Frank Douglas Heath

Whither Somaliland?

Comments on the Self-Portrait

The Self-Portrait* describes what happens when a profoundly tribal society tries to introduce democracy. The government that was created for Somaliland is described as a mix, a hybrid. It functions badly. Haphazard growth of offices, bloated staff, multiple layers of taxation, surcharges, scanty public services, widespread nepotism, and corruption are all identified in the Self-Portrait.

Is it possible to remedy these malfunctions by giving the politicians more money and more power? That approach risks aggravating the present situation. Antagonism between politicians and traditional leaders would surely intensify. In these comments, therefore, we shall first analyze and evaluate each of the two political systems that went into the making of Somaliland's hybrid government. That analysis will tell us whether it is at all possible to mix democracy into the clan system. If it is not, then attempts to remedy the abysmal performance of the present hybrid government through reform will be futile. An alternative will be essential. We shall examine such an alternative.

Two Political Systems

A Deputy Speaker of Somaliland's parliament told the authors of Self-Portrait, "We need to come up with a system that accommodates one man one vote, but allows every community (beel) to be represented. So far, no one has come up with such a formula."

The Deputy Speaker alludes to two different ways of collective decision-making, one using majority rule and the other consensus. Majority rule is typical of a democracy, whereas consensus is often used in a kritarchy. Democracy, the type of centralized government favored in Europe and America, was invented by the Greeks some twenty-six centuries ago. As in all centralized government, its laws are contrived by politicians. Kritarchy, a term composed of the Greek words kriteis (judge) and archè (principle), is much older than centralized government. Its laws are derived from the customary conduct of the population. Customary law generally approximates the laws of social conduct inherent in human nature. One can therefore say that democracy is based on political law whereas kritarchy is based on natural law.

Somalis are familiar with both systems. Before being colonized, the Somalis based their society on respect for their customary law, which is quite close to natural law. The traditional political system of the Somalis is a near-kritarchy. In 1960, however, the colonial powers pushed Somalis to adopt democracy. That system created such a chaotic situation that few were unhappy when, nine years later, a dictator stepped in to clean things up. Eventually, however, the Somalis also lost faith in dictatorship. In 1991 they dismantled their European-style government altogether and went back to their traditional political system based on respect for the customary law.

While democracy and kritarchy each has its supporters, most Somalis prefer their customary laws and institutions, which they call xeer. In their experience, the xeer constitutes the heart of the Somali nation. They believe that without the xeer the Somali nation would fall apart, lose its identity, forgo its solidarity, forfeit its civilization, relinquish its culture. The xeer is the cord holding the house of the Somali people together. Indeed, it is thanks to their customary laws that the traditional political system of the Somalis took the form of a kritarchy, not a democracy.

A few Somalis, for the most part politicians, dislike the xeer. They prefer democracy. They do so for different reasons. For some it is merely nostalgia for the "good old days" when they had democracy. Conveniently, they have forgotten the mess that democracy created during the 1960-1969 period. Certain of them claim the United Nations will not recognize their republic unless it becomes a democracy. That view is mistaken; the UN recognizes the United Arab Emirates and the Sultanates of Oman and Brunei, none of which are democracies. Still other Somali politicians favor democracy because they want to share in the financial aid that rich democracies seem to 'give' to poor ones. They refuse to see that most such aid is a means of establishing and maintaining control. Some of the most prominent politicians favor democracy because it offers them an opportunity to rule over their own clansmen, or over other clans. Lastly, there are various foreign governments, international government agencies. and some opportunistic business enterprises. These urge Somalis to opt for the democratic system because they expect to make its operators subservient to their own objectives.

Kritarchy

Kritarchy is utterly different from democracy. Under kritarchy, there are no politicians to establish rules and limit other people's freedoms. Anyone who respects the natural rights of others is free to govern himself, free to pursue his own objectives with his own means. Kritarchy is the political system that respects customary law, particularly the right of private property and freedom of contract. It embraces the rule of law with its principles by which judges establish the facts of the disputes brought before them and resolve these disputes.

One basic feature of kritarchy is that the judicial, police and law-generating powers are dispersed among the population. Any person is free to establish a court of justice or a police force. The activities of judges and policemen are coordinated by the market mechanism instead of by a supreme court and a police minister. The laws of a kritarchy are discovered by judges in the course of resolving conflicts that come before them.

