‘The Impact of Civil War and State Collapse on the Roles of Somali Women: A Blessing in Disguise’, Journal of Eastern African Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2 (2013): 314-333 (with Markus V. Hoehne).

This art icle was downloaded by: [ Moham ed I ngiriis] On: 10 May 2013, At : 11: 30 Publisher: Rout ledge I nform a Lt d Regist ered in England and Wales Regist ered Num ber: 1072954 Regist ered office: Mort im er House, 37- 41 Mort im er St reet , London W1T 3JH, UK Journal of Eastern African Studies Publicat ion det ails, including inst ruct ions for aut hors and subscript ion informat ion: ht t p:/ / www.t andfonline.com/ loi/ rj ea20 The impact of civil war and state collapse on the roles of Somali women: a blessing in disguise a Mohamed H. Ingiriis & Markus V. Hoehne a b Goldsmit hs , Universit y of London , London , UK b MPI for Social Ant hropology , Halle (Saale) , Germany Published online: 15 Apr 2013. To cite this article: Mohamed H. Ingiriis & Markus V. Hoehne (2013): The impact of civil war and st at e collapse on t he roles of Somali women: a blessing in disguise, Journal of East ern African St udies, 7:2, 314-333 To link to this article: ht t p:/ / dx.doi.org/ 10.1080/ 17531055.2013.776281 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTI CLE Full t erm s and condit ions of use: ht t p: / / www.t andfonline.com / page/ t erm s- andcondit ions This art icle m ay be used for research, t eaching, and privat e st udy purposes. Any subst ant ial or syst em at ic reproduct ion, redist ribut ion, reselling, loan, sub- licensing, syst em at ic supply, or dist ribut ion in any form t o anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warrant y express or im plied or m ake any represent at ion t hat t he cont ent s will be com plet e or accurat e or up t o dat e. The accuracy of any inst ruct ions, form ulae, and drug doses should be independent ly verified wit h prim ary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, act ions, claim s, proceedings, dem and, or cost s or dam ages what soever or howsoever caused arising direct ly or indirect ly in connect ion wit h or arising out of t he use of t his m at erial. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2013 Vol. 7, No. 2, 314
333, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2013.776281 The impact of civil war and state collapse on the roles of Somali women: a blessing in disguise Mohamed H. Ingiriisa* and Markus V. Hoehneb* a Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK; bMPI for Social Anthropology, Halle (Saale), Germany Downloaded by [Mohamed Ingiriis] at 11:30 10 May 2013 (Received 22 January 2013; final version received 4 February 2013) Somali society can be characterized as patriarchal ‘to the bone’. Despite tremendous political and economic changes in the 20th century, and from colonial to post-colonial rule, the situation of women changed only minimally. In fact, some authors argue that women enjoyed even less independence from male ‘wards’ during the democratic and later revolutionary governments from 1960 to 1991 that were promulgating modernization and gender equality, at least rhetorically. Paradoxically, the most substantial changes regarding gender relations that led to a considerable empowerment of women in the social, economic and political sphere were triggered by the tragedy of civil war and state collapse. Women had to bear the brunt of the fighting. But they also became actively involved in armed conflict as combatants, motivators of their men and also as peace-makers. Women also took over more economic responsibilities and fought their way into politics. This article traces the challenges and opportunities that the civil war and the collapse of the state provided for women, arguing that the Somali tragedy provided a blessing in disguise at least for some women who gained social, economic and political power. Still, what we are observing is not a revolution but at best an incidental ‘reform’. If this will eventually lead to more just gender relations in the long run remains to be seen. Keywords: women; civil war; social change; Somalia Introduction Much has been written on the international and local political and economic aspects of the Somali crisis. But not many analyses have been produced focusing explicitly on women and their roles during the civil war.1 The two main reasons are that, first, Somali studies in general are somewhat ‘blind’ when it comes to gender; much analysis has focused on male-dominated power politics, and male stereotypes have too easily been bought into by Somali and non-Somali observers.2 Second, even if one looks for female roles in society, economy and politics, one needs to account for the fact that women in Somali society are frequently active ‘behind the scenes’; this makes their roles more difficult to assess. This is in fact similar to many other African conflict settings.3 The past 20 years have seen substantial changes in the social, economic, and political status and position of women in Somali society. The fall of the regime of Mohamed Siyad Barre in January 1991 and the subsequent socio-political upheaval *Corresponding authors. Email: mhoehne@eth.mpg.de; ingiriis@yahoo.com # 2013 Taylor & Francis Downloaded by [Mohamed Ingiriis] at 11:30 10 May 2013 Journal of Eastern African Studies 315 has not only caused enormous suffering particularly among female Somalis, but also it has given women a chance to take on new roles. Some actively supported and ignited the fighting of their male relatives; others even took a gun and became combatants. But many women also, especially after they had seen the devastation of the war in their homes, turned to work for peace and reconstruction. While these may be called the immediate effects of war, there are also some long-term effects. The protracted conflict did not only change women’s roles, it also affected the socio-economic and political positions of men. Many men died, were maimed, or became insane or at least careless during the fighting; subsequent statelessness came along with widespread unemployment, which initially hit men, who were used to provide for their families, hardest. This of course concerned mostly the urbanized section of Somali society. But also the pastoral economy underwent dramatic changes over the past decades, partly due to the fighting, partly due to environmental and other changes. While those men who were confronted with unemployment and unproductivity were unwilling to adapt and take over responsibility for the children at home
something that seems to be incompatible with the patriarchal ideology prevailing in Somali society
women obviously felt that they had to secure the survival of their offspring, which drove them into various kinds of business. Many became household heads and caretakers of their children (and their destitute men). Moreover, the continued failure of male protagonists in national politics opened up spaces for discussing women’s rights and roles in politics. From around 2000 onward women seemed to have gained increasing confidence to challenge men in politics at various levels, and some secured seats in local councils, regional and national parliaments and even cabinet posts. Of course, one cannot ignore that the decades of fighting also brought about enormous costs for women. Indeed, numerous articles as well as media and nongovernmental organization (NGO) reports touching on gender and conflict in Somalia focus on the ordeals women had to go through during the war, and rightly so, since women had indeed to pay ‘an especially high (and gender-specific) price’.4 Also in Somali poetry, particularly in poems composed by men making sense of the Somali civil war, women are depicted as passive individuals suffering from violence, including rape.5 However, it would seriously distort the picture if one would insist that women were merely victims of the war. Statements such as that during the Somali conflict ‘girls were married off early for their own security or to establish alliances with local militia to safeguard their families’6 certainly can be substantiated by facts. Still, leaving it like this would present a much too passive picture of the Somali women in war. Interestingly enough, the few substantial studies on women and war in Somalia since 1991 are consciously highlighting women’s dual roles as victims of and actors in the fighting and subsequent statelessness. Particularly the brilliant study edited by Judith Gardner and Judy El Bushra provides very