Author Archives: robertk

L’Europe se trompe de politique en Somalie

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In English: Reconsidering EU policy options in Somalia

INTERVIEW SUR LA SITUATION POLITIQUE PUBLIÉE SUR RFI – 19 FÉVRIER 2021

Interview sur la crise électorale – Radio Vatican, 26 avril 2021.

Tribune / Opinion qui attend publication dans la presse francophone, rédigée le 11 février 2021

L’Union Européenne dépense depuis des décennies des milliards d’euros en Somalie, mais le bilan de cet engagement est plus que décevant. Si bien la société Somalienne, dynamique, connait un certain essor, le gouvernement de l’État fédéral et de ses états membres, que la communauté internationale s’est engagée à soutenir, reste paralysé par les luttes pour le pouvoir entre les clans. Ce gouvernement, dépendant de l’aide internationale et profondément corrompu, jouit de peu de soutien populaire, d’autant plus qu’il est incapable de démarrer le développement du pays exsangue. Ayant échoué à tenir des élections avant le 8 février, quand leur mandat est arrivé à terme, le Président Farmaajo et son cabinet sont même techniquement illégitimes : une bonne occasion pour l’Europe d’infléchir sa politique.

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Sonic BBQ and the Hunger Kitchen

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These are two projects I worked on with Gilles Stassart when in Ethiopia; they finally blended into one at the Alliance Éthio-Française in Addis Ababa, in a series of performances:

  • VIP dinner with WFP rations, November 2018
  • Sonic Barbecue part 1, November 2018
  • Sonic Barbecue part 2, March 2019

Part 1: The Hunger Kitchen

The Hunger Kitchen idea started with the following observation that I made while working in Somaliland and Somalia: beneficiaries of food aid generally dislike the food rations they receive, and do not know what to do with them. Therefore, they often resell those rations to buy foodstuffs they’re more familiar with.

A vendor selling WFP ‘plumpy sup’ (a variant of plumpy nut) on the Somaliland-Ethiopian border at Tog Wajaale. The price is 1000 Somaliland shilling, about 10c, per ration. I took this picture in 2017
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The place of the Law in France’s 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen.

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Today everybody, when speaking of Human Rights, thinks of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948, with its 30 articles. But this declaration took its name, the principle of its existence and several of its articles from the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen’ established by the National Assembly of revolutionary France in August 1789. Prior to that there were other declarations of legal/constitutional nature specifying rights of men, notably the US Declaration of Independence (1776, co-written by Thomas Jefferson who also helped write the French Declaration), the English Bill of Rights (1689),  the 1215 Magna Carta and even King Cyrus’ cylinder (539 BC) which proclaimed the freedom of the Babylonian people. But the French declaration, as the name indicates, was the first to be specifically concerned with the rights of the individual human being and put these at the centre of the political system.

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Transnational Elite Theory: Understanding Hegemony in International Relations

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Abstract

To understand the interplay between international hegemony and the apparent loss of state sovereignty, it is necessary to reintroduce the transnational elite as a global actor. Hegemony, meaning leadership, is based on values. The transnational elite embodies these values and adapts them to the changing global context, integrating counter-hegemonic tendencies and establishing a consensus. That consensus is transmitted through the transnational elite members to domestic societies whose consent – active or passive – is required for socioeconomic reforms which benefit the transnational elite. The role of states as sites for political contestation and debate has decreased, as policy-making, supposedly of a technical/expert nature, is shifted to the inter-state level, leading to an increase in international regulatory regimes which are dominated by the transnational elites. Instead, the state is increasingly becoming an instrument to transmit and enforce the transnational consensus. While transnational values remain largely liberal and elite membership is accessible to anyone sharing them, the manner of establishing consent is increasingly authoritarian. This article retraces the concept of the transnational class in international relations theory and, through a case study of the Trilateral Commission, looks at how the transnational elite has evolved since the 1970s, and how it is integrating counterhegemonic pressures today, becoming increasingly powerful – as the rapidly growing income gap between rich and poor underscores.

Download pdf full text here

Submitted to Millenium Journal of International Studies

Somaliland suspends relations with the United Nations among rising social tensions

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African Arguments published a short version of this article with a focus on the UN, and a similar, slightly improved version of this article appeared on democracyinafrica.org,

On October 25, 2020, Somaliland authorities suspended their relations with the United Nations and banned its activities ‘until further notice’. While the frustration of the thirty-year old unrecognized state with the UN can easily be understood, this move is unlikely to bring any benefit to the country. Somaliland is gradually developing into a clan-based autocracy. President Bihi maintains a balance among the ruling elites by granting and revoking business licenses and political positions, but this clientelist system produces little economic growth and offers no scope for political renewal. The youth is increasingly disaffected. The President instead blames the country’s problems on the lack of direct access to international funding and is increasing the pressure on the international community.

One week earlier, on October 17, the cabinet of Somaliland’s President Muse Bihi decided not to restore the landing rights for direct flights from the unrecognized state’s capital Hargeisa to Dubai by Air Arabia and Fly Dubai, citing legal difficulties. The details of the underlying conflict provide a clear window into Somaliland’s politics and how they affect, and are affected by, clan and business interests.