A society cannot exist without principles and rules to handle the problems of knowledge, self-interest and power. That kritarchy has the best arrangements for coping with these three eternal problems is well shown by Professor Randy E. Barnett in his book The Structure of Liberty, Justice and the Rule of Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1998). Barnett argues that only when individuals are secure in their property and free to make contracts can they make the best use of their resources. For then they can use not only what they alone know or what is common knowledge much of which is dispersed in society and comes in the form of prices, but also knowledge they can obtain contractually from neighbors, experts and others in the community. Kritarchy also minimizes partiality in the courts and abuses of power by leaving everyone free to contract with the court of justice and police force of his choice. Therefore, the closer a society resembles a kritarchy, the better its people are able to pursue happiness, peace and prosperity for themselves and their fellow human beings.

Democracy

Democracy belongs to the European tradition of government, a tradition that, because of its authoritarian nature, is altogether alien to traditional Somali culture. Democracy became popular in Europe because it promised to be less authoritarian than the prevailing monarchies. It promised to dilute the awesome power of a centralized government by having several teams of politicians periodically compete with each other for possession of it. The bad thing is that, however the contest turns out, the population is still divided into two groups, those who command and those who must obey. By contrast, most of the traditional political systems of Africa were never authoritarian to begin with.

Democratic governments dispose of truly awesome powers over the population. These powers are meant to defend every person's right to life, liberty and property. However, they are regularly used to restrict those same rights. The politicians can do this with impunity because they first establish a monopoly over the country's policing powers. A monopoly over the police enables them to control the legislative process and the courts of justice. With such control, the politicians can couch their commands in the form of 'laws' -- rules that have judicial approval and appear to be popularly mandated. With the backing of these 'laws' the politicians can violate almost any rights and freedoms. Indeed, democratic 'law' sets the stage for what sometimes is called the "tyranny of the majority" but really is the "tyranny of the politicians."

The citizens of a democracy tend to offer little resistance to this tyranny. They usually hope that the next team of politicians will correct the mistakes made by the present team. However, democracy's device for replacing bad politicians with good ones is rarely effective. It is often rendered ineffective by the development of a two-party system with rival political programs that are more or less alike. In this way, the two teams simply take turns in plundering the nation. Other well-known ways of obstructing popular elections include tinkering with the registration of voters, limiting the casting of votes, improper counting procedures, and campaign finance rules that benefit incumbents to the detriment of challengers. A myriad of measures develops to perpetuate the illusion that democracy represents the will of the people, hiding the fact that powerful interests really control the political process.

Democratic elections might work tolerably well in a society where political parties are based on political programs dealing with fundamental issues and offering real choices, and where people vote for programs and not for personalities. However, these conditions are rarely fulfilled, especially the last one. Most voters tend to ignore political programs and focus on the personality of the candidates. As a result, the politicians can freely act over a broad field without any concern that they will be recalled by the voting population.

Incompatibility of Democracy with a Clan System

There is one situation in particular where popular elections will always be ineffective. That is where the population is made up of a variety of close-knit ethnic groups such as clans, tribes or tight racial, linguistic or religious communities. In that situation, a voter always casts his ballot for the same political party, the party to which all people of his given ethnicity 'belong.' Consequently the most numerous ethnic group will command the government. The less numerous groups being powerless to change government policy through the voting process, the only alternatives available to them are to join a coalition, secede, or seize the power and establish a dictatorship. Actually, almost any action by opposition parties will provide the ruling party with a pretext for establishing a dictatorship.

Efforts to prohibit ethnic political parties have proved futile. Citizens always find ways to express their ethnic loyalties, and politicians are always tempted to politicize those loyalties. Under such circumstances there is no economically feasible way that an ethnically neutral party can attract the attention of the various ethnic communities.

Similarly, it has proved useless to introduce federalism, regional autonomy, or decentralization, or to limit the number of parties. These devices may have some value when the population is homogeneous, but they are useless when the population is divided into close-knit ethnic groups. All they can possibly do is postpone the inevitable moment when a dictatorship will be established. Professors Alvin Rabushka and Kenneth Shepsle have clearly demonstrated this in their book Politics in Plural Societies: a Theory of Democratic Instability (Columbus, Ohio: Merrill 1972). Their analysis leads to the preliminary conclusion that the adoption of democracy in Somaliland would produce two undesirable results:

It would divide the nation into two groups, those who command and those who are forced to obey.
It would rapidly degrade into a dictatorship because the electoral device is unworkable.

