"Mohamed Siad Barre (Somali: Maxamed Siyaad Barre; Arabic: ; October 6, 1919 – January 2, 1995) was the President of the Somali Democratic Republic from 1969 to 1991. During his rule, he styled himself as Jaalle Siyaad ("Comrade Siad")."
"The Barre-led military junta that came to power after a coup d'état in 1969 said it would adapt scientific socialism to the needs of Somalia. Volunteer labour harvested and planted crops and built roads, hospitals and universities. Almost all industry, banks and businesses were nationalised, and cooperative farms were promoted. A new writing system for the Somali language was also adopted. Although his government forbade clanism and stressed loyalty to the central authorities, the government was commonly referred to by the acronym code name MOD, which stood for Marehan (Siad Barre's clan), Ogaden (the clan of Siad Barre's mother) and Dhulbahante (the clan of Siad Barre's son-in-law Colonel Ahmad Sulaymaan Abdullah, who headed the NSS, the government's intelligence agency). These were the three clans whose members formed the government's inner circle. Later, President Siad Barre's government incited and inflamed clan rivalries to divert the attention of the public away from his increasingly unpopular government. By the time his government collapsed in 1991, the Somali society had begun to witness an unprecedented outbreak of inter- and intra-clan conflicts."
"Styled the "Victorious Leader" (Guulwade), Siad Barre fostered the growth of a personality cult. Portraits of him in the company of Marx and Lenin lined the streets on public occasions. He advocated a form of scientific socialism based on the Qur'an and Marx, with heavy influences of Somali nationalism."
en.m.wikipedia.org
How does it feel that instead of becoming NazBol, Somalia just fell apart?
This is what Somalia could have been
Other urls found in this thread:
afghanistanonmymind.blogspot.com.au
twitter.com
...
Well, it's better than the shariah anarchy they have now, isn't it?
This is what it could have been.
Technically, Islam prohibits nationalism, communism, AND anarchism. Those "anarcho-Sufis" you encounter online are almost always western converts.
that's just a recipe for bad governance
cliques work much better
Pirates on the Horn of Africa have the best praxis. Fuck global capitalism and its container ship monstrosities. Remember when the media jizzed their pants over navy seals killing pirates? You know they're scared when you become a propaganda whipping boy.
islamic gommunism :DDDDDD
He tried toning down clanism in his time in power.
Does the Q'uran actually explicitly mention and forbid these economic systems though?
I agree. Pirates need to be embraced as our eternal comrades and given paramilitary status so they can steal from cappie countries while avoiding socialist boats.
Didn't Siad Barre fucked everything up by attacking Ethiopia? From my shitty readings he was allied with the Soviet Union and decided to attack Ethiopia who just had their own little socialist revolution(a left-wing military coup), and from there they lost the soviet support and triggered armed resistance in both north and south that would lead to the current anarchy.
Its vasically Somali Ba'athism
Islam isn't just "the Qur'an", in fact Qur'an-onlyists are deemed kuffar. The Hadith lay out a comprehensive political and economic system which is basically free-market feudalism.
The issue with Somalia is that it racked up war debts with the US who forced on the country structural adjustment policies that absolutely fucked their shit up.
Siad Barre was right that the Ogaden belonged to Somalia and if Mengistu was actually a Marxist-Leninist he should have given it up to them. He was wrong to fight over it though, it was an opportunistic time to attack and he would have shown confidence in the Derg by simply waiting for them to get their country back on the right track before continuing his appeals. Dude was too Machiavellian for his own good and made one major miscalculation that ruined his aspirations.
In a way it was kind of foreshadowed by the fact that he still attempted to appeal to the conservative Arabs who were aligned with the west.
It wasn't really Islam that undid anything in Somalia. Islam was never an exceptionally strong force, almost every muslim in Somalia is a liberal muslim. Apparently Sufism was big in Somalia but I've never had experience with it.
Siad used Islam exactly the same way he used socialism, he didn't care either way. I've been studying this for so long and I feel like I'll never really understand what went wrong. I get the feeling that Africans just don't know how to take care of themselves.
Sufism =/= "liberal Islam"
"Sufism" itself is a construct by British orientalists. It's as historical as "ninjas".
Since many people don't understand this
Sufism isn't a sect, it is anglicized word for the practice of "tasawuf" which means fully devoting youself to remembrance of Allah or something like that.
Sufism isn't any more "liberal" than any other sect of Islam, the Ottoman Empire itself was effectively "sufi"
Correct, plus Sufis started the Muslim Brotherhood and were also notorious jihad preachers in Central Asia.
Didn't even imply that.
Didn't know this.
He very much was a good ruler for the first half of his rule but post-war Somalia was riddled with debt,big chunk of the army which he spend a shit ton on and a tanking economy his public image was also destroyed because of his failure to get the traditional regions back.
Those where the seeds of instibality and small time anti goverment groups started popping up and how did he react? he went full ☭TANKIE☭ on them and guess what that did? yep you guessed it these groups started ballooning and Somalia at that point was a pariah state a communist country not aligned with the USSR and indebted massively to the US means he got no support from the world powers.
he then used the regular ☭TANKIE☭ tactic of i should kill the clans of the people fighting against me which at this point was his death sentences, his bombing of northern Somalia caused a huge rift which would culminate into them calling for secession and a huge rift.
Afterwards many of Somalias founding father of the SYL movement wrote a manifesto asking him to peacefully stand down, and how did he respond? He rounded allot of themall up and executed them only after public outrage where they able of saving some of the capture like Somalias first President.
His army splinterd his quite well trained army of 50,000 deserted overnight as the government lost all credibility and was just seen as another clan militia this influx of well trained soldier,commanders and generals became the warlords ravaging the country later on.
After the SYL incident he started locking down the capital and militarizing it for the upcoming battle knowing that Somalias largest opposition group was coming for it who traditional held the capital region made him use a scorch earth tactic of killing anyone caught outside.
after the rebels captured the capital he fled towards nigeria living their the remainders of his live.
Siyaad barres up towards the Ethio-Somali war is remember collectively as quite a good time with no clan tension and rapid modernization development.
But post war for many Somalis it has to do with what clan your from if your from a certain clan hes a hero for other hes the devil incarnated.
I would like to note that Siyaad barre had a car crash which he suspected was an assassination ploy which was rumored to start his descend towards madness as some say.
Also during most of the CW siyaad barre was port of the remainder of the Somali Army was commanded by his son-in-law which pretty much wanted all out clan war thinking their clan would win but he didn't know that clan Alliances in Somalia are shaky and will flip flop.
the Story of the Somali CW is incredible complected and very interesting with no good guys and bad guys but interests and vendettas.
Also is OP a fellow Somali?