Revolutionary and quasi-revolutionary events in Somalia (1960-2023)
The analysis of Somalia's post-colonial history has allowed the identification of two democratic (or quasi-democratic) revolutions, an ethnosocial revolution, a national-separatist revolution, four Islamist revolutionary episodes, as well as a revolution analogue. In addition, we find two impor...
| Authors: | ; |
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| Format: | Print Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2024
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| In: |
Terrorism and political contention
Year: 2024, Pages: 349-400 |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Summary: | The analysis of Somalia's post-colonial history has allowed the identification of two democratic (or quasi-democratic) revolutions, an ethnosocial revolution, a national-separatist revolution, four Islamist revolutionary episodes, as well as a revolution analogue. In addition, we find two important failed military coup attempts—the 1961 attempted military coup in Somaliland (which can also be characterized as a failed revolution analogue) and the 1978 attempted military coup in Somalia. Mostly, the above-mentioned revolutionary events produced a rather destructive impact. However, two revolutionary episodes also had some positive effect. The revolutionary insurgency of the Rahanweyn Resistance Army of the late 1990s somehow finally contributed to the stabilization of situation in Somalia by raising the traditionally inferior status of the Rahanweyn agriculturalists to a level that is more or less equal to the one of the “noble pastoralist” clan families—Hawiye and Darod, and, thus, sufficiently integrating the Rahanweyn into the sociopolitical system of the Federal Republic of Somalia. A special note should be made of revolutionary insurgency of the Islamic Courts Union/ICU (2000–December 2006). The establishment of effective ICU power throughout most of southern and central Somalia demonstrated in a rather convincing way that many elements of Shari’ah could work very effectively in this country, contributing strongly to the stabilization. After the Ethiopian counter-revolutionary intervention in December 2006, the elimination of the ICU power in Mogadishu, and the establishment there (with a direct military support of Ethiopia and the USA) of the Transitional Federal Government/TFG, the TFG soon confronted an armed insurrection of Al-Shabaab radical Islamists, which it failed to counteract in any effective way. By mid-2008, the TFG recognized that it was unable to confront the Somali radical Islamists without the help of the moderate Islamists from the Islamic Courts Union (that re-named itself into the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia/ARS, but retained Sheikh Sharif Ahmed as its leader). In June 2008, the Somali Transitional Federal Government signed an agreement with the ARS stipulating the integration of the ARS into the federal government. One of the points of 2008 agreement was the doubling of the size of the transitional parliament (People’s Assembly), which allowed to accommodate 200 MPs representing the ARS. In its turn, in January 2009, this helped the leader of the ARS (and the former leader of Islamic Courts Union) Sheikh Sharif Ahmed to get elected by the People’s Assembly as the President of Somalia. This allowed soon after that to implement Shari’ah as the nation's official judicial system. Thus, the revolutionary insurgency of the Islamic Courts Union finally turned out to be more or less successful, as its members finally managed to get a considerable degree of power in the country and to implement some of their most important demands. Of special importance is that those developments allowed to integrate moderate Somali Islamists into the Transitional Federal Government (and later in the government of the Federal Republic of Somalia the transition to which was performed with a direct participation of the moderate Islamists). In its turn, this allowed to stop the onslaught of the radical Islamists of al-Shabaab and to go on an at least partly successful counteroffensive, contributing in a very substantial way to the stabilization of the situation in Somalia. |
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| Item Description: | Literaturverzeichnis: Seite 387-399 |
| Physical Description: | Illustrationen |
| ISBN: | 9783031534287 |