rich accounts of the war seen through the eyes of women, which includes suffering, but also astonishing examples of political and economic entrepreneurship, often narrated by the actors themselves.7 This article follows from here, advancing a theoretical framework in which crisis ‘can be understood as opportunity and not just rupture or breakdown’.8 Its aim is to examine how the civil war and the collapse of the Somali state have transformed and possibly improved the position and status of women in Somali society. In order to be able to comprehend the kind and extent of change that has happened since 1991, the article starts with a brief background section on women in Somali society before 1991. Drawing on the existing literature and the authors’ own interviews and 316 M.H. Ingiriis and M.V. Hoehne observations, it then provides a nuanced perspective on women’s roles in the civil war. It highlights both the contributions of women to fighting as well as to peace-making. Finally, the article traces aspects of structural change in gender relations and roles brought about by the years of unrest, and it analyses how the war stimulated women’s social, economic and political activism. It thereby foregrounds the challenges and opportunities that the collapse of the dictatorial government provided for women, arguing that the fall of the regime has become a ‘blessing in disguise’ for Somali women in general. Civil war and statelessness forced women to bundle their energies for peace-making and bringing about political change. They also had to take on new economic responsibilities which allowed them some independence from male ‘wards’. Downloaded by [Mohamed Ingiriis] at 11:30 10 May 2013 Dominant female roles and positions in Somali society until 1991 In order to be able to assess what kind of changes civil war and state collapse have brought about regarding the role and powers of Somali women in social, economic and political affairs, it is necessary to provide a brief background to the situation of women in Somalia before 1991. Lidwien Kapteijns argued that pre-colonial and colonial Somali society was strongly patriarchal in that the exercise of power and authority was exclusively a male domain; also the accumulation of wealth was controlled by men. Still, in a society in which a woman belonged to her father’s group by patrilineal descent, but was according to the rules of clan exogamy related to another clan by marriage, relationships through women were politically important. Thus, ‘each married woman became a significant bearer of social capital in that she represented to both communities the rights and duties of reciprocal sharing.’9 This was especially important in the countryside, where different groups frequently fought over access to pasture and water. Women also made crucial economic contributions. Besides their reproductive labour, women in the countryside helped subsistence by herding sheep and goats, loading camels, processing the primary products of the pastoral nomadic economy such as milk, meat and skins, and weaving the grass-mats used to cover the nomadic hut. Once urban centres developed in the Somali territories during the colonial period, middle-class women in towns pursued a lifestyle that was economically much less productive. They focused more on raising their children and some basic religious education. Lower-class women were dependent on their own labour and existed at the bottom of society. Like their sisters from the countryside, urban women were largely dependent on their male relatives and their husbands for any form of political or legal representation and economic advancement.10 In post-colonial years, Somali nationalist leaders, all of whom were men, strived to do away with traditions they perceived as anachronistic and ‘backward’. Abdurahman Baadiyow argues that as a result of the modernist approach, ‘Somali women gained more power and benefits, including equality in citizenship, voting rights, equal opportunities in the social services and jobs and paid maternity leave.’11 Kapteijns, however, maintained that due to the fact that clan-exogamy decreased, women became even less valuable as bearers of reciprocal rights and duties between groups. Therefore, women became more marginal members of their communities, and had hardly any stake in the ‘modern’ state.12 Nevertheless, it is clear that the coup d’état by Mohamed Siyad Barre and his followers in October 1969 introduced a new rhetoric in Somalia, which aimed at Downloaded by [Mohamed Ingiriis] at 11:30 10 May 2013 Journal of Eastern African Studies 317 improving women’s official status. Somalia was henceforth a ‘socialist’ society. Gender equality and women’s increased participation in society was desired. In 1971, the president decreed the establishment of the Somali Women’s Democratic Organisation (SWDO). It was concerned with mass mobilization and ‘awareness raising’ among Somali women. The government also sought to improve healthcare and education for women. Several laws were designed to strengthen the position of women in society. The most important of these laws was the Family Law of 1975, which came into force only in 1978. This law defined marriage as a ‘contract between man and woman who are equal in rights and duties; its basis are mutual understanding and respect . . .’.13 This and other provisions in this law directly contravened Islamic law which, together with customary law (Somali: xeer) so far had been the basis of family matters in Somali society. The socialist government also ruled out the payment of bride wealth and of blood compensation (Somali: mag). However, much of these new rules were resisted and disregarded by the conservative Islamic elements in society.14 Even Somali women were partly afraid to make use of the new laws contradicting religious and traditional prescriptions. Similarly, the fight of the modernizers against ‘tribalism’ was not successful. While, on the one hand, any reference to clan, etc. was declared illegal, the government itself became increasingly tribalistic/clanish, particularly after Somalia had lost the Ogaden War against Ethiopia (1977
1978) and afterwards, when Mohamed Siyad Barre was facing internal opposition.15 Kapteijns comes to the conclusion that: Siyaad Barre’s state feminism, irrespective of the sincerity of its ideological beginnings, became the source of clan-base
and class-based
clientage extended to a select group of women. Thus, during the Barre regime, some women got to climb up the social ladder held up by men, although in general they were not allowed up very far.16 Women gained access to some limited power and wealth only as female relatives of loyal male clients or as female relatives of men who had to be kept from power (as compromise); or they had to ‘compromise their sexuality in order to obtain a wagepaying position’.17 The sheer number of Somali women and the contribution they made in the government of Mohamed Siyad Barre until 1991 was all but revolutionary. Women were sometimes used for propaganda campaigns, but in the Politbureau there were only men; in the Central Committee there was only one woman out of 76 members; in the 51 member council of ministers there were only two female vice-ministers, and only around 6% of the parliament was female.18 After the fall of the government in 1991, several female vice-ministers were included in the warlord governments of Ali Mahdi and General Mohamed Farah Aideed. In sum, it appears that throughout the first post-colonial decades Somali society remained essentially a patriarchal society, despite national discourses on modernization and socialism, and social and economic developments related to urbanization. Politics and economy was the domain of men. Somali civil war in gender perspective Civil wars are dirty wars, as Turshen reminds us. They ‘maim cultures, jar their very foundations, destroy crucial frameworks of knowledge and people’s sense of reality, Downloaded by [Mohamed Ingiriis] at 11:30 10 May 2013 318 M.H. Ingiriis and M.V. Hoehne ruin social institutions as well as infrastructure, and jeopardize identities based on place and communities’.19 Somalia has been embroiled in armed conflict since the late 1970s, when several opposition groups started their armed rebellion against the brutal military regime. This eventually led to the downfall of the government, and subsequently to the dissolution of the state and much of the social fabric.20 During the course of the war women experienced physical horrors when hostile warlords and their militias confronted each other and preyed on the most vulnerable in the society in their battles for power and economic resources.21 It is worth adding here that the civil war at times influenced women in urban settings, particularly in highly contested places such as Mogadishu, Kismaayo and Galkayo, more directly than it did in the countryside. At other times, however, when militias chased each other all across south