Actually, democracy has been unable even to make a start in Somaliland because the clansmen employed by the government see themselves neither as servants of the nation nor as assistants to their ministers. They describe their job as "kursi bu haista" (I own a chair) and maximize that chair for the benefit of their family and clan. Knowing that government can forbid anything, they spare no effort in exploiting that nuisance value. When someone of their own clan asks for a permit they give it free of charge, but everybody else has to pay dearly. This practice is known among European nations as abuse of power and corruption. Not so among the Somalis where it is called hawl fudeydin (that which makes the job easy).

Somalis have found a way around this problem, however, by bringing their elders along. This procedure originated as follows. When two Somalis who belong to different clans meet each other for the first time, the situation is called hor imaad, a military term that denotes enmity. That changes when elders accompany both parties. In that case there is the guarantee that if an injustice is committed it can be promptly redressed. Indeed, only when, at the first meeting, the elders are present can a basis for cooperation be established for commerce, marriage, the resolution of a conflict or whatever. So a Somali who seeks a service from the government will ask the particular civil servant to bring his elders along. A deal can then be worked out whereby the civil servants of both clans are obliged to render equal services to each other's members without charging a fee.

This system works across the whole line of government activities, including the duties of policemen. The Self-Portrait quotes the mayor of Erigabo who confirms: "If someone refuses to pay tax, we can't arrest him or her, because that might divide the police along clan lines." A Somali policeman wishing to arrest a suspect belonging to another clan must first seek permission of the elders of that clan. He can obtain that permission only if his own elders accompany him. Likewise, a clansman can only be brought before a court of justice if one of his elders is a part of that court. Similarly, the verdict of a government court can only be enforced if rendered in accordance with the procedural and substantive laws of the clan of the convicted person.

“Bizarre Thing”

The name that the Somalis give to a western-style government is waxan, which means "the thing." This nuance of vocabulary shows that there is no place in their mind for a centralized, monopolized government. They do understand, of course, the three main functions of a clan, to wit that it recognizes and protects their rights, that it renders justice when an injustice has been committed, and that it provides social security. Western-style governments in Africa claim to offer the same three services. Judging by results, however, they fail in all three areas. Primarily they engage in plundering the population. Therefore they stand in ill repute. Calling such governments "a thing" is actually a very polite term. Somalis say they are devices for "rendering moral what is immoral and legal what is illegal" (xalaleinta xaramta iyo xeerdarada).

To sum up, it is irrational to suppose that democracy could ever function in Somaliland. Any attempt to impose it would divide the population in a small group of powerful rulers and a large group of powerless citizens. In an egalitarian society like that of the Somalis, such a division would be totally unacceptable. In their political culture, power always remains with the people. If it is ever delegated to an executive committee (fulinta gudiida), it is only for a very specific purpose, with an explicit instruction from the collective that made the decision, for a short period of time, and with ample guarantees that the executive will respect the customary law. These four conditions ensure that no person will put himself above the law--that no person will put himself above another Somali and order him around.

Creating a hybrid system

Given that democracy is unworkable in Somaliland and certainly incompatible with its culture, the politicians promote a notion of adapting democracy to the local situation. However, they will never concede any of democracy's basic features, namely, that it must always allow its operators to:

monopolize the country's policing powers.
monopolize the country's judicial powers.
monopolize the country's 'law'-making powers.
organize popular elections to create the illusion that the population control these powers.

None of these four features is compatible with the Somali political culture, according to which all government powers must remain dispersed among the entire population. This dispersal implies competition, the opposite of monopoly. In fact, according to Somali law, every Somali is free to perform services of government. Some people specialize in these services. They are called odayaal (arbiters, judges). Somali law holds that every person shall at all times be free to appoint the judge of his choice. That guarantees competition among judges. This competition in turn guarantees that people get the service they want, for the lowest possible price.

Mixing competition with monopoly is like mixing water with fire. The mixture degenerates into a steaming mess. Ignoring this difficulty, however, politicians have made various proposals to do just that. One class of proposals for a mixed government stresses the importance of political parties. But what will these parties be used for? Political parties are only necessary when all the powers of government have been transferred to the happy few. A population that accepts political parties implicitly admits and accepts that:

political power is no longer with the people,
the power to protect life, liberty and property is the monopoly of politicians,
customary law is no longer valid, and
customary institutions are no longer operational.

Another class of proposals for a mixed government stresses the importance of 'the rule of law.' No word is said about what kind of law. What the politicians have in mind is to impose laws of their own devising and give them priority over the customary law.

Yet another way the politicians propose to establish a mixed government is by putting some of the traditional leaders in parliament. However, democratic parliaments tend only to legitimize what the government is doing. Such parliaments would mainly serve to put the population to sleep by putting feathers in the hats of the traditional leaders.

