I have lots of questions. Lately I have been wondering why it is that post-electoral violence in Kenya and Zimbabwe gets more attention than the continuing violence in Somalia or the Niger Delta.
This is all the more strange if we consider that historically, politically and socio-economically the Niger Delta and Somalia could serve as a metaphor for Africa’s predicament. If we get the Niger Delta or Somalia right, we can get Africa right. Fail them and we fail Africa.
Related to this, I have also been wondering why it is that Somalis should have faith in Pan-Africanism, or believe that there is an African consciousness that looks beyond cultural differences and political borders to find some scrap of common humanity when they are languishing and dying within and along many of these borders. Why should Somalis have hope in the African Union Mission to Somalia when the AU is based in Addis Ababa, its occupier’s capital?
Similarly, why should the Ogoni and Ijaw people in Nigeria, suffering from the double tragedy of exploited wealth and devastated eco-systems, believe in a Pan-Africanism that does not act on their behalf? Why should they not only reject Pan-Africanism but even the nation of Nigeria?
Strange as it may sound, Somalia and the Niger Delta represent two unique as well as overlapping forms of oppression within Africa - oppression of a people within a nation as in the Niger Delta, and oppression within and outside national borders as in the case of Somalis.
The Ogoni and Ijaw people do not benefit from the oil that is extracted from their land and live in abject poverty. And their resistance has been met with an overwhelming and disproportionate use of violence by the Nigerian state.
Somalia on the other hand has to contend with Ethiopia – and, by extension, the United States - being inside its borders. Ethiopia has had territorial claims over ancient Somali land since the 19th century and been given a blessing by the British colonialists when it was officially awarded the Ogaden in 1948.
The colonial border also cut off a huge slice of Somalia for neighbouring Kenya. Starting from the 1970s to the present day, a low- intensity war has been waged by successive Kenyan governments against Kenyan Somalis who they perceive to be opposed to their claims to the land. This is punctuated every now and then by a massacre. In Wajir in 1984, for example, hundreds of Kenyan Somalis were killed by Kenyan security forces. There is great irony in Africans killing other Africans to protect the sanctity of colonial borders.
Resistance groups in the Niger Delta are not struggling for a secessionist state but rather for equality within Nigeria itself, while many Somalis call for an independent and united state. History has shown time and again that oppression breeds resistance. As long as the people of the Niger Delta and Somalis are oppressed there will be resistance. In the end, peace will only be guaranteed through justice.
From both struggles, there are basic but profound lessons to be learnt if African solidarity and Pan-Africanism is to have any part in finding solutions.
Nationhood is pointless unless political and economical injustices within and between nations are addressed. And citizenship should be judged to the extent that people are guaranteed political and economic rights. The people of the Niger Delta have a right not only to participate in the production of oil, but also in the wealth that it produces.
But the struggles of the Niger Delta have to move from the premise that the creation of an Ogoni and Ijaw elite is not a solution. Rather it is the emancipation of the poor and exploited that matters. This means that their struggle must be transported onto a national stage. The goal is the emancipation of the whole of Nigeria. As such, there is a continental dimension to their local struggle that makes possible solidarity with other struggling peoples in Africa such as the Landless People’s Movement of South Africa.
Somalia offers its own sets of lessons. A people cannot be forced to live divided into a number of countries where they are treated as second-class citizens. Conquest and occupation work against unification. For example, after enduring many wars of conquest, the European Union is finally taking shape through consensus. Independence is not antithetical to unification. The call for a greater Somalia is not antithetical to the call for the unification of Africa.
A Pan-Africanism that elevates colonial borders above the lives of the African nationalities trapped within and along them is false. The African Union as it is configured is built on this false foundation. And AU missions and resolutions will fail as long as there are no punitive economic, political or military measures taken against grossly belligerent African nations.
That the African Union remains headquartered and meets in Ethiopia suggests that African governments are not serious about peace in Somalia or democracy and justice in the rest of the continent. As such the solution does not lie with African governments, but rather with the African people.
Pan-Africanism is a paradox - a push toward the emancipation of nations and a pull for their unification - that is resolved in the practice of solidarity. If Africans declare solidarity with Somalis within and outside of Somalia, and unite with the oppressed in the Niger Delta in opposition to their constant dehumanization, the bonds created will be much stronger than any border will ever be. It is this solidarity that will ultimately bring down these borders along with the repressive African governments that are housed within them.
This is the essence of a Pan-Africanism from below – it is people-centred, fights for an equitable sharing of resources and lets African governments stand or fall to the extent that they recognise our right to control our own destinies.
Now if we could only get the South Africans on board.
Mukoma Wa Ngugi, author of Hurling Words at Consciousness, is co-editor of Pambazuka News and a political columnist for the BBC Focus on Africa Magazine where this article first appeared.
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So who amongst the Somali people living in Africa have the greatest economic, social and political justice? Kenyan Somalis, Somalia Somalis, Djibouti Somalis or Ethiopian Somalis?