central Somalia and when Al-Shabaab battled with Ethiopian and other intervention forces in the regions, women in the cities and in the countryside were similarly affected. The more structural impacts related to lack of security, employment and infrastructure due to state collapse were of course felt everywhere; but women who had been socialized in the countryside which had been always a marginal space where survival was related to farming or animal husbandry might have been prepared better for these conditions. In total, the fighting has claimed several hundred thousand lives. Many more were wounded (both physically and mentally), while nearly 1 million have sought refuge in neighbouring countries, i.e. Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya, or fled to Europe, North America and Australia.22 Besides the general destruction, the Somali civil war, like most other wars in Africa, had also clearly gendered aspects.23 Rape was employed as a weapon by militias to humiliate and do away with opponents through attacking and dishonouring their women. This kind of sexual violence inflicted individual suffering, including physical pain, mental illness or death.24 It also led to the dissolution of families, since many married women who survived rape could not return to their husbands, due to social norms that put much of the shame and blame for rape on the women, not on the rapists. It finally provided a gruesomely effective strategy in ‘clan cleansing’,25 which refers to the chasing away of whole descent groups through their opponents.26 Despite its endemic nature, it is an arduous task to obtain statistics on rape cases during war to assess the real scale of this kind of violence against women.27 Also once they left Somalia, Somali refugee women were not safe. Many who in various waves crossed over into Kenya were caught on the border and subjected to rape and other atrocities by Somali militias and Kenyan policemen.28 Also in the refugee camps, the ordeals continued.29 Apart from these direct impacts on women, there have been some more indirect and structural effects of the war. Matt Bryden and Martina Steiner show that the war aggravated what they called ‘the feminisation of poverty’, insisting that ‘many women live alone or without relatives to support them and a significant number of the women in Somalia are the only breadwinners in the family. [. . .] The feminisation of poverty is thus on the increase.’30 Even though a comprehensive study has not been conducted so far which would explore the exact number of victims of violence, women most probably bore the brunt of the war over the past decades.31 Up until the present (2013), media, United Nations (UN) assessments, NGO reports and witness statements of Somali asylum-seekers also highlight the particular vulnerability of Somali women.32 The UN Secretary General mentioned in a recent report on Somalia issued in May 2012 that ‘the number of reports of sexual violence increased.’33 He added, ‘Rape and sexual violence against internally displaced Journal of Eastern African Studies 319 women and girls continues to be reported. Survivors identified perpetrators as Transitional Federal Government soldiers and armed groups.’34 Al Jazeera recently reported that ‘[a]uthorities do not take allegations of rape
even gang-rape
seriously.’ The report spoke at length about the stigma for women involved with rape. When talking about the situation of young, unmarried rape victims, some women activists in Mogadishu talking to Al Jazeera stressed: ‘These younger victims are the ones who are most reluctant to report they were raped because they are also worried about their future and whether being a victim of rape will lessen their chances for marriage.’ Another activist from Galkayo in northeastern Somalia mentioned: Downloaded by [Mohamed Ingiriis] at 11:30 10 May 2013 In my experience, 90 percent of [the] women who were raped are reluctant to go to authorities because they are afraid or they are not confident [that] anything will be done. There is also a need to educate; a lot of these women feel ashamed, they view themselves as haram, spoiled, dirty
and are unwilling to talk about it. But, as initially stressed, women were not only the victims of the fighting in Somalia. Like in other contemporary African contexts, some women were also combatants. In Bryden and Steiner, a young gunwoman speaks about her motivations to fight and experiences during the war years in the south in the early 1990s. She mentioned that she was looking for ‘justice and freedom’. Her hatred focused on the old dictatorial regime under which she had been treated unfairly. She joined the United Somali Congress (USC) and helped to oust Mohamed Siyad Barre; later she fought against American forces pursuing a warlord in Mogadishu. She even fought when she was pregnant and was wounded seven times.35 While the number of those who physically participated in the civil war may be small, more women offered services such as cooking or washing to the militias, or mobilized and encouraged their male relatives to secure their clan’s status in future political disposition.36 Virginia Luling, based on fieldwork in the early 1990s, challenged the assumption that women are simply ‘a force for peace’. She observed that women were not less partisan than men and concluded that ‘women have egged their menfolk on [their traditional role in Somali warfare].’37 Here, it is noteworthy that oral communication through poetry has an extremely important place in Somali society.38 In her analysis of Somali poetry as way of mediating conflict, Kapteijns mentions ‘virulent and incendiary poetry, often produced in the heat of the moment, in which men and women praise their own families/clans, vilify enemy clans, and jeer at the violence and abuse inflicted upon the latter.’39 An example of this can be found on a video clip recorded in Kismaayo, southern Somalia, in early 1990s during the height of the clan wars. This video shows a Somali poetess called Halima Sofe exhorting two notorious warlords, General Mohamed Said Morgan and General Gabyow, to fight for the ‘honour of the clan’.40 Somali women engaging actively as motivators or fighters in war have a long tradition, despite the stereotypical image in patriarchal Somali society of women as wives and mothers confined to cooking, tending sheep, goats, caring for the children, and otherwise being passive and tame.41 In Somaliland, Hoehne collected an oral account of a local conflict that had erupted shortly before the advent of the British colonizers. A man was killed by a member of his own lineage. Conflicts among close relatives are usually devastating, since fighting produces many victims in a close-knit community. The elders came together immediately in the hope to prevent war. While the deliberations were ongoing, a niece of the victim passed by and recited a poem 320 M.H. Ingiriis and M.V. Hoehne she had just composed. In it she described how she had met the dead and mangled body of her uncle on her way to the elders’ meeting and how the killed man had complained about his family, who do not want to avenge his death. In reaction, one of the warriors of the killed man’s close family rose and proclaimed war.42 Hawo Tako is one of the heroines who stood up against the colonial rulers.43 Still, most Somali women today seem to be reluctant to accept their share of responsibility for the war. Faduma Jibril, an environmental activist, berates Somali women to admit how they contributed to the tragedy that afflicted their society: Downloaded by [Mohamed Ingiriis] at 11:30 10 May 2013 Let us not pretend innocence. . . . [We] have empowered and encouraged our husbands, our leaders and our militias to victimise our fellow countrymen. . . . [We] cry, grieve and remain weary, but do not learn the lesson
