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Somali web sites, history and
politics
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Centre for Information Management, Thames Valley University, London, UK
Abdisalam M. Issa-Salwe and Anthony Olden
Received 13 June 2008
Revised 24 September 2008 Abstract
Accepted 2 October 2008
Purpose – The collapse of the Somali Democratic Republic in 1991 led to a world-wide diaspora. The
purpose of this paper is to discuss and analyse Somali web sites in an attempt to demonstrate how
they reflect the troubled history and politics of the homeland and continue to interest, involve, bring
together and divide Somalis world-wide.
Design/methodology/approach – Web sites were divided into categories, and a study of the
community/political category was conducted. Visits were made to the Horn of Africa and elsewhere,
and face-to-face interviews conducted. E-mail contact was maintained with a number of Somali
webmasters.
Findings – Community/political web sites was the most numerous category, with the majority being
named after a geographical area associated with a group of clan lineages or sub-lineages. They contain
news, opinion pieces and other features in Somali and on some web sites in Somali and English. While
web sites usually declare that the opinions in articles are those of the authors alone, they are unlikely
to publicise views with which they are not in agreement.
Originality/value – The paper illustrates how web sites enable members of one diaspora
community to keep in touch with a political situation at home that is exceptional, and to involve
themselves in its controversies, should they wish to do so. It also shows how the web site has brought a
new dimension to traditional methods of feuding.
Keywords Worldwide Web, History, Politics, Deportation, Somalia
Paper type Research paper
Warbaa ugu gaaja wayn.
Information hunger is the worst hunger (Somali saying).
Aslib Proceedings: New Information
Perspectives
Vol. 60 No. 6, 2008
pp. 570-582
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0001-253X
DOI 10.1108/00012530810924276
Introduction
The Somali State collapsed in 1991, and the country has never had a proper functioning
central government since. War and famine led to the displacement of many Somalis –
both within their own country and elsewhere. The diaspora accounts for as much as
one-fifth of the entire population, including the majority of educated professionals. In
addition to the Horn of Africa and adjoining areas, they can be found in most parts of
the world including the UK (which controlled what was British Somaliland in colonial
times), Italy (which controlled what was Italian Somalia), the USA, Canada, the Nordic
countries and the Gulf. Consciousness of their cultural and religious background
brings with it a reluctance to adopt certain aspects of the lifestyles of Western host
nations, but Somali adaptation to modern information and telecommunications
technology is striking. Somalis became enthusiastic users of mobile telephones from
their earliest days in the West. Somali professionals and students in the diaspora
became equally enthusiastic about the internet (Olden, 1999). A means of
communication and a source of information for everyone, for certain groups the
internet is also an opportunity to promote political identity and their particular point of
view through a new medium. A good example of this is www.somalilandforum.org, a
web site that describes itself as “a non-partisan independent think-tank . . . that brings
together Somalilanders, mainly in the Diaspora”. The Somali web sites that have
sprung up in various parts of the world depict a deeply divided society, one that is at
the same time both integrated and fragmented. Political events that take place at home
are analysed and argued about by diaspora members internationally.
The diaspora has been in existence for longer than the Somali State, which set itself
up as a republic in 1960 after the territories under British and Italian control received
their independence and merged. On its collapse in 1991 the North-West (the former
British Somaliland) seceded as the Republic of Somaliland, although its existence as a
sovereign state is still not recognised in Africa or elsewhere. But Somalis have lived
and worked outside their peninsula in North-East Africa long before the British,
Italians, French and Ethiopians divided it up between themselves in the late nineteenth
century. Diaspora members helped foster national and pan-Somali sentiments in the
1940s: pan-Somali because they wanted all Somalis to be within the borders of one
state, a Greater Somalia. Despite this ambition the Somali Republic that came into
existence in 1960 was never to include the substantial Somali populations of French
Somaliland (now Djibouti), Ethiopia (the Ogaden region), and Kenya (the Northern
Frontier District, now North-Eastern Province). The decision that the borders of
newly-independent Kenya in 1963 would continue to include Kenyan Somalis led to a
major dispute, while the Ogaden was the cause of a war between Somalia and Ethiopia
in 1977/1978 (Issa-Salwe, 2000; Lewis, 1993; Lewis, 2002).
