المحاكم الإسلامية.. أسباب السقوط ومقومات النهوض

The Islamic Courts: Causes of the Fall, Foundations of a Revival

This article was first published on Al Jazeera Net (in its “Opinions” section) on 31 January 2007. Link to the original text

Observers have been astonished at how fast events in Somalia have followed one another, and those who made the events were astonished before the observers were. The paper government¹ and the Ethiopian forces, too, were amazed to see the cities held by the Islamic Courts fall away within days, like beads from a snapped string.²

People had expected the fighters of the Courts Union at least to resist, city after city, to the end. But they insisted on adding to the surprise of their appearance the surprise of their disappearance.

The lines that follow assess the experience of the Courts Union and attempt to sketch the broad outlines of a way to lift the country out of the pit into which it has fallen, and to complete the project the Courts began.

Causes of the Rise, Hidden Seeds of the Fall

The Courts had strengths that helped them spread rapidly, but they also harboured weaknesses that went unseen because all eyes were so fixed on the strengths.

Perhaps what helped them to victory was the strength of their moral and political message rather than their military strength. People's desertion of the warlords, of whom they had grown weary, also played a large part in bringing about the Courts' resounding victory.

The Islamic Courts Union proved that Somalis can agree among themselves and achieve stability and development without any need of foreign support, if only they are left free to do so.

The Union managed to create a moral authority that made it acceptable to most of the Somali people at home and abroad, even though it had no real military or administrative structure. It showed that it could deal with the clan on a national and Islamic basis, without abolishing or excluding any national group.

Within months it had achieved internal harmony and civil peace, returned property to its owners, suppressed organised crime, and opened the airport and the seaport,³ despite the entrenched hostility from abroad and the isolation imposed on it from every quarter.

But the political naivety of the Courts Union left it unable to take the pulse of the international community or to deal with it from a strategic perspective. Perhaps the spontaneity of its birth, the strength it gained in routing the warlords and the wide reputation it won at home were among the main reasons why it paid no heed to the weakness of its own structure, political and military, in the face of a regional power such as Ethiopia and a world power such as the United States, not to mention the separatist entities at home⁴ and the federal government.

The Union failed to present itself as a movement with the makings of a political institution, with a programme and a single discourse voiced by its spokesmen. Its rhetoric veered at times towards hard-line rigidity and at others towards moderation and the middle way, and it was never clear which of the two actually held sway over decision-making in the Courts.

In its political discourse the movement took no account of regional and international public opinion, and this weakened its ability to win that opinion to its side.

Its emphasis on religious rather than political discourse also made nationalist elements wary, though they shared its political leanings. And some hard-line acts by some of its members helped tarnish its image in international, regional and domestic opinion, so that it lost some of the support of those sections of Somali society whose goodwill the top leadership had been trying to win.

Among some of its zealous rank and file, unwise religious passion ran ahead of patriotic feeling: as when one of them burned the Somali flag after the Courts entered Kismayo,⁵ and as happened in the town of Barawa, where they attacked the annual pilgrimage held in the town to the shrine of one of the most eminent saints, on the pretext that it was a heretical innovation.⁶ They beat people with sticks, demolished the shrines and committed atrocities that made the townspeople forget whatever good they had done.

In both cases the leadership in Mogadishu condemned these acts and apologised for them, but it proved unable to take a firm stand against the elements that had committed such outrages.

And although Sheikh Sharif, chairman of the Executive Council, and Sheikh Dahir Aweys, chairman of the Legislative (Shura) Council, emerged as prominent figures,⁷ this could not hide the absence of a central leadership that takes decisions and to which matters are referred when they are put into effect. Indeed, it was clear that decisions were taken undemocratically.

Some of the hard-line young men who held the guns could carry out whatever they wished on the ground and impose it on the top leadership as a fait accompli, forcing it to issue a decree to match. This is exactly what happened over the ban on khat:⁸ before the ban was decided, some groups burned 50,000 dollars' worth of khat the moment it was unloaded at the airport.

Nor should we forget the role of the conspiring outside factor, the American above all, in bringing down the Islamic Courts. The United States played a large part in paving the way for the Ethiopian invasion, not only by training special units of the Ethiopian forces to invade Somalia, but also by planting spies among the forces of the Islamic Courts and striking deals with some of their officials, remnants of the warlords who had joined the Courts.

It also put pressure on the clan elders and businessmen who had been supporting the Courts, threatening to freeze their assets and put them on the list of supporters of terrorism if they did not stop their support.

On top of this came direct logistical, intelligence and military support, some of which has come to light, while some remains hidden to this day.⁹

It is certain that the Courts' force, which rested on volunteers, was by any measure no match for Ethiopia's military power: it had no organised army, no aircraft and no tanks that could stand up to the Ethiopian invasion.

All this contributed to the movement's withdrawal, to preserve its strength rather than squander it in a confrontation already decided in its enemy's favour. And so the Ethiopian-backed government was able to enter the capital under the tanks and caterpillar tracks of the occupier.