a lesson that has cost [us] more than we [would] ever know.44 It has become clear that Somali women were not just victims in the civil war. While indeed the Somali fighting had a gendered nature and women (and children) suffered disproportionally, particularly from the increase of rape and the systematic use of sexual violence as a weapon in war, women also were actively involved in fostering the Somali tragedy. The remainder of this article deals with the different social transformations the protracted conflict triggered with regard to the social, economic and political roles of women in Somalia. Women as peace-makers Once they had understood the calamity that had befallen their communities, some women became genuine peace promoters and aspired to end the fighting and transform their communities.45 Among the women who dedicated their life in advocating for human rights in Somalia is Mariam Hussein Awreeye. She is the widow of the prominent human rights lawyer Ismail Jimale Ossoble. Mariam founded the Ismail Jimale Centre for Human Rights in war-torn Mogadishu soon after Mohamed Siyad Barre’s fall to monitor and record human rights violations so that perpetrators could be brought to justice once legal institutions were put in place.46 Other notable female philanthropists are Dr Hawa Abdi, a Soviet-educated gynaecologist, and her two daughters, Russian-educated medical doctors, who assisted women and children in Mogadishu and surroundings for more than two decades of suffering.47 For her engagement, Dr Hawa Abdi has been nominated for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize. During the years of war several women who helped to build peace and empower women have lost their lives. Among those were Starlin Abdi Arush, an Italianeducated intellectual and community leader, Mana Abdirahman Suldan (‘Mana Haajow’), who ran an orphanage, and Verena Karrer, a Swiss relief worker. All three dedicated their lives to improving the condition of children and women in Merka in southern Somalia by providing education and shelter during the worst days of the southern Somali civil war.48 Karrer was gunned down in Merka in February 2002 by militiamen who entered her compound. Starlin died in Nairobi in October 2002 when shot by unknown gunmen.49 Mana Haajow died of a cardiac attack in December 2007. Besides these individuals and many others, there emerged hundreds of women’s movements (some very local, others with a wider outreach) that were actively involved in making a difference in the high-risk, war-torn environment of southern Downloaded by [Mohamed Ingiriis] at 11:30 10 May 2013 Journal of Eastern African Studies 321 Somalia.50 Also in the north, women played important roles in the local and regional peace processes throughout the 1990s. Mark Bradbury noted that women attended as ‘peace advocates’ the various peace conference held in Somaliland, in northwestern Somalia, in the early 1990s at which local clans were reconciled.51 These peace conferences lay the basis for political reconstruction in the region. Women continued to care for peace in Somaliland, which took several years to become really stable.52 For instance, in August 2001, when tensions between President Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal and some high-ranking traditional leaders flared up, some businesswomen from the region calling themselves ‘Hargeysa Women Community’ published an open letter in a local newspaper demanding that the two sides ‘avoid all steps that endanger the peace of the country and give a chance to Somaliland enemies’.53 Women played a similar role in Puntland, which was established in 1998 as autonomous administration in northeastern Somalia.54 For many women, the motivations to engage in peace-building rather than igniting warfare were based on considerations of survival, morale and the sheer horror they had gone through during the fighting.55 Luling mentioned that the ‘experience of the sufferings of war has turned women’s minds to this peace-making function, while at the same time they have acquired new roles in organised groups’.56 Women employed various strategies to foster peace, some of which were traditional, others were more innovative. One strategy was to act as messengers between warring clans. This role is created through the logic of patrilineal descent and clan exogamy in Somali society. It makes a Somali woman a member of her own group of origin, and simultaneously relates her closely to the descent group of the husband, who often belongs to another clan. When her own and her husband’s group are in conflict, a woman can use her social capital to establish a line of communication between the opposed groups and thereby either prevent or contribute to end the fighting.57 This, however, was only effective if the fighting was to some degree constrained by the traditional clan ethos of not harming women, children and the elderly, among other vulnerable groups. Indeed, when the fighting knew no boundaries, even female messengers could not do much or became even targets. A second, more collective strategy was holding demonstrations for peace, chanting slogans proclaiming that ‘Somali women need peace, not war.’ Individually or collectively at demonstrations women also recited their own poetry (buraambur) which could be aimed at igniting warfare, as mentioned above, or at fostering peace and community cohesion. Sometimes after such recitations warring militiamen felt not only humbled, but also were compelled to accept the message carried by the female poetry
that is, to end war and hostility. In a poem, a 13-year-old Somali schoolgirl, Samira Omar Said, calls for an urgent peaceful arrangement after violent conflict suddenly broke out between militiamen in the midst of her community: Peace! Peace! Peace assurance I call Everyone in society has a great role to play Never to repeat previous mistakes Never to shun responsibilities Because peace is a collective responsibility58 Two recent poem composed by Mariam Mohamed Jimale, known as Mariam Jaceyl, are pungent prayers for peace, as their names indicate: ‘Allow nabad noogu deeq’ (Oh God Bestow Peace Upon Us), and ‘aaway barafasooradii Soomaaliyeed?’ 322 M.H. Ingiriis and M.V. Hoehne (Where Have the Somali Intellectuals Disappeared?).59 Equally, another buraambur, composed by Faduma Mohamud Osman from northeast Somalia, shows women’s commitment to peace: Downloaded by [Mohamed Ingiriis] at 11:30 10 May 2013 We, the womenfolk in Bari [eastern] region, are not vindictive And are ready for peace making; As always, we are in readiness fostering the unity of the Somali society. To achieve justice for all is a principle vehemently Supported by womenfolk In the face of fallen and crying statehood and, Devastation of the country, Somali womenfolk do not sleep at ease.60 This strand of female poetry connects well with several Somali proverbs concerning peace, like ‘nabad haddii aysan jirin hurdo ma jirto’ (Where there is no peace, there is no sleep)’ and ‘nabad wixii lagu waayo, dagaal laguma helo’ (What can’t be achieved through peace, cannot be obtained by war).61 Peter Little has observed that women’s efforts through lobbying and uniting their voice rendered them to assume important functions in the more recent peace conferences.62 Elmi et al. note that in some areas in Somalia when women are past child-bearing age they are ‘accepted as elders and do help settle disputes, though they cannot participate in all the activities of elders’.63 While buraambur can be considered as a traditional female instrument to promote peace, the experience during the height of the civil war in the south in the early 1990s seems to suggest that the poems composed at the time were not as influential as they used to be in the past. In an urging buraambur sent from Beledweyne city in central Somalia, Adar Abdi Fiidow tries to convince women to add action to their poems. She exhorts her fellows: Disarm now, discard and bury divisions for the sake of peace Seek to resolve existing differences peacefully and intelligently with the pen and not the sword Somalis, bury the hatchet, let there be no more slaughtering, and ordain peace as a priority issue for deliberation Anti-peace elements and belligerent men who are yet unprepared for it we are ready to challenge them and convince them to join the peace process Somali women, whichever your country of abode, be reminded of action on this obligation Somali womenfolk, strive to keep your war-mongering men in the bounds of morality Wives should preach peace and reconciliation to their partners at home Where are the writers and university professors, and why don’t they produce peace literature? Why don’t you propagate and consolidate peace regardless of your clan origin?64 The