Those driven into exile by war do not forget the experience. The original cause of
displacement is remembered and the grievance passed on to the next generation
(Volkan, 1997). According to Lyons (2004):
Conflict-generated diaspora groups are not societies to promote Esperanto or to study long
gone cultures. They are social networks that link past conflict, the contemporary challenges
of living in a host state, and an aspiration of return to a particular piece of territory that is the
symbolically important homeland.
He points out the advantages that cheap Internet communication and inexpensive
telephone calls have for diaspora members.
In the long struggle that led to liberation from Ethiopian rule in 1991 the Eritrean
Peoples Liberation Front received significant financial assistance from Eritrean
émigrés in the USA and Europe (Pool, 2001). Sri Lankan Tamils in the diaspora
currently contribute money to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (the north and east
of the island), or at any rate to development projects there, as well as to family
members. Somalis send US$1 billion home every year, and according to Ahmed (2006)
the Somali economy is more dependent on remittances than any other in the world. In
addition to supporting family members Somalis also support development projects.
But there is one difference in particular between the Somali, pre-independence Eritrean
and present day Tamil Eelam situations. The Eritreans wanted their own nation state,
and finally achieved it. The Tamil Tigers continue to fight for the same objective
(Tamil Eelam Home Page, n.d.). Somalia failed as a nation state: the allegiance of
Somalis is primarily to the clan.
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Design/methodology/approach
The collapse of the Somali State led to a crisis where social norms became void and
individuals were left mentally and morally confused. It sent Somalis back to their roots,
including the clan roots that President Mohamed Siyad Barre had officially renounced
(“socialism unites, kinship divides”) but unofficially exploited. Web sites are one way
in which identities can be constructed and reconstructed. Somali web sites have
proliferated in recent years, especially outside Somalia itself as the fee for web hosting
must be paid in foreign currency. Somali web sites – and community/political web
sites in particular – are a relatively new genre and worth investigating in order to
discover how they interest, involve, bring together and divide Somalis worldwide.
This research addresses the following questions:
RQ1. Into what categories can Somali web sites be divided?
RQ2. What are the characteristics of the community/political type of web site?
RQ3. How do these community/political web sites reflect the dynamics of Somali
politics and the continuing conflict at home?
RQ4. For which audiences are they intended?
The research approach combines aspects of virtual ethnography, content analysis, and
traditional survey methods such as face-to-face interviewing of key individuals: for
example, ten well-known writers and 15 young web site reporters attending the
Somali-speaking Writers PEN Club conference in Djibouti, 24-25 June 2003; and
Mohamed Hassan Alto, a Somali university lecturer, in 2006. The participants for the
PEN meeting came from Mogadishu, Somaliland, Puntland (North-East Somalia),
Ethiopia, Kenya, Sweden, the UK and South Africa, in addition to the Republic of
Djibouti itself. Five steps for a critical virtual ethnography are specified by Hair and
Clark (2003):
(1) Identify proactive communities.
(2) Negotiate access.
(3) Contact.
(4) Electronic depth interview.
(5) Return results and analysis to the community.
Gaining entry into the Somali web site community presented no problems as one of the
authors is himself a Somali web site master. This enabled the research to go well
beyond “lurking” and content analysis. One webmaster (www.somalitalk.com) even
proposed the use of his site for a web survey. According to Hair and Clark (2003)
“conventional ethnographic and virtual ethnographic practice alike use interviews to
facilitate an understanding of meaning”. Electronic and face-to-face contact with a
number of key individuals was maintained during the course of this research. Findings
are being passed on to participants through e-mail and other ways.
