Siad Barre tells students his government "liberated religion from the devil"

He made the speech a month after 10 religious scholars were executed for opposing his changes to the country's new family law

Starting in a place not so faraway from Somalia (but admittedly a bit random), Muntazer al-Zaidi celebrated the 15th anniversary of his finest hour yesterday, when he threw two of his shoes at George W. Bush during a press conference in Baghdad. Wikipedia correctly framed the incident as “Part of the Iraq War.”

Freelance journalist Matthew Cassel wrote lucidly about the incident in the broader context of resisting occupation for Dearborn-based media house Arab American News:

Shoes are a weapon of the masses. The fact is that most do not have the means to defend against their foreign invaders equipped with superior American-made weaponry. Shoes, like stones and most other projectiles used by the masses, are not about defeating or causing physical damage to the enemy. It is a symbolic act, and one filled with anger. It is a clear and simple message from the people to the occupiers that they are not welcome. And it is a message that the occupiers and their media so arrogantly refuse to admit.

Having marked that, we can now swiftly move onto today’s instalment, which will be based on a 1977 pamphlet of the collected speeches of Siad Barre titled My Country & People: Speeches of Jaalle Siyad. Jaalle is the Somali word for comrade and the pamphlet was published in June that year by the deceptively named Ministry of Information and National Guidance. I say that because it often shared disinformation, and if anything actually misguided the country.

In his short introduction to the book, information minister Abdiqasim Hassan writes that the speeches were selected because they outline Barre’s agenda to keep Somalia on its “chosen path of scientific Socialism, which is based on equality, justice, unity and progress.” I suppose we can think of it as a sort of mixtape of the most important things Barre said, curated by himself or someone very close to him.

The pamphlet has a really interesting selection actually so I think I may dedicate a few posts for you all to enjoy. The post I’ll share this week is a speech titled ‘Raising of political consciousness’ which Barre delivered to the Fourth Students Group of Halane on the 26th February 1975. Halane, or Xalane as it is referred to in the text was a factory for stateswomen and men in Somalia, producing the civil servants and members of the armed forces.

For context on what is being discussed, as socialism continued its march in Somalia, with the state introducing new texts, reorganising the economy and erecting new icons and heroes (Marx, Lenin and co) questions began arising about the place of Islam in the new society. Several religious leaders had raised issues about the compatibility of Islam with the new state doctrine, which Barre had to fend off by defending the state’s record on protecting Islam in Somalia.

Just a month before Barre made his speech, which I’ll share below, he ordered the execution of 10 religious leaders who protested a newly enacted Family Law which would have secularised some aspects of the legal system, equalising inheritance and divorce laws. New York Times managed to get a comment on this incident from Colonel Ahmed Suleiman, Barre’s son-in‐law and right-hand man. Suleiman was remorseless in his response: “They were not sheiks but criminals, and they called for a holy war against the Government. How could we not kill them?”

Despite accusations that Barre’s government was diluting Islam in Somalia, it vehemently rejected such claims. Instead, it argued that these changes were part of a broader socialist and revolutionary agenda to strengthen Somali society. By presenting colonialism as the primary threat to Islam in Somalia, socialism and Somali nationalism were the best defences for it. Before the “revolution” (or coup depending on how you see it), Islam was a “contraband religion”, he says, and it was “liberated” by the military regime from the “strangle hold of the devil.”

In his speech, Barre strikes a more conciliatory tone, recognising the importance of taking the population with him on the path he has outlined, but he remains no less committed to his goal of building a socialist society and the executions demonstrate the lengths to which he’d go. Channeling his inner Mustafa Kemal, Barre issued a threat against any further religious incitement against his regime, warning that anyone found guilty could expect no “clemency”, for they were opposed to the “progress and welfare of the Somali nation.” In this regard he wasn’t so different from the likes of Gaddafi, Gamal Abdel Nasser and other strongmen who viewed religion as a possible obstacle to the vision they had for their societies.

There are question marks around Barre’s commitment to socialism which have been highlighted by several historians and people who worked in his regime that I’ve spoken to, but it appears, at least for public consumption, that he believed Islam, Somali culture and socialism could find an equilibrium and he’s clearly sought that balance. “They are pragmatists trying to whip a desperately poor country into the 20th century,” an anonymous diplomat told the New York Times.

In the spring of 2019, I interviewed Khaled Abou El Fadl, a legal scholar at UCLA on “the strong man reformer” figure so common in Islamic societies without whom nothing can get done. When I asked if figures like this were necessary to ram through certain changes, he told me: “Yes, there were liberties, or some limited openings, but the long-term consequence was the destruction of the very fabric of society.”

I pick up Barre’s speech for our purposes at this point:

Every nation in the world has its own peculiar way of life which no other country can share with it. Therefore it is impossible for us to export our own culture and social characteristics unless we do it through colonization as it has been done in Africa and Asia in the past.

