Mary Harper - Getting Somalia Wrong? (African Arguments)

African Arguments

African Arguments is a series of short books about Africa today. Aimed at the growing number of students and general readers who want to know more about the continent, these books highlight many of the longer-term strategic as well as immediate political issues. They will get to the heart of why Africa is the way it is and how it is changing. The books are scholarly but engaged, substantive as well as topical.

Series editors

ALEX DE WAAL , Social Science Research Council

RICHARD DOWDEN , Executive Director, Royal African Society

Editorial board

EMMANUEL AKYEAMPONG , Harvard University

TIM ALLEN , London School of Economics and Political Science

AKWE AMOSU , Open Society Institute

BREYTEN BREYTENBACH , Gore Institute

CRAIG CALHOUN , Social Science Research Council

PETER DA COSTA , journalist and development specialist

WILLIAM GUMEDE , journalist and author

ALCINDA HONWANA , Open University

ABDUL MOHAMMED , InterAfrica Group

ROBERT MOLTENO , editor and publisher

Titles already published

Alex de Waal, AIDS and Power: Why There is No Political Crisis Yet

Raymond W. Copson, The United States in Africa: Bush Policy and Beyond

Chris Alden, China in Africa

Tom Porteous, Britain in Africa

Julie Flint and Alex de Waal, Darfur: A New History of a Long War , revised and updated edition

Jonathan Glennie, The Trouble with Aid: Why Less Could Mean More for Africa

Peter Uvin, Life after Violence: A Peoples Story of Burundi

Bronwen Manby, Struggles for Citizenship in Africa

Camilla Toulmin, Climate Change in Africa

Orla Ryan, Chocolate Nations: Living and Dying for Chocolate in West Africa

Theodore Trefon, Congo Masquerade: The Political Culture of Aid Inefficiency and Reform Failure

Lonce Ndikumana and James Boyce, Africas Odious Debts: How Foreign Loans and Capital Flight Bled a Continent

Mary Harper, Getting Somalia Wrong? Faith, War and Hope in a Shattered State

Forthcoming

Gerard McCann, India and Africa Old Friends, New Game

Gernot Klantschnig and Neil Carrier, Africa and the War on Drugs: Narcotics in Sub-Saharan Africa

Tim Allen, Trial Justice: The Lords Resistance Army, Sudan and the International Criminal Court , revised and updated edition

Published by Zed Books with the support of the following organizations:

International African Institute The International African Institutes principal aim is to promote scholarly understanding of Africa, notably its changing societies, cultures and languages. Founded in 1926 and based in London, it supports a range of seminars and publications including the journal Africa .

Royal African Society Now more than a hundred years old, the Royal African Society today is Britains leading organization promoting Africas cause. Through its journal, African Affairs , and by organizing meetings, discussions and other activities, the society strengthens links between Africa and Britain and encourages understanding of Africa and its relations with the rest of the world.

Social Science Research Council The Social Science Research Council brings much-needed expert knowledge to public issues. Founded in 1923 and based in New York, it brings together researchers, practitioners and policy-makers in every continent.

About the author

Mary Harper is a BBC journalist specializing in Africa. She has reported from Somalia since the outbreak of civil war in 1991 and from other conflict zones in Africa. She has written for several publications, including the Economist , The Times and the Washington Post . She has degrees from Cambridge University and the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

GETTING SOMALIA WRONG?

FAITH, WAR AND HOPE IN A SHATTERED STATE

Mary Harper

in association with

International African Institute
Royal African Society
Social Science Research Council

Getting Somalia wrong? Faith, war and hope in a shattered state was first published in association with the International African Institute, the Royal African Society and the Social Science Research Council in 2012 by Zed Books Ltd, 7 Cynthia Street, London NI 9JF, UK and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA

www.zedbooks.co.uk

www.internationalafricaninstitute.org

www.royalafricansociety.org

www.ssrc.org

Copyright Mary Harper 2012

The right of Mary Harper to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Set in Monotype Plantin and FontFont Kievit by Ewan Smith, London
Index:
Cover designed by Rogue Four Design

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of Zed Books Ltd.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data available

ISBN 978 1 78032 105 9 epub

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

Maps

Figure

Photographs

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book is in many ways the combined efforts of several people. Mohamed Adde of the BBC Somali service gave generously of his time, his knowledge and his contacts; I could not have written this book without him. The same can be said for my colleague, Mohamed Moalimuu, in Mogadishu. Stephanie Kitchen believed in me from the start, and gave me constant reassurance and encouragement. Thank you too to my other editors, Ken Barlow, Alex de Waal, Richard Dowden and Robert Molteno. My colleagues and friends at the BBC Somali service, past and present, have taught me so much. They are too many to list individually, but I would like to give special mention to Ahmed Said Egeh, Abdullahi Haji, Yusuf Hassan, Bashkas Jugsodaay, Yonis Nur, Yusuf Garaad Omar, Abdirazak Haji Mohamed Sirad and Hussein Aw Jama Jibril Xagar. I would also like to thank Mohammed Adow, Abdirashid Duale, Abdulkader Hashi Elmi, Abdullah Farah, Julie Flint, Sally Healy, Ian Hoare, Karen OBrien and James Wylie. My greatest thanks are to my family. To my mother, Gay Harper, for introducing me to Somalia in the first place when she worked as a nurse in Mogadishu during the worst of the fighting in the early 1990s. To my father, Malcolm Harper, who is a constant inspiration, if exacting taskmaster. To my brother and sisters, and most of all to my children, Johnny and Antonia, who have had to put up for far too long with a mother distracted with matters Somali.

AUTHORS NOTE

As a journalist who has followed events in Somalia for the past two decades, I have had the privilege of meeting and learning from people at every level of Somali society, from presidents to pirates, from millionaire businessmen to those who have lost everything. It would have been impossible for me to do my work without these people, some of whom have put their lives or livelihoods at risk by speaking to me. I rely for much of my work on the brave Somali journalists, who live in dangerous places and speak to me almost daily about what is happening. From time to time, they call me in great excitement to tell me there has been no fighting that day, something so unusual that, for them, it is news. Some of these journalists have been forced into exile; others have lost their lives.