A call for indigenous structures Richard Dowden writes in African Arguments:
The model for Somalia is Switzerland. Don’t laugh! Political power in Switzerland lies in the cantons – the 26 proud self-governing communities. The state, such as it is, deals with international matters and national law. Who cares – or even knows – who the president of Switzerland is. The way people live and are governed is decided locally. The Swiss confederation means that cantons have joined the state willingly and can leave if they want to. If they were a simple federation, they could not.
Somalis – unlike the Swiss but like most Africans – are stuck with a constitution that leaves total power in the hands of a president. Strong centralised states are the legacy of colonial rulers and unsurprisingly the inheritor governments have kept it that way. Terrible wars – such as those in Nigeria, Ethiopia and Sudan – were fought to keep the countries together, but in the latter two they failed. In Somalia civil war began in the late 1980s and since then fragmentation has continued. Good. Leave it that way. It suits Somali society...[continue reading]
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