buraambur cited above significantly reflects that Somali women have played an active role to end the warfare that had ruined their regions. However, such efforts are compounded by the assumption that peace starts at home, thus its initiatives have to be carried out by women.65 In this context, women have been instrumental in promoting the importance of peace among their husbands, sons, fathers, brothers, Downloaded by [Mohamed Ingiriis] at 11:30 10 May 2013 Journal of Eastern African Studies 323 uncles, cousins as well as to their mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts and other women relatives.66 Those efforts augmented women’s position and status in Somali society. One may argue that the peace-making capacity of women as messengers between warring groups and as ‘peaceful conscience’ of their people depends on the scale of fighting and the degree to which traditional ‘checks and balances’ of warfare, e.g. sparing women, children and the elderly, are still functioning. Particularly in southern Somalia, where since 1991 the scale and type of violence several times went beyond all previously known social boundaries, women faced considerable challenges in their work for peace. These challenges were perhaps bigger than in the rather marginal and largely pastoral nomadic north where some Somali traditions have been preserved better already since colonial time.67 Another strategy which Somali women employed to foster peace-building and, in a second step, community development was to bundle their energies and establish NGOs. In a society that traditionally confined the range of activities of women to the home, and to caring for children, serving husbands, and tending sheep and goats, this was an innovation. Despite its revolutionary appeal, women’s self-organization had also not been possible during the time of the military regime (1969
1991), which only allowed government-controlled associations. Among the NGOs formed to provide a voice to women’s concerns is Save Somali Women and Children (SSWC). Founded in 1992 by Asha Haji Elmi, a women’s rights activist,68 and other like-minded women, SSWC was one of the first cross-clan women movements established during the height of the civil war. However desirable the cross-clan concept may have been, SSWC was only combining members of the so-called ‘majority clans’. So-called minority groups such as Bravenese, Banadiri and Bantu were not involved. In Merka, the Women Development Organisation was set up in the early 1990s. It supported internally displaced persons and engaged in the disarmament of local militias. The Coalition for Grassroots Women Organisations (COGWO) was established in Mogadishu in 1996. It combined several like-minded civil society organizations (CSOs) and served as a platform for peace-building that united women’s voices and efforts. Other organizations followed.69 In Somaliland, NAGAAD was founded during the reconciliation conferences in the 1990s. Its protagonists believed that women’s voices were not heard adequately during the process of building peace and stability in the region. NAGAAD was established as an umbrella for several women’s organizations. Its aim was to ‘work on the social and economic empowerment of Somaliland’s women to provide female perspective and input on the peace process’.70 These gender-based organizations clearly have enhanced the ‘social power’ of women. They became accepted as peace-makers and community developers, at least in some locations and to some degree. But the more vocal women became, the more they entered into confrontation with powerful men in their own clans who wished to hinder the development of women.71 While this struggle at the community level is ongoing, and in many places peace still needs to be built after the new escalations of violence particularly in south
central Somalia since the coming to power of militant Islamists and the subsequent military intervention of Ethiopia in 2006, women have also taken serious steps to increase their weight in Somali politics. Women’s changing positions in the political realm It was mentioned above that in a patrilineal society based on clan exogamy, a woman’s identity was split between her father’s and her husband’s group. This Downloaded by [Mohamed Ingiriis] at 11:30 10 May 2013 324 M.H. Ingiriis and M.V. Hoehne provided chances for peace-making as a go-between, but on the other hand it hindered the development of a strong political position. Essentially, a woman’s loyalties were distrusted by both her father’s and her husband’s groups.72 Asha Haji Elmi, mentioned above, together with fellow women activists sought to create a new powerful identity for women in politics. They finally established the ‘Sixth Clan’ which was a new term that entered discussions about gender and politics in Somalia officially during the peace conference in Arta, Djibouti, in 2000.73 It refers to ‘the clan of women’.74 Asha Haji Elmi and other women activists persuaded rival leaders of the five major Somali clans to allow women’s participation in the conference, where women participants collectively challenged the delegates ‘to think beyond clan boundaries in drafting a peace agreement’.75 The inclusion of women at the negotiation table was a highly significant achievement, since even though ‘Somali women have long played a vital role in facilitating communication, mobilizing resources, and applying informal pressure in favour of specific outcomes, the formal socio-political process is overwhelmingly the preserve of men.’76 In an address given by Asha Haji Elmi to the Dialogue with Arab Women on Economic and Political Issues, Pan-African Centre for Gender, Peace and Development, held in Dakar, Senegal, on 1 May 2005, she noted her attempts in extricating women from clan rivalry. She explained: The Sixth Clan was born out of frustration. Within our society, although [we are] victims of conflict we had no voice for the national solution. In a patriarchal society such as ours, women have no right to represent their clan, nor any responsibility for protecting the clan. A group of us had the idea to form our own clan, in addition to the five pre-existing clans [Isaaq, Darood, Hawiye, Dir and Digil/Mirifle].77 The Sixth Clan gave us the first political entry point for women as equal partners in decision making. The women elected me to be their leader. We went to the negotiation table with the five clan leaders. We put women’s interests into the peace process . . . we engendered the language. Instead of merely referring to men, the language [in government documents] now says ‘he or she’.78 Despite the success at the Arta conference, Somali women were denied a platform as ‘the Sixth Clan’ at the subsequent Somali peace conferences in Kenya (2002
2004) and Djibouti (2008
2009). Women, however, still participated at these conferences, but not as independent group but as members of their clans. Such developments underpin the challenges women are continually experiencing in their long struggle to gain access to the decision-making circles. Nonetheless, from the early 2000s onward, women became a force to reckon with in Somali politics in general. The first time women entered national politics again in south
central Somalia (since the time before 1991) was at the already mentioned Arta conference. There, a 245-strong parliament was formed within which 25 seats were allocated for women. Several very prominent women received extra seats. The government formed in Arta, called the Transitional National Government (TNG), also had for the first time a female minister. The TNG was largely still-born. It was followed by the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) that was established in Kenya in 2004. In its parliament women were given a 12% quota out of 275 seats (33 seats). But roughly only half of these seats were taken by women. In this TFG also one woman became a minister. In the new TFG that was formed in Djibouti in late 2008/early 2009, women were supposed to have a 12% quota in an enlarged parliament of 550 strong parliament (66 seats); but again only about half of these Downloaded by [Mohamed Ingiriis] at 11:30 10 May 2013 Journal of Eastern African Studies 325 seats were filled. This government had several women serving as ministers. One of the most outspoken MPs in opposition to former interim President Abdullahi Yusuf (2004
2008) and then Sheikh Sharif (2009