According to Robson (2002, p. 352) content analysis – like virtually all the
techniques covered in his Real World Research – is “codified common sense”.
Krippendorff (cited in Stemler, 2001) identifies “the context relative to which the data
are analysed” as one of the questions to be addressed in content analysis. Somalis are
acutely conscious of their history, especially their recent history. Some Somali
historical and political background is essential for an understanding of web site
content and perspectives, and this is supplied. Content analysis in this paper is not
about word frequency but about whether the content of articles, letters, news and other
items of the web sites investigated is politically neutral or politically slanted. Two
particularly controversial issues have been selected to provide focus:
(1) The attempt by Somaliland to secede from Somalia and to establish itself as an
independent state (1991 to date).
(2) The conflict in the south between the Transitional Federal Government (TFG)
and the Islamists, and the involvement of Ethiopian troops to support the TFG
(2006 to date).
It is important to note that the number of web sites fluctuates all the time. In mid-2004,
for example, over 400 were identified (Issa-Salwe, 2007). Many of these are no longer in
existence, but new web sites are continually being set up and another count in 2007
came up with 745.
The clan in Somali society
According to their mythology the Somalis are descended from intermarriage between
immigrants from the Arabian Peninsula and the indigenous Bantu or Oromo people of
the hinterland. But Issa-Salwe (1996) points out that research in recent decades has
established that ethnically and culturally Somalis belong to the Eastern Cushitic group.
The traditional structure of Somali society is traced through an elaborate genealogy to
two brothers, Soomaal (also known as Samaale) and Sab. The followers of Soomaal for
the most part led a pastoral-nomadic life whilst the followers of Sab exercised an
agro-nomadic one. The Dir, Daarood, Isaaq and Hawiye clan-families are the
descendants of Soomaal. The Rahanweyn and Digil are descendants of Sab. The
majority of the Somali population is made up of these six clans, but they can be divided
further. The Dir, for example, are divided into the Issa and Gadabursi sub-clans. The
Daarood are divided into the Mijerteyn, the Dulbahante, the Warsangeli, the Marrehen
and the Ogaden. In addition there are a number of smaller groups, such as the
Midgaan, historically considered a lower caste because the men worked as barbers or
hunters.
Pastoralists need access to water and grass for their flocks, and both can be in short
supply in the harsh environment of the Somali peninsula. This can lead to conflict over
resources. Feuding is a regular occurrence. Writing about life in the interior at the end
of the nineteenth century, Samatar (1982, p. 109) summed it up as continuing “as it had
before with its cycle of camel husbandry and hereditary feuds”. Somali inter-clan
conflict is centred on feuds. The aim is to injure or eliminate the hostile clan, to seek
revenge, to reverse wrongs, and to protect one’s own clan’s rights to resources. Because
nomads move continuously, a clan may migrate into the territory of its neighbour.
Sometimes more than one clan migrates over a given territory, and lineages mix with
each other in pastures. These movements are influenced by the change of season from
wet to dry and back again, which creates periodic changes in settlement patterns. The
dry seasons (December to March and July to September) are hard for pastoralists and
their herds. The migrating groups are concentrated at permanent watering places. The
greater the competition for scarce resources, the greater the hostility amongst various
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clan groups is likely to be. In the case of conflict within the clan or outside it, elders of a
third party or sometimes from the feuding factions meet in the traditional assembly
(shir) to defuse antagonism. If a member of one clan kills or injures a member of
another, the case may be settled by the collective paying of the blood-guilt fine or
healing fine to the bereaved or injured lineage.
Traditionally, the lineage is answerable for all the external actions of its members,
and at the same time it is held liable for their settlement. Feuds have norms of
retaliation. Once adopted these norms exert a certain degree of control over behaviour
related to self-esteem. In the case of balancing reciprocal blood payments, it may be
that a next of kin of the deceased will take immediate action, and tradition encourages
this. The brothers or cousins will take revenge into their own hands. Unsettled disputes
cause rancour, which may be increased by ecological competition (Issa-Salwe, 1996).
