I. M. Lewis

Pan-Africanism and Pan-Somalism

Somali attitudes towards Pan-Africanism, and more particularly towards the federation of African states, have to be understood in relation to the very special conditions of the Horn of Africa. It will be necessary therefore to begin this survey with a few general remarks about the Somali Peninsula and the special characteristics of Somali nationalism.

The Politics of the 1969 Somali Coup

In the lives of nations, as of men, reputations all too often achieve their widest currency when they are already out of date. The Somali Republic is no exception to this general rule. Although the real circumstances had already significantly altered before the military brusquely seized power in October 1969, Somalia was still generally known for democracy at home and trouble abroad. The first of these characterisations referred to the striking persistance of a vigorous and effective multi-party parliamentary system, and the second to the seemingly uniquely intractable nature of the ‘Somali Dispute’ which committed the Republic to supporting the secessionist claims of the contiguous Somali populations of Kenya, Ethiopia, and French Somaliland, at the price of severely strained relations with these neighbouring states. These and other attributes unusual amongst the new states of sub-Saharan Africa appeared to be closely connected with the Republics exuberant sense of national identity, a quality all the more remarkable in being firmly grounded in a long-standing and entirely traditional cultural nationalism.

Modern Political Movements in Somaliland. II

In a preceding article I discussed the organization and aims of modern Somali political movements in the light of the traditional political structure. Three types of political organization were distinguished: clan, regional (or tribal), and nationalist. These three types reflect traditional variations in the social structure and culture of different regions of Somaliland and also varying degrees of political evolution. I drew attention to the extent to which all parties—especially those with nationalist aims—have adopted a religious ideology and pointed out that Islam, through the traditional organization and aims of the Sufi Dervish Orders ( ṭariiqas ), has provided a precedent for pan-Somali solidarity. I now attempt to assess the extent of nationalist feeling in the different Somali territories, and examine the degree to which recent constitutional changes in government and administration have recognized the growth of nationalist aspirations and promoted their extension. I discuss first the present position in the five Somali territories: French and British Somaliland; Harar Province of Ethiopia; Somalia; and the Northern Province of Kenya. Finally, I consider the importance of Islam in furthering nationalism and in helping to overcome the cleavages of clan and Dia-paying group affiliation which oppose the formation of a unified Somali nation.

Clanship And Contract In Northern Somaliland

In this article I analyse Somali political institutions in terms of clanship ( tol ) and contract ( heer ). By the latter term I mean the explicit contracts, or treaties of government, which are the foundation of all formal political units among the northern pastoral Somali. In conclusion, I examine the significance of Somali political structure in the light of Maines celebrated dictum that the ‘movement of the progressive societies has hitherto been a movement from Status to Contract’.

The Problem of the Northern Frontier District of Kenya

One of the most intractable problems raised by recent constitutional progress in Kenya is the question of the future status of the territory’s ’Northern Frontier District’, an area of 102,000 square miles of semi-desert country occupied by a sparsely distributed population of some 280,000 Hamitic Somali and Galla pastoral nomads and other smaller ethnic groups. The majority of the population of the ’District’-which in reality consists of six Administrative Districts-seek to secede with their territory from Kenya in order to join their kinsmen in the neighbouring Somali Republic. This aim, which is based on religious and ethnic and ethnographic grounds is strenuously opposed by KANU and KADU, the two main Kenya African nationalist parties, who seek to maintain the territorial integrity of Kenya as established by colonisation. On the other hand, the Somali Republic-itself an amalgam of the former British Somaliland and Trust Territory of Somalia-is vitally concerned in the issue since the Republic is constitutionally committed to a policy of Somali unification. The N.F.D. is in fact one of the five points on the Somali star-the Republic’s national emblem-the remaining

Exorcism and male control of religious experience

In many cultures with male‐dominated religions, women are subject to illnesses which are attributed to spirit‐possession. Two main alternative therapies are usually available. Treatment is effected either by exorcism, or by domesticating the spirit ‐ a process which de Heusch calls ‘adortism’. In the latter case, women are recruited through illness into female‐centred ‘cults of affliction’, regarded as superstitious and subversive by men, who try to prevent their wives from becoming involved in these cults, preferring exorcism as therapy. Exorcism thus becomes an instrument of male power in the struggle to control womens incipient religiosity. The paper examines the interplay of exorcism and adorcism in relation to gender in Christian, Muslim and Buddhist settings. It concludes by considering the implications of women as well as men practising exorcism, and suggests that the consequences of the formal distinction between exorcism and adorcism may not always be as sharply opposed as appears at first sight.

Women's medicine : the zar-bori cult in Africa and beyond

Despite the large-scale destruction of traditional practices throughout the world, the Zar-Bori spirit-healing cult continues to hold tremendous meaning for some women in West Africa, the Sudan and North Africa, and even in the more progressive countries such as Tunisia, Kuwait, Egypt and the Gulf States. This study uses historical, anthropological and psychiatric methods to explore the social history of this growing cult and its significance for women in different places and times. It asks how and why the cult has persisted to the present day, and throws light on the environments in which it thrives. The largest indigenous African cult concerned primarily with womens matters, the Zar-Bori has survived the fundamentalist challenge and creeping modernization, yet it is in many ways a subversive movement. This aims to be a comprehensive account of its origins, spread and increasing importance in the lives of African women.

Somali Democratic Republic

Lying in the extreme north-eastern corner of the Horn of Africa, the Somali Democratic Republic was formed in 1960 by the union — on their attainment of independence from colonial rule — of the former British Somaliland Protectorate and Italian-administered United Nations trust territory of Somalia. The resulting Somali Republic (as it was known until the military coup of 1969) was based on the principle of national self-determination applied to these two divisions of the Somali people, leaving three neighbouring parts of the nation still under alien rule in French Somaliland (later called the Territory of the Afars and Isas), in eastern Ethiopia (the Ogaden and adjacent areas, regarded by Somalis as ‘western Somalia’) and in north-eastern Kenya. In this incomplete nation state, created prior to Kenya’s independence, there was a strong presumption that as colonial rule receded in response to the independence struggle, the remaining three Somali communities would gain autonomy and join the Republic, with the resulting expanded state embracing the whole nation. This aim was enshrined in the Somali Republic’s constitution and symbolised in the five-pointed star on the national flag. A bitter guerrilla campaign in north-eastern Kenya (1962–7) and full-scale war in the Ogaden (1977–8) failed to achieve this aim, while the former French Somaliland became independent under the