Anarchy in Somalia

What if there was no government? What is the absence of government called?

Let's talk about anarchy in this post.

Anarchy, which as we mentioned in class is the absence of hierarchy, is an ideal concept. We can never find pure anarchy in observable life.



Conditions in contemporary Somalia, however, offer an approximation to anarchy. Government in any formal sense has little practical hold on life there.

Somalia has not been under the control of a single national government since 26 January 1991, when military strongman Siad Barre was toppled.... During the 1990s, the conflict in Somalia was between rival warlords and clan-based militia. This led to widespread hunger and the UN and US intervened before a humiliating pull-out.

Fighting continued but with less intensity until in 2006, the Union of Islamic Courts became the first group to exert control over the whole of the capital, Mogadishu, for 15 years.

Ethiopia then invaded to oust the Islamists, with US support. But the Ethiopians were unable to exert control and now the capital is the scene of regular battles between the UN-backed government and the al-Qaeda linked militants, al-Shabab.

What is life like in Somalia?

Somalia has been consistently ranked as the worst failed state on the Failed States Index published annually by Foreign Policy magazine.

Approximately 20% of the population, or about 2 million people have become political refugees.

Piracy has become a source of employment for a sizable portion of the male population.

Businessmen opened their own hospitals, schools, telephone companies and even privatized mail services. Men who were able to muster private armies, often former military officers, seized the biggest prizes: abandoned government property, like ports and airfields, which could generate as much as $40,000 a day. They became the warlords. Many trafficked in guns and drugs and taxed their fellow Somalis.

Beneath the warlords were clan-based networks of thousands of people — adolescent enforcers, stevedores, clerks, truck drivers and their families — all tied into the chaos economy. Ditto for the freelance landlords and duty-free importers.

Yet, Benjamin Powell says:

It is hard to call any country mired in poverty an economic success. Yet by most measures Somalia’s poverty is diminishing and Somalia has improved living standards faster than the average sub-Saharan African country since the early 1990s. In that sense Somalia is at least a relative success story. The most interesting part of Somalia’s success is that it has all been achieved while the country has lacked any effective central government.

Plus, since anarchy took hold of life in Somalia, the life expectancy rate has increased (people are living longer), the GDP per capita has increased (people are wealthier), the infant mortality rate has declined (infants are more likely to survive), adult literacy has improved (more adults can read), and telecommunications have spread (cell phones are widespread).



What do you think? Does a place like the anarchical Somalia have something to offer that a governed society lacks? Does less government and less publicly provided security mean more freedom? Would you rather be secured by police officers that sometimes take liberties with their jobs, or would you rather be secured by Somalian technicals like those shown in the pictures above?