Every male in the clan lineage is identified through his father and is thereby linked
to the line of descent (Lewis, 1994). Somali culture is oral rather than written. Through
the practice of memorising and reciting the names of one’s forefathers, when a man
dies he remains in the consciousness of the lineage members because his place in the
descent line is fixed. If the cause of the death was a feud killing, this too will live on in
the memory of his clan. The resort to force is the standard procedure expected to be
used in the case of a feud killing. It is normal to retaliate in these circumstances. The
bereaved kin will feel offended and lacking in respect and dignity: to restore status
they have to retaliate. The sooner a reckoning takes place the stronger and more
confident the wronged family feels. Sometimes a poet of the lineage might compose a
poem which incites his lineage to retaliate for the killed kin and thus regain its status.
The victim may become immortalised through the words of the poet. In the case of
external threat, however (for example, a threat from another clan), feuding lineages of
the same clan will set aside their antagonism and unite in common defence.
A British journalist reporting from the capital, Mogadishu, following the overthrow
of the president, Mohamed Siyad Barre, in 1991, observed a queue of civilians waiting
to pass through a roadblock manned by rebels (Hartley, 2004, p. 184):
As each person was waved through, another came forward and began uttering a litany of
names. My guide with the flaming red hair said the people were reciting their clan family
trees. The genealogies tumbled back generation after generation to a founding ancestor. It
was like a DNA helix, or a fingerprint, or an encyclopedia of peace treaties and blood debts
left to fester down the torrid centuries. I was thinking how poetic this idea was, when bang!, a
gunman shot one of the civilians, who fell with blood gushing from his head and was pushed
aside onto a heap of corpses.
“Wrong clan,” said my flaming-haired friend. “He should have borrowed the ancestors of a
friend.”
It is said that while male allegiance runs vertically in society, thus tending to divide it,
women’s allegiance can run horizontally. When a woman belongs to one clan and
marries into another it helps to unify society.
Information, communication and poetry
Yaa warkii bi’in oo war haya (Whoever could give us information, be blessed) is a
Somali saying. When people met on the road, in tea stalls or elsewhere, a request for
information was always the first part of the interaction. The accuracy of the
information was important. Wargalnimo means information handling, and Somali
culture attaches responsibility to it. Traditionally, a man who was incapable of
handling information well lost face and became gabadhaa guurwaa (he whose daughter
would not be married). Somali interest in information and communication is behind the
growth in telecommunications, the one area of development that has expanded since
the outbreak of the civil war in 1991. Although development projects have been
neglected in much of the country, the supply of mobile telephones, fax machines and
internet access has grown. In Europe and North America many Somalis own shops
that contain telephone booths for calls back home and elsewhere. In addition to cheap
international telephone calls, these shops sell telephone cards, mobile telephones and
internet access.
The enthusiasm with which Somalis have taken to modern telecommunications can
be attributed to the oral nature of their society. Somali itself was not promulgated as a
written-down language until 1972. Before this literate Somalis wrote in Arabic or in
English or Italian, the colonial languages. In the 1930s, for example, opposition to the
proposal to use written Somali in the first government school to be established in
British Somaliland was so strong that the plan had to be abandoned. Religious leaders
maintained that the proper written language of instruction for Muslim boys was
Arabic, the language of the Koran, and the British director of education was forced to
acquiesce (Olden, 2008).
Verbal art is the basis of Somali traditional culture, and Somali poetry was oral – it
was not written down. Afrax (2000) points out that oral poetry, oral narrative, proverbs
and words of wisdom were an integral part of every aspect of daily life: everything
from herding livestock or sewing mats to debating issues or organizing feuds. The
Victorian explorer and writer Richard Burton (Burton and Burton, 1987, pp. 81-82),
who travelled through Somali country in the 1850s, thought it strange that a language
“which has no written character should so abound in poetry and eloquence. . .The
country teems with poets”. According to Lewis (1986, p. 139), poets and poetry reciters
have “a memorized repertoire extending up to 15 hours of ‘playback’ time”.
