By Abdi A Jama

One of his tendentious anecdotes, he goes on to proclaim that the only change that has occurred is the utilization of modern weapons; that is, the earlier Somalis used to fight with knifes, spears, and archeries whereas now they have access to machine-guns, artilleries, and rifles. Therefore, he concluded, Somalis are incapable of altering their primordial way of life because they are, as he puts it, “fierce and turbulent race of Republicans.” According to Lewis, in order to appreciate the Somali conflict, one ought to realize, first and foremost, the “warlike values” of Somali culture. That is to say the distinctiveness of the Somali culture has single-handedly caused their conflict.

Looking through the distorted lenses of primordial thesis, he places so much weight on culture while disregarding any other aspects that might ignite the flame. He treated the Somali conflict as though there is nothing political because, as his argument goes, “Somalis are by nature clanists and that is the bedrock of their politics.”

Lewis failed, miserably, to realize that in order to appreciate and, therefore, elucidate any given conflict, a cultural talk alone, as numerous scholars asserted, is not “the best, or at least the most useful, basic, and clear, definitions of human experience.” Rather, it does “matter more in understanding contemporary politics to know that X and Y are disadvantaged in certain very concrete ways” not that their culture is “bellicose” or otherwise (Edward).

When challenged by other scholars—who persuasively and vividly demonstrated other major factors that played a significant role for the Somali conflict (E.g., the colonial rule, the cold war)—who posed the question; “Are ‘tribal’ or ‘ethnic’ differences sufficient for explaining violent warfare?; Were pre-colonial Somalis really trapped within destructive spirals of kin-based warfare and feuding?” Lewis responded hastily that “This is an odd question to ask of a segmentary lineage society, which by definition inscribes the institution of feud.” Amazingly enough, Lewis agrees with other scholars that culture alone cannot say much about any given society. Yet, he insists that Somalis are exceptional to this rule as if Somalis are aliens. Most scholars, however, disagreed with his unjustified, xenophobic and ludicrous claim.

Instead, they argued that “ideas, cultures, and histories cannot seriously be understood or studied without their force, or more precisely their configurations of power, also being studied” (Edward). Indeed, one cannot fully appreciate, let alone examine, a social phenomenon without tracing its cultural, historical and political force. As an anthropologist, it is painfully appalling for Lewis to overlook that culture and “tradition, as most anthropologists recognize, is a fluid thing; re-created, reformulated, reinvented, reimagined to serve modem ends” (Besteman). In other words, culture is socially constructed phenomenon and is subject to and depends on its political manipulations.

Lewis has also failed, miserably, to account the significant historical derivations, cultural rationalization and political representations that generated, reconstructed, revived, and revisited the Somali conflict. He will speak of the “warlike values” of Somali culture without ever mentioning bluntly why are Somalis the way they are; nor has he anything to say about the Berlin Conference; nor about the affect of almost a century of colonial rule; nor about the politically constructed identities; nor about the political motivation behind the allocation of many parts of Somali regions to neighboring countries. One may therefore raise the question; what kind of knowledge does he have for Somalis? Stated differently, is his knowledge a pure knowledge or is it a political knowledge? What is the difference, you might ask.

The prominent scholar and thinker Professor Edward Said brilliantly and persuasively elucidated and differentiated between the two. To paraphrase, Said argues that it is effortless for one to assert that the knowledge about cultures—anthropology—is nonpolitical whereas the knowledge about political science or economy is. Since the title of the former indicates the unlikelihood of anything political for what anthropologist do, we tend to assess it as an innocent and apolitical knowledge; thus, pure knowledge. Put it differently, anthropologist’s work may not seem to have a noticeable effect upon people’s daily life. As a result, it is viewed as being nonpolitical, “academic, impartial, [and] above partisan” because its “ideological color is a matter of incidental importance to politics. But in practice the reality is much more problematic.”

The latter, however, is generally viewed as a political knowledge due to its polity manifestation. A scholar, for instance, who studies China’s contemporary economics, would most likely attract the attention of governmental institutions, economic organizations, and policy makers. Consequently, his findings, consciously or unconsciously, would most likely effect directly with people’s life because its “ideology is woven directly into his material—indeed, economics, politics, and sociology in the modern academy are ideological sciences—and therefore taken for granted as being ‘political.’”

Drawing from aforesaid phenomenon, Lewis’ work may seem to his audience a “classic of historical and anthropological observation because of its style, its enormously intelligent and brilliant details” but it is challenging for the reader to realize “its simple reflection of racial superiority;” They—Somalis—are inferior and We—Westerners—are superior. It is an intoxicating produced knowledge which facilitated (and still facilitates) the West not only to create its self image of superiority, intelligence, progressiveness, and rationality but also gives the license to dominate, subjugate and colonize its both real and imagined opposite. In order for the West to be stable self, the “Other” ought to be stable too; hence, the cultural talk.

To restrain the historical precision, Lewis downplays the political encounter which I believe is central to comprehending not only the Somali conflict but the conflicts that has been taken place elsewhere in the world; namely, the India/Pakistan partition and the recently devastating genocide in Rwanda, to say the least. Though, I am not attempting to deal with it here, the roots of the conflict can purely be traced by comparing/contrasting between two distinctive epochs; first, the state of the colonized people in pre-colonial epoch and, second, the emergence of constructed political identities in the postcolonial era. However, Lewis renounced to scrutinize this critical end and, rather, preferred to utilize the cultural talk. Suffice it to say his political propaganda against Somalis is to suppress a significant amount of history.

Abdi A Jama is a student of Political Science/Global Studies at University of Minnesota.

2 September 2007

He can be reached at: Jamax036@umn.edu

Reference:

Besteman, Catherine (1996). “Representing Violence and ‘Othering’ Somalia,” Cultural Anthropology.

Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1978.

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