Somalia’s ‘Constructive Elite’ and the Challenges Ahead

Laura Mann reports from the first event of the Rift Valley Institute’s Nairobi Forum for Research, Policy and Local Knowledge – ‘A Somali Spring?’ A link to the podcast can be found at the end of the post.

On October 11^th, the Rift Valley held its first ‘Nairobi Forum’. They invited Ken Menkhaus, Amal Ismail, Jabril Abdulla and Matt Bryden to discuss the post-election climate in Somalia. The former Kenyan ambassador to Somalia, Mohamed Abdi Affey, who was chairing the proceedings, joked: “We wanted to show Kenya what it means to be a democratic nation”.

All parties agreed that Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is a man who combines two clean hands with enormous street cred. There is reason for ‘cautious optimism’ even amidst the challenges ahead. Ken Menkhaus argued that it was not the election of this single remarkable man that was important, but the extensive support network behind him. Describing this network as a ‘constructive elite,’ Menkhaus clarified that this was not a mass uprising ‘Somali Spring’ but a civic mobilization of determined professionals tired of warlordism and ineffective foreign interventions alike. These individuals have been on the ground for the past 20 years, building hospitals, schools, universities and private businesses. They have spent the past 20 years “navigating the streets” as Ken Menkhaus put it. They have learnt how to negotiate deals with difficult parties, how to build trust across clans and most importantly, they know how to get things done. Jabril Abdulla added that these negotiating skills are important. The gradual expansion of the state will not just involve institutions, but people, some benign and some less palatable. Getting warlords to engage in politics is one of the key challenges.

Abdulla added that while elites had gotten him elected, there was nonetheless widespread public support behind his victory. He described how the public ‘legitimized’ the election by broadcasting the news on radios and televisions during the week following the election. However he also cautioned that there were some regions that did not share in the jubilation.

Nevertheless, as each of them said in turn, there is reason for cautious optimism.

More than Little Mogadishu

By Neil Carrier and Emma Lochery

Nairobi’s Eastleigh estate has gained fame due to its rapid development into a commercial hub of East Africa sustained by much investment from the Somali diaspora and trade networks stretching as far as China. The Somali influence on the estate has led to it being dubbed ‘Little Mogadishu’, and as a place somehow apart from the rest of Kenya.  In our experience, however, the story of Eastleigh is very much a Kenyan one, and the ‘Little Mogadishu’ label simplifies a very complex story…

Eastleigh 1st Avenue at closing time. Photo courtesy of Neil Carrier

 

Eastleigh is a major commercial hub of East Africa, brimming with around 40 shopping malls selling cheap goods from China, Dubai and elsewhere, that is located only a couple of kilometres away from Nairobi’s Central Business District.  Despite this proximity to the heart of Nairobi, the way many Kenyans speak about Eastleigh, it almost seems as if the short journey from town to the estate on the famous number 9 matatu is taking the passenger much further: from the heart of Kenya into the heart of Somalia.

Eastleigh has been described as if it were an imported city from Somalia, the place to which the big businesspeople relocated when conflict pushed them out of Mogadishu in the 1990s. Indeed, for many Kenyans, shopping trips to Eastleigh offer a taste of Somalia, as Somali language and identity seem to dominate, while Islamic influence is everywhere in dress styles, the prevalence of mosques, and even in the names of such businesses as ‘Madina Mall’.  Rumours of the area being awash with smuggled weapons and al-Shabaab operatives further consolidate the idea that this place of cheap jeans is dangerous and ‘other’, and decidedly not Kenyan.

Such impressions combined with the influx of many Somali refugees over the course of the last two decades, means that the ‘Little Mogadishu’ label rings true for many Kenyan and outside commentators.

Of course, Eastleigh today is the major urban centre for Somalis in Kenya. Many thousands of refugees from Somalia have arrived in this relatively small area (consisting of two main avenues and several streets that connect them) since the early 1990s, most surviving and others thriving thanks to the opportunities provided by this important retail and wholesale centre.   Furthermore, its development and growth are underpinned by Somali connections stretching to the West and Somalis resident there, and the East in the form of networks importing cheap clothes, textiles, electronics and so forth.

However, ‘Little Mogadishu’ is a name rarely heard from anyone who actually goes to Eastleigh on a regular basis or indeed from its residents. The label hides a wealth of other histories, processes and identities that need foregrounding in order to understand the dynamics of this estate and its transformation.

Khat and Al-Shabaab: Views from Eastleigh

Khat traders swarming round a pick-up delivering fresh stock on the outskirts of Eastleigh. Source: Neil Carrier

by Dr. Neil Carrier

In Eastleigh – Nairobi’s bustling commercial zone dominated by Somalis where I have recently been conducting research – activity focuses on the sprawling shopping malls along its 1^st Avenue in the daytime, and shifts towards the restaurants and hotels of 2^ndAvenue after dusk. Business in the evening also becomes ever more brisk for the hundreds of Meru from Central Kenya selling chewable stems and leaves from kiosks draped in banana leaves.  These banana leaves are the khat sellers’ equivalent of the barber’s pole, alerting customers to the arrival of fresh stock of a stimulant of ever-increasing controversy.  A large proportion of Eastleigh’s population buy khat from these traders, adjourning to either private rooms, or, in the case of men, often to such public areas as Shaah Macaan.  This translates as ‘Sweet Tea’ from Somali, and is a small area located near such Eastleigh landmarks as the 11-storey Grand Royal Hotel.  One can indeed buy sweet tea at Shaah Macaan as well as indulge in shisha, khat and, most importantly, chat.