2012) was a woman named Asha Ahmed Abdalla, who had returned from the United States to Somalia. The most recent Somali government under President Hassan Sheikh Mahamoud that was established in Mogadishu in mid-2012 officially has a 30% quota out of 275 MPs. Again, so far only half of these seats are occupied.79 The current Somali government also has two female ministers, among them Fowsia Yusuf Haji Adam, who originates from the northwest and was involved in Somaliland politics previously. She was nominated Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the Somali Republic in November 2012. Another woman, Maryam Qasim, leads the Ministry for Development and Social Affairs.80 Also in Somaliland women achieved some significant positions in politics from the early 2000s onward when the first female minister was given the portfolio of Family Affairs. In 2003 Edna Adan, a qualified nurse, former representative of Somalia to the World Health Organisation (WHO), and once first lady of the Somali Republic in the late 1960s, became Somaliland’s first female foreign minister. As foreign minister she did not tire of travelling the world and advocating Somaliland’s case. After her, other women became ministers of Labour and Education. In the preparations of the local government elections in Somaliland in early 2012, Fowsia Yusuf Haji Adan, who has been mentioned above, founded her own political organization to compete for seats in local councils. She was planning eventually to compete for the Somaliland presidency.81 However, her organization did not make it through the first round of the elections and was therefore excluded from the final elections. Despite the relatively early entrance of female ministers into the government of Somaliland, women so far have not achieved significant representation in the parliament or the local councils there. In September 2012, Somaliland law-makers voted down a provision that would have established a quota for female representation in parliament.82 In the most recent local government elections in November 2012, only two out of around 110 women competing for seats succeeded. In Puntland the situation is a little different. There is at least one female minister for Family and Social Affairs in the cabinet. Around 30% of the local councils include women elected by their constituencies. Finally, five out of 66 seats in the Puntland parliament are occupied by women. Arguably, women have started to make their voices heard in Somali politics. They certainly contributed to the political marginalization of the warlords that until 2000 carved up power among themselves whenever a nominal Somali parliament was forged. However, Somali women are still far from being adequately represented in local, regional or national politics. Female roles in economic reconstruction Also in the economic sphere, women’s roles and positions changed significantly since 1991. All state structures disappeared in the armed conflict and chaos. This led to ‘a major disruption of economic, social and political life and to an unforeseen humanitarian catastrophe’.83 Many men died, were injured, lost their mind or interest in the family, or fled and therefore effectively relinquished their responsibility as breadwinners for the family. Such repercussions of civil war and state collapse Downloaded by [Mohamed Ingiriis] at 11:30 10 May 2013 326 M.H. Ingiriis and M.V. Hoehne were aggravated by the spread of the habit of qaad-chewing among Somali men in Somalia. While qaad has a long tradition in the Horn and among Somalis, among other peoples it has not become a drug for the masses until the mid-20th century. Even then it remained a stimulant for leisure hours, mostly on Thursdays and Fridays. Yet qaad-chewing became ‘endemic’ among Somali men from the late 1980s onward, with militiamen and male refugees in the camps in Ethiopia becoming at least psychologically addicted. Qaad-chewing makes men essentially unproductive and drains meagre family resources.84 Somali women who grew up in the Somali Republic were traditionally not chewing.85 Also in the times of civil war and statelessness most women kept their distance to qaad. Women who were chewing were frequently perceived as prostitutes.86 Against the background of the economically ‘failing’ men, women became more active in business and took on the traditional position of men as breadwinners of the household.87 Women engaged particularly in small-scale trade, selling cloths, vegetables, snacks or household items in the markets. Many also sold qaad in the market. Even some of the wholesalers who organize the import of qaad are women. (This seems somewhat paradoxical, given the long-term effects of qaad-chewing on the family economy and the society at large.) Particularly younger and educated women also entered the field of development and became highly appreciated partners of international NGOs and UN organizations working in the Somali territories. Finally, there are many women among the Somali refugees in the diaspora who from the mid-1990s onward began to remit money to support their relatives back home.88 Generally, women were often considered to be more reliable since they were not so much at risk of ‘wasting’ their money earned abroad (or gained from social welfare) on qaad or other leisure activities. Certainly, the economic transformation from male-dominated to female-dominated household economies did not go smoothly. Many Somali families suffer from the lack of a sufficient and stable income. Due to the pressure of finding food for their families, a considerable number of women also ‘have been forced into other, less remunerative forms of petty trade, such as firewood and charcoal sales’.89 Individually or collectively, women have also contributed to community development in Somalia. Parallel to their engagement for peace, as mentioned above, they were concerned with what Brigitte Sørensen called ‘economic reconstruction’90
that is, building hospitals, schools, mosques and other philanthropic activities. Women organizations’ provision of basic public services, including healthcare, water, sanitation and education, has constituted some of the most immediate contributions to human development in Somalia since 1991. However, women’s new position as breadwinners and household leaders came with a new conundrum in the transformation of gender roles in Somalia. Despite the neglect of their traditional economic responsibilities for the family, Somali men were reluctant to assume their wives’ traditional role of looking after the children. As a result, many women were encumbered with two colossal tasks: being a breadwinner and prime care-taker of the children in the family. At the level of external actors concerned with Somalia, the double burden of women found acknowledgement. It was observed that ‘economically independent, culturally aware and highly educated women command more respect in the society.’91 Some argued that particularly expatriate, educated women have a better chance of offering ‘alternative solutions to long-standing problems of Somalia’.92 But within Somali society, women’s contribution to economic developments in general and family subsistence in particular as well as raising their children did not provide them Journal of Eastern African Studies 327 Downloaded by [Mohamed Ingiriis] at 11:30 10 May 2013 with a substantial increase of their social status (compared with that of men). Women are still considered inferior to men, a notion which is often legitimated by reference to Islamic provisions about gender divisions and reinforced by Somali custom, such as the payment of mag (‘blood price’). The mag of a woman is still half that of a man. Also with regard to marriage, women’s position is still precarious. In the absence of statutory law demanding gender equality, women are frequently treated as ‘commodities’ that are ‘traded’ by their male relatives to the family of the groom against the payment of bride-wealth (payable in animals and/or money). In this way, the entrepreneurial economic spirit of women in the urban areas as well as in the countryside that provides for much of Somalia’s micro-finances is countered by the prevalence of patriarchal traditions regarding the core of social (and economic) reproduction
