The empty suit and Samsonite: How largely uneducated Diaspora men perpetuate bad politics in Somalia.
When the Somali civil war broke out, the country and its citizens were uprooted from their homes. Within a year or two of the start of the civil war, the entire citizenry had either fled to neighbouring countries, been killed through famine or bullet, or were refugees in their own land in fear of clan militia retaliation.
Those who could escape or had the means of escape were the luckiest. Some of these people who fled Somalia when the war broke out and, in the years that followed, ended up in Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries. These were, of course, those who had the relatives, contacts, and means.
In the years following the civil war, these groups sponsored relatives and their extended families to join them in the above countries, increasing the number of the Somali diaspora in the West. Then the population was increased by the first generation who were born in the diaspora.
In the first two decades, the Somali diaspora played life-saving roles in remittance and sponsorship of those left behind.
Then Somalia, albeit slowly, emerged from the civil war and got the West interested in her affairs as part of the global war on terror. Millions of dollars were spent on building system of governance that helped Somalia.
One of these systems is a federal constitution based on clan quotas widely known as 4.5 power sharing.
Naturally, when a country emerges from such a devastating civil war, it requires an educated class or intelligentsia group to help it rebuild. Somalia lacked this class in the country, so the people who were bankrolling these nascent institutions welcomed the inclusion of the Diaspora groups who, on paper, were better skilled than those left behind. While initially, some of the diaspora individuals who were relatively better educated have contributed to the rebuilding of Somalia, a second group of Diaspora men, whom I call the empty suit and Samsonite, have swamped the scene and muddied the water.
Why? Because these groups are ill-educated and neither brings knowledge and skills nor investment. These groups are those who failed in the diaspora and whose only skill they have is the manipulation of the clan-based power-sharing formula.
Their aim is not often to contribute positively to the economic, social, and political recovery of Somalia but rather to explore rent-seeking opportunities so that they can enrich themselves.
Look at the two legislative chambers; you will see the empty-suited diaspora-based faces who barely bring anything to the houses. These groups have prolonged the political failure of the country, and it is time to filter them out.
One way of doing it is to filter them based on a higher education and experience requirement. So, for example, if you are a diaspora-based person and want to be part of the country’s political system, you should have advanced degrees and verifiable experience.
The empty suit and Samsonite group are ruining the country’s politics, and home-grown politicians are being overlooked because of the diaspora groups. This is a dangerous trend that needs to be reversed. The political future of Somalia cannot be entrusted to people who have yet to make any meaningful contributions to their adopted countries.
It is time for the Somali people to demand that the country’s political leaders be educated, experienced, and genuinely committed to the economic and social development of the country. Until this happens, Somalia will continue to suffer from the effects of bad politics perpetuated by largely uneducated diaspora men.
