Reclaiming Somali History: Challenging Distorted Narratives

Hiiraan online, 2025

The story of Somalia does not open like a dusty record book—it bursts forth like a storm on the horizon, alive with cries of resistance and the heartbeat of a people who would not be broken. Between 1948 and 1950, in distant capitals under the dim glow of chandeliers, foreign powers weighed Somalia’s fate like traders over spoils, debating whether to return it to Italy’s grasp, their whispers dripping with betrayal as though the nation were nothing more than a discarded piece of empire.

The Politics of Historical Memory and Commemoration in Africa

This chapter makes ac ritical intervention into the academic and popular discussions about political memory in Somalia. Focusing on contestations of political memorya nd disputes over what occurred in the past as well as why, when and wheret hey took place, the chapter foregrounds the importance of memory and commemoration for the Somalilands tate-buildingp roject.B y presentinganew perspective on the making of the breakaway region in northern Somalia that declaredi tself independent Somaliland in 1991, the chapter offers insights into how memoriesoftraumafunction as apolitical resource that could crystallise conflict and confrontation. Furthermore,i nt he case observed, judicious deployment of political memory elicited sympathya nd solidarity locally and amongst diasporic Somaliland people in the pursuit of the separatist state-buildingproject in Somaliland. Drawingonfieldwork conducted in Somaliland at intervals between 2016,2018 and 2019 that relied on ethnographic observations and interviews with men and women, the chapter explores how the independence project in Somaliland was constructed through accumulated collective historicalgrievances. These wereused to strengthenthe case in favour of seeking recognitionf or as eparate state allowing the collapse of the Somali state. Supposedlycollective community suffering was rooted in how the military regime-bent on the protectiona nd preservation of specific clans-mistreated the Isaaq, the predominatec lan in Somaliland. Building upon previous studies of political memory,t he chapter reveals how particularistic historical grievance shaped-and continues to shape-the process of legitimising separatism in Somaliland. On one earlye vening at the end of April 2018, Hassan Mohamud Dagaal "Jaafaa," ag rey-haired, middle-aged, formers oldier living in Gebiley,asmall town located 58 kilometres west of Hargeysa, the capital of northern Somalia (in the autonomous region of Somaliland), sat with me for an interview.Herecollected OpenAccess.

https://megalommatis.wordpress.com, 2025

First published in the American Chronicle, Buzzle and AfroArticles on the 12th May 2008 Republished -amongst others- here: https://hiiraan.com/op4/2008/may/6646/somaliland_the_clowns_of_the_lost_recognition_and_their_end.aspx Republished on the 16th February 2025 here: https://megalommatis.wordpress.com/somaliland-the-clowns-of-the-lost-recognition-and-their-end/

This paper offers a brief historical backdrop on the Somali studies and its link with the African and Middle Eastern Studies. It delineates perspectives of Somali historiography employed by different scholars. The first perspective belongs to the school of anthropology which had fashioned the notion of “Somali exceptionalism”, the policy of eradicating clanism and peripheralizing Islam. The second is the Marxist school based on class analysis which flourished during Somalia’ military regime, but later its role was diminished. The third is the school of revisionism which had emerged strongly after the collapse of the state in 1991. Finally, Cadaan Studies which had emerged as new Somali studies orientation utilizing postcolonial theory. The paper theorizes the idea of the comprehensive perspective, which criticizes the above stated perspectives for adopting secular view of history, and peripheralizing Islam and women in their research and analysis. This perspective introduces stability model of reconciling state and society refuting previous notion of irreconcilability model. It proposes a model that designates specific or exclusive spheres and shared spaces of Somali ideologies: clanism, nationalism and Islam.

In Links, Nuruddin Farah (2003) portrays a Somali back to his country after more than two decades of exile. The scenario he meets is aSomalia already free from the dictatorship that expulsed him, but still immersed in a bloody civil war between rival militias. Farah’s narrative is largely built around extensive scenes of conversation and confront between this returnee and the Somalis who remained and became involved in the conflict. The current paper demonstrates that the reckoning made possible by these confrontations does not actually mean a leveling of blame, since Farah seems to be very specific about the main reasons for the nation’s current state of destruction.

Northeast African Studies, 2011

Scholarship in Somali studies, especially that which addresses the origin and culture of the people, has accepted the homogeneity of the society without any extensive investigation of the cultural intricacies of the country. Thus historians, anthropologists, and successive Somali ...

Bildhaan: An International Journal of …, 2008