- Al Shabaab militants still attack Somali government troops with impunity, and even cross the border into Kenya to murder non-indigenous residents of Northern Kenya towns.
Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything.19th century Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky
I cannot be the only Kenyan who was surprised to learn of Somalia having won a place as one of the 10 rotating non-permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
Based on reports in our local media, the impression we have is that the Somalia government is one that has yet to achieve full control of its own sovereign geographical space.
Al Shabaab militants still attack Somali government troops with impunity, and even cross the border into Kenya to murder non-indigenous residents of Northern Kenya towns.
Bearing in mind how many other African nations have had their months or years of internecine chaos eventually end with a peace agreement of some kind (South Sudan, Ethiopia) one must wonder why after 30 years of more or less continuous chaos, the Somali people have not been able to find their way to political stability and the peace and prosperity that would possibly follow.
A seat at the UNSC is no small thing. I have known European diplomats based in Nairobi to host a party for their friends after their country won a seat on the Security Council. And this success was only achieved after a long and vigorous campaign.
So, it is indeed a rare feat for a country with Somalia’s tragic history to occupy a seat at the Big Table of the UNSC.
But if Somalia has not known real peace for about 30 years (and is still referred to in global media as a “war-torn” country) what are we to say about Haiti, which has been independent for about 200 years and has yet to settle down to any such peace and prosperity.
Right from its declaration of independence in 1804, Haiti has known nothing but political instability, foreign subjugation, unstable presidencies, dictatorships, state-sanctioned violence, economic stagnation and unending corruption.
In short, Somalia’s 30 years of chaos is nothing compared to Haiti’s 200 years of epic levels of chaos that have rarely ever subsided for very long.
The question that all this raises is, why is it that the citizens of some countries manage to find a way to live together in relative peace and harmony following periods of extreme violence and chaos, while other countries (of which Haiti and Somalia are outstanding examples) appear to be doomed to endless cycles of violence?
Kenya had its tragic episode of extreme violence following the 2007 general election. But in just a few months a formula was found for the creation of a coalition government, and no similar upheaval has since visited our country.
Uganda faced an even more existential challenge, having endured years (during the 1970s) under a bloodthirsty tyrant, Idi Amin, who presided over what quickly descended into a failed state. Hundreds of thousands of educated Ugandans fled to Kenya to escape certain death at the hands of Idi Amin’s mostly illiterate soldiers.
But with the victory of a man who was back then an inspiring revolutionary, Yoweri Museveni, over the military junta which remained after Idi Amin fled Uganda, the country then settled down to an unbroken period of decades of peace and prosperity.
Political violence in Uganda now generally consists of an opposition politician being assaulted with tear gas. The kind of massacres which were a matter of routine in that country during Idi Amin’s time, are no longer heard of.
I believe the answer to this puzzling political and societal phenomenon lies in what was written by the 19th century Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky: 'Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything.'
Implicit in this definition is that if people live with chaos for long enough, they will eventually come to see it as normal and neither the ordinary people nor their leaders can have a compelling vision of how to move towards a life of peace and prosperity.
Likewise, it is because Kenyans and Ugandans had long been accustomed to political stability, that when there was a threat of their countries going over the cliff, leaders as much as ordinary citizens were able to find the path to compromise and a return to stability.