A Fly Dubai airliner on the tarmac of Hargeisa in better times
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The aid expectations gap: political analysis and how to deal with it personally

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This article was reposted by the International Humanitarian Studies Association

This morning I spoke with an evidently motivated and capable, but thoroughly disheartened foreigner working on Somalia for an international agency. She had made great plans for the development of the sector she was entrusted with, but these had mostly come to nothing because of the non-cooperation of local authorities. Her activities were blocked by the national counterpart of her agency, which was a domestic institution which she herself had helped set up and fund. Protocol within her own organization made it mandatory for her to work through that agency which was blocking any chance for her to reach out to other prominent actors that she found worthy of support.

Chewing qat in the former residence of the British agent in Sheekh

I’m currently staying in Mogadishu, Somalia, outside the heavily fortified airport – known as ‘MIA’ for Mogadishu International Airport by foreigners, and ‘Halane’ by Somalis – where foreigners invariably remain cloistered. I’m having conversations with artists, youth, cultural producers, local and national authorities and visiting the cultural sites of the capital. This is a particularly nice consultancy: a scoping study for a small European donor intent on spending its money smartly. Mogadishu is bursting with energy and full of promise. Because few foreigners leave MIA, and donors generally don’t place much confidence in what Somalis tell them, I’m enjoying being an observer with privileged access to my field of study, which is the same as that of the disillusioned international agency worker, whose access is barred by mostly bureaucratic reasons (no, it is not so unsafe in Mogadishu today). Here I will try to elucidate the nature of the problem she faces, which is encountered today by many aid workers; the roots of the problem lie in what I call an expectations gap.

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Contemporary Art in the Gulf

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Here is the full text of the book I published in 2013, called ‘Contemporary Art in the Gulf – an Introduction’.

Ibrahim Quraishi: A possible point of departure

And here is the Table of Contents:

7: Foreword
11: Contemporary Art in the Gulf
29: A Cultural History of the Arabian Peninsula
47: Saudi Arabia
69: Kuwait
87: Bahrain
99: The United Arab Emirates
119: Qatar
129: Oman
137: Where the Gulf is Heading

LINK TO THE BOOK

My dissertation co-director no longer hostage in Iran

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UPDATE: on 20 March 2020, on the eve of Nauroz, Roland Marchal was freed from prison, in exchange for the liberation of an Iranian engineer arrested in France for allegedly violating US sanctions on Iran. Although he has generally kept quiet since then, arriving in Coronavirus-confined France, he gave a moving interview to French public radio-TV on 8 April.

Fariba is still in prison (on 15 April) but apparently she’s feeling much better, not only physically but also for having been put in charge of the woman’s section of Evin Prison library, which she says ‘is not at all bad’.

Roland Marchal, probably the major French specialist on Somalia and the Horn of Africa, was taken hostage by Iran’s revolutionary guards, together with Fariba Adelkhah, another researcher belonging to the Centre de Recherches Internationales, to which I am also affiliated. Following is the text of the Fariba and Roland Support Committee, that we publish on the eve of the celebration of the Iranian revolution (11 Feb). We request the Iranian leader to free both researchers and all other prisoners in Iran who have been unjustly detained.

There is no indication that either researcher was targeted for what they wrote; Fariba has worked as a researcher in Iran for years, sometimes being harassed by security services but never imprisoned. Roland didn’t even work on Iran. They were clearly taken as hostages in the geopolitical game opposing Iran and the West.
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‘Just wars’ and the moral imperative to intervene in other states – historical overview

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This is part of my PhD draft chapter containing the theoretical framework for my thesis. Asking why some countries intervene in other countries, it examines the ancient history of intervention and the ethical or moral grounds given until recently.

Prince Siddhartha secretly leaving his palace at night to seek enlightenment. Gandhara sculpture from North Pakistan, 3rd-4th century.

As a legal concept, the use of forceful intervention has a long history. The Mahabharata (probably dating from the 8th or 9th century before the Common Era) contains a long discussion of dharmayuddha, or ‘righteous war’. The principles agreed on include proportionality, just cause, just means and fair treatment of prisoners[1].

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Academic research in conflict zones under threat

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This is a synthesis of my presentation on Wednesday 15 January to fellow doctoral students at the Centre de Recherches Internationales (CERI)/Sciences Po Paris.

Recently Sciences Po University announced it will impose restrictions on the travels of all doctoral students outside France. Students will need to obtain a ‘Mission Order’ which will probably be a mere formality for travels within Europe but will present difficulties when going to conflict areas. In general, the advice of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be followed. I presented my own research activities in Somalia to a group of doctoral researchers of the CERI and we then discussed the impact these and other legal compliance measures might have on academic research activities.

Background on my research activities in Somalia

I enrolled in the PhD program at Sciences Po with as research subject the impact of international state-building interventions in Somalia in 2016, at the same time as I started a full-time job as head of research and analysis at an NGO working in Somalia. The job allowed me to develop a deep understanding of Somalia (and Somaliland, where I was stationed) and to build a network of Somali contacts; but I didn’t find time to do much research. After letting my first two precious years of PhD time slip through my hands I resigned. I was living with my family in Ethiopia and had to find ways to return to Somalia to accomplish my field research.

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