Part III: Evolutionary Stress on Tribal Society

Behold this. There is a looming extinction of Somali Tribes. Evolution works not only at the level of species but also at the level of societies. Social organizations that are not fit to survive become extinct and Tribal Society (all over the world) has repeatedly proved itself to be unfit for survival. I mean this literally. I will come to the psychological mechanics of how tribes fail to survive in a subsequent session of this presentation. At this point I want to take the position that if what has happened in the rest of the world holds true my generation may be the last Somalis alive before the gradual pre-extinction decline takes full hold. Somali tribes have killed the Somali state and will fight its rise again to the bitter end. Somali tribes themselves are the best current candidates for evolutionary failure.

In reading through this article please keep in mind that I have established in Part II of this series that my generation of Somalis all over the world shares with me an inner unchangeable tribal identity. Somalis are what they are; tribal people and (this is the scary part) they will perish because of it. Literacy, education and individual choice cannot change this tribal identity.

A bird’s eye view of recent world history clearly reveals that tribal societies have already become extinct or are at the verge of extinction in North America, Australia and in many Latin American countries. It is sobering to note that in California where we stand today Indians outnumbered whites by 10 to 1 in 1848 less than a mere couple of centuries ago. Today in California Non-Indians outnumbers Indians by120: 1 a reversal of the ratio 12 times over. In Australia the number of aborigines is declining precipitously becoming extinct in many parts. The last Aborigine in the Tasmania State of Australia died in May 8,1876. In India tribal societies has been transformed to what came to be known as scheduled tribes that are among the most desperate in that hierarchy obsessed nation. Many of them have become extinct and many others are on the endangered list. Wars and epidemics of newly introduced diseases fuelled the demise of these people.

Turganini The last Aborigine in Tasmania ( Australia) 1812- May 8,1876.

She was born about 1812 of the Bruny Island people, daughter of Mangerner, Chief of the Becherche Bay people. Married to Woorrady who died when she was 20. Before she was eighteen, seal hunters had murdered her mother. Her first fiancé died while saving her from abduction. Her two sisters were abducted and sold as slaves. They were later lynched. Turganini did not get away even with death her body was exhumed by scientists curious to examine the last Aborigine. Most of her remains were displayed in the Tasmanian Museum in Hobart.

You might think that Africa survived the colonial period with an intact population and that the decline and decay is a postcolonial phenomenon. Think again. Remember that Africa has barely survived the colonial onslaught. Millions of its people were carried off to slavery and the continent was at one point bereft of the young and the productive. The slave trade that nearly emptied the continent of its population was facilitated by the tribal nature of African society that rendered the continent susceptible to the divide and rule tactics of the colonizer. The recent population growth of Africa has more to do with partial introduction of modern health care and other current population trends sweeping the globe.

Africa however continues to be the epicenter of international catastrophes, man made or otherwise. And it is all about tribes marching inexorably to survival failure and extinction. Down south the Tutsi and Hutu have created Africa’s first Genocide. Up in the North there are fears that the Arab Janjaweed may repeat the Rwanda catastrophe in the Darfur region of Sudan with the world just watching as it did before. Ivory Coast that was once the most prosperous nation South of the Sahara is in the throes of a collective self-annihilation driven by the ethnocentric and deadly tribal concept of Ivorianess. Ivory Coast is following in the footsteps of other tribally driven human suffering with unimaginable scale and frightening consequences: Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea. Superimpose on this, the epidemics of AIDS, Malaria and TB that are flaming across the continent in hot competition with the colossal bloodletting for finishing off the African. Behold once again it is war and epidemics of disease. Humanists of all kinds, international philanthropists, musicians with heart, the young ones that care and politician with personal agendas all bemoan and shed tears for a continent that is on the verge of Armageddon. It is in competition with time.

In a PBS interview in the early nineties Lee Kuan Yu the father of the Singapore miracle asked why Africa was being forgotten altogether in discussions related to the emerging patterns of world power and world trade. He responded to his own question with a simple yet insightful answer. Lee Kuan Yu said that Africa would take its rightful place among nations when it transforms itself from tribes to nations. These were prophetic words.

