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I do not understand why it is popular to characterize somalia in this way. Have you got a reference to militias demanding money and offering nothing in return?
by nika 16y ago
I do not understand why it is popular to characterize somalia in this way. Have you got a reference to militias demanding money and offering nothing in return? It seems this would be a very dangerous thing to attempt in somalia, as the members of most tribes are pretty well armed and would not put up with this.
Somalia is a tribal country with institutions that provide legal and judicial support for resolving disputes peacefully going back centuries. I'm sure they do have private roads, for which you have to pay a toll, but you have toll roads in many countries.
I read one report that the pirates who were operating off of the somali coast operated like startups. One guy would put up some guns, others would put up labor, another the boat, some would stay ashore and provide financing or support. The profits would be divided among them according to their shares. The system works because the desire to go out again keeps them honest.
The "pirates" effectively operate as the somali coast guard, going after ships that are in their states waters. These pirates were previously fisherman until china decided that they could start overfishing the area. So they go and collect tolls.
I guess it is romantic to call them pirates, and it certainly serves the interests of the west to characterize somalia as a hellhole.
But the primary problem facing somalia is not that they don't have a functioning society-- they do-- but that the western interests, specifically the US and the UK, keep making war on them.
The UN created schools but the teachers are unmotivated, and so the somalis, who are generally relatively wealthy, set up private schools of their own.
I have a friend who has been there and who worked on a proposal to put in a port and a road across some of the territory into ethiopia. However, the investors were scared off when an american general promised to "bomb the hell out of it" if they built the road and the port. So, my knowledge of the situation on the ground is dated a few years and mostly relevant to the north.
But Somalia is actually a relatively safe, stable society, it exhibits a fair bit of success in free market principles and in operating without a state. They are able to provide security, and repel invasions for the most part, without a central government.
- astrodust 16y agoI think what you're saying is for a country suffering under an oppressive level of religion, virtual civil war and a perpetual inter-clan power struggle, they're not doing too badly for themselves. Your assertion that Somalians are generally relatively wealthy does seem a huge stretch for a country with such a large population living in abject poverty.
- nika 16y agoThere is no civil war and no perpetual inter-clan power struggle. What defines and "oppressive" level of religion is in the eye of the beholder. It is unfortunate that ideology causes americans to believe propaganda over the reports of people who have been to somalia and somalis themselves.
- shadowfox 16y agoCan you provide some references to these reports?
- borism 16y agothere's no civil war!? wtf are you smoking?
- nika 16y agoThe truth. It's the anti-drug. Oh, I see now. In western propaganda the ethiopian invaders you armed and sent to take over our country are really somehow "Somalis" and your illegal and immoral invasion is somehow our civil war? Yeah, someone is smoking something!
- DennisP 16y agoNot only that but somebody's been dumping nuclear waste and other toxins near their coastline. Since they don't have a government with a coast guard, I don't know how else they're supposed to handle the situation.
- nika 16y agoEspecially in an environment where said nuclear waste works as a pretext for american military action. Previously americans invaded when they discovered yellowcake on old british survey maps. Nobody in somalia was even mining the stuff, but the americans showed up in force and took it away. I believe part of the reason the americans are attacking us now is to prevent the economic growth from getting to the point where somalis can adequately defend against their many incursions.
- notahacker 16y agoNormally tolls for "private roads" are collected by those who build and maintain the roads, not armed opportunists. I'm surprised to hear you're willing to back extortion even outside Somalia because the pirates use capitalist investment techniques and divide up the spoils "honestly" though. Irrespective of the merits of claims of foreign overfishing, I think you'd have a hard job arguing that the "coastguard" have a legitimate right to collect "tolls" sometimes in excess of $1million from unarmed ships making the mistake of operating in these areas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Somalian_Piracy_Threat_Map_2010.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Somalian_Piracy_Threat_Map... I'm sure that, much like operating a Mogadishu roadblock, it's one of the few lucrative revenue sources open to desperate people but this isn't exactly indicative of the "safe, stable ... free market" you describe. I'm not sure why you're accusing me of being the one depicting their actions in a "romantic" way. It's not even that Somalia doesn't have any form of government (The Mises Institute will be disappointed to know that the relatively stable de facto republic of Somaliland does have formal taxation). It's just that none of the governments' bounds of authority are recognised by each other, never mind the outside world, and the official government proudly considers their ability to establish military control over only 60% of the capital to be a measure of success http://www.hiiraan.com/news2/2011/Jan/statement_by_h_e_mohamed_abdulahi_mohamed_prime_minister_of_somalia_at_un_security_council_meeting_on_somalia.aspx http://www.hiiraan.com/news2/2011/Jan/statement_by_h_e_moham... If you sincerely believe that there is no civil war and Somalis are being killed today by the intervention of UK and US phantoms and not by factional infighting then I don't think it's going to be very productive to continue this debate.
- nika 16y agoThat "official government" as you called it IS the "UK and US phantoms". They are not somalis, except for a few token figureheads. They are invaders from nearby countries, who have long coveted the land, funded and trained by the US and the UK. It is quite ironic that you would use these acts of aggression as an argument that the country is in a civil war. But simply by calling them the "official" government you have advocated the imposition of slavery on an entire nation at the hands of thugs. I find it quite disheartening to hear americans repeat propaganda as fact, and use it in argument when they have no actual knowledge of the country, as I have. So, no, there is no productive debate when you can essentially make shit up based on the impressions you have from propaganda, or regurgitate propaganda. America is a curious place. The neocons hate somalis on the principle that they are mostly muslim and thus must be evil. The liberals hate them because they are free and well armed. Trying to clear up misconceptions is like trying to argue with a citizen of the USSR who believed everything pravda said. You can always quote pravda. For instance, you assert that the tolls I mentioned in somalia were not collected by the people who built and maintained the roads. This is a flat out lie, which I now understand you simply made up because it fits your image of the country. Further, you assert there are "armed opportunists" who are collecting the tolls, this is also a lie, and absurd to anyone who knows anything about somalia. Only in america are highway travellers disarmed. In somalia such bandits would not live long. Oh, and in america there are "armed opportunists" who take "tolls" in the form of "traffic violations" without much regard for whether they were actually committed or not. They know that it is nearly impossible to get a hearing on such a low level offense and certainly will cost more than simply paying the fine. Therefore, for many if not most americans there is no justice system at all. That's bad enough, but they also are in the habit of stealing any significant quantities of cash or valuable property they find in the cars they stop. They are able to do this under what's called "asset forfieture" where they merely need a pretext-- an unsupported assertion that the property was used in a crime-- to steal it. This money does not go to road maintenance, but to the personal enrichment of the cops who steal it. In somalia, if you have been wronged, in order to get compensation, you have to get a ruling from an impartial judge. In america, no judge is needed, the highway robbers just take your property and file some paperwork. I'm not aware of any such property ever being returned, despite most of the victims never being charged, let alone convicted of a crime. And you think you have "innocent until proven guilty"? Think that is all just and good? fine, that may be a valid opinion. But every characterization of somalia you make has a parallel in the USA. Only when you talk about somalia you act as if it is some sort of moral tragedy, but in the USA the same actions are above reproach? This is the "magic of government" that I believe your schools indoctrinate you into from a young age. If a man were force another man to work for him and take %60 of his wages, you'd call that slavery.... but if the government does it, as the government in the USA does, then somehow, thru the magic of government this is no longer slavery, but taxation. One thing you can't dispute about somalis. Since we got rid of barre, we have not been enslaved. Despite your many attempts.