Published by Vikas Publishing House PVT LTD; 576 Masjid Road, Jangpura, New Delhi 110014; India in 1993

ISBN 0-7069-7304-6

List Price = 550 Indian Rupees & Shipping & Handling

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© Mohammed Farah Aidid & Satya Pal Ruhela 1993

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publishers.

Re-published here in the Civic Webs Virtual Library in an online version under permission from Vikas Publishing House PVT LTD in 2001.

[This is an ongoing project to convert this book into an online version. Only those chapters with a brown "hover-button box" are completed and available. We hope to complete the rest soon.]

Table of Contents

Dedication

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Part I

The Preferred Future Development in Political, Social and Cultural Spheres

(A) Political Development

(B) Social Development

(C) Cultural Development

Part II

The Preferred Future Development in Economic Sphere

"In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful"

Dedication

Dedicated to all the Somali Martyrs who sacrificed their lives to overthrow the

twenty-one years long oppressive dictatorial regime in Somalia and to all

the people of Somalia who have suffered untold misery and who, with

faith in God, trust in the goodwill of the international community

of friends and with optimism and determination in their

hearts, now look forward to build up a bright and

happy preferred future for themselves and

their beloved united Somali nation,

Foreword

One can hardly overstate unique timeliness and importance of the subject of this book, "The Preferred Future Development in Somalia". After 21 long years of dictatorship and turmoil, Somalia is poised for the prospect of the return of peace, democracy, development and welfare and progress of the Somali people, who have been victims of poverty, hunger, oppression and humiliation. Now that the hitherto before estranged leaders of the various factions have agreed to work unitedly to form their 'Transitional National Council', re-establish democracy and the rule of law, and hold national elections, the future development of Somalia is of an urgent but viable enterprise.

Somalia has suffered incalculable misery during the past decades. It is today one of the least developed, and perhaps one of the poorest countries in the world. Yet the Somalis have such robust resilience that they can repair and rebuild their traumatised nation quickly given the clement climate of democracy and development process. Almost 99 percent of Somalis are Muslims exposing faith in god Almighty and in the brotherhood of man. They are sturdy, industrious, intelligent, logical and, above all, gregarious and traditionally democratic ion their cultural and social mores and political functioning. With meticulous support from UNO and developed nations, Somalia can most certainly overcome adversity and prosper in the next few years.

India and Somalia have a very long history of mutual friendship since 538 BC. There existed trade relations between India and Mesopotamia, Arabia, Egypt and Somalia. Ships from South India reached the ports of the Red Sea in about 40 days, and thus united India with Arabia, Somaliland (then called Punt) and Egypt in the first century B.C. Gujurati textiles, especially cloth made in Surat and Kerala were sold in Somaliland (Punt) and many Gujarati and Keralite traders finally settled in Somalia. Today there are thousands of Indians living in Somalia, and Indian cultural ethos, Indian democracy, Indian films and Indian intellectuals are immensely valued by the Somalis. It is a matter of satisfaction for India that about 2000 Somali students are studying in Indian universities. They will provide sturdy channels of friendship in the years to come.

India attaches great importance to developing its relations with all countries in the continent of Africa. We have actively participated in the establishment of the Africa Fund. India has also taken concrete steps through bilateral agreements with individual African countries to develop our relationship for mutual benefit. We in India have a vast store of goodwill and affection for Somalia. We will certainly be willing to translate the goodwill into all conceivable help to the Somali people to alleviate their suffering and enable them assert themselves for their own future. Indeed this book itself is a fine example of Indo-Somali co-operation.

The editors of this book have perceptively invited papers relating to political, cultural, social and economic development in Somalia, which convey with a sense of urgency the need to ensure a secure future for Somalia. There are 40 papers in this book -- all specially written with focus on the problems of development of Somalia in the near future. The reader will find here vast information about Somalia, the result of a lot of painstaking research and study. These papers present a virtual blueprint for Somalia's future.

I believe this collection will provide invaluable material to curious readers and researchers interested in Africa and Somali affairs. Informed discussions in various forums will help conceive the possible lines of development for the regeneration of the Somali nation. This book provides functional and innovative ideas on Somalia in relevant sociological and futurological perspectives.