Poetic duels are a feature of Somali life and culture. During the early years of the
civil war a large amount of poetry was produced by the warring groups, in particular
by the Abgal and the Habargidir (both of the Hawiye clan family) who fought for the
control of Mogadishu. Other poetic duelling went on between the Harti Daarood and
the Ogaden Daarood during the fighting for the control of Kismayo, a port city in the
south. Inflammatory poems circulated on audio tape, but have not found their way on
to the Internet to any great extent, and this is difficult to understand. One Somali
university lecturer (Mohamed Hassan Alto) interviewed suggested that as the task of
the cultural/literary category of web site is to preserve and disseminate Somali culture,
the aim is to preserve the positive and reject the negative image created by civil war.
Web site categories
1. Professional/business
Main features: professional/business activities. Examples of these web sites include the
Somali Medical Association of North America (www.somalimedicalassociation
nordamerica.com/) and Dahabshiil (www.dahabshiil.com/). Dahabshiil is a major
conduit through which diaspora members send remittances to family in the Horn of
Africa. War-torn areas and refugee camps do not have conventional banking facilities,
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and the Somalis have developed their own effective substitutes. According to
Dahabshiil’s web site it has more than 300 payout locations in the Horn: “since its
founding in 1970, it has developed innovative money transfer services that provide a
lifeline to millions of Somalis”.
2. Online news
Main features: news (text, audio or both). These web sites publish their own news
material and occasionally link to other publication agencies’ sites. Some are online
versions of newspapers published inside or outside Somalia. Others are online alone,
such as the Dhambaal News Network: www.dhambaalnews.com/ These web sites and
those in the community/political category overlap because both tend to have their own
particular perspective when it comes to politics.
3. Radio
Main features: news (audio or video). These are usually the web front of radio stations
either inside or outside Somalia. Radio stations have been set up where large Somali
communities exist, for example, in Gothenburg (Sweden) and Copenhagen (Denmark).
Codka Beesha (community voice) is an example from Canada: Radio Codka Beesha ee
Toronto & AllSomali Radio (www.allsomali.com/Radiocodkabeesha-ID-TorontoMarch-19-2006.html). Like the BBC Somali Service and other radio broadcasts one
can now listen to the news via the web site at any convenient time through podcasts.
Audio facilities are now used by other web categories, so that one can listen to music,
interviews, literary readings and religious sermons.
4. Personal
Main features: personal information. According to Erickson (1996) “personal pages
and the Worldwide Web are not being used to ‘publish information’; they are being
used to construct identity – useful information is just a side effect”. The majority of
Somali personal web sites are created by amateurs, sometimes by students as a way to
improve their web design skills. Many are poorly designed with heavily added
graphical images. They are hosted under free domains and are the least often updated
of all web categories. With their photographs and biographical information they have
much in common with the personal web sites of any other group, but they also link to
the Somali past. Abdi Ali Musse’s curriculum vitae, for example, points out that his
university studies in English and Arabic in Somalia were interrupted by the civil war
(www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6521/me.html).
5. Religious
Main features: Islamic religious material mainly for learning and teaching. The
religious sites attribute the Somali crisis to be a direct consequence of deserting Islamic
values for the pursuit of a tradition that advocates violence and sectionalism. They
maintain that this is what led Somalis to “stray” from the road of Allah. As a
consequence, Allah is more severe on Somalis. They believe that punishment is more
severe for believers than for non-believers. The non-believers are punished only in the
next world, while the stray Muslim will suffer both in this world and in the next.
Contrary to this view, cultural/literary web sites link the problem to the introduction of
alien cultures into Somali society.
