Governance: The Scourge and Hope of Somalia

Somalia has been in the headlines for two decades and continues to be today. A failed state, it has been without a functioning government. Civil war, warlords, refugees, massive displacements, United Nations and American failures, illegal fishing, dumping of toxic waste, and piracy have all characterized the failure. The current situation in Somalia poses serious dangers to the international community and the world order by encouraging a general malaise of lawlessness, by fostering and sheltering piracy, and by serving as a safe haven to the proxies of Al-A'idah. Governance traces the origins of Somalia's chronic and debilitating problems to the 18th century European scramble for Africa. It identifies its problems of governance - pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial and refutes the argument that both the unitary system and an outmoded and archaic clan system were to blame. The author prescribes "good governance" in which the pre-eminence of the traditional clan system will be recognized while operating modern structures of governance, for he believes that tradition and modernity are not necessarily mutually exclusive.