Somaliland: When A Culture Of Peace Takes Root

By Makwaia wa Kuhenga

CAN you imagine a place with beggars and jobless people yet just adjacent there are stalls and stalls of money in banknotes including American dollars, British pounds and so forth in the open with no policemen around to secure those stalls of money?

This is the market place in downtown Hargeisa, Somaliland, where I took a walk the other day. In fact, at several of them, the owners were not around -- they had slipped away to say their midday prayers (Dhuhur) -- leaving the stalls to themselves!

In a language best understood back home in Dar es Salaam, I was visiting the money shops -- or bureau de changes -- not in closed door shops with armed guards outside -- but open air ones!
The Somaliland bank notes looked like mitumba (second-hand clothes) at Mchikichini in Dar es Salaam. You can buy any amount of Somaliland shillings or change any amount of foreign exchange without flinching or being suspicious that you are being sold counterfeit money!

As I took a walk while shaking my head incredulously, I ran into several people up and about their businesses not even thinking that they are "swimming" or passing past stalls of money.
I asked my guide if there are cases of theft or robbery with violence in that kind of business. "No.

In fact people can leave their cars for a long time even overnight without worrying of someone stealing the cars or breaking into them," he replied.

Not satisfied, I asked an assortment of businesspeople I had invited to form a panel for my television show interview on the ‘magic formula' that has made people "rationalise" hunger or able to co-exist with poverty and affluence. "This phenomenon you see is a result of the fruits in a situation where a culture of peace takes roots. People have experienced so much suffering and deprivation as a result of war and occupation that they are sub-consciously not prepared to act in a manner that would jeopardise the well-being of others," said one of them.

So this is the country I was visiting -- Somaliland. Then known as British Somaliland, it was granted independence from British colonial rule on June 26, 1960.

Shortly after independence, it entered into a union with its southern neighbour -- formerly Italy ruled Somalia -- with Mogadishu as the capital. The spate of military coups that engulfed the hastily unified Somalia brought in their wake the military dictatorship of the best known Somali military ruler, General Siad Barre, who, as it has now been sadly noted, was the first and last best or worst known leader who led a semblance of government acknowledged by international standards.

What followed after his regime also toppled by coups was a series of clan warlords each claiming to be presidents of Somalia. Under the circumstances, a national liberation movement was taking roots in Northern Somalia or Somaliland as was known during the British colonial rule. The Somaliland National Movement was born and took up arms to correct the hasty union and take a break from the military dictatorship in Mogadishu to reclaim Somaliland.

Ultimately, the movement was triumphant reclaiming Somaliland on May 18, 1991 after a protracted bloody struggle during which intervening period, the city of Hargeisa was flattened by bombardment by the forces of Somalia Mogadishu led at first by General Siad Barre.

This is the Hargeisa I was visiting 17 years after liberation and recovering from the ashes of bombardment and war.

Peace has replaced war and peace in all its senses. What was most inspiring to me was how the people of Somaliland as reflected in the people of the capital city were going about their life courageously and with the attendant dignity.

I happened to attend the independence day -- equivalent to Tanzania's Uhuru/Jamhuri Day every December 9 -- celebrated here every June 26, the day the British granted independence to Somaliland.

It was a low-key event as I noted because there were no military parades as is the case back home where the president would take a salute from the armed forces.

But even then, President Dahin Kahin of Somaliland, threw a state dinner to his citizens -- who in turn staged traditional dances and comedy plays to the audience, which I was also part.
What struck me was the similarities of the comedy Tanzanians see on television by a group called "Ze Comedy", the difference being that this one in Hargeisa this time chose to perform before the president.

Someone was translating for me what they were saying on stage. They were talking of the ever-hiking prices in the markets and petrol stations, which reminded me of the situation at home. But the Somalilanders were pushing home a subtle message for their president to note!

But the best I could do was to sympathise with the Somaliland president whose government's national budget is on self-reliant basis -- there is no 40 per cent component of budgetary support such as enjoyed by my own country, Tanzania from the donor community!

Makwaia wa KUHENGA is a Senior Journalist and Author recently on a visit to Somaliland.