Religious web sites have similar features to cultural/literary ones except that they
differ in their mode of appeal and style of approach. While the cultural/literary appeal
to the shared and common heritage of Somali language and culture, the religious sites
concentrate on Islam, the other heritage of the Somalis. By providing Islamic teaching
material and information, they appeal to the individual and community on moral
grounds. While the religious sites use appeals to God, the cultural sites make use of a
mixture of amiability and a sense of belonging. Religious web sites tend to be named
after Islamic places (for example, the Khalid Mosque, www.khalidmosque.org/en/
index.php?newlang ¼ eng), or historic events.
6. Cultural/literary
Main features: Somali culture, literature and art. Most categories of Somali web sites
devote space to culture and literature. However, some such as www.golkhatumo.com/
maqal.htm and www.doollo.com/ (“the largest online collection of Somali poetry”) are
dedicated entirely to this field, although they are few in number. Some are used to
preserve Somali literature and culture following the collapse of the State. Others are
used to promote a separate identity. The former are mainly associated with pastoral
society.
7. Community/political
Main features: online news (including community information), political
analysis/opinion, culture, literary and art sections, chat room, religious material and
teaching, advertisements/business information, mailing list. These are community
sites and they use almost all web features, the most important of which is online news.
They are updated far more frequently than other web sites. Some have a “song of the
day”, a reminder of the oral nature of Somali culture. Because this is the largest and
most political category of Somali web site it will be treated in more detail. One can
subdivide it into two sub-groups: one based on region, clan or community and hence
sub-national, the other a group that attempts to transcend such divisions. The first
sub-group can be identified as a front for one of the units or constituents that came into
existence following the breakdown of the Somali Republic:
.
The secessionist Republic of Somaliland in the North-West, dominated by the
Isaaq clan-family.
.
The semi-autonomous region of Puntland in the North-East, dominated by the
Daarood clan-family.
.
The Rahanweyn Resistance Army, which draws its support from the Bay and
Bakool communities who live between the Shebelle and Juba rivers in the south;
this area is dominated by the Digil and Mirifle clan-family.
.
Benadir and Central Somalia, dominated by the Hawiye clan-family under
various groups. From 1991 onwards warlords and their militias were in control
until early 2006 when Hawiye under the banner of the Union of Islamic Courts
took over.
.
The minority (or movements) constituency. Although the minorities are
scattered, their common experience leads them to voice their feelings on a
common ground.
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For the individual Somali the breakdown of the State in 1991 meant a return to his clan
area. Lineage identity and territoriality were reaffirmed. The web provides a means for
group expression and promotion, and the web site name is important because it
identifies the group, perhaps through a geographical reference such as a region, town
or village, for example www.somalilandforum.com or www.dayniileone.com. Web
sites usually state that the opinions contained in a contribution are solely those of the
writer and do not necessarily represent the editorial views of the site. In practice,
however, if a site is unsympathetic to a writer’s opinions it is unlikely to publish them.
The secession of Somaliland (1991 to date)
Emotional language is common in many community/political web sites, and the
secession of Somaliland has given rise to plenty of emotion, as in the following example
(Samater, 2005):
In the cyber world, if you post. . .your political concern about . . .Somali unity to the countless
Somali webs, secessionist and aggressive cyber political hooligans will bomb you with
hateful emails like the following which I received from one who is literally suffering from
what I can call “Somaliland syndrome” . . . Mean boy, scums like you must be suffering from a
profound inferior complex for not belonging to the noble and supreme nation of Reer Sheekh
Isxaaq [the Isaaq clan-family], who first came up with the very idea of Somaliweyn back in
the fifties, and sacrificed their independence and freedom for that . . . We proved to the whole
world that we can win both war and peace. That is why the Republic of Somaliland will
sooner or later be politically recognized, no matter what minor MIDGAAN [members of a
lower caste] like you say or do. Did I tell you that you are a born loser . . .?
Somaliland web sites differ from those that can be identified with the rest of Somalia.
