The Shaping of Somali Society

The Shaping of Somali Society

Author: Lee V. Cassanelli

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press Anniversary Collection

Published: 1982

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13:

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By combining oral tradition with traditional historiography, Cassanelli reveals the interplay of the precolonial environmental, social, economic, and religious forces.


The Suicidal State in Somalia

The Suicidal State in Somalia

Author: Mohamed Haji Ingiriis

Publisher: UPA

Published: 2016-04-01

Total Pages: 383

ISBN-13: 0761867201

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This book is a critical reposition of the study of military regimes in Africa. Documenting and delving deep into the reign and rule of General Mohamed Siad Barre regime in Somalia from 1969 up to 1991, the book puts emphasis on African agencies—ostensibly shaped by external beneficiaries and patrons—over what went wrong with Africa after the much-awaited post-colonial period. It does so by critically engaging with the wider theoretical and conceptual frameworks in African Studies which more often than not tend to attribute the post-colonial African State raptures to colonialism. The main thesis of the book is that colonialism left Africa on its own space wherein African leaders could have made a difference. By putting discrete perspectives into historical context, the book circumnavigates through comparative and comprehensive holistic approach to the Siad Barre regime to reveal how colonialism did not produce less than what criminalisation of the State resulted in Somalia. This empirical analysis is crucial to understanding the contemporary conundrum facing the Somali world today. The argument is that the contemporary conflicts are not only attributable to—but also because of—the past plunders of the post-colonial leaders trained by the departed colonial authorities. Employing nuanced analytic concepts and categories, the aim of the book is to refine the past to recapture the present and envision the future. Framing new ways of analyzing military regimes in Africa begins with (re)assessment of how the Siad Barre regime was previously approached. Marshalling extensive and extraordinary amount of sources, the book unveils the intricacies and contradictions of the dictatorship and its impact on the Somali psyche. The book locates the evolution of the regime within the wider context of the Cold War political contestation between the East and the West. Unparalleled in-depth and analysis, this book is the first full-length scholarly study of the Siad Barre regime systematically explaining the politics and process of the dictatorial rule. The historicity of exploring Somali State trajectory entails employing a Braudelian longue durée approach. Thus, three interrelated sets of contexts/questions inform the study: how Siad Barre himself came into power, how he ruled and maintained his authoritarian reign over the Somalis and who had assisted him from inside and outside the Somali world.


"Hostages to Peace"

Author: Chris Albin-Lackey

Publisher: Human Rights Watch

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 63

ISBN-13: 156432513X

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Somaliland declared its independence from Somalia in 1991, though no country in the world has recognized its existence. Since then Somaliland has maintained peace and stability while laying the groundwork for democratic governance. But today Somaliland is at a perilous crossroads. The administration of President Dahir Riyale Kahin has repeatedly failed to hold key elections originally scheduled for mid-2008. The resulting crisis has laid bare the limits of what Somaliland has accomplished and now threatens its hard-won progress. Somaliland's government continues to rely on extralegal "security committees" to usurp the role of the courts and allow government officials to incarcerate criminal suspects, including children, without charge or trial. While heavy-handed acts of repression are rare, they are not unheard of, and low-level harassment of journalists, opposition officials and others is common. The president and his government frequently flout the laws and constitution, while the legislature and the courts do nothing to rein in such abuses of power. Human Rights Watch urges Somaliland's government to ensure that presidential elections are held as currently scheduled in September 2009. In the longer term, Somaliland's government should make a concerted effort to strengthen the rule of law and end human rights violations. Somaliland's international partners, whether they recognize Somaliland's independence or not, should use both pressure and assistance to help ensure that this happens.


Maps of Difference

Maps of Difference

Author: Wendy Roy

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 9780773528666

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As well as providing vivid and sympathetic accounts of geography, peoples, and cultures, three women writers use their books to chart their own historical and social positions. In Maps of Difference Wendy Roy explores the ways in which Anna Jameson, Mina Hubbard, and Margaret Laurence were attuned to the cultural imperialism underlying their travel writing. Roy considers the connections Jameson makes between feminism and anti-racism in Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada (1838), Hubbard's insights in A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador (1908) into her relationship with First Nations men who had both more and less power than she, and Laurence's awareness of colonial and patriarchical oppression in her African memoir, The Prophet's Camel Bell (1963). Roy also examines archival and First Nations accounts of these women's travels, and the sketches, photos, and maps that accompany their writing, to examine contradictions in and question the implied objectivity of travel narratives. She concludes by looking at the myth of "getting there first" and the ways in which new technologies of representation, including cameras, allow travellers and writers to claim new travel "firsts."


A Man of Good Hope

A Man of Good Hope

Author: Jonny Steinberg

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2015-01-08

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 1473523079

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When Asad was eight years old, his mother was shot in front of him. With his father in hiding, he was swept alone into the great wartime migration that has scattered the Somali people throughout the world. This extraordinary book tells Asad’s story. Serially betrayed by the people who promised to care for him, Asad lived his childhood at a sceptical remove from the adult world, living in a bewildering number of places, from the cosmopolitan streets of inner-city Nairobi to towns deep in the Ethiopian desert. By the time he reached the cusp of adulthood, Asad had made good as a street hustler, brokering relationships between hardnosed Ethiopian businessmen and bewildered Somali refugees. He also courted the famously beautiful Foosiya, and married her, to the astonishment of his peers. Buoyed by success in work and in love, Asad put $1,200 in his pocket and made his way down the length of the African continent to Johannesburg, whose streets he believed to be lined with gold. So began an adventure in a country richer and more violent than he could possibly have imagined. A Man of Good Hope is the story of a person shorn of the things we have come to believe make us human – personal possessions, parents, siblings. And yet Asad’s is an intensely human life, one suffused with dreams and desires and a need to leave something of permanence on this earth.


Collapsed States

Collapsed States

Author: I. William Zartman

Publisher: Lynne Rienner Publishers

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 9781555875602

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This work uses 11 African case studies in its exploration of the phenomenon of collapsed states. The writers consider the causes of collapse; symptoms and early warning signs; and how the situation was met. They also assess the strengths and weaknesses of various responses, such as UN action.


Somali Grammar

Somali Grammar

Author: Christopher R. Green

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2021-08-23

Total Pages: 502

ISBN-13: 1501503618

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This book offers a contemporary look at Somali from the standpoint of its major varieties and provides a comprehensive account of the language that is grounded in linguistic theory and the latest scholarship. The grammar includes an extensive array of examples drawn from online corpora and from fieldwork with native speakers of the language.