That was a black day for the Somali nation, a day like no other in its history, as many Somali politicians and intellectuals agree. For on that day its enemy's dream came true: to seize it, break it apart and abort its national and Islamic project, a project that had long been the Somalis' own dream and had seemed within their reach through the Courts.

Foundations of a Revival

Despite the grief and sense of tragedy that the nation is living through because of what has happened, its wise heads must look into the causes that led to this fall into the pit, and think of a way out of it, instead of making a show of weeping over what has happened.

Where we have ended up is not due only to the Courts and their weakness, but to other, deeper and weightier issues: the very issues that have kept clan strife alive among the people for sixteen years.

If we look closely, we find that some of these causes are internal and lie with us, while others are external. But the two are bound together, for the external factor exploits our internal weaknesses to slip in through them and pursue its ends. We must therefore concentrate first on treating the internal causes, so as to deny the outside powers their opportunity.

Among the internal causes is that we are a society organised along clan lines. Although the idea of a single Somali nation, united in religion, language and ethnic stock, exists in our minds, it has never risen to the level of our consciousness. So our conduct always springs from clan and self-interest, and sometimes from purely personal motives, and we throw to the winds every interest of the homeland and of the nation whose praises we sing.

There are grudges between the clans that have been stoked down the ages, through the colonial era and the era of the post-colonial state, and that hardened during the civil war through conduct that was at times immoral and inhuman. Healing these grudges will take a long time, but we must begin by drawing up a programme to uproot them, for it is they that give our enemies their hold on us, since our enemies deal with us as clans and not as a people.

Even so, we must not forget the strengths the Somali people enjoy, which few other peoples possess: the religious, linguistic and national unity to which most Somalis belong. This is said without belittling the minorities, who pose no ethnic threat but live in harmony with the overwhelming majority thanks to the religious and cultural factors they share.

Then there is geographical unity, which gives the Somalis real weight in the Horn of Africa and East Africa, for they occupy a large, geographically continuous expanse, even if it is divided by political borders.¹⁰ There is no doubt that these are the very assets our enemies wish to dissipate and destroy.

In the light of all this, we need to frame a shared vision that starts from what Somalis agree on and forms the nucleus of a national movement. That movement would draw up an agreed national agenda and would include every Somali current and clan in its various institutions, not as formal recognition but as a practical reality,¹¹ so as to defuse any grudge that might be stirred up.

The social, civic and student organisations in the diaspora and at home should take part in founding this movement. It should include prominent figures from the Courts Union, especially those with a patriotic sense who managed to get out of Somalia to Yemen or the Gulf states, and it should also seek to bring in Islamists and nationalists who had no ties to the Courts. This movement must seek to complete the political project that the Courts began.

Whatever the case, I do not see how the government backed by the occupation can be part of the solution, for it is a puppet government in the service of the nation's enemy, Ethiopia. It therefore lacks legitimacy and should not be taken into account.

But that does not rule out winning over some of the patriots within it who opposed the occupation, especially among the members of parliament, foremost among them the Speaker of the Transitional Parliament, Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden.¹²

There is nothing wrong with the project being drafted by patriotic Somali intellectuals and diplomats who carry weight internationally, after serious meetings and discussions with other active groups, especially women's and students' groups.

Agreement would be reached in principle on specific core points, among them: demanding the withdrawal of the Ethiopian forces as soon as possible; amending the Nairobi agreement¹³ to serve the national interest, with a view to rebuilding the state and its basic components; and drafting a national charter to govern the country's political representation, drawing on the experience of the Somali Youth League¹⁴ in the struggle for independence. The League managed to put forward a national project and to form a council that embraced everyone and represented their aspirations, despite the sharp differences between the clans at the time.

A figure of national and Islamic credibility, in whom Somalis of every group can have confidence, should be chosen to lead such a movement. One of its first tasks would be to win over public opinion at home, in Africa, in the Arab world and internationally, and so it must frame a balanced discourse and take carefully considered positions.

There is no doubt that the present moment offers chances of success for such a project, given the psychological readiness of Somalis, whose hearts yearn for a leadership that embodies their aspirations. The feverish activity under way in the Somali diaspora to study the matter should be harnessed; it confirms that the nation is in labour and everyone is awaiting the newborn, and there is no doubt that most of them will adopt it and support it.

Among these opportunities, too, is the fact that the Ethiopian-backed government has not managed to take real control of the capital, and faces almost daily attacks from the resistance.

Add to this the international community's concern with the situation in Somalia. It has come to the conviction that what Ethiopia has done cannot lead to stability in the region, and so it is seeking a national reconciliation between the Ethiopian-backed government and the Islamic Courts. There is Arab concern too: the Arab world as a whole is displeased with what Ethiopia has done, even if it has not said so officially.

As is well known, every crisis brings conflicting regional and international interests into play. In the Somali case this is plain to see and needs little explanation, so the movement we hope for must know how to harness these interests to serve and achieve the national project it calls for.

Perhaps this will be an opportunity to rebuild a movement more mature than the Courts, and then we shall say: “Many a harm turns out a blessing.”¹⁵

English translation prepared by artificial intelligence and reviewed against the Arabic for accuracy of meaning and rhetoric.