Shaah Macaan is not the most idyllic of spots.  The view out from the rather scruffy seating area overlooks a muddy road that requires great care to traverse without a fall, while the nearby fleet of buses bound for northeastern Kenya continually puncture any semblance of tranquillity with blasts of their horns.  The atmosphere is hardly healthy either, with dust, sewage and diesel fumes swirling around.  Yet chewers don’t seem to mind, and happily continue their consumption and conversation.  This is one of khat’s appeals: it helps induce comfort and ease in such unprepossessing locations.  Indeed, khat play a similar role in making the mafrish – a place where chewers can buy and consume khat in the UK and elsewhere – warm and welcoming despite their often unprepossessing decor and scant facilities.

However, khat is, as most readers are probably well aware, a highly contentious commodity.  Although chewed wherever there are communities of Somalis, many from these same communities see khat as a source of damage to health, damage to society, and as something immoral and haram.  There is disapproval in Eastleigh, but it is in the UK where sentiment against the commodity is currently most intense. The UK remains one of the few countries in Europe where khat remains legal despite its sizable population of Somali, Yemeni and Ethiopian consumers.  Indeed, 56 tonnes are estimated to enter the UK every week, almost all of it farmed by Meru in Kenya’s Nyambene Hills and exported by Somalis, many of them Eastleigh-based.

The poetry of Hamza Egal

Next Sunday, 10 June we will be hosting a blog launch party at the Oxford Hub, with food, art, music, and poetry, including performances by Hamza Egal, a Somali poet and philosopher based in the UK. The following is a poem by Hamza, but you can read more of his work and other Somali poets here.

Even a caged bird never forgets to sing

Picture how the heavens teach the most beautiful of lessons, celestial movements have compromise and union in their every essence. The sun doesn’t hold on to the skies when it’s time for the moon to dazzle your eyes. Man’s ignorance is his only prison, when every word is laced with poison and thoughts of treason.  Understanding oneself is long forgotten, replaced by addiction to the false illusions that they call freedom.

Insatiable hunger to feed the obsession with the dollar, thoughts contaminated, and basic human emotions intoxicated so we stagger to oblivion. Night and daydreaming, the scene keeps repeating, around me I see humanity frozen, in slumber deeper than animal hibernation. So every sunrise I am shovelling arctic snow, trying to ascertain the truth with me deep down and below. Equality and justice has no gender or skin tone, and those who truly desire it seek no throne.

I wonder if I could once again see this world through the eyes of a child, when everything was a wonderful reality and not memories retained in a mental file. Who knew all the while fear would become a tradition. Cowardice has us willing to accept lies, obey and listen, in school they precede me to worship a man made system. In university they asked me to take an oath and maintain the enslavement of the following generation. Capitalise on the warmth of your desires, let the lesser humans make up the coal for your fires.

We elect our tyrant masters by ticking a piece of paper, then turn around the next day bewildered by their behaviour. Only a fool would build a sand castle by the shore and ask the sea to respect its door.  If all men are equal then why do I carry the weight of your wars and interest? Ask yourselves the fundamental questions; only death has no medicine, together we can withstand and push back the evils that they bring. Hope is eternal even a caged bird never forgets to sing.

- Hamza O Egal

Who is the Somali diaspora?

This post is contributed by Maimuna Mohamud, a current graduate student at Oxford. Reflecting on the London Conference on Somalia of 23 February, 2012, and a follow-up seminar on reactions to the conference held by Dr. Laura Hammond of SOAS on 3 May, 2012, Maimuna shares her thoughts on the challenging role and definitions of the Somali diaspora.

From the perspective of a Somali-diasporan-young-woman, the London conference on Somalia was already a failure long before February 23^rd.  Not only that I felt a general sense of pessimism, there were also initial sentiments of anger and frustration.  For some unknown reason, my state of ‘conference fatigue’, which has conveniently served me in the past, was replaced by an unprecedented desire to act.  So I resolved to do something—finally.  Armed with a hot latte, I sent urgent Facebook messages to my ‘comrades’ asking them to join me in a demonstration in London. Our mantra would surely be: NO MORE CONFERENCES.  Unfortunately, there were no replies.  My generation, except for two Bulgarian friends, was in a state of conference fatigue.

Yet, there was a glimpse of hope. Prior to the conference, a series of consultative meetings with the Somali diaspora were held as part of an initiative “to elicit their thoughts on the way forward for the country”, wrote Dr. Laura Hammond in an article for the Guardian.  At the 3 May seminar, Dr. Hammond also shared the reflection that the “level of consultation with diaspora was unprecedented.” But was this a remarkable shift, a departure from business-as-usual and conference politics often associated with Somalia?

I held my breath and waited.  As I followed the developments I recalled the role my father played in many previous conferences. Years ago, he would often travel to attend numerous meetings and conferences in Nairobi and Djibouti.  During the 1990s, our habitual residence in Cairo served as a location from which my father would patiently wait for the next conference to consult. To apply a classic scholarly definition of diasporas, he maintained imagined as well as material links with ‘the homeland’.

Surely, then, he was a diasporan who travelled to attend consultation meetings.  So, wasn’t he part of diaspora consultative processes?