Relatively speaking, the first months of 2011 have been full of good news for Somalia, the world’s closest approximation of anarchy. For two full decades, the majority of the territory in this crescent-shaped country on the Horn of Africa has gone essentially ungoverned; an internationally recognized transitional government is fighting tooth and nail to control the capital. Yet after months of stalemate with Islamist insurgents, the momentum finally seems to be turning. Block by block, the national troops – with the considerable help of an African Union-U.N. joint peacekeeping mission – have made significant territorial gains in Mogadishu.
Yet Somalia is still in tatters. Out of a population of nearly 10 million, as many as 3 million are thought to need humanitarian assistance. Another 2 million have been uprooted in the conflict, and political infighting has paralyzed the nascent government. Neighboring Uganda has warned that the fractures stand to make matters worse, offering Islamist insurgent groups a chance to reorganize.
Perhaps the greatest fear looming over Somalia today is that it will become the next haven for al Qaeda fleeing Afghanistan. Somalia’s Islamist rebels, who call themselves al-Shabab, have already pledged their allegiance to the global terrorist network.
Here, demonstrators in Mogadishu denounce the United Nations mission in the country, accusing it of spending too much on flying diplomats in and out of Nairobi and not enough on fixing what’s broken in Somalia.
So many people try to paint Somalia as the “libertarian paradise”, that I usually refuse to legitimize their argument by defending Somalia. However, this article seems incredibly biased to arguing that government interference from outside Somalia is actually helping Somalia rather than hurting it. What are your thoughts?
I’ve never seen anyone tout Somalia as a paradise except in parody. The point is not that Somalia is paradise but that Somalia works without government and almost all of its ills can be rather easily traced to the attempts to impose a government on Somalia and other interference from outside powers.
Al-Shabab is a poison-pill, in my view. I doubt very much that it is a homegrown organization. I suspect some sort of foreign intelligence types are funneling cash, weapons and veteran ‘al-Qaeda’ mujahideen into the region for the express purpose of delegitimizing resistance to the government the UN is attempting to impose on the Somalis.
They should have just said “Africa” and be done with it. The one country I strongly disagree with on the list is Bangladesh: it’s actually making big steps towards modernity and situation is slowly but steadily improving. Just to prove their point they had to slip in some more Global Warming mumbo-jumbo: all those wells the UN drilled right into heavy metals contaminated aquifers are probably just a minor nuisance.
It’s pointless comparing the well-being of people in Somalia to those of Denmark or Switzerland. Compare them to their neighbours, other poor Africans, who have to contend with the state and what you find is the Somalis are on-par or better in most indicators (one exception being vaccination, but that’s not really an area governments can loot).
Surprise, surprise a battlefield doesn’t make a good place of residence. Foreigners should leave Somalia and stop making it into a battlefield.
On this Failed States Index list in general I will say that I can not see how North Korea belongs in there. The North Korean state is extraordinarily healthy and stable - that is the problem! The state is fine, the people are screwed. This is a silly index, bad stuff happening != a ‘failed state’.
Exactly. People have it in their head that the local residents have a duty to leave if they don’t like the government that has imposed itself upon them but common sense dictates that it’s exactly the opposite… if the local residents don’t like the government being imposed on them, that government should have to leave. Many of Somalias woes since 1991 have been created by the mere prospect of a government coming into being. The overriding motivation of many of these “warlord” types is jockeying to be the party in position to seize control of the formidable reins of government power once a government is established.
What problems does Somalia have that need fixing by foreigners? Or, to ask it another way, what problems does Somalia have that are not being caused by the interjection of foreigners into the affairs of Somalis? In your answer, please differentiate between Northern Somalia (Somaliland, Puntland) which is relatively peaceful and Southern Somalia (Mogadishu and surrounding regions) which is where the AU is trying to set up a government and which is experiencing conflict.
Net migration as a percentage of actual population would seem to be the only sensible measure of how a country is doing. I’ve never seen that measure used in a comparison.
You also have to look at the quality of the flows. Maybe you could do an income-adjusted version… if ten people who were earning $100K/yr. leave and 10 people who were earning $10K/yr. enter, there is a “net loss” of $900K/yr. of talent/value. Even this is a pretty flawed measure but it’s better than just saying 10 people = 10 people.
A major issue there would be that a guy earning 10K in his capital-starved home country could earn 50K in his new country. Heck, this is indeed a major reason to emigrate. But in principle mere numbers indeed won’t work.