Issue No. 582

Political Unrest and the Somali Jareer Weyne

Today's editorial in The Somali Wire is written by Professor Ken Menkhaus
 
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The outbreak of protests and violence in Mogadishu and Beledweyne following the arrest of military officer Sheegow Ahmed Ali is forcing an uncomfortable conversation in Somali society – the status of the minority group known as the Somali Bantu or the Jareer Weyne. The conversation is long overdue. 
 
The protesters who responded to Sheegow’s arrest were mainly members of the ethnic group Jareer Weyne, mobilising because Sheegow is himself a Jareer Weyne. On the surface, this is nothing new. Somali lineages routinely react collectively in response to the arrest or firing of prominent group members, and Somali politicians and warlords have long been adept at exploiting this impulse. In 1993, the United Nations peace operation in Somalia learned this the hard way upon issuing an arrest warrant for General Aideed, only to become embroiled in a war with his entire sub-clan, the Habr Gidr. 
 
But the Jareer are not just any Somali ethnic group. They are perhaps the most marginalised, excluded, and preyed upon Somali community. Distinct from ethnic Somalis, they trace their roots either to riverine farming peoples predating the expansion of Somali nomads into southern Somalia, or to peoples from East Africa sold as slaves to Somalis in the 19th century. Adoon – a pejorative still used by some ethnic Somalis to refer to the Jareer – literally means slave.
 
Another pejorative for the Somali Bantu – tiimo jareer, or ‘hard hair’ -- refers to one of the group’s defining physical features – the tight curls of their hair, in contrast to the ‘soft curls’ of ethnic Somalis. But in defiance, the community repurposed the moniker, dropping reference to their hair and referring to themselves as the Jareer, or ‘the Hard.’ As they came to recognise their strength in numbers, the name shifted to the Jareer Weyne – ‘the Big Hard.’ What was once a slur is now a badge of honour.
 
Until recently, this group had no sense of common identity. Being Jareer is new, and tenuous. The Jareer are scattered in distinct, separate communities across southern Somalia. Some identify as the Makanne, the Shidle, the Gabaweyn, the Mushunguli, or the Shangani. Most are low-caste members of a dominant Somali clan. In the past, their problems and sense of identity were local, not national.
 
What has forged this emerging sense of being Jareer? First is the severe predation and suffering the Jareer have endured throughout the many Somali crises since 1990. They were among the hardest-hit groups in the 1992 and 2011 famines. Unarmed and defenceless, Jareer communities faced looting and assaults by Somali militias in the civil war of 1990-92. Valuable riverine land has been stolen by armed settlers and land grabbers. Today, they are used mainly for manual labour, taking jobs ethnic Somalis view as low status, and are excluded from positions of power at the local and national levels. They have been used as bait to attract and divert humanitarian aid in internally displaced person (IDP) camps by unscrupulous officials. And when the land where their IDP camps in Mogadishu grew in value, the Jareer were forcibly evicted and made to relocate to sprawling camps and shantytowns on the capital’s outskirts. Their collective grievances are very real, and are binding them together. 
     
A second source of this Jareer identity is the 4.5 proportional representation formula in Somali politics. As part of the ‘.5’ minority groups, the Jareer are guaranteed at least some token political representation based on their ethnic status. The 4.5 formula incentivises and crystallises organisation around ethnic identity. Finally, external humanitarian actors have played a role. In the 1991-92 famine, aid agencies identified the minority as a vulnerable group, referring to them as the ‘Somali Bantu’ due to their Bantu-speaking slave ancestry; the name stuck. 
 
Until recently, the Somali Bantu were unarmed, and thus politically weak and vulnerable to predation. The rise of Al-Shabaab changed that (AS). The militant groups' recruiting tactics have long focused on exploiting grievances, with the Jareer an obvious target. Joining AS was often seen as an attractive option, providing Jareer youth with a salary, a gun, status, and protection. Today, though most Jareer are leery of AS and many have fled the militant group’s territory, the fact that so many have become armed fighters has begun to alter their status. 
 
Victims of massive displacement, the Jareer have rapidly transformed from an isolated agrarian community to one heavily concentrated in the dense slums of Somalia’s largest cities. They now constitute a significant percentage of the urban population in southern Somalia. This dynamic may become politically important when one-person, one-vote elections are finally held. It is a major reason why politically powerful clans in those cities insist on labelling the Jareer as ‘IDPs’ who belong elsewhere, even if their relocation is permanent. 
     
The Jareer are now a large, ethnic, urban underclass with deep grievances and limited prospects for social mobility and a better life beyond IDP slums. And, thanks to the arrest of Sheegow and the ensuing protests, we are learning more. The real story is that at least some urban Jareer are now armed, capable of operating gangs or militias in Mogadishu, and able to mobilise street protests. This is an extraordinary development that would have been unthinkable not long ago. It comes with both opportunity and peril. 
 
The debate over Sheegow’s arrest – whether it was a welcome instance of law enforcement against a rogue militia or unfair selective targeting of the Somali Bantu – misses this larger point. 
 
The opportunity is that the Jareer, and other marginalised groups, might begin to accrue a greater political voice and inclusion in Mogadishu, as powerful clans reluctantly accept that they are, in fact, full citizens with rights. The peril is that, if the Jareer continue to be shut out of Somalia’s social, political, and economic life, they will no longer stay quiescent and may become a source of armed resistance, violent crime, and street protest. AS will be quick to exploit this. And major Somali clans could yet come to view the Jareer as a threat, potentially mounting attacks against the entire community. 
     
Until recently, practices of discrimination and exclusion targeting the Jareer have been cost-free for Somali society. Now the bill has come, and it is steep. There is still time to begin the long process of building a new, more inclusive social order in Somali cities. But the clock is ticking. 

Ken Menkaus is a Professor of Political Science at Davison College. He is a specialist on the Horn of Africa with a focus on peacebuilding and state-building, conflict analysis, humanitarian response, and Islamic politics.