Certainly there are common basic principles but application differs from one country to another. So it only stands to reason that we should stress the point that in the application of Socialism in a country its social, cultural, economic, educational and philosophical peculiarities should be taken into consideration. Otherwise Socialism cannot be effective. 

For example, we are a nation of Muslims on hundred percent. If therefore in applying the term socialism we followed the example of other countries that are different from us in this respect, socialism would be brought to nought. That is to bearing in mind that we want to utilise socialism in the interest of our people we must not diverge in its application from our national peculiarities.

Socialism is not something stagnant and something forbidden to be talked of. As is already known it is scientific and it has emanated as an ideology in support of the interest of the great majority as opposed to the appropriation by a small minority. If it is meant to serve the masses it should inevitably then conform to their aspirations. It should grow with the masses economically and educationally and such growth of nations is natural. 

Today we are in 1975. That is to say that the progress of mankind is so great now that even the landing on the moon has been possible and knowledge and economy are highly developed. I am sure that these youth sitting before me did not think as they are thinking today. It is that way too that nations also develop and improve ideologically and socially. This development is commensurate with their improvement in education and creative capacity. We assert it that if socialism is in
the interest of the masses it is essentially that it should always be revised scientifically and that the restructuring of society on socialism should be scientific.

So speaking of Africa, we see this problem thus that socialism should be put into effect in Africa considering the peculiarities of that continent in general and particular cases. Should there be any traditional conflicts? I say no. It is not necessary that such a conflict should be created for we are not dealing in this with the vested interests of a minority. We are dealing with the welfare of the masses and there is no ground for dissension there. 

Just recently for example the two Councils passed the law on family code well aware of the reaction that would come from passing a new law. So you know it has always been the aim to formulate such laws as would improve the lot of the masses with a view of enabling the country to take one step forward each day and to prevent it from being ruled arbitrarily by unscrupulous administrators and judges. The law in question was the law on the family. It was meant to serve as a good recipe for living in harmony for members of the same family, as mothers or fathers or children are begotten, then raised and get old or die. And the task of observing such a law is the responsibility of every Somali. 

The resolution was political in nature and it was passed for the benefit of the people and to solve many national problems which could not be solved without the formulation of such laws.

The resolution was as you remember misinterpreted and motives behind it misrepresented. 

A hue and cry was raised about socialism and religion being at variance. But never had there been such a lie. At the time of the revolution Islam, the creed of the Somalis was a contraband religion, so to speak. It was freed by the revolution. It had been despised and trampled underfoot before we came. Missionaries had been busy converting our children and the children thus rescued and taught their religion. Muslims could be counted by the thousands. Somali nationalism and religion had both been at stake and those who upheld both had been considered as uncivilized foreign agents or worthless people.

You yourselves bear withness that such had been the case. We began by lifting Islam from the degraded place it had been consigned because it emboldened the lofty principles of this nation which deserved respect from all of us. Instructions were issued that each religious lesson should be broadcast from the radio and that the "Suras" of the Holy Quran should be all read and translated and expounded. You all know that such a programme is carried out daily and that the translation is made for you in your own Somali language which you can fully comprehend. We also issued a warning that small children should not be taught religion in dirty and unhygienic places where garbage is dumped. We have planned further that each town should have a mosque and each orientation centre a place of worship where people should hold their prayers at the prayers hours. 

We liberated our religion from the strangle hold of the devil and have cleaned it from all dirt. We have retrieved to religious leaders the honour that was their own made, paid official imaams and repaired all the roads leading to mosques. 

How did our religion work before the revolution? I think you can answer that question. And where are those who now aspire to be our religious viceroys? Why have they not done before what we have for our religion if they are sincere and serious? The point is that there is no conflict now between religion and socialism and it is wrong to think in terms of taking advantage of this. No one who thinks this should expect clemency from us, for he is opposed to the progress and welfare of the Somali nation. 

Let me come back now to our real sheikhs? Where are they? What has prevented them from coming forward if they claim to be our religious leaders? This is proof that these are pseudo-religious people and they are lackeys of colonialism as pseudo socialists can be such lackeys. If we talk of our objectives and we want to chart for it a correct political line then we cannot afford to go about it at random. We should take our cultural and traditional background into consideration measuring it against the level of our national economy, our education, our technical know-how and our political consciousness without diverting from the basic principles of socialism that are meant to tap our economic potential, and construct our political and social life. We should also keep in mind the way people are divided into an exploiting minority and an exploited majority; support the aspiration and needs of the latter who may not be politically so mature as to defend themselves and ward the wolves from them. 

I want to conclude by saying that the responsibilities you are going to shoulder are very valuable to the Somali nation and that you are going to leave behind an indelible impression. The fruits that will be borne will be to your credit.

Long live Somalia! Long live Somalia! Down with colonialism! Down with the lackeys! May we attain Somali unity!