Politicians who propose these various forms of mixed government pretend that they are introducing new, even daring political systems. In reality, such schemes will only paralyze and destroy the traditional system of governance. A government based on hybrid rules and hybrid institutions will quickly fall apart into as many sub-groups as there are ethnic communities. These sub-groups will use their political powers arbitrarily, creating chaos in the process.

In addition to clashes among the clans, these attempts at hybrid government will create endless conflicts between the politicians on the one hand and the ethnic leaders and entrepreneurs on the other. Politicians will accuse ethnic leaders of encouraging the clans to sabotage the democracy whereas, in reality, the clansmen simply conduct themselves as they have done since time immemorial. A mistake many politicians make is to think that clans are merely families. In reality, a clan is a complex political, legal and social system enabling Somalis to live together with a high degree of harmony.

Ethnic leaders are well aware that these attempts at hybrid governments are gradually but surely destroying the traditional communities. They regret the loss of respect for the customary laws and institutions, and they regret the loss of the many good things their communities achieved through those institutions. Consequently, they despise the proponents of Western-style government and all the more so when these pose as saviors of the nation.

Entrepreneurs are the real creators of wealth in any country. They voluntarily use the inventions and savings of some people to produce goods and services for other people. They are the real civil servants of the nation. A successful entrepreneur is someone who rightly guesses what goods and services people will want. He risks his time and reputation and his own and other people's money to serve his fellow human beings. When people are free to invent, save and produce, taking risks for which they alone are responsible, everyone prospers. Entrepreneurs see African democracies constantly restricting that freedom. They see politicians everywhere putting obstacles on the road to their nation's prosperity. Consequently entrepreneurs in Africa, like the traditional leaders, have nothing but contempt for their democratic politicians.

In short, it makes no difference whether the plan is to introduce democracy wholly or only in part. In a clan-based society, it will inevitably generate poverty, hate, chaos and, eventually, dictatorship.

Republic of Somaliland

Those who met at the 1993 Grand Borama Conference chose to create a government for Somaliland that would be a mix of the indigenous political system and a foreign state system. They entrusted the implementation of this project to a small group of politicians who would work under the supervision of a committee of 25 traditional leaders. In so doing, they made three big mistakes. They did not consider whether it was even possible to mix these two political systems. They chose politicians who had neither the skill for the job nor the intention to do as they were instructed. And lastly, they established no procedure for correcting or removing these politicians in case they botched their assignment.

From its inception, this hybrid government deviated from the course that the Conference members had set out:

Harmony: Rather than promoting harmony and cooperation between the various clans, the new government embraced policies that engendered animosity and distrust. It gave itself vast powers of taxation and regulation which led to jealousy and fear. Within a year, civil war broke out. Some of the rebels felt excluded from the newly created powers, while others feared that the new powers would supersede those of the clans. The armed rebellion paused in 1997, but the conflict has not really been settled. Self-Portrait rightly warns that "throughout the country ... peace remains fragile," and "perceived regional disparities are the most widely held form of grievance, and potentially one of the most troublesome."

Administration: Instead of working in tune with the various clans, the new government put itself above them and created an administration that went immediately out of control. All Somaliland needed was a small administration to conduct foreign policy and take care of defense. Had it limited itself to these two tasks while working in close cooperation with the clan leaders, the new government might have done something useful. Instead, it created a vast array of ministries employing 25,000 civil and military servants. Today almost all of its revenue is being spent on salaries and debt service. Despite this, salaries are minuscule and no money is left for training. The Somaliland shilling has inflated by more than a thousand percent. Corruption prevails.

Economic development: Instead of encouraging economic development, the new government scared off both local and foreign investors. A poor country, provided it recognizes and protects property rights, can become rich by attracting and cooperating with foreign investors. The new government, however, showed no understanding either of property rights or of investors. It displayed its ignorance through its foolish Foreign Investment Law and in its day-to-day dealings with both local and foreign investors. Dictatorial decrees interfere with even the simplest currency exchange transactions.

Unity: The new government opposed the dream of a unified Somalia and adopted policies leading to further splitting of that nation. It was supposed to embrace independence without forsaking that dream. Yet by seeking United Nations recognition, it showed its willingness to recognize the political borders of Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti, something all Somalis contest. The correct policy for preserving the independence of Somalia's clans is to establish a Confederation of Somali Peoples. Any two or three Somali clans could start such a confederation. Establishing industrial freeports attractive to foreign investors would then greatly stimulate the economy of the Confederation's members. Such an economic stimulus would motivate the other Somali clans in the Horn of Africa to participate in the Confederation.

