Anarchists on Somalia

[miltonwasfried...man]

Somalia is one of the poorest and most violent places on the planet and is generally considered a failed state with no government control. So it goes without saying that the individuals living there are unable to achieve any sense of liberty, equality or soldarity which are essential to anarchism. Therefore my question is what can be done about this? Would the establishment of a government/authority there be a neccessary evil but at least it would be a starting place for freedom? What about a UN or NATO lead intervention? I understand anarchists wish to eliminate authority and hierarchies but it has been a devastating 'free for all' there for the last 20 years and it seems counterproductive to the individual and community as a whole for it to remain as such.

[Forward Union]

Well actually, anarchists want to replace the state with management by democratically run workers councils.

In Somalia, capitalist run free enterprise is the system of choice. National Bussinesses trade in weapons, children, drugs, anything they want. It's a pretty good example of complete libertarian capitalism.

[Magón]

Somalia is one of the poorest and most violent places on the planet and is generally considered a failed state with no government control. So it goes without saying that the individuals living there are unable to achieve any sense of liberty, equality or soldarity which are essential to anarchism. Therefore my question is what can be done about this? Would the establishment of a government/authority there be a neccessary evil but at least it would be a starting place for freedom? What about a UN or NATO lead intervention? I understand anarchists wish to eliminate authority and hierarchies but it has been a devastating 'free for all' there for the last 20 years and it seems counterproductive to the individual and community as a whole for it to remain as such.

Personally, I don't think much can be done for Somalia now, because of the strong hold militia's and groups like Al-Shabaab (I think that's the name), have on the people across the country, and the high number of strong Islamic beliefs most Somali's have that keep them drawn towards more radical islamic beliefs than radical leftist. I don't think a UN or NATO action in Somalia will work, or has worked in the past (obviously), and plus most of the time a UN operation happens, nothing really changes to stop the fighting or whatever.

Establishing a form of government in Somalia, by Anarchists or Marxists, would be quite a task nowadays with how it is, and really, not much information is talked about on Somalia by Leftist outlets, or even regular media outlets, to give us a better understanding of the intricate workings of the country. Somewhere like in the Middle East, is probably easier to figure out it's intricate workings, than Somalia is.

Also, good thing you avoided saying Somalia was an "Anarchist's paradise" or whatever. It's happened before when someone asks Anarchists about Somalia, but they're mostly ignorant to actual Anarchist theory.

[unfriendly]

Nobody here, myself included, has ever been to Somalia or, probably, even researched it to anything resembling an acceptable degree, so take our opinions as worth less than dirt because that's what it is, but to my understanding the only part of Somalia that has the terrible issues you hear about is Mogadishu, the rest of the country is just rural area, many of which in the Middle East are largely devoid of government interference and in that regard Somalia isn't anything that special.

[MarxSchmarx]

It's not every day that I think the anarcho-capitalists have anything of value to say, but on Somalia, their analysis strikes me as plausible and their proscriptions as useful.

The gist of the argument is that a lot of Somalia's serious troubles come from people who are trying to violently establish a state. Generally the main contenders are those who want a radical Islamic emir, the warlords seeking to build a cleptocracy with them and their buddies/family as the new governinh elite, or largely western educated or funded nationalists and technocrats. It is these organized, wanna be government groups who are arming themselves to the teeth (often with foreign money) and instigating a lot of the violence, often in the name of the state's justified monopoly on initiating force.

What makes the argument so plausible is that the violent power struggle is precisely what has taken place during nation building in just about every other country for centuries and there's no reason to suspect somalia is really any different.

Thus I tend to agree with the anarcho-capitalists that to blame Somalia's indigenous legal system without a central hierarchy as the cause of Somalia's viole nce is rather misguided. Unless Ethiopia/the West/the Arabic states withdraw themselves from the conflict and a serious arms embargo is enforced, eventually one of the three "factions" will win and a modern state with suzerainty over Somalia with a flag and capital and all will be established.

Anarcho-capitalists are stopped clocks that are right twice a day. those of us on the left should seriously consider Somalia's indigenous, consensus based and highly decentralized legal system as a potential approach a stateless, post-capitalist legal order much in the way the French or British legal system now informs the laws of most capitalist societies.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Somaliland in the north has a defacto government, or it did last I heard. The UN has some kind of psychopathic desire to make sure the country stays in one piece, though, even though the lines are completely arbitrary anyway, and even more irrelevant in a nation with such a strong clan system.

Anyway, Somalia really isn't that special...there are a number of countries that have only a weak grasp or really no control at all over whole regions of their territory, like, say, Chad, the Sudan or Colombia. The anarchist attitude towards these regions is similar to Somalia; namely, that the ruling class and capital will only serve their own self-interest in setting up a nation state, and it's perfectly possible that people remain totally destitute.

[The_Outernationalist]

Well actually, anarchists want to replace the state with management by democratically run workers councils.


Pray tell how that's not just another form of government? I mean, maybe I am uneducated on the issue, but I was always under the impression that anarchists didn't want government...and this, this seems to be government.

[Dimmu]

Pray tell how that's not just another form of government? I mean, maybe I am uneducated on the issue, but I was always under the impression that anarchists didn't want government...and this, this seems to be government.

An anarchist wants decisions to come from the bottom towards the top. One of the most classical misconceptions about anarchy is that anarchists are the people who are only against the state and its only a half-truth. An anarchist if first and first most against hierarchy. That means that an anarchist will accept a solution where people will have the final say in what is being decided.

[PhoenixAsh]

Pray tell how that's not just another form of government? I mean, maybe I am uneducated on the issue, but I was always under the impression that anarchists didn't want government...and this, this seems to be government.

offcourse it isn't....and you mean state.

Government is a permanent body composed of privileged seperate group of induviduals who monopolize decision making and run the state without any limits of power except those defined by the legal constructs they make.

Workers councils are no such thing. They are open and free for all to participate in with an equal voice and vote squarely within the communities and they are not permanent nor are the positions of power (if any) therein and have limited spin of controll.

[Forward Union]

Pray tell how that's not just another form of government? I mean, maybe I am uneducated on the issue, but I was always under the impression that anarchists didn't want government...and this, this seems to be government.

Well, Anarchists are against the state. You might want to call "everybody participating in decision making" a state, but it seems a bit of a stretch of the term.