By Abdirahman Mohamed Gure - Somali writer and analyst specialising in Middle Eastern affairs and regional geopolitics. He writes about politics, art and philosophy.
“Foreign powers look to the long term while domestic actors study the map of seats; however imposing, a seat is smaller than the nation.”Abdirahman Mohamed Gure
Somalia rarely passes a year without adding a new issue to those already on its desk. Elections provoke disputes over how they should be conducted. Disagreement between the federal government and some federal member states remains unresolved.
Al-Shabaab’s threat persists. The Somaliland question is still unsettled. Ethiopia’s longstanding ambition to secure access to the sea has returned to the fore. Then Israel entered the picture. Crises ordinarily arrive one after another; in Somalia, they seem to prefer appearing together.
You cannot resolve a problem three decades old through a statement, nor build a state exhausted by civil war within one or two electoral cycles. The difficulty is that the changes around Somalia do not allow it the time it needs to put its house in order. The region is changing rapidly, the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden are crowded with competing powers, and what was overlooked during the years of weakness has now become a focus of attention.
Somalia has a coastline of more than 3,000 kilometres, the longest on mainland Africa. It stretches along the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean near Bab al-Mandab, one of the world’s most sensitive shipping lanes. For years, this coast figured more prominently in geography books than in political calculations because the state was preoccupied with survival.
Today, ports have become instruments of policy and seas a source of influence. The Horn of Africa, once remembered by the world mainly when war erupted or famine struck, has become a region where many powers compete for a presence.
Ethiopia understands the sea’s value better than most. It became landlocked after Eritrea’s independence and has continued to seek options for access. It is natural for a country without a coast to seek an outlet for its trade. The problem begins when the route to that outlet crosses territory another country regards as part of its sovereignty. Mogadishu therefore saw the memorandum of understanding Addis Ababa signed with the self-declared republic of Somaliland as an issue extending beyond a port to borders, unity and sovereignty.
Ankara then mediated, and the process ended with an affirmation of respect for Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, while opening the door to commercial arrangements that would give Ethiopia access to the sea under Somali sovereignty. The crisis eased, but the need that created the dispute did not disappear. The landlocked country remained where it was, with the sea still in view.
The sea’s influence did not end with the dispute involving Ethiopia. Israel entered the picture through Somaliland, an issue that was already complicated enough: a declared secession, functioning institutions in Hargeisa, a government in Mogadishu committed to national unity, and decades spent seeking international recognition. Israel’s recognition of Somaliland then added a new dimension. The matter was no longer simply an old dispute between Mogadishu and Hargeisa; it became more closely connected to developments around the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
This is where the threads converge. One party seeks an outlet, another wants influence, and others watch the ports and trade routes. In the middle stands a country that spent years consumed by its internal wars while its surroundings grew more important in other actors’ calculations.
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In the past, when one truly wanted to understand Somali politics, he followed Mogadishu, then looked to Hargeisa, Garowe and Kismayo, and assumed he had grasped the full story. Today, he must add Addis Ababa, Ankara and Tel Aviv, and learn something about events in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
He truly discovered, rather late, that a notebook was no longer enough and that an atlas on the table might be more useful.
It is said that French President Charles de Gaulle asked for a map whenever a crisis was put before him. God knows whether the story is true, but I like its meaning. A map sometimes says what speeches do not. Anyone trying to understand what is happening around Somalia today will lose nothing by opening the map first.
Nothing wrong about states pursuing their interests is surprising. Politics has worked that way since the world learned geography. The paradox is that outsiders who come from afar know what they want, while the people of the country remain divided over what they want for themselves.
Amid all this come the elections, and everyone says they want free and fair elections. This is one of the most enduring phrases in a country that has known little stability. Yet the dispute usually begins after the word “fair”: How will the elections be held? Under which system? Who will take part? Who sets the rules? What happens if no one agrees on them?
In stable countries, people argue over who will win an election. In Somalia, the argument begins before the election itself: its form, its rules and who will participate. Everyone then searches for consensus. If they disagree on that, they form a committee to bring the positions closer together, and the committee may end with a new disagreement requiring another committee.
Somalia does not suffer from a shortage of meetings. If states were built by the number of conferences and statements, Somalia would long ago have earned the right to request a seat in the G7.
But the issue is no longer merely a subject for humour. The internal divide is widening just as the country’s value rises in the calculations of outside powers. Every vacuum at home becomes more dangerous when many stand at its door, each carrying a project of their own.
The coming elections therefore loom larger than the names of the candidates. A president comes and goes, and governments change. Neighbours do not leave, the sea does not move, and developments around the region will not wait for Somalis to settle their disagreements.
For many years, Somalia sought the world’s attention. Time turned, and now the world is seeking a foothold in this region. That need not be frightening. States do not choose their neighbours or the seas they border, but they can choose how to manage their location and protect what they possess. The problem begins when others recognise the value of what you have before you agree on how to use it.
What should truly concern us is that outsiders know what they want from Somalia while some Somalis remain preoccupied with the map of seats. Foreign powers look to the long term, while those at home see elections as the shortest route to office. A seat, however imposing it may appear, is smaller than the nation.
Elections end, presidents leave, but geography remains. What slips from the state’s hands may not be easily recovered, and a vacuum never lasts long.
In the end, the most important question history records may not be, “Who won the election?” It may instead be, “What was left for the winner to govern?”
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Abdirahman Mohamed Gure is a Somali writer and analyst specialising in Middle Eastern affairs and regional geopolitics. He writes about politics, art and philosophy.
Email gure57@gmail.com
views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of Dawan Africa.
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