Support: Instead of encouraging a group of intellectuals and politicians who would be supportive of a mixed form of government, the new government set out to abolish the indigenous structure and establish a pure democracy. Had the politicians been interested in making the new mixed government work, they would have given veto powers to its supervisory committee of traditional leaders. No such powers were given, however, and consequently the traditional leaders never had any influence on the Republic. Instead, the new government formed a group of intellectuals and politicians ready to abolish all of the customary laws and institutions--a group ready even to establish a dictatorship in order to introduce democracy.

An Appropriate political system: Confederation of Clans

The Grand Borama Conference intended the experiment with this hybrid government to last no longer than two years. However, it has now been going on for eight years. Everyone appears to agree that the experiment failed, since everyone is looking for alternatives. Three options are presently being discussed: (1) a purely democratic, European-style government, (2) a different form of hybrid government, and (3) a solely clan-based government.

The Self-Portrait alludes to the proper choice by quoting a spokesman for the Warsangeli suldaan, who asked, "If clan is indispensable, why should we not base our functional structures on it and use it for our reconstruction and development?" He implied that these structures should be founded on the customary law. This inquiry requires an analysis of this law as well as of the traditional Somali political system.

Customary Law and Politics

The Law
The Somali customary laws constitute a legal system (xeer) based on six principles:

The law is separate from politics and religion.
The law has a built-in method for its own development.
There is a plurality of jurisdictions and norms.
Those who govern must themselves abide by the law.
The law originates in the reason and conscience of everyone in the community.
Judges are specialists with their own methods for analyzing the law.

The first of these principles, independence of law from politics and religion, merits a brief comment. During the past four centuries, many states have separated religion from government and benefited as a result. Separation of law and government, on the other hand, is rare. Yet in other fields besides law, independence from government has had immense success. A single example is the communications system called the Internet. Until 1973, that system was monopolized by the United States military. It had relatively few users. When the military relinquished its monopoly, however, parallel systems arose in the private sector. These developed rapidly, alongside university and governmental networks, until the system was owned by no one. As with language, everyone was free to use and enhance it. Soon, the Internet started growing at an exponential rate. No one can be denied access to it, and everyone is free to offer improvements. Open market systems facilitate the spontaneous development of order without hierarchy or dictatorial authority.

Likewise, the Somali legal system is without any owner. No one controls it, and everybody has access to it. No politician can control the xeer and subordinate it to his interests. The xeer constantly develops and improves, despite the fact that nobody in particular is in charge of its improvement. Whoever comes up with an innovation that suits the diverse interests of the community will find his innovation accepted and put to use.

The xeer has a fairly complete set of institutions for adjudicating and enforcing the law. It also contains rules of procedure that guarantee a fair trial. Insurance obligations make it certain that victims of an injustice will be compensated. As for substantive law, the xeer recognizes in principle every person's right to life, liberty and property. It is true that there are some short-comings in the present Somali law, but the same can be said of every other legal system in the world. By leaving the xeer free to develop, these shortcomings may be remedied in time. The xeer contains procedures for this purpose. The Somali legal system has therefore all the makings for becoming one of the finest legal systems of the world. All it needs to achieve this status is exposure to the daily hustle-bustle of the market place of ideas, goods and services.

Politics
The political system of the Somalis consists of a large number of clan-based assemblies. These meet whenever a political problem arises. Examples are drought, the search for new grazing lands, the need for a new school, the wish to prevent a conflict with another clan, and the election of a ceremonial chief (ugas). Decisions of these political assemblies must be compatible with the customary law. To ensure compatibility, the Somalis require that every member of the assembly agree with the proposed decision. This requirement is known as "consensus."

Politicians are not allowed to make laws, not even tax laws--since taxation would be considered a violation of property rights. So public services can only be supplied by private enterprise. This principle is based on great wisdom. One only has to look at other African nations to realize this. Their governments have vast powers to levy taxes. They use these powers arbitrarily and make no serious effort to provide public services in return. They use their powers primarily to plunder the nation. As a result, life in most parts of Africa is "nasty, brutish and short."

For all of these reasons we have come to the conclusion that the political and legal system most suited to the Somali political culture is the traditional Somali form of organization. The main characteristic of that system is that it is based on customary law and, as a rule, protects the life, liberty and property of the people. It is well established and respected. Its main problem has been not that it has some weaknesses, but that the promoters of centralized government have constantly interfered with it.