The community/political ones can be divided into those named after the region, such as
www.somalilandforum.com, and those named after a group or local area, such as www.
widhwidh.com. The first group supports the independence of Somaliland. The second
group can be further divided into those like www.awdalnews.com that also support
independence, and those like www.widhwidh.com that favour the unity of Somalia as a
whole. The reason for the second sub-group’s support of Somali unity is that it is
associated with the main clan-family of Puntland, with which Somaliland shares a
border. Although Somaliland has been largely peaceful since its secession in 1991,
there has been unrest in its eastern regions of Sool and Sanaag, to which Puntland lays
claim. Territorial borders in Africa are often little more than straight lines drawn on
inaccurate maps by colonial powers a century or more ago. These are particularly
inappropriate for the Somalis, nomads who moved with their flocks in search of water
and pasture. The clans in Sool and Sanaag are linked to Puntland: the Warsangeli and
the Dhulbahante, which along with the Majerteen form the Harti sub-group of the
Daarood clan-family.
Sool and Sanaag East-related web sites such as www.widhwidh.com aside, most
Somaliland community/political web sites have two objectives. They promote national
awakening within the community inside and outside the area, and they campaign for
the recognition of the State, which in fact did have international recognition for several
days in 1960. British Somaliland became independent on 26 June 1960 and entered into
the formation of the Somali Republic with Italian Somalia five days later – when the
latter gained its independence on 1 July. That decision was summed up by Somaliland
Forum in 2000 as a “horrible mistake”. The web site campaigns for the return of the
sovereign status once held for so brief a period. In a press release attacking “yet
another reconciliation conference. . .called in Mogadishu. . .by the same warlords and
the same cash-hungry opportunists”, Somaliland Forum (2007) proposed a number of
steps including:
(1) Accept two nations with well-demarcated borders instead of relying on
borderless warring tribes that only attract carnage.
(2) Accept the colonial borders as the solid and tangible basis of two sisterly
nations emerging from the death of the Somali Republic, and accept the sanctity
of borders of neighbouring countries of Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti. Any
dreams of a greater Somali Republic have come and gone.
A reference to Somaliland newspapers may be pertinent here. In December 2003
Puntland forces took control of Lasanod, the capital of Somaliland’s Sool region.
Fighting took place in October 2004 in which a number of Somaliland and Puntland
troops were killed. According to Höhne (2008, p. 106) the newspapers in the Somaliland
capital, Hargeysa, sided unconditionally with the government and “never even tried to
accommodate some more moderate or alternative views”. He accuses them of deliberate
misinformation, alleging that they would not hesitate to print propaganda in the
defence of Somaliland’s independence.
To enable its members to communicate and work together, Somaliland Forum
provides a mailing service for its members. However membership is exclusive. A
person wanting to join has to submit his or her request to an existing member. This is a
form of vetting: it keeps the “wrong” people out.
As mentioned, the Somali diaspora contributes generously to family members and
projects back home. Somaliland Forum became a focus for fund-raising for the
University of Hargeysa Trust Fund, Farah Omar Secondary School, and the rebuilding
of Burao Hospital and Hargeysa Psychiatric Hospital amongst other causes. Livestock
is the main export, and another project was the campaign against the ban by Gulf
States on animals from Somaliland because of their alleged infection with Rift Valley
Fever.
The Transitional Federal Government, the Islamists and the Ethiopians
(2006 to date)
It is common for Somali web sites to defend their group or alliance while vilifying the
other side, and the conflict in southern Somalia has provided plenty of scope for
impassioned debate in recent years, as well as for straightforward reporting of a
professional standard. In 2005 the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) under
President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed returned to Somalia from Kenya. Mogadishu had
been under the control of various warlords since the breakdown of the State, and early
in 2006 the TFG made the town of Baidoa the temporary seat of government.
However, in 2006 a movement known as the Islamic Courts Union wrested
Mogadishu from the warlords and restored order to the city for the first time in
years. The Islamists were associated with the Hawiye clan-family. Their power
increased rapidly until they controlled most of Somalia apart from Somaliland and
Puntland in the north and the rapidly diminishing areas in the hands of the TFG.