the family. Conclusions Somali tradition and culture has long excluded women from the centres of power. This seems to have been reversed to some degree by the war. Fatima Ali mentions that at the community level ‘conflict may create space to make a redefinition of social relations possible.’ She however goes on to caution that ‘in doing so it rearranges, readapts or reinforces patriarchal ideologies, rather than fundamentally changing them.’ This article outlines that women were essentially ‘second class citizens’ in Somalia without access to political power or economic resources on a large scale until 1991. Against this background, developments over the past two decades until 2013 can be evaluated. The first insight about women’s increased agency is related to female roles during the fighting. While having been depicted traditionally as passive, women were shown to be actively engaged in mobilizing their men and sometimes even taking up arms themselves. At the same time, Somali women had to bear the brunt of the Somali catastrophe. They were particularly vulnerable to the violence and lawlessness created by male clan militias in the early 1990s. Together with other settings such as former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, Somalia was a context in which violence against women was systematically employed by the various parties to the conflict to humiliate and demoralize the enemy. Yet, following the argument about the transformative potential of cataclysms and ruptures,93 the breakdown of the old order provided women also with new spaces for social, political and economic engagement. Women individually and collectively explored traditional but also more ‘unconventional’ ways to promote peace and restore law and order through addressing male decision-makers and their followers in poetic verses (buuraambur), acting as emissaries between warring factions, and demonstrating against insecurity and violence in public spaces. In this way, they developed a considerable peacebuilding potential that was even increased by establishing women’s NGOs and umbrella organizations inserting female perspectives on peace and community development. This article also demonstrates that, unlike before 1991, Somali women now made considerable advances in politics without much male help. From having had basically no representation whatsoever in the 1960s and having had quite limited representation under the ‘revolutionary’ regime until 1991, the first moderate breakthrough for female politicians at the local, regional and national level happened around 2000 and afterwards. Women gained ministerial positions in Somaliland and Puntland. In the Downloaded by [Mohamed Ingiriis] at 11:30 10 May 2013 328 M.H. Ingiriis and M.V. Hoehne Somali government established in Arta, women gained a small but significant quota in parliament. They also became ministers. From then onward the quota for women in the Somali parliament has increased. In Somaliland and Puntland, however, women still lack any significant parliamentarian representation. Generally, it can be argued that the civilization of Somali politics after the demise of the warlords in the late 1990s enabled women to play a greater role in politics.94 Moreover, the nonviolent Islamists of Al Islah that dominated the conference in Arta arguably adhered to a relatively progressive notion of society and politics, at least compared with the warlords and later, the militant Islamists of Al-Shabaab who came to power in much of south
central Somalia in 2006 and from then on until their fall in late 2012 established a harsh regime, particularly on women, curtailing basic freedoms of movement, expression and opinion. While Somali women are now ministers and, in one case, even deputy prime minister, in national governments they are still not yet adequately represented in politics throughout Somalia, Somaliland and Puntland. It also is clear that political progress was made by certain kind of women who mostly belonged to the urban middle-class and/or often have a diasporic background, including higher education abroad. Nonetheless, their success may help to raise the political conscience also among less privileged women. In our view, the greatest realm for female progress over the past two decades has been in the economic sphere. Female traders and businesswomen provide their families with income and even support their often unemployed husbands. Women in the diaspora reliably remit to their relatives at home and thereby facilitate family survival and, among other things, the education of younger siblings and other relatives. We agree with Bryden and Steiner who argue that ‘the economy has in some ways favoured women and has obliged them to replace men as the principal wageearners in their families and has also empowered them in important ways’.95 But women still have to take care of their children, as Somali men usually refuse to take over female roles. This creates a double burden for Somali women about which there are, as far we are aware of, no real discussions in Somali society. Finally, while one can argue that the civil war constituted a blessing in disguise for Somali women, forcing them to bundle their energies working for peace, political change and economic survival and thereby providing them with a certain independence from men, the transformations of gender roles emanating from the socio-political upheaval since 1991 did not (yet) lead to sustainable changes of the social structure. Particularly Somali politics are still embedded in the traditions of clanism and patriarchy, and the social status of women is generally still low, particularly in the more rural settings, despite women’s tremendous engagement for improving the Somali condition. Notes 1. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War; Gardner and El Bushra, Somalia: The Untold Story; Warsame, Queens Without Crowns; Asha-Kaha, Gumaadkii Muqdisho iyo Hargeysa. 2. Ahmed, ‘‘Finely Etched Chattel.’’ 3. Ali, ‘‘Women and Conflict Transformation,’’ 78. 4. Kapteijns, ‘‘Discourse on Moral Womanhood,’’ 118. 5. Kapteijns, ‘‘Making Memories of Mogadishu,’’ 69. 6. Turshen, ‘‘Women’s War Stories,’’ 15; also Littlewood, ‘‘Military Rape,’’ 7
16. Downloaded by [Mohamed Ingiriis] at 11:30 10 May 2013 Journal of Eastern African Studies 329 7. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War; Gardner and El Bushra, Somalia: The Untold Story. 8. Raeymaekers et al., ‘‘State and Non-State Regulation,’’ 10. 9. Kapteijns, ‘‘Women and the Crisis of Communal Identity,’’ 217. 10. Ibid., 217
224. 11. Abdurahman, ‘‘Women, Islamists and the Military Regime,’’ 14. 12. Kapteijns, ‘‘Women and the Crisis of Communal Identity,’’ 229. 13. Touati, Politik und Gesellschaft in Somalia, 145. 14. Abdurahman, ‘‘Women, Islamists and the Military Regime,’’ 15. Lewis, Blood and Bone, chs VII, VIII. 16. Kapteijns, ‘‘Women and the Crisis of Communal Identity,’’ 229. 17. Ibid. 18. Bryden and Stein, Somalia between Peace and War, 39. 19. Turshen, ‘‘Women’s War Stories,’’ 9. 20. For comprehensive studies on the causes of how Somalia descended into inter-clan ‘fractionalization’ and a protracted ‘civil’ war, see Ingiriis, ‘‘Making of the 1990 Manifesto’’; Makinda, ‘‘Politics and Clan Rivalry in Somalia’’; and Compagnon, ‘‘Political Decay in Somalia.’’ 21. Elmi et al., ‘‘Women’s Roles in Peacebuilding,’’ 16. 22. Sheikh and Healy, Somalia’s Missing Million. 23. Cockburn, The Space Between Us. 24. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War, 49
50; UN-INSTRAW, Women, Peace and Security, 21. 25. This term was coined by Lewis, Modern History of the Somali, 263. 26. Kapteijns, ‘‘Making Memories of Mogadishu,’’ 70. 27. The unprecedented atrocities which women have experienced during the fratricide war were briefly chronicled in Skjelsbaek and Smith, Gender, Peace and Conflict, 4. 28. Human Rights Watch, Welcome to Kenya. 29. Halperin, ‘‘Physical Security of Refugees,’’ 10
13. 30. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War, 49. 31. For example, see the Social Institutions and Gender Index. Accessed September 13, 2012. http://genderindex.org/country/somalia/. 32. Hoehne has been serving as an expert in Somali asylum cases since 2005. He has worked through several hundred cases, many of which highlighted sexual violence, rape, or sexual enslavement of female claimants or female relatives of male claimants between 1991 and 2012. Ingiriis has worked with rape victims in healthcare settings as well as at Help Somalia Foundation in London between 2009
2011. 33. UN Secretary General. Report on the Situation in Somalia, para. 68. 34. Ibid., para. 70. 35. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War, 45
46. 36. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War, 41; Gardner and El-Bushra, ‘‘Introduction,’’ 14