Opponents of the clan system

Many Somali politicians oppose the clan system. The Self-Portrait voices this sentiment by stating that "kinship politics provide fertile soil for patronage, corruption, nepotism and clientelism, while stifling the emergence of issue-based politics, meritocracy and professionalism." However, it is not the clan system that produces all these calamities, but the democracy that politicians are trying to put in its place. Democracy is a form of centralized government. As such it puts awesome powers into the hands of a few clansmen, and that turns the clans into monsters that try to devour each other. This would never happen if the clans were left alone. Within their traditional political system, the clans are perfectly capable of maintaining law and order (xeer) so that there can be peace and prosperity (nabad iyo ano).

Had the politicians had the interests of the Somali nation at heart, they would not have tried, with one stroke of the pen, to abolish the political and cultural system that took a millennium to shape. Neither would they have tried to mix the traditional governing approach with a foreign system. Instead, they would have respected the traditional structure and facilitated its improvement by strengthening the procedures already in place for this purpose.

The irony of their proposal to displace traditional government with democracy is that it has resulted in a tightening of clan loyalties. Somalis look at democracy as the enemy of their freedom and equality. Clan law offers an excellent defense against attacks on these fundamental values. Somalis therefore will do everything to strengthen their clan system when confronted with democratic features like political parties, tax laws, and the regulation of peaceful conduct.

Blinded by their desire for power, the politicians do not see that if the clan system is left alone, its least desirable aspects will soon disappear. The happy modification of the clan system cannot occur while it is being condemned and reviled, but only when it is accepted and embraced. One result of embracing the clan system will be that the business environment will become conducive to the growth of independent insurance companies. The important services that clans now provide in insuring against liability and calamity will devolve upon these independent companies. Much litigation and many of the present protections against disaster will thus be subsumed into a market economy, with attendant innovations and cost reduction. As a result, individuals will depend less on their clan for support. Loyalty to clan and culture will become independent of every person's pursuit of individual prosperity, allowing real improvements in the clan system to take place.

A standard politician's criticism of the traditional system is that it is incapable of modern administration. In plain language, the politicians insist that public services such as schools, hospitals, and roads cannot be provided by the traditional Somali political system. That criticism dissolves under the splendid light of the market economy. The private sector provides better schools, better health care, and more useful roads. Indeed, all so-called public services are best rendered by private enterprise.

There are at least three reasons for the superiority of the private sector. First, governments lack the information needed to render effective service. The necessary information is dispersed among the population, who are best able to express their interests through the market approach of price seeking, quality seeking, and choice seeking behaviors.

Second, governments waste enormous wealth by funding services through taxation. For every shilling that is collected in taxes, five to seven shillings are destroyed, wasted, or prevented from being created (James Gwartney and Robert Lawson, Economic Freedom of the World, 1997 Annual Report, Fraser Institute, Vancouver) The market mechanism for allocating resources to create new services is flexible and efficient, whereas the government mechanism is barely effective at all.

Third, in the process of rendering public services, governments demand certain behaviors while forbidding others. Such orders are hard to tolerate. They are made even less bearable by reason of their poor results. Most people respect the rights of others and regret the government ordering them about. A common result of this is that people cooperate in fooling the government and opposing its orders. Tax avoidance and evasion, black markets for exchanges forbidden by government, and open flaunting of both mandatory and prohibited behavior creates an environment that is not conducive to the effective rendering of public services.

For every public service that can be imagined, instances can be found somewhere in the world where it is being supplied by private enterprise, to the great satisfaction of its users. Critics of private enterprise usually shrug this off because they have so many other grudges. They maintain, for instance, that the market mechanism has weaknesses that need correction by the government mechanism. They say nothing about the weaknesses of the government mechanism, which is much more fraught with defects than the market mechanism. Critics of private enterprise also maintain that democratic governments can be useful, for instance to defend the poor against the rich. However, this hypothesis has never been substantiated. Democracy tends to benefit those who are politically organized at the expense of those who are not as well organized. Indeed, democracy offers some the opportunity to be parasites on all others. The lucky ones in the democratic wheel of fortune are those who pay the right price to the right politicians. Under democracy, those with the least ability to pay suffer most.

When politicians field all these arguments against the clan system, it is not really the clans but the customary law they want to destroy. They correctly perceive that customary law forms an obstacle on their road to consolidating power over their countrymen. The customary law subjects the nation's leaders to the same laws as everyone else. Indeed, the compensation they must pay for a given misdeed is more than others would have to pay. The leader who steals must pay his victim not only compensation for what was stolen, but an additional amount because he flaunted the very rules he was supposed to enforce. Under democratic law, on the other hand, the politicians set themselves apart with concepts of sovereign immunity, executive privilege, and constitutional authority, distorting the very system they extol.

