Mohamed Isa Trunji on Somalia's lack of a "father of the nation" and the collapse democracy in 1960

Mohamed Isa Trunji is one of Somalia’s most prominent historians. He reflects on the collapse of Somali democracy in the late 1960s, the lack of a father of the nation figure and military rule

Mohamed Isa Trunji has dedicated a significant portion of his adult life to researching Somali history, with a particular focus on the colonial era and Somalia’s brief democratic interlude. His authoritative work, Somalia: The Untold History 1941-1969, stands out for its comprehensive depth and breadth in the English language. Spanning 556 pages, the tome endeavours to delineate a coherent narrative of Somalia’s transition from British and Italian colonialism to self-governance, culminating in the onset of military rule.

Though he’s critical of the ways Somali leaders failed through the 1960s to normalise and institutionalise democratic norms beyond the routine observance of timely elections, he believes the Siad Barre’s military coup was the wrong prescription. It solved one problem, but created a new series of life threatening complications for a vulnerable patient. “They really should have relinquished power,” he says. 

This is the first in a two-part interview with Trunji on early democracy in Somalia, the republic’s lack of national heroes and how military rule undermined the state. 

Faisal Ali: Somalia’s democracy won some plaudits, despite its failings. What did your research tell you about what the early Somali Youth Leaders got right when they governed? 

Mohamed Trunji: If you compare Somalia to the rest of Africa, Somalia was characterised by the existence of an essentially democratic system of governance. People elected their representatives, opposition parties operated in an environment of freedom and the press did too. It was quite unique, most of the rules were upheld. I call this period the first republic from 1960 to 1967 – the period of Aden Abdulle Osman. That is when we historians conclude that things begin to go wrong. 

FA: What went wrong, let’s dive into that.

MT: It is easy to blame the leadership then, but that is too easy. The norms of governance broke down across the board. Politicians became openly corrupt and the public began to view the democratic process as a way to get access to public finances. Everyone exploited the situation and every clan wanted a deputy in parliament. There were over 60 parties representing a population of a few million. 

FA: What was driving this? Was it just that the early postcolonial economy wasn’t developed enough to provide opportunities? 

MT: The economy was incredibly weak from the start. It wasn’t diversified. The budget of the government was very small and was subsidised even then by Italy and Britain among others. And that wasn’t enough to cover the costs of running the country on basic public services, leaving aside more long-term tasks like development and infrastructure projects. That budget crisis was made more urgent when Somalia cut ties with Britain in 1963. 

FA: So politics was viewed as a means to make money, that sounds familiar.

MT: Yes exactly. A characteristic of parliamentary politics in Somalia is that some MPs would only visit their constituencies, especially rural ones, when they wanted to retain their seat. It wasn’t about ameliorating living conditions or addressing local and national issues for the most part. 

FA: The backdrop to this was the ideological fervour of the early Cold War, and it stuns me that in your book there isn’t much about how ideas drove politics in our country, unlike in many other places where serious conversations and even wars were fought over how to organise society and politics. Why is that absent from this story? 

MT: It was unfortunately more of a clanocracy in that sense. Ideas weren’t a big part of the game. There were exceptions, like the Somali Liberal party, the Somali Progressive party etcetera, but they had limited success. The Somali Democratic Union which was socialist for example, even selected its candidates based on clan background. There wasn’t much talk about Islamism, Communism, Capitalism or any other -ism. 

The SYL fell victim to this as well. It was born as a nationalist party, focussed on independence of Somali territories but couldn’t rise above the new rules of the game.

FA: Is that an example of the norms of democracy failing to truly indigenise, perhaps in the way we see in Somaliland and Puntland today which operate hybrid systems that take clan into account, whilst also providing the public a vehicle through party politics? 

MT: Yes they failed in that regard. They didn’t find a way to manage this. Clan interests hijacked the system if you want. 

FA: Most countries have big national figures. A possible example in our history is Aden Abdulle Osman. But unlike other similar leaders he was more focussed on ensuring compliance with democratic norms than advancing a coherent vision of what type of society Somalia would be. When we think of Osman, a great statesman in Somali history, nothing like that comes to mind. How does he compare with other founding leaders; the Ataturks or the Mao Zedongs of the world? 

MT: This is interesting because he wasn’t really a founding father in the sense of Nehru, Ataturk, and so on. He was just given that title by the parliament because he was [the] first [president]. Unlike in Eritrea and Algeria and elsewhere as well for example, there was no war for national liberation which succeeded or a guerrilla group grounded in an ideological perspective.

There were many figures who fought for independence like Sayid Abdulle Hassan, Sheikh Bashir and others, but they didn’t go on to form the republic, they were gone before. We were granted independence after making our case for it, and the situation in Europe after the Second world war helped when the UN took over the colonies of the defeated Italians. That prevented such a figure from emerging from the start. 

FA: Does the lack of a founding father figure weaken the basis of the republic in your view? I mean in the sense of binding citizens together to a shared story around a key figure or figures.

Well it saved us having the cult of a singular leader. Maybe that is why some people are desperate and they’ve even turned paradoxically to figures like Siad Barre in search of this kind of national figure. 

FA: Siad Barre in his first speech said that he had “no choice” when the military took over in 1969. As you’ve briefly noted the early postcolonial republic wasn’t in great shape. Do you feel it was inevitable as the military claimed?

MT: The situation was totally unsustainable. In the final days of the civilian government everything went wrong and you can see that from the enthusiastic acceptance [of the public]. No-one really came to the defence of the civilian government. 

FA: When did the enthusiasm for the military regime dissipate?

MJ: Almost immediately, the public was mobilised and there was the perception of an external threat but with the prohibition of political parties people realised what happened. People who previously expressed themselves on political issues had their freedoms curtailed. Somalia was on its way to dictatorship. 

FA: Military regimes are generally undesirable per se, but in Somalia’s case specifically where do you think the junta went wrong? 

MT: I think right from the start. Once they swept away the civilian regime, they really should have relinquished power back after a reasonable amount of time. They stayed longer than was necessary to re-stabilise the government. That made their legacy more one of harming the country than helping it. The failed Ogaden war was the greatest of their mistakes.