Suchergebnisse

Abdi Ismail Samatar provides a clear and foundational history of Somalia at the dawn of the country's independence when Africa's first democrats appeared. While many African countries were dominated by authoritarian rulers when they entered the postcolonial era'and scholars have assumed this as a standard feature of political leadership on the continent'Somalia had an authentic democratic leadership. Samatar's political biography of Aden A. Osman and Abdirazak H. Hussen breaks the stereotype of brutal African tyranny. Samatar discusses the framing of democracy in Somalia following the years of control by fascist Italy, the formation of democratic organizations during the political struggle, and the establishment of democratic foundations in the new nation. Even though this early state of affairs did not last, these leaders left behind a strong democratic legacy that may provide a model of good governance for the rest of the continent.

Contrasts the experience of a successful and a failed state, both tribal/clan based societies, showing that the causes of political fragmentation in Africa are social rather than cultural or ethnic in nature.

One of the casualties of the gruesome nightmare that is gripping Somalia has been the capacity to think historically and systematically about the nature of the malady, and to find practical ways of controlling the present in order to build a more sustainable future. As explained by Ahmed Samatar: 'the fullness of understanding a given situation is [not] coterminous with the immediate and experiential.Rather, any visible elements of a particular reality are usually signals that other more discrete factors could be at work'. For far too long, those opposed to Siyad Barre's régime refused to go beyond the General and his constellation of clients to identify 'the enemy'. Their unwillingness to engage in any hard-headed analysis and their hostility to critical scholarship has undoubtedly helped to condemn the very people they 'wanted' to liberate.

Thefailure of the African state, capitalist or socialist, to induce successful economic transformation has led to attempts by neo-liberal institutions and scholars to jettison it out of the business of economic development except in the form of 'night watchman'.1The minimalist strategy which is at the heart of such efforts ignores the historical evidence that sustained accumulation and development anywhere has been the product of either a capitalist class, conscious of its interest, pushing the state to foster capitalist development, or a state leading the way where such a conscious class did not exist. Successful capitalist development in either of these scenarios entailed the protection of the common class interest against the narrow schemes of individual members, or the demand and needs of other classes.