The editors of this book deserve handsome praise for their enthusiasm and scholarship, which have enabled them to provide the reader with an excellent fare of opinion. That Ambassador Mohammed Farah Aidid himself a distinguished author, has found time to help this project is an indication of His Excellency's personal commitment to this project. Prof. S.P. Ruhela, the eminent educationalist and sociologist from Jamia Millia Islamia, has contributed with a deep commitment reflected both in the quality of the book as well as his persistence in persuading me to read the manuscript and write a brief foreword. We hope these budding endeavours will blossom into more extensive work on Africa.

We wish the people of Somalia complete success in their efforts to rebuild their country. The people and Government of India will undoubtedly be happy to render the utmost co-operation. This book will show many routes to the patriot. The route he finally takes will be the topic of another work.

Salman Khurshid

Union Minister of State for External Affairs, Government of India. New Delhi

Preface

Somalia, an Islamic country in East Africa, has a long history dating back to 6000 B.C. Of late it has been in news largely because of a series of unfortunate events such as civil war and famine, and the humanitarian intervention of the United Nations. It seems that the strife-torn nation is likely to see peace descend upon it in the near future.

In the most likely event of Somalia trying to build up a bright future for itself we are sure that a nation-wide dialogue has of necessity to take place. We therefore present a volume to provide material and offer directions for such a discussion to become meaningful. No attempt is being made to offer a prescription of the best solution for adoption. Such an effort would have been as presumptuous as one's hop of being able to dream for others.

The present volume carries commissioned exclusive papers by some of India's top experts and known intellectuals. The project originally started in late 1988 and the papers were received by the middle of 1989. We had the good fortune of travelling together extensively in India looking into the working of agriculture university departments of animal husbandry, agriculture, forestry, home science and many other institutions and attending several seminars in India. This rich experience helped us both in the choice of our contributors and the themes. All the while thinking of how Somalia could benefit from a vibrant developing country like India we requested our experts to suggest ways and means to help us out in building preferred scenarios for a nomadic, tribal and under development country.

"The Preferred Future Development in Somalia" is a kind of well-designed keynote address of a seminar wherein mature, informed and interested people are likely to participate. For a meaningful discussion someone has to decide an agenda, fix parameters and deliver a stimulating opening address. We hope this volume to come up to the expectations of our prospective participants who, we wish, may disagree with the presentation, tear apart our arguments, join lock in horns with us etc. but, never lack in perseverance or hard work in making Somalia a great nation.

We have made a deliberate choice in the title for the book. Of the three types of futures, viz. possible, probable and preferred we have elected to have the third because only in such a future there is a possibility of making a choice besides attempting a collective, co-operated and concerted effort toward attaining the choice one has made. Only future will put the stamp of correctness or otherwise of the choices one has made but the fact remains that those who make no effort, act without thinking and refuse to entertain a dialogue, seldom reach anywhere. We wish to avoid taking such a course.

Despite some unavoidable delay in its publication the freshness of the material has not been lost even as the arguments have refused to become stale nor the perspective any dimmer. For the quality of our publication we need hardly take any credit. Only the effort is our reward.

July, 1993

Mohammed Farah Aidid

Satya Pal Ruhela

Acknowledgments

Thanks are due to all our contributors but for whose willing co-operation our dreams would not have taken shape.

We are thankful to Syed Raza Husain Zaidi, Reader, Department of Fine Arts, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, for his caligraphic art contribution to this volume.

We also wish to thank Madam Khadija, wife of Mohd. Farah Aidid, for her valuable co-operation and warm hospitality to us and to a number of our friends and contributors on innumerable occasions during 1988-89 when these chapters were being planned, written, discussed, edited, re-written and re-edited.

Our special grateful thanks are due to His Excellency Salman Khurshi, Union Minister of State for External Affairs, Government of India for both agreeing to become Patron of the recently formed "Indo-Somali Friendship Association" and also for writing Foreword to this volume.

Editors

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© Mohammed Farah Aidid & Satya Pal Ruhela 1993

© Jack L. Davies for typesetting as web page 2001

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