The Islamists were alleged to have al-Qaeda links, which worried the United States,
a country that has taken an interest in the Horn of Africa since the days of the
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Emperor Haile Selassie. The TFG, gravely weakened, sought Ethiopian help. The
arrival of Ethiopian troops was a sure way to antagonize many Somalis, given that
the two countries are traditional enemies with long-standing border disputes that
led to war in the 1970s. In late December 2006 the TFG and its Ethiopian allies
routed the Islamists, who then turned to guerrilla warfare. Unsurprisingly the
Islamists have the support of Eritrea, which fought a 30-year war to extricate itself
from Ethiopian control, and then went to war again with Ethiopia between 1998 and
2000.
The conflict has caused much suffering. According to figures cited by Amnesty
International (2008), approximately 6,000 civilians were killed in Mogadishu and
elsewhere in southern and central Somalia in 2007, while over 600,000 people fled their
homes. War crimes have been committed by combatants on all sides, although the
Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the criticism of its troops in the
Amnesty International document as disgraceful: “our soldiers are the most disciplined
soldiers in the world. They have never cut anybody’s throat, never gang-raped any
women, never deliberately shot civilians in Somalia” (BBC News, 2008). Just two weeks
before the release of the report Ethiopian soldiers stormed al Hidaya Mosque in
Mogadishu. Around 20 (the initial figure given was 11) people inside the mosque were
killed, including the imam, according to Garowe Online (2008a, b). Some were shot,
others had their throats cut. The story was covered by most Somali web sites, but from
different perspectives. www.garoweonline.com and www.wardheernews.com abhorred
what had happened while accusing both sides in the conflict. www.allpuntland.com
ignored the event, while www.puntlandpost.com and www.carmooyin.com maintained
that the Ethiopian action was purely defensive.
Conclusion
Ten years ago no more than a handful of Somali web sites existed. They have
proliferated since then not just because the technology exists, but because they provide
a platform that can link people scattered all over the world by the failure of a state and
its tragic consequences. Community/political web sites are a contemporary platform
for reporting, discussing, arguing and feuding. They are perfect for an oral culture
such as the Somali.
In the 1940s emerging Somali nationalism sought to suppress clan politics of
division and rivalry. Yet at the same time some groups continued on with their
traditional interests, for example the Independent Constitutional Party, which
represented the Digil and Mirifle clans of Italian-governed Somalia (Issa-Salwe, 1996).
Nowadays, in the process of “re-inventing the clan”, it is common for many
community/political web sites to provide pictures of some of their prominent clan
members. The picture of Aden Abdulle Osman, first president of the Somali Republic,
has appeared on www.mudulood.com, as has that of General Daud Abdulle Hirsi, first
commander of the Somali Military Force in the 1960s. The intention is to impress. By
contrast, www.midgaan.com, which represents the marginalized, shows singers such
as Omar Dhuulle, Mohamed Saleebaan and the legendary Maryan Mursal Issa.
Literary and artistic figures receive great respect in Somali society, and this is an
attempt by the web site to put on display the best of the Somali nation. The intention is
to present themselves as people who suffered under pastoralist society, to counter the
pastoralists’ negative treatment.
In recent years the internet has become a major source of news for members of the
diaspora. Web site hits increase when there are major incidents at home. News is the
most important component of community/political web sites, and violent news is what
attracts the most attention. Someone browsing is more inclined to trust what “his” web
site puts out, and Somali web designers keep this in mind when they are designing
their web sites and providing content for them. The internet creates a sense of
belonging and a sense of sharing for Somalis, but it also fragments. Somali web sites
tend to depict cultural homogeneity and the shared heritage of Islam, but they also
portray political and social division. Cyberspace is the new battle front, with Somali
web sites epitomizing the darker, more turbulent aspects as well as the positive sides of
the Somali people.
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Corresponding author
Abdisalam M. Issa-Salwe can be contacted at: BinSalwe@yahoo.com
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