Precedents for Confederation

Examples of confederations that have proven successful include the United Arab Emirates and the confederated cantons of Switzerland. Even countries that have become mired in the difficulties and contradictions of democracy often owe much of their success to features of confederation that were embedded in their initial configuration. The United States was originally organized under a set of articles of confederation that included many of the principles that work so well in the Emirates and Switzerland. Where these principles survive, people prosper.

The concept of confederation acknowledges that populations that are ethnically, culturally, or linguistically diverse cannot be expected to thrive under consolidated authority. In the Swiss canton system, the principle of one man, one vote is replaced by one man, many votes. Every Swiss person expresses his political authority in a local community, in a canton or region, and in the nation as a whole. An enormous diversity of political approaches are used in the dozens of cantons and half-cantons, and even more diversity is available in the hundreds of different communities. This diversity doesn't promote chaos, but instead promotes best solutions. Essential to making it work is the freedom of movement that allows people to quit communities and cantons with ineffective policies and move to neighboring towns and regions that are better organized.

Switzerland is enormously prosperous despite its small population, few mineral resources, and extremely rugged terrain. The history of its system of cooperating cantons with extremely limited central authority arose not in recent years, but in the first glimmerings of the Renaissance about 1290 AD. The unsophisticated and much more tribal Swiss of that era recognized the opportunity for competing cantons to cooperate in mutual defense.

Even though the different cantons of Switzerland have different languages, different religious traditions, and vastly different cultures, they are nonetheless able to cooperate successfully. They do so by vesting power in the individual, in the community, in the region, and in the nation, in that order. The individual militia members are armed against both tyranny within the country and potential enemies outside the country. The communities are organized according to principles that work locally and therefore may differ enormously from town to town. The various communities decide how the limited powers of the confederate government will be used. In short, the Swiss have severely limited the powers of their government.

A similar set of ideas underpins the United Arab Emirates. Each emirate has local authority over matters of economics and law. The emirates cooperate for foreign policy and defense. By limiting central authority to minimal functions, enormous efficiencies are obtained. These real world examples show that the principles of decentralized authority work not only in theory, but also in practice.

Implementation

Somaliland basically has three options to pursue: dictatorship, democracy, or kritarchy. If it wishes to prosper, it must stop experimenting with hybrid political systems and choose a political system that suits the Somali way of life

A decision in favor of kritarchy would imply abandoning the present provisional constitution as well as plans for establishing political parties. A good way of dismantling the present hybrid government would be to let each clan take care of that government's rights, obligations and belongings that it finds on its territory. In this way, no sudden changes occur and continuity of useful operations is assured.

In the mind of Somalis, independence does not mean that each clan will live on a political island. Already today, the clans maintain a set of rules that enable them to deal with each other in a civilized manner, just as most of the hundreds of nations in the world respect certain rules of international law when dealing one with another. An essential rule of the Somali political system is that every person has an inalienable right to move freely throughout the Somali-speaking realm. This rule, which had such a beneficial effect on the Swiss nation, lets the individual person vote with his feet, moving his family to places where there are different policies and opportunities.

Eventually, a Guurti, a council or assembly of elders, should be formed to establish a Confederation of Somali Peoples. Most of Somaliland's clans will surely agree to become its initial members. Gradually the others will join, including those located in Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti. These clans will become interested as soon as Somaliland's economy starts to develop. Many foreign and local investors have already manifested their intention to establish business ventures in Somaliland. They will not start, however, as long as there remains a hybrid government. They are waiting for the moment when the customary law once again will rule supreme.

The founding charter of such a Somali confederation should avoid the term "territory." Rather, the Confederation should be a political organization without a territory, somewhat like the United Nations. In that way, the central governments of Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti will not perceive the Confederation as a threat to the integrity of their territories. The Confederation need not worry about negotiating free movement across the borders of these countries. Even the most powerful central government cannot prevent migrating economic actors from crossing its borders. Business people are usually very skilled, and in any event more motivated than the politicians, to promote the free movement of ideas, people, and merchandise. They will be much more effective than the politicians in removing obstacles to free trade in the cross-border economy.

