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Somalia BREAKDOWN OF THE INFRASTRUCTURE
The Somali environment--both human and ecological--has
deteriorated since the collapse of the state in early 1991. The
consequent outbreak of intra- and interclan conflicts engulfed
the peninsula in a catastrophic civil war that had claimed, by a
conservative estimate, more than 200,000 Somali lives by early
1992. The cities of Mogadishu and Hargeysa had been reduced to
rubble, with government buildings and homes looted or razed by
gangs armed with assault rifles. Even telephone wires had been
dug up, stolen, and exported for sale to the United Arab
Emirates.
In the fields of education and health, a sharp decline
occurred and only minimal services continued to exist. Because of
the destruction of schools and supporting services, a whole
generation of Somalis faced the prospect of a return to
illiteracy. Many people who had fled to the cities initially
because of the civil war sought refuge in camps elsewhere, often
refugee camps outside Somalia. More than one year of civil war
had wiped out most of the intellectual and material progress of
the preceding thirty years. In short, Somali society had
retrogressed to a collection of warring clans reminiscent of
preindustrial times.
* * *
Enrico Cerulli's three-volume work, Somalia: Scritti Vari
Editi ed Inediti, remains the most comprehensive study of
Somali society: pastoral institutions, history, politics,
literature, and language. The classic work on the social and
political system of pastoral nomadic Somalis of northern Somalia
(based on research done in the 1950s) is I.M. Lewis's A
Pastoral Democracy. Peoples of the Horn of Africa:
Somalia, Afar, and Saho also by Lewis is a major source on
Somali ethnic groups. The dean of Somali studies, Lewis has
written numerous articles, several of which deal with Somali
Islam and indigenous religion. His "From Nomadism to Cultivation"
provides an introduction to the traditional social and political
orders of the interriverine sedentary Somalis. Virginia Luling
has published some of her findings on one group of sedentary
Somalis (the Geledi clan and its neighbors) in "Colonial and
Postcolonial Influences on a South Somali Community." David
Laitin's Politics, Language, and Thought: The Somali
Experience concerns the political aspects of deciding on a
written form for the Somali language.
Lee Cassanelli's The Shaping of Somali Society sheds
valuable light on the evolution and structure of southern Somali
tribes, such as the Geledi and Biyamaal, as well as on Islamic
institutions such as the cult of saints. Said S. Samatar's
Oral Poetry and Somali Nationalism provides a
comprehensive treatment of the intimate interplay between
pastoralism and oral poetry and that literary form's uses as a
tool in mobilizing public opinion, in mass communication, and in
related areas of oratory and rhetoric. (For further information
and complete citations,
see
Bibliography.)
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