15; Sørensen, Women and Post-Conflict Reconstruction, iii. 37. Luling, ‘‘Come Back Somalia?,’’ 297. 38. For the role of poetry in socio-political and cultural transformation, see Ahmed, Daybreak is Near; Andrzejewski and Lewis, Somali Poetry; and Johnson, ‘‘Orality, Literacy and Somali Oral Poetry,’’ 119
136. 39. Kapteijns, ‘‘Making Memories of Mogadishu,’’ 33. 40. Accessed February 2, 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v5Dae00I_qtQ&playnext 1&listPLB96B732318779BA4&featureresults_main/. Between min 2:45 and 5:50 Halima Sofe recites a poem of the type buraambur to encourage General Morgan and his militia to fight with the forces of the United Somali Congress which expelled them from Mogadishu in January 1991. 41. For a poem in which a Somali man simultaneously describes and advises his ‘ideal wife’, who has to be clean, obedient, sensitive, and always ready to accommodate his relatives and uphold the honour of his clan, see Touati, Politik und Gesellschaft in Somalia, 139
140. 42. Interview with Mukhtar Maxamed Bulbul, Hargeysa, July 16, 2004. 43. Ingiriis, ‘‘Between Struggle and Survival,’’ 20
23. 330 M.H. Ingiriis and M.V. Hoehne 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. Downloaded by [Mohamed Ingiriis] at 11:30 10 May 2013 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War, 45. Telephone interview with Faduma Ahmed Alim ‘Ureeji’, May 6, 2011. Telephone interview with Maryan Hussein Awreeye, September 1, 2011. See, for instance, this report on her in The Guardian, ‘‘Somali doctor.’’ Ingiriis visited the town of Merka in December 2001, April 2002 and September 2002. Starlin was survived by her family and her fiancé, Roland Marchal, a French expert on Somalia, who wrote in her obituary: ‘‘She never much considered her own future; she only thought of her country.’’ For more on her relief work, see The Guardian, ‘‘Starlin Abdi Arush.’’ For these organizations, see Graney, ‘‘Women’s Rights in Somalia.’’ Bradbury, Becoming Somaliland, 98. Hoehne, ‘‘Not Born as a De Facto State.’’ Jamhuuriya Newspaper, 3, no. 175 (August 25
31, 2001), cited in Renders, Consider Somaliland, 210. Warsame, Queens Without Crowns; Dini, ‘‘Women Building Peace,’’ 33
34. Personal communication with Asha Haji Elmi, February 11, 2011. Luling, ‘‘Come Back Somalia?,’’ 297; personal communication with Asha Haji Elmi, London, November 2009. Kapteijns, ‘‘Women and the Crisis of Communal Identity,’’ 217. Elmi et al., ‘‘Women’s Roles in Peacemaking,’’ 133. Interview with Mariam Ja’eyl, London, May 7, 2011. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War, 42. Somali nomad proverbs are heavily gender-informed, with men’s proverbs not only differing from women’s, but also showing a sense of hegemony; for example, see Warsame, Maah-Maah Waliba Madasheedey Leedahay, 50
58. Little, Somalia: Economy Without State, 153. Elmi et al., ‘‘Women’s Roles in Peacemaking,’’ 123. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War, 65. Personal communication with Nurta Haji Hassan, May 6, 2011. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War, 58. Somali women’s peace-building approach is not parallel with a state-building mechanism; Goetze and Guzina, ‘‘Peacebuilding, Statebuilding, Nationbuilding,’’ 319
347. Ingiriis, ‘‘State and Society in Somalia,’’ 27
28. She is also the wife of the current prime minister, Abdi Farah Shirdoon. Jama, ‘‘Somali Women and Peace-Building.’’ Accessed February 3, 2013. http://www.insightonconflict.org/conflicts/somalia/peacebuilding-organisations/nagaad/. Ali, ‘‘Women and Conflict Transformation,’’ 72. Kapteijns, ‘‘Women and the Crisis of Communal Identity.’’ IRIN, SOMALIA interview with Maryam Arif Qasim, a member of Somalia’s transitional parliament. Accessed February 3, 2013. http://www.irinnews.org/printreport. aspx?reportid72082/. For detailed accounts on the ‘Sixth Clan’ concept, see Timmons, ‘‘Sixth Clan.’’ King, ‘‘What Difference Does It Make?,’’ 38. Walls, ‘‘Emergence of a Somali State,’’ 377. It is worth noting here that the number of ‘big clans’ in Somali society is somewhat contested. While many argue that Isaaq is part of Dir, the strength and independent political stance of Isaaq in the northwest (Somaliland) make them appear like an independent entity of Dir. Moreover, Digil and Merifle are often combined as Rahanweyn. Quoted in King, ‘‘What Difference Does It Make?,’’ 38
39. SOSCENSA, ‘‘Young Educated Women’s Dialogue On: ‘Realization of 30% Women Quota in the National Constituency Assembly and Parliament.’’’ May 28, 2012. Accessed February 27, 2013. http://www.soscensa.org/Files/Young_Educated_Somali_Women% 27s_Dialogue___May_2012.pdf/. DW, ‘‘Woman Foreign Minister in Somali Cabinet.’’ November 5, 2012. http://www.dw.de/ woman-foreign-minister-in-somali-cabinet/a-16356475/. Interview with Fowsia Yusuf Haji Adan, Hargeysa, April 19, 2012. Downloaded by [Mohamed Ingiriis] at 11:30 10 May 2013 Journal of Eastern African Studies 331 82. Barkhad Dahir, ‘‘Somaliland Lawmakers Oppose Parliament Quota for Women and Minorities.’’ September 6, 2012. Accessed January 18, 2013. http://sabahionline.com/en_ GB/articles/hoa/articles/features/2012/09/06/feature-02/. 83. Koskenmaki, ‘‘Legal Implications Resulting from State Failure,’’ 2. 84. Ezekiel, ‘‘Khat in the Horn of Africa’’; Hansen, ‘‘Ambiguity of Khat in Somaliland’’; Vouin-Bigot, ‘‘Le khat en Somalie.’’ 85. Somali women in Ethiopia sometimes chew. 86. Observation of Hoehne in Somaliland and Puntland, 2003
2004. 87. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War, 49. 88. Lindley, Early Morning Phone Call. 89. Little, Somalia: Economy Without State, 61. 90. Sørensen, Women and Post-Conflict Reconstruction. Somali women’s contribution to community buildings dates to the 11th century, when they ‘supported the construction of mosques in the oldest sections of the town [Mogadishu]’; Reese, Renewers of the Age, 118. 91. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Human Development Report, 59. 92. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War, 59. 93. Raeymaekers et al., ‘‘State and Non-State Regulation,’’ 10. 94. Jama, ‘‘Somali Women and Peace-Building.’’ 95. Bryden and Steiner, Somalia between Peace and War, 40. For a comparative analysis on Somali women’s economic power, see Ahmed, ‘‘Finely Etched Chattel,’’ 154
165. References Abdurahman M. A. Baadiyow. ‘‘Women, Islamists and the Military Regime in Somalia: The New Family Law and its Implications.’’ In Milk and Peace, Drought and War: Somali Culture, Society and Politics (Essays in Honour of I. M. Lewis), edited by M. V. Hoehne and V. Luling, 137
160. London: Hurst, 2010. Ahmed, A. J. Daybreak is Near: Literature, Clans, and the Nation-State in Somalia. Lawrenceville: Red Sea Press, 1996. Ahmed, Ch. Ch. ‘‘Finely Etched Chattel: The Invention of Somali Women.’’ In The Invention of Somalia, edited by A. J. Ahmed, 154
165. Lawrenceville: Red Sea Press, 1995. Ali, F. A. ‘‘Women and Conflict Transformation in Africa.’’ Feminismo/s 9 (2007): 67
78. Andrzejewski, B., and I. M. Lewis. Somali Poetry. Oxford: Clarendon, 1964. Asha-Kaha, Gumaadkii Muqdisho iyo Hargeysa. London: Lower Shabelle, 2000. Bradbury, M. Becoming Somaliland. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008. Bryden, M., and M. Steiner. Somalia between Peace and War: Somali Women on the Eve of the 21st century. Nairobi: UNIFEM, 1998. Cockburn, C. The Space Between Us: Negotiating Gender and National Identities in Conflict. London: Zed, 1998. Compagnon, D. ‘‘Political Decay in Somalia: From Personal Rule to Warlordism.’’ Refuge 12, no. 5 (1992): 8
13. Dini, Sh. ‘‘Women Building Peace: Somali Women in Somaliland and Puntland.’’ ACCORD Conflict Trends 2 (2009): 31
37. Elmi, A. H., D. Ibrahim, and J. Jenner. ‘‘Women’s Roles in Peacemaking in Somali Society.’’ In Rethinking Pastoralism in Africa: Gender, Culture and the Myth of the Patriarchal Pastoralist, edited by D. L. Hodgson, 121
141. Oxford: James Currey, 2000. Ezekiel Gebissa. ‘‘Khat in the Horn of Africa: Historical Perspectives and Current Trends.’’ Ethnopharmacology 132, no. 3 (2010): 607
614. Gardner, J., and J. El Bushra, eds. Somalia: The Untold Story: The War Through the Eyes of Somali Women. London: Pluto, 2004. Gardner, J., and J. El Bushra. ‘‘Introduction.’’ In Somalia: The Untold Story: The War Through the Eyes of Somali Women, edited by J. Gardner, and J. El Bushra, 1
20. London: Pluto, 2004. Goetze, C., and D. Guzina. ‘‘Peacebuilding, Statebuilding, Nationbuilding
Turtles All the Way Down?’’ Civil Wars 10, no. 4 (2008): 319
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