Foreign governments and their international agencies would be well advised to leave the Somalis alone. By trying to establish a consolidated federal state among the Somalis they promote the continuing impoverishment of the Somali people. It took two thousand years for more than four dozen European nations to consolidate in a confederation, which even today is the subject of mass protests and demonstrations. It would be folly indeed for European politicians to insist on the consolidation of five dozen Somali clans within one decade. They have no moral authority whatever to teach the Somalis how to unite, in view of the history of total warfare, mass exterminations, and brutality in Europe in the twentieth century alone. Even were we to concede that the European approach to problems of confederation and political union works in Europe, it would stretch credulity to suppose that it could be applied overnight in an altogether different cultural setting.

Conclusion

The Self-Portrait has made it abundantly clear that the Somalis are deeply attached to their traditional form of government. In addition, it demonstrates beyond any doubt that the hybrid government formed in 1993 has gone totally out of control. The authors of the Self-Portrait did not endeavor to find the causes for these two phenomena. They left that task to its readers. The present memorandum has endeavored to seek and find those causes.

We have found that the Somalilanders value their traditional political, legal and social system not because it is based on kinship, but because its rules are based on custom rather than on political whim. The strength of Somali law derives from two features in particular. One is that it recognizes every person's right to life, liberty and property. The other is that it offers politicians no opportunities to influence the law. It is worth noting that under this legal system, the Somali nation has become one of the most numerous in Africa.

Kinship will always remain a vital factor in the life of an individual. However, its prominence in social, legal, and political structures will diminish over time as more effective approaches become available. The day will come when Somalis will entrust most of their legal affairs to independent insurance companies. As a result, their dependence on clans to insure against liability and calamity will decrease. On the other hand, their high regard for their customary laws and institutions is bound to grow without limit. Already today, Somalis consider their customary law system to be vital to the cohesion, well being and prosperity of their society.

As for Somaliland's hybrid government, we found that it failed because the Grand Borama Conference attempted to mix two contrasting systems, a command society and a free society. As a practical matter, consolidated power cannot be stopped halfway. When a politician is given one finger, he takes your whole hand. He is like a camel in a sandstorm; once his nose enters your tent and he finds the wind is not blowing in there, the rest of him will follow.

The difficulties that arose from this hybrid system were not foreseen, and no blame should attach to its failure. As the problems became apparent, the people tried to reverse course, though with only limited success. Learning from the mistakes of the past is the source of wisdom.

Somaliland's decision to create a hybrid government was fully in keeping with all the other state-building experiments the Somali nation has had to suffer through since the end of World War II. What these state-building experiments have had in common is that they all ignored the rules of social conduct inherent in human nature, the principles known collectively as "the customary law." The consequence of that fatal oversight was that the politicians destroyed the nation. The lesson to be learned from this is that any true nation building effort in Somaliland must not attempt to create a central government, but rather must strengthen the customary law system so that natural rights are more respected and the rule of law becomes fully operational.

The Self-Portrait correctly observes that whatever wealth was created during the past eight years was created by private enterprise. It indicates that much more wealth would have been created had the government followed more sensible policies. If Somaliland is to move forward into freedom and prosperity, it must now put a stop to efforts to establish a democratic state, which can only further disrupt property rights and frustrate entrepreneurial incentive. Somalilanders should now give their full support to the traditional system that is already in place and that has evolved over the centuries. In this system, control vests primarily in the individual, secondarily in his jilib (sub-clan), thirdly in his clan, and finally in the cluster of clans now called Somaliland. This cluster could take the form of a limited confederation whose only activity would be to conduct foreign policy and coordinate military defense. In this system, each individual speaks for himself, defends himself and his family, and exercises authority over his own interests. Each clan speaks for itself and exercises authority over its interests. Each village or town attends to the common needs of the clans residing there. Each region attends only to the common needs of its villages or towns. The confederation, finally, should have no other task than to conduct foreign policy and joint military operations.

Only in this way will Somalilanders come into full technological, scientific, economic, and cultural participation in the modern world. Americans owe their prosperity to having begun as a confederation and having continued for many years thereafter with a decentralized system. The result will be the same in Somaliland if its people follow their own traditions and allow them room to grow. Peace, prosperity and stability will follow from a decentralized approach as morning follows the dawn.

Once its traditional structure is revitalized Somaliland will begin developing. Its customary laws and institutions will become more prominent, its economy will start growing, and the political relations among its clans will become more structured. By achieving these objectives for themselves, Somalilanders will set the stage for peace and prosperity throughout the entire Somali nation.

A Self-Portrait of Somaliland: Rebuilding from the Ruins is an eighty-seven page report published in December 1999 by the Somaliland Centre for Peace and Development. The Centre is an offshoot of the War-torn Societies Project that came in 1995 to Somalia under the auspices of the Geneva-based UN Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) The text of the report is here.