. If you want to call that adoption then call it. Sheegasho in the Somali language mean to claim. So one can claim another clan and they maybe accepted into that new structure. This usually happens not at lower level of clan structure but upper level of clan confederations for political and military alliance. But this is not wide spread and it is not a popular concept which has its sterotype.

I agree with you Somalis have strong independent spirit but you have failed to mention the whole concept of clan structure and cohesion involves surrendering some personal liberties. No individual liberty will be tolerated if it is counter to the greater good of the community for your case clan interests. So you can say the clan you are advocated for is itself a modern government in miniture which oppress personal liberty. I do not see differences for clan is a primitive form of social organization which the world has moved from. Your analysis of Somali mindset is to me in the least incomplete. You have have talked alot about property as like a holly-cow but you do not understand Somalis do not consider natural resources like land or water can be owned by an individual. They are public property for all community to benefit from so never dream to buy islands or big range lands for your own property. A Somali can never understand your mind like as the Indian Americans have failed to understand the European colonialist mind that land can be owned by an individual.

For the issue of Northern Somalia or the self-declared “Republic of Somaliland”, it is a political issue and an internal issue for the Somalis to resolve. I do not recognize it for I believe in the unity of Somali people not only the unity of Somalia as a country but also uniting all other Somali inhabited land in the Horn of Africa which is occupied to this day. Somalis were divided into five parts by the Europeans. Somalia is formed by two parts of those five. I believe in Great Somali unity or pan-Somalism. Northern regions seccession have nothing to do with clan for its claims to secede from Somalia are based on colonial boundaries and other political claims. This issue will be resolved for not all want to secede from Somalia. No country recognized the so-called “Somaliland” in the past 15 years and this is an indication of the failure of this policy and they themselves recongnize it. Only the Somalis can decide their faith so you do not have any right whatsoever to advocate for a dissemberment of my country. I am sure you do not wish I to advocate for your country to be dissembered. So please do not interfere in the internal affairs of Somalia which you do not have enough understanding.

3. On Michael van Notten
Your arguement that Michael van Notten is rich is a weak one. Are you telling me all these big comapnies or individuals who fuel wars in Africa are not rich. The man advocated for no strong State structure to exist in Somalia and to only deal with clans like during the European occupation of Africa. Divide and rule concept smells from this. The world has moved on including Somalia. His idea is to have weak authorities so he can get whatever he wants from those localized weak clan authorities and when finished with their resources move to the next victim. The scramble for African will not be repeated again.

Your belittling of Michael expulsion from Northern Somalia is amusing. No clan expelled him but the authorities of “Somalialand”. It is absurd even more to the Somalis you talking about Gibril Younis, Makahil etc as if clans have ruling government structures in Somalia. He was expelled by a government which is made up of all the clan in those regions. Those who demand of prove of the claims I have made against Michael the prove is his expulsion and if you need more then you can contact the government of “Somaliland”. What is more absurd is you talking about “Somaliland” fearing attack from this non-existing Kingdom of Freedonia.

The humanitarian projects he has done you are talking about are to me only cover-up to enter the country and conceal the hiden agenda.

4. Somali indentity and the basis of the protracted civil conflict

Yes Somalis are made up of clans and their number are many. But outsiders cannot comprehend that Somalis consider themselves as one nation and this identity of Somalism borders extreme xenophobia. Clan is just an internal social structure but not overal national identity. Somalis share the same language, culture, religion and way of life. We may be structured along clan lines but when a foreigner comes to the play the Somalis see themselves as Somali. And no foreigner can never be considered a Somali but will be tolerated like a guest. Have you ever seen a Somali identify himself when asked by a foreigner who he is by his clan name and not as Somali. A Somali will tell he is that clan only when asked directly. I am sure Jim himself will attest to this. So this libertarians who advocated for clan law got it wrong and are advocating for a concept which is based on drops of facts from the Somali society.

Somali civil conflict has more to do with external inteferences, war economy and power hungry individuals. Clan is only mobilizing tool for the warlords. The political and armed group in Somalia are allied across clan lines. It is about gaining power. It is not different from other conflicts in Africa like Liberia or Congo. Somalia located in a strategic area of Horn of Africa and bordered by countries like Ethiopia who are its historical enemies has contributed for lack of end to the conflict. The conflict of Somalia as mere clan competition is a cheap analysis of the true fact in Somalia. It is like deducing the Iraq expanding conflict as competition between Kurds, Sunni and Shia and thus forgeting the causes of the conflict which is the invasion, oil, regional interests and Al-Qaeda. The Somali conflict is political and also has regional dimmension to it.

I hope this points has shade for you some light to the complicated Somali situation.

And calling this mayhem a “loving-it” situation is utter disregard of the struggling Somalis, whose daily livelihood is absent, such as the most basic need of humanity: security and living in peace. Neither of it is available in much of Somalia, as this latest war attests.

Yeah, the two nothern regions [Somaliland and Puntland] are doing much, much better than the chaotic south. Why? Because the nominal governments in place in those areas. That is the reality.

An example of your factual error is this sentence:

“…the Somali shilling has become far more stable in world currency markets…”

The Somali shilling collapsed years ago. Any merciless warlord/businessman without a conscience prints it as he or she sees fit. It thus devalued more than a thousand percentage. There is only one denomination available: 1000 S/sh. Nothing higher than it and nothing lesser. 1000 alone doesn’t buy you anything now, not even a cup of tea. A combination of it does.

When the last functioning Somali government was in effective, the lowest denomination was 10 S/sh and the highest, you guessed it, 1000 S/sh, with four more in between.

It is interesting that you attribute the mainstream reports of rival gangs murdering each other to a lack of effective clan law rather than, say, the external stimuli of millions of dollars in “aid” to people who would organize and impose a new government on Somalia. Much of the fighting that I’ve read about takes place in Mogadishu, presumably over the bones of the old state. My colleagues and I who traveled extensively in Somalia from 1995 to 2001 did not encounter any of this alleged gang warfare.

There were some clan conflicts that Michael reported on, to me. He pointed out that it was often the case that clans with disputes would alert each other to the need for a settlement conference with some shooting of guns, not always targeting anyone in particular. Disputes over territory were very often settled peacefully without any shots being fired, but not always. Not far from your example of Italy in space or time are numerous European conflicts where nationalist and socialist laws were found wanting in, say, the Balkans as recently as 1993-1999.

Somalia is a nice place full of good people. It is also a place where Somalis live. While many Somalis are individually quite hospitable toward tourists and many clan groups are quite honorable about invested capital, it is not the case that Somalis would like to create a homeland for foreigners within their country. Many Somalis have pointed to the example of Palestine and Israel as a path not to follow.

Similarly, Somalia has not entirely resolved its own difficulties with occupying foreign powers. The Ogaden would be an example, much like militarily occupied Texas, where another country occupies rather a lot of Somali territory – and pays very little attention to its own constitutional limits to power. The war over the Ogaden in 1978 is said to have created a million refugees – many of whom are apparently still to be found in UNHCR “camps” along the border.

If you want to move to Somalia, I would urge you to make friends with some Somalis. There is a broad diaspora of Somalis in most English and some French and Italian speaking countries. Somalis have strong clan ties, and as a guest in their country you should consider making specific ties.

Ties of marriage work very well. Another type of relationship is abaan to marti – patron to client or host to guest. The terms have very particular meanings in Somali language which don’t perfectly translate. The marti has duties to the clan elder who sponsors him, including obedience to the customary law and integrity in his dealings. The abaan stands as a father-figure to provide protection to the guest and insure against the guest’s liabilities in the last resort.

So, if you want to live in Somalia, having a bunch of your friends move there and set up your own jilib would possibly seem like aggression to the local people. It is, after all, their country, not yours. So, if you are invited to live there, great. If you wish to invest in businesses there, I think there are many opportunities. If you want to form a relationship with particular Somalis, they are very hospitable, courteous, and friendly people, in my experience.

But, any talk of moving a large number of foreigners to Somalia to set up a colony there must remind Somalis of their very bad experiences under British, French, Italian, and Ethiopian colonial rule. To give you a sense of how big a deal it is to Somalis, you may wish to consider the text of the Gadabursi-British treaty of 1895 or thereabouts – you could look it up. As was related to me, that treaty specified that the British governor whenever he visited Gadabursi (or Samaron) territory was to be seen to bathe his feet after his visit so that not one grain of sand from Somali territory would be carried back to England.

So, do find Somalis and form business and cultural relationships with them. Do not seek to occupy their country. They don’t need Mises colonists any more than they needed British or French ones.

It might also make sense to consider whether the UN’s demands for a government for all of Somalia are motivated by humanitarian concerns, or a desire to have the $2.6 billion plus interest in foreign loans paid back by forcibly taxing the Somali people. Since most of that money was lent to the dictator Xiad Barre prior to 1988 and since he used the money to, among other things, massacre women and children in Berbera and torture many Somalis, you can see where resistance to taxes and UN sponsored governments is considerable.

Regards,

Jim
http://indomitus.net/

In one sense the article sounds like an analysis of the railroad punctuality under Mussolini, just noting in passing a few of the other fascist going on, titled “how to make trains run on time”.

If it is the libertarian paradise, then why don’t we who read this blog all move there, set up our own Mises jilib, and live in freedom, peace, and safety?

With particular regard to the comments of Mr. Mahamed Abdullahi, I would like to point out the following.

Mahamed says, “I am Somali and was involved in the peace negotiations in Kenya….”

Please note that the people who were involved in the peace negotiations in Kenya traveled there and lived there for many months. I have heard that their living expenses were paid for by the conference organizers. I heard similar things about the earlier conference in Djibouti. It is interesting that the fate of Somalis is supposed to be determined at conferences in Nairobi, or Arta, or in the halls of the United Nations, or in a Congress in Berlin in the 19th Century that drew lines on the map of Africa, but, somehow, the people of Somalia who live within Somalia are not expected to have the freedom of self-determination.

Mahamed notes, “I invite Yumi Kim to Somalia and live like an ordinary Somali just for a day and we will adopted her into a clan.”

I have lived in Somalia, and for many months. I would alert Yumi Kim to the possibility that it is traditional for women to be brought into a clan by marriage. Given the other things Mahamed says, I would not necessarily trust his intentions.

Mahamed says, “Then I hope after this she will change her little fantasy myth and write a realistic description of lawlessness and reject anarchism.”

In my time in Somalia, I observed no lawlessness. I do personally reject the term anarchism, because it is inappropriate to me. I prefer a particular form of government called self-government – the government of the individual, by himself, for his own benefit. I think many Somalis have a similar independent spirit and prefer to have their persons, property, and traditions respected. I find that the various efforts to impose a new government on Somalia are accompanied by demands for UN peacekeepers, or thousands of troops from such freedom-respecting paragons of virtue as Sudan.

Given the record of UN peacekeepers in raping children in the Congo, abandoning their friends and associates in Rwanda to genocidal massacres, and invading and terrorizing Somalia in 1993, I would not regard the UN as respecting life, liberty, or property. Thus, Mr. Mahamed Abdullahi is the one who is advocating lawlessness – the lawlessness of externally imposed government.

Mahamed continues, and gets worse: “The fellow she mentioned that is Michael van Notten is a war profiteer who was only intered to rob Somali wealth.”

That’s not true. Michael van Notten was part of a very wealthy Dutch family. I have had the honor and privilege of staying in the homes of his children and other members of his Dutch family. Michael had no need of war profits.

Indeed, he was not a war profiteer, but a gentle man who wisely saw many opportunities to avert suffering by bringing in new technologies and funds. He formed in Ethiopia’s Somali region an Eastern Hararghe Development Agency which he found funding for, which helped build water wells and bring new agricultural and ranching techniques to Somalis there. He and I worked together on several business ventures to build better roads in his Somali wife’s homeland of Awdal, and we were also working on plans for port facilities, electricity, Internet, and computer technology education.

The ideas Michael wanted to implement were for the profit of investors, mostly other than himself, and for the benefit of customers and vendors in Awdal. His ideas were destroyed by the rude comments of NATO General Tommy Franks to the effect that all the port facilities in Somalia should be bombed – in Fall 2001.

Mahamed asserts, “There are many others like him who are supporting the warlords to continue their destructive wars.”

That’s not true. There are many others unlike Michael who support warlords. The word warlord refers to anyone with both military and civil power in a society. You can look the word up if you doubt it. By the definition, George W. Bush is a warlord as commander in chief of the armed forces and president of the USA. Queen Elizabeth is, similarly, a warlord. The USA and Britain have engaged in destructive wars, in Somalia and elsewhere in the region. It would be very wrong to accuse Michael of having any role in these wars.

Mahamed writes, “Alas, Yumi Kim has not mentioned Michael van Notten was declared persona-non-grata and expelled from Northern Somalia where he was staying when the authorities there discovered his sinister intentions.”

It is an interesting thing that a man of the Gibril Younis sept of the Makahil great clan exiled Michael, and me, from “The Republic of Somaliland,” which Mahamed says is “Northern Somalia.” It is not the case that this exile was received well by Michael’s family, of the Aden Younis sept of the Makahil. The actions of the government of the Republic of Somaliland were based on absurd contentions that colonists from the Kingdom of Freedonia were going to invade and steal land, contentions that were proven to be false at the time.

Mahamed says, ” The likes of Michal van Notten are the mecenarries who fuel the many African civil wars.”

I do sometimes wonder what the customary law would say about defaming the dead. It is clear that Mahamed Abdullahi is not a member of the Aden Younis sept of the Makahil, and probably not a Samaron. I do wonder if he would not be liable to pay compensation when his assertion that Michael was a mercenary is proven false.

Regards,

Jim
http://indomitus.net/