Inexorable Yoke of Evolutionary Extinction

In the whole of the continent there is no place closer to total dinosaur-like collapse than Somalia. Here is where evolution is doing its dirty work most openly. It seems that Somali tribes do not have much choice in the matter, as forces of time and history sweep them out. Tribe members both at home and in Diaspora find themselves blindly and irrationally following the most unsavory, psychopathic and undesirable elements in society to their eminent detriment. In Somalia today it is the day of cutthroats, petty dictators and tribal liberator-embezzlers adored for no other reason except that they belong to the tribe and that they make killing and maiming their business.

In Somalia proper the city of Gaalkacayo is a fulcrum of sorts. Its green line is the ultimate transition. To its South the flames of tribal wars cover every town, and every hamlet with ever multiplying Warlords plucking on the juicy remnants of a nation. To its north the state of Puntland of Somalia, built on the shaky foundations of tribal order is desperately teetering on the edge of survival. Here tribal chaos has developed hooves and horns in a structure of deceptive permanence, as the “beloved” bloody colonel prepares the people of Puntland as a fodder for upcoming imminent tribal wars.

The land mass will remain. The people will vanish. The very same forces that caused the extinction of the North American Indian, the Aborigines of Australia and the tribes of Andaman and Nicobar islands of India will decimate the inhabitants.

First Wars: Wars of small tribal groups, wars of larger tribal groups, permanent wars driven primarily by the nature of the tribal beast, by ever present personal greed and by lethal regional interests and water wars (See my previous article Scenarios of Coming Wars).

This map shows the massive extent of the problem.

Toxic Waste: It was Measles carried in blankets used as a weapon and wrapped as a gift that decimated the North American Indian population. Somali tribes will meet similar fate with the help of Toxic Waste brought home with the complements of greedy tribal politicians. Epidemics of infectious agents previously unknown to the immune system of local inhabitants will rack up the mortality rates. This is not speculation it has already started to happen in the coastal towns and villages as the Tsunami exposed the barely hidden waste. A\Nuclear Waste will lead to soaring cancer rates and decreased fertility rates. Every Somali who can read must find the time to read and digest the excellent expose on this topic written by the researcher and public scientist Bashir Sh. Mohamed PhD. The valuable report is written in Somali and published in its entirety in Somalitalk.

Natural epidemics will wreak havoc as the chaos and social and economic collapse prepares fertile infection-friendly environment. Expect AIDS to take hold in proportions that will make the alarming statistics of the rest of Africa look tame. The AIDS epidemic will take hold not because foreign warriors will import it in, as Muse Sude Yellahow insinuates. It is already here. It is prospering and maturing under the surface, hidden by ignorance and denial. Hidden by the taboo and secretive nature of sex in a society whose official motto seems to be: Make War, Not Love.

Armageddon is yet to come. The sound of its drums is clearly audible for those who would listen. In the end large junks of the real estate of the land will be sold off to the highest bidder by ruthless and mentally challenged petty dictators. This too has already started as witnessed by the 99 year lease of Hafun and its region (a landmass the size of Switzerland) to an Australian adventurer and con artist. Evolution is impersonal. Inexorable. It takes its own good time. It develops its own schedule. We only provide the commentary.

In Somaliland a ray of hope is flickering. I say flickering because it is under the onslaught of the same boundary-defying forces of evolutionary stress: tribe, toxic waste and visa exempt bugs of all kinds. But there sure is something interesting developing there, a singular experience, something different altogether. There is peace around the water wells, in the grazing areas, in the villages and in the towns. There are plenty of guns. Plenty technicals. Plenty Klashnikovs. But no one is firing them. The tribes are not massacring each other. In stead a primordial state and its primordial institutions are gradually appearing. We need to know what is happening in Somaliland? Is this what evolutionary adaptation looks like? Is survival feasible after all? Should we not study this natural experiment with a magnifying glass, I mean instead of being scared by it or vilifying it or pulling magic numbers (like 4.5) out of tainted Diaspora hats? Stay tuned for Part 4 where I will be exploring this topic, its evolutionary ramification and the promise it may hold for all Somalis.

Part IV: Somaliland: Rebirth at the Edge of Chaos (July 16, 2005)

Abdishakur Jowhar MD, FRCP(